imimprove their defense and improve their confidence that they can make decisions on their own and not be coerced. >> thank you. >> colonel graham? >> thank you, captain. would you describe it as provocative? >> i would call it aggressive and i guess provocative would be in the eyes of the beholder, but from my view it's aggressive. >> from the eyes of the japanese would you say it's provocative? >> i think they would say yes. >> north korea, general, would you say the regime on a good day is is unstable? >> no, sir. i'd say -- i'd say that kj yu is in control. we see no indications of instability at this time. >> so you think we don't have to

worry much about north korea? >> no, sir. >> okay. when i say unstable i mean unpredictable, provocative. >> unpredictable, provocative, danger, why he. >> that's what i meant. >> willing to -- i think willing to be provocative as well. >> so in your backyard you've got dangerous, provocative, unstable with nukes in north korea, right? >> yes, sir, within short distance from the capital. >> the leader of north korea seems to be like nuts. i don't -- i don't know how y'all should describe the guy, but he seems nutty to me. so under sequestration at the end of the day how will your ability to defend the korean peninsula and our interest in that region be affected from an army point of view? >> well, from -- from a holistic point of view sequestration

would, as admiral locklear just said, end up with a smaller force, a less ready force -- >> if the army goes down to 420,000, let's say that's the number they one day hit if we don't fix southwest operation. >> yes, sir. >> how does your theater of operations fair in terms of threats and -- >> sir, in high intensity conflict that you will have on the korean peninsula i would be concerned of having a force that had enough depth collateral for sustained operation. >> so it would be seen as weakening our position in asia, right?

>> yes, sir. >> admiral, under sequestration the navy would have approximately how many ships if it was fully implemented? >> well, i would have to refer that back to the navy after the exact numbers. >> how many do you have is this. >> i have about 150 ships in my or that are assigned all the way from san diego to the theater, probably about 50 or so are west of the date line at any given time. so what would be impacted by the eyes of the navy is their ability to rotate forces forward to augment the ones that are west of the date line all the time, which is the problem we're having now with sustaining our numbers because the readiness bathtub we're in even with the size we have today, so sequestration would just drive that further into the ground. >> it would have hard to pivot to asia under sequestration? >> yes, sir.

>> all right. so the likelihood of an armed conflict between south korea and north korea, how would you evaluate that on a one to ten scale, one being very unlikely, ten being highly likely, say in the neck ten years? general? >> well, sir, i think that i caveat by saying i think the kgau knows if he were to conduct a conventional attack on south korea it would be the end. so i don't think that's his purpose. i think it's to maintain his regime. but i think over a ten-year period it's above a five. it's a six probably. >> and the more we reduce our forces, the less deterrent, it may go up to a seven? >> sir, i think with less deterrents it becomes more likely that we would have a conflict. >> okay. admiral, from your point of view, if we reduce our forces in your theater of operations does sequestration level do you think that encourages china to be more provocative? >> i think any signal that we send that we're less interested in the asia pacific on the security side than we currently

are would be an invitation for a hang in the region and that china would be interested in pursuing. >> do our allies in the region, are they beginning to hedge their bets? what's their view toward our footprint and where we're headed? >> yeah, i don't think they're necessarily unsatisfied with our military footprint. i think what they're concerned about most is the growing divide between what they see as the economic center of gravity, which is predominantly asia and more and more around china and their security center of gravity which is around us. so that creates a conundrum for them as they have to deal with strategic decision-making. they want us a security grantor because they believe -- they see us as a benevolent power and like how we operate in, but they see us as a diminished economic power in the region that they have to deal with that. >> admiral and general, i would

appreciate it if for the record you would give a written estimate to this committee as to the effects of sequestration on your ability to carry out your responsibilities, and please make it as detailed as you wish. we're going to have this fight again on sequestration ongoing and members of this committee are dedicated to the proposition that we have to repeal sequestration, and your testimony as to the effects of sequestration can affect that government -- that argument probably more effectively than anything that members on this side of the desk could accomplish. so i would very much appreciate it if you would give us as detailed as possible, short-term and long-term effects of sequestration on your ability to carry out your responsibilities. admiral, is this your last appearance before this committee?

>> yes, sir, it is. >> well, i want to take the opportunity on behalf of all of us and this this committee and the united states senate thanking you for your outstanding service. i think you can be very proud of the many contributions that you've made to this nation's security and you're one of the reasons why the leaders in uniform are so highly respected and regarded by the people of this nation. so i thank you, admiral. this hearing is adjourned.

both the house and senate are not in session today. lawmakers will return next week for a busy week of debate in votes and senators plan to continue work. he'll also attempt to override president obama's veto on legislation disapproveing the national labor relations board regulations that were issued last year on union election rules see the senate live on c-span 2. before returning to work on 2016 on federal spending. you can see the house live as always on c-span. three former u.s. ambassadors to afghanistan who served under presidents obama and george w.

bush look back on the diplomat ig roles and the future of policy. the planned withdrawal of u.s. troops, u.s. and afghan relations with pakistan. the middle east institute is the host of this forum. >> welcome this afternoon to the middle east version of the three tenners. we're pleased to have the same level of talent you got from three tenors. i'm delighted to begin this session which is part of the series sponsored by lewis hughes sitting down in front here.

productions of presentations over the years and again, lou, thank you for making this possible. again, lou, thank you for making this possible. our three ambassadors are, indeed well known. ryan crocker to my left here. was ambassador. but it's well known not just for his service in afghanistan but elsewhere. and so we're delighted that he could be with us he is dean at the texas a & m university presently. and zalmay khalilzad to his left is at the center for strategic international studies, and served as our special envoy to afghanistan from 2001 to 2003.

of course, always at the united nations, and so many other places. and ron neumann, well known to us here in washington for his presence at many events. ron was the ambassador in afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. and is presently president of the american academy of diplomacy. now, some of you may wonder, afghanistan, middle east institute, i have to remind people that when the middle east institute was created in 1946, afghanistan was included as part of the middle east. now, this is foresight, really. we were already thinking of the greater of the middle east. and of course, when pakistan came into being in 1947, we threw pakistan in as well. so we're not new to this part of the world. and we're delighted to have you here today. and our speakers.

and so the format here is going to be that i'm going to pose some questions, and have our participants respond to them. we'll leave enough time certainly at the end of this session for your questions. so let's get started. gentlemen, this panel is going to be essentially looking forward. in the role of the united states in afghanistan, and in the country's future. but before we do that, can i ask you, looking back, what gave you during your time in afghanistan, what gave you the greatest satisfaction and what was your greatest disappointment during that period that you were serving this country in afghanistan? whoever would like to start. there's no order of things here.

okay, zal. >> well, for me, first of all, i want to thank lou for his leadership on this. and thank him for his service in afghanistan during the period that i was there. and i'm delighted to be here tonight with my distinguished colleagues. especially ryan and i, we've done quite a few things together. >> some of which we won't tell you about. >> but for me, of course, i was in afghanistan, besides having been born there, and spent a lot of my early life in afghanistan, twice in an official capacity, once as was said, as the president's envoy right after

the agreement. and that lasted until 2003. then i went to ambassador from 2003 to 2005. so if i have to kind of think of the emotional sense that i have of returning after 30-plus years, and seeing kabul devastated, a dead city essentially when i arrived in 2002, my first kind of trip after 9/11, flying in in a small plane. when i landed at kabul international airport, which is now busy, and japanese have built a terminal that is open, and there's a new vip lounge that's quite impressive. i remember a very elderly man who has since passed away pushing a ladder to the planes,

so we could get off. we had a little bit of a hard time synchronizing the ladder and this little plane that the government has provided to take me to kabul. if i had to reflect on the positive -- the positive experience, that afghanistan was very divided politically. the pro-soviet takeover in '78, and then even the fighting there. there are a lot of afghans in the audience, or afghan-americans and other experts.

and the soviets coming in, and fighting the soviets, and the mujahadin fighting, and fighting the taliban. so there's been a history of not coming to agreement on key issues. and the politics of helping the united states in the aftermath of 9/11. the critical role with the help of the united nations, playing important roles, to get an agreement on the constitution, and participating in the constitution, and getting the various groups -- i know that some might ask about the taliban not being part of that process at that time. and i'd be happy to engage on that as to what exactly happened, or did not happen with regards to the taliban

participation in the early period, in the political process. but it was a high point, as i have felt myself, i mean, there are so many of them, because the school opening there was very emotional. i'll never forget until i die that all adults who were in the audience, including a couple of foreigners at that time was in tears the day that schools were reopened. and both my colleagues of remember in march, the opening of the school there, after so many years president karzai then -- the first time it happened he was chairman. that was a high point. but i think the constitutional agreement, the compromises that were made, that they seized the moment and did agree was very positive for me. on the negative, and i want to

hear my colleagues, on the negative, i would say that my own frustration, and i obviously value ryan's comments, too, because he served on both sides of the border with distinction, and i would say that my own frustration, the inability to get an agreement between afghanistan and pakistan on the kind of cooperating against extremism and terror and facilitating a settlement that would have brought the taliban into the political process was my greatest frustration. because i could see, and sometime out of frustration, i would even speak publicly that the sanctuary was in the process of being developed that was going to make the task much harder, would take a lot more time, and would be far more expensive than what we initially were willing to invest in afghanistan. that changed over time, but our

initial strategy was to be a minimal footprint, some effort, not a lot, we didn't want to own the problem, we wanted the afghans to take care of it. so that, i think, i would say in terms of big issue was my biggest frustration. >> are ron? >> ron? >> they're hard questions to answer, actually. but i'll tease out one or two things from a massive impression. on the side of satisfaction, partly just reconnecting to afghanistan. i didn't grow up there, as zal did. but i visited in 1967, and was in there in the country. just reconnecting with the country and the society and the people was enormously satisfying. one of the things that continues

to give me enormous satisfaction, that i began to see there, was the younger generation of afghans. the 20-somethings, 30-somethings, who are really a different group, and who really hold out the promise of a very different, better future for their country, if we can get through the short term. and some of the old leadership, i have great faith that it can go a long way in the longer run, and with the younger leadership. i remember going to what's now the american university of afghanistan, which zal gave a great deal of help to get started, and which all of us have worked on that project, but it was very emotional for me because it was on the grounds of what was the american international school in kabul, where my brother graduated from high school. so to go back in the very early

days and to find the students as inspiring as they were. i suppose professionally, perhaps most satisfying was the recognition that we were working on the energy side in too many stovepipes. we were working too much -- not wrongly -- but that our focus had become so internal, that some of what we were doing was sort of like building an extension cord without making sure we had a socket to put it into. and to get the afghan government to start the discussions with uzbekistan and kyrgyzstan that led to the energy agreements that could put the power down through the lines. and like everything else, getting those things done was a great deal more than -- effort than conceptualizing of what needed to be done. my father told me years ago, that as ambassador you neither finish what you start or you start what you finish. you come and pick up what your predecessor has done, and you

build on it and start things which you don't necessarily finish. it's not a one-year efficiency report cycle. i would say my greatest disappointment was the absolute inability to convince washington that 2006 was going to be a bloody bad year, the insurgency getting much worse. and we reported this. we predicted it. general eikenberry agreed. iraq was just sucking up the energy. and not alone, because iraq had its own share of problems. the most visible example of this is we had recommended $600 million which seemed like a very big number then, now it seems kind of small, but it seemed like a big number, for additional economic assistance to use in a variety of ways,

including some of the north that needed stabilization, if it wasn't a combat area. and out of that request, $600 million, months of bureaucratic wrangling, at the end of the day, we got 43. we got less than a nickel on the dollar. actually, much less, because 11, almost a quarter of that was not aid for afghanistan, but a paper transfer to make up for the cost of debt rescheduling. so actually for money on the ground, we got 32. out of the $600 million we asked for. and it was the manifestation of the fact that we lost a lot of valuable time, even when it was possible to see that we were really going to need it. anyway, it's a different comparison now. in zal's first tour, this was a period where everybody thought the taliban was really defeated. there was no neon sign flashing on the hill that says, by the way, you've got to be done by 2006, the war's going to start. but by 2005, we were able to analyze what was going to happen, and to know that -- not know, we were able to predict with a great measure of

assurance that the insurgency was going to get very, very bad and bloody in the next year, and we got absolutely no help to do anything about it. and that certainly is one of my greatest disappointments. somebody asked me at a much later period, after big budgets came in, how does it feel, you know, to essentially have been right. i said, bittersweet. it's nice, but that doesn't help. >> you might have gathered from ron's remarks that his father was the ambassador to afghanistan from 1967 to 1973. ryan? >> as zal noted, we were both engaged in afghanistan after the fall of the taliban. i reopened our embassy there in the beginning of january 2002. and i couldn't even land in kabul. the runways were completely inoperative. we had to come in at bagram.

ford a river, go through miles of devastation to get to what was left of the capital. that perspective left me with a sense that the glass was really at least half full. when i returned subsequently. and then as ambassador in 2011. given the absolute nothing with which the country started, the achievements always seemed to me even greater than the obstacles. it also left me with a deep sympathy, and affinity to the afghan people generally, and to president karzai in particular, we certainly had our rough innings with him. but given what he went through, absolute nothing with which he started, and what he was able to oversee, i think history, and i hope this country is going to look at him in a more kindly it also left me with a deep

sympathy, and affinity to the afghan people generally, and to president karzai in particular, we certainly had our rough innings with him. but given what he went through, absolute nothing with which he started, and what he was able to oversee, i think history, and i hope this country is going to look at him in a more kindly light than maybe the case now. so we fast forward to my time there. the achievements that occurred on my watch, for which i really can't claim credit, but i will, because, of course, in my career, i was blamed for a lot of things, and i really don't think were my fault. [ laughter ]

the achievements were to put in place a bilateral and international architecture. for the long-term security for afghanistan. these things came together fairly quickly in the spring and summer of 2012. the strategic partnership agreement between afghanistan and the united states that i led the negotiations for, i saw really as an historic moment. we had never had that kind of written alliance, if you will, between the united states and afghanistan. president obama flew out to afghanistan to sign it with president karzai, the beginning of may. and it seemed to me that we had the bilateral bloc in place. we then went to -- all of us went to chicago later in may for

the nato summit. there we were much motivated by what had happened in afghanistan. after the soviet defeat. the afghan forces literally soldiered on with the soviets gone. they kept on fighting. until the money ran out. that's when the state effectively collapsed and the civil war was on. so getting that second bloc in place was very, very important. and then the third came in july of 2012. the tokyo economic ministerial in which the international

community then stepped up to the economic side of the challenge with some $16 billion pledged in economic support against afghan undertakings that they developed themselves for steps they would take to ensure these funds were indeed a good investment. my greatest disappointment was the flip side of this. in which the united states seemed to lose interest in afghanistan. and a fundamental truth here whether it's in iraq or afghanistan, you don't end a war by withdrawing your forces. and simply leave the battlefield to your adversaries. and it's not just a failure to fulfill the promise of the strategic partnership. but we're america.

where america leads others will follow. that's what we demonstrated in chicago and tokyo. if america doesn't lead everybody else finds something else to do, particularly if it involves money. so we are gathered here today at what i hope and would like to believe is the beginning of a new dawn for afghanistan and the united states community in the wake of president ashraf ghani and c.f. abdullah's very positive visit here just a bit ago. so from home to depression to hope again. some of us never learn. we keep hoping. >> you've just mentioned the visit of ashraf ghani, president ashraf ghani and ceo dr. abdullah here last week. and there was much talk in town on what the contrast was here between that visit and our relationship with hamid karzai

before. and in fact also continue remarks about how fortunate the united states is to have these two men, yes two men because in many ways they seem to complement one another if given the opportunity. let me ask in this light how at this point in time can we best assure that these men are going to succeed? anyone? >> i'll make one comment but my colleagues know this subject as well or better than i do. first of all, they have to succeed if afghanistan is to have a future. together they have a mandate. 70% of afghans who voted voted for one of the two of them. we're not quite sure which one but we all know they voted for one of the two of them. so they have a heck of a mandate

together. neither one of them despite what each believes have a mandate if they separate. i believe their personal relations are good. i believe they want to make this work. my colleagues can speak to this as well. there are a lot of tensions in this relationship. and that's inevitable. and there are a lot of tensions that are not in the personal relationship but in the fact that each rides herd on a disparate group of supporters who are not necessarily loyal lieutenants but groups hungry for their own share of power. that's a very, very tough act to follow.

to manage. and we should remember this is still a weak central government. for those of you who have some historical background, in many ways you can compare what you have in afghanistan to the middle ages, the period of state consolidation. it's not about decentralization. first of all, it's about having enough authority to control. so in this very difficult situation the united states has to play a very careful role. one thing it has to do is maintain its support, military and financial. without that everything falls apart. the second thing it has to do is to be willing to help moderate and arbitrate in some very difficult cases some of the

frictions but not to be in it all the time. not to be responsible for governing afghanistan. dr. abdullah and dr. ghani have to have that responsibility. not to be jumping in taking responsibility and not to be telling other people how to run things, but at the same time there will be issues where the face and the prestige and other things make it almost essential to have a third party involved. i do not believe they could have reached the political settlement they had without our intervention. that kind of work is what we need diplomats for. it's not the kind of work you can do with a committee in washington. it's an art form. it's not a science. but it's going to -- and if it's done well it's not going show very much. but it is i think going to be an essential piece of helping them get to success. >> i'd like to add to what ron said. one that generally when we look around the world the history of unity governments is not a

successful one. they generally do not work. on the other hand, i know both of these gentlemen quite well. ashraf ghani, we were together. we came to america together and finished high school, in other words. and dr. abdullah at least since the soviet war, which is 30 years plus. and i think they've been witnesses to the tragedy of recent afghanistan where this not accepting each other, wanting all for oneself, nothing for the other side, has produced great tragedies for afghanistan since there have been witnesses to the recent history. i think the agreement between them was not easy. but i know that in the discussions prior to the election both had talked about this concept of a jemaa, a consensus, the need for consensus on some issues. that's part of the platform of dr. ashraf ghani but also even

dr. abdullah and his group talked about this. that they needed to accept each other and the winner take all approach would be disastrous for afghanistan given the complexities of the place. i agree with ron that our role was indispensable in helping bring them into agreement at the tail, but i think the principle of wanting to work together was there. that makes me and that recognition makes me hopeful. but it wouldn't be easy. it would require constant work on the part of the two leaders because they are very committed to it in my judgment although necessarily in the teams there would be positions of power. there's so many slots that you can -- you have. and that are natural rivalries for those slots from the two teams. but i think it would require work on the part of the two leaders.

but also i agree with ron's it would require constant work on the part of the two leaders because they are very committed to it in my judgment although necessarily in the teams there would be positions of power. there's so many slots that you can -- you have. and that are natural rivalries for those slots from the two teams. but i think it would require work on the part of the two leaders. but also i agree with ron's point that it would require that we continue to be attentive and helpful and i think there's been a qualitative improvement in our relationship with afghanistan and with the team. there was a period, however, lest we forget, that we had a

tremendously positive relationship with president karzai before it went sour. and we have to take part of the blame for what happened. and he too. but we cannot take it for granted during my period at least, i had hardly any problem that we couldn't work out with president karzai at that time. and he was much praised in this town. his skills were compared to president clinton at one point when he came for a visit when he addressed congress. for him to be the successor to mullah omar obviously was huge. he was lucky in his predecessor in that regard. but -- so we can't take the honeymoon that we're in with the current team automatically continues. it will require work.

it requires -- we learn lessons from our experience with president karzai. especially why it turned sour. we need to be very attentive not to repeat some of the mistakes that caused that souring to occur on our part, but similarly i think for the afghans if they had -- one of the things that i learned, and i'll end with that. when i went back to afghanistan after 30-plus years i thought the afghans were kind of anti-foreign and maybe would not want too much america. and what i discovered in the course of the first month of my envoyship, and ryan and i had the same experience because we were there at the same time. that period was the greatest fear was fear of abandonment. rather than on balance of sort of at that point in any case of being kind of run by or dominated by america. >> simply put, marvin, it is to be the long-term strategic

partner to afghanistan about which we have an agreement signed by two presidents saying we will. zal is exactly right in talking about fear of abandonment. in the run-up to the visit we heard that all of us over and over again, the fear that we were going to leave afghanistan alone with the prospect it would not fare much better without us than it did without us in the 19 -- first half of the 1990s. so that is fundamental. we do need to learn how to manage that relationship, particularly with the two principal leaders. they rely greatly on the u.s., both bilaterally and as a leader of the international community, but they're also profoundly afghan nationalists. as is president karzai. and we do have to respect that.

that is not an impossible challenge for diplomacy, although sometimes we fail it. it's knowing when we need to be engaged and how to be engaged. and again, we've got both good examples and bad examples since 2001 of what to do and what not to do. i would agree with my friends that it's rather unlikely afghanistan would be where it is today without our intervention post-election to help broker an agreement that each side could live with. and we will have to be attentive to the tensions inherent in that relationship and other tensions and contradictions throughout afghan society, in particular that while president ghani and dr. abdullah, we all saw it here

in washington, clearly can work together and engage together. it's probably less true as you today without our intervention post-election to help broker an agreement that each side could live with. and we will have to be attentive to the tensions inherent in that relationship and other tensions and contradictions throughout afghan society, in particular that while president ghani and dr. abdullah, we all saw it here in washington, clearly can work together and engage together. it's probably less true as you go down the line in their respective camps. so we are going to have to be alert to that.

but most fundamentally, we have to be clear, we are in this relationship for the long run. without it the centrifugal forces are going to take over. it's also extremely appropriate vis-a-vis pakistan. i have served on both sides of the durand line. speaking of the durand line, i found in my many years in the middle east, the greater middle east, i had to account for my presence in afghanistan and pakistan somehow. i just folded them in. that when things are going badly and fingers are pointing at us, blame the british. [ laughter ]

you know, for the pakistanis to understand, well, this isn't going to be 1990 all over again where they go from being the most allied of allies to the most sanctioned of adversaries literally overnight. the pakistanis need to have the confidence that we are a long-term strategic factor on their border and indeed in their country. if we want them to quit hedging their bets. >> i take it from the remarks here that all three of you agree that neither we nor the afghans have a plan b. this is -- we have this one -- perhaps this one opportunity. i think i also detect here, especially from things you've said before, that the three of you questioned the plan here to have an exit of all american military forces by the end of 2016. the president at the moment has

been flexible with respect to the troop withdrawal for 2015 but has stood quite firmly on the exit in 2016. what is it going to take for him to change his mind as you see it? how likely do you think that is? and with what consequences? >> i think afghanistan has been lucky to a degree because of the experience in iraq. and also the rise of ice -- isis, isil. in the sense that we have had an experiment almost that in the case of iraq that both ryan and i served in. >> you did too, right. >> yes of course. >> you came from iraq to afghanistan. >> yes. we switched. >> yeah, exactly right. right. so our total departure of forces and having just the office of

security cooperation and the embassy followed a series of developments that was not good for iraq, not good for us, not good for the region, and it was a polarizing effect on regional arrivals trying to fill in the vacuum created by our departure. and as to that the syrian -- unraveling of syria, and now we have had to go back to get involved in the fight against ice and to send some people back in. i believe that afghanistan, with the investment we have made in the building of the security forces and with the commitment that has been made, as ryan mentioned in chicago, to the

afghan security forces, and with some presence that's a success in my view because if you can go from 120,000 in the case of afghanistan. iraq of course there was a period we had a lot more. to a force of 5,000, 10,000. and work with the environment and with the afghans so they truly can manage their security problems, that is a model of success in my view. sure we would like this to be done in five years or in ten, but i could tell you stories in that is right because of -- we started slow on building the security forces initially. we wanted only the forces the afghans could afford. and the afghans, given what ryan described, what i experienced, what afghanistan was like, they

could hardly afford anything. i remember being admonished repeatedly during that period to get your hands off the bike and let the afghans deal with these issues. and i would say, well, please show me the bike. i'd be happy to get my hands off this thing if i could find it. because there was hardly anything there at that time. so if we wanted them to have afforded what they could afford that would be hardly anything. besides, there was enormous uncertainty in the environment on terrorism, on what happened, and the afghans would like us to maintain a force. it's not very populated in that

region to have forces there. we have afghanistan-related interests. we have terrorism--related interests. we have other broader regional interests that i think justifies maintaining a residual force beyond 2016. now, as to whether the president will change his mind on this issue, i think there is indication that he's willing to have a conversation about it and i think a conversation was had during this visit. i think he has political imperatives for not appearing that he easily changes his mind. and maybe he's also thinking to keep this at this point, maybe to get some things from the afghans they will deliver on

their part, on the unity front, on some of the reforms that they have been committed. but i believe that -- well, i can't predict. i think the geopolitical i think the geopolitical requirements, future stability of afghanistan, our national interests in my judgment require if needed to maintain a residual force, and the case of iraq demonstrates that necessity in my judgment. >> anybody who was looking for controversy among us is clearly not finding it. i would agree completely with my colleagues. iraq is instructive in a pretty dramatic and sad way of what happens when you say you're ending a war but all you're doing, again, is ceding the battlefield.

and our disengagement, as i indicated earlier, from afghanistan and indeed from pakistan after the soviet defeat is instructive. we can look at iraq for a parallel, but we find the example right there in afghanistan decades earlier. and as zal and ron have said, this is our vital national interest. but there's something else too. and the argument i think for moving from a calendar-based timetable to a conditions-based timetable where i've long argued we've needed to have been in iraq and certainly need to be in afghanistan, this is the intersection of american interests and american values.

and we i think are unique after major states as a nation founded on values, interweaving them with our policies. it is very, very difficult at times, as we all know. and we're seeing some of that of course today around the world. iran cited the newest, greatest generation in afghanistan. the afghans who have come of age post-taliban, exemplified by the graduates of the american university of afghanistan. they are like no other generation afghanistan has ever produced. open to the world. plugged in. wired up. they think in terms dramatically different from their parents. and they are the long-term guarantee for security and stability in afghanistan. but they've got to have the

chance to solidify their presence and their influence. women in afghanistan. sometimes it seems to me we're trying to have it both ways. we urged women to step forward. we supported them as they did so. now, at least up until president ghani's visit, it was as though we were saying to them good-bye and good luck. well, the luck would not be very good if we were to decide we're done here, we're going to draw down and whatever happens happens, not our problem. well, in addition to the security ramifications that we've all addressed, there are fundamental issues about who we are as a nation and as a people. are we going to let the young people that we encouraged, the

girls and women of afghanistan that we've encouraged just take it in the neck quite literally by pulling out prematurely and letting things unfold as they may? we saw the horrific episode with the farhunda recently. it isn't just the taliban. there are some pretty dark forces that still permeate afghan society. they're moving in the right direction, but they're going to need us for some time to come to ensure that they don't backslide or come apart in a way that threatens both our security and calls into question what values we really hold as americans. we'll be judged by this. >> i totally agree with my colleagues. therefore, i won't say anything of the same things, or i'll try not to. again, i think ryan's point

about the moral implications is really important. president obama in the last six months has made a number of incremental decisions that i would call positive and correct in terms of slightly extending the timeline for forces and allowing air support for afghans in extremis, then again extending -- not enlarging but extending the time for a deployment. those are all in my judgment very correct decisions. the way we are making them, however, robs them of much of their psychological value. ryan and zal, we've all made the point about the need for america to remain a long-term partner. and a piece of that, a big piece of that is the afghan and regional belief that that is so. the incremental way in which we are approaching policy continually undercuts the belief that we're really there for the long term.

one of the things i worry about is we will from month to month and year to year continue our support for afghanistan but we will do it in such an incremental and haphazard fashion that we will never get the political value of those decisions with either the afghan people or the insurgents. so it is both the nature of the decisions but the way in which they are made that's important. and i totally subscribe to the notion that we do not have the ability to end this war. we've never been about ending it. we have only been about pulling our own forces out, leaving a nasty bloody war to somebody else. and i wish we would be honest about it. the other thing i think we need to think about in this regard is what is it we are planning to do about nato. nato has -- does not have a time limit per se. but it cannot stay without us and it cannot and will not make any decisions without our

decisions being made first. this ought to be a no-brainer because even if we end the combat role we have said we'll still leave military in afghanistan on a training mission. well, if we're going to be training we ought to want help. we ought to want other people helping us train. nato's the logical vehicle. we know there's going to be an assistance requirement for afghanistan. if we're going to be doing assistance we ought to want help in that. if other countries want their troops involved, they will be more inclined to make assistance commitments. so we ought to be focusing very hard on extending to some degree the nato mandate beyond 2016 however we constitute our part of it, so we don't just fall off the edge of a cliff. and nato is not a -- this is 26 nations and steering a supertanker is easy compared to getting turns and -- you just don't get quick adjustments with 26 nations. so while we are busy

contemplating our own future month by month we really need to stake out a nato policy. thank you. >> we want to leave time for questions from the audience here. but let me pose one last question from the panel here. for the panel. how do you view the prospects for a agreement with the taliban? what priority should the united states give to this strategy of finding terms on which we can hope that the afghan government and the taliban can agree on. and if in the course of your remarks you could indicate where you think pakistan figures in this, please do.

ron, you want to -- >> i'm going to try to keep this really short because i know my colleagues are going to have something to say. i agree that a political solution is highly desirable. i think we should stop saying there's no possibility of a military solution you can lose. i think it is very important for americans to understand that a political solution comes -- or negotiation that leads to a solution comes when everybody more or less decides they can't win. it does not come by running around with your tongue hanging out chasing a political solution which suggests desperation. we have almost nothing with which to negotiate anymore. except we could betray the afghan government and leave them on their own. so negotiations are not our real business. they're the business of the afghan government. we should support them. but we should not try to be in front of them. secondly, the biggest support we

can give to negotiations is the belief that we will continue our support so that the afghan government and military will not lose. they don't have to be able to win. they have to be able not to lose. and everybody has to believe that. let me -- i'm just going to stop there. i believe in this. i think it's a very long-term solution. i think when you look at all other conflicts ended by negotiation you have to look at a very, very long-term proposition in which you should expect that fighting will get worse after you begin negotiations as people seek to improve their position on the battlefield. so that supporting negotiations means supporting a long-term help to afghanistan financially and militarily accepting that they're in the lead and accepting that negotiations will have to pass through if you get there at all. will have to pass through a period of intensified combat. >> we tend to -- in a recent

mission i mentioned before with regard to unity government record not being good globally we tend to start wars in recent time with great fanfare and commitment and enthusiasm, and we don't tend to end them well. at least in recent times. and on this specific issue of reconciliation or agreement i know that the new government in afghanistan is trying very hard and has made a number of adjustments unilaterally to encourage reconciliation or a peace process and agreement.

they have intensified engagement with pakistan. recognizing that pakistan plays a vital role in facilitating and helping or hindering such a project. and they have moved against elements that are hostile to pakistan so that there will be no reason for pakistan not to help. they have sent some cadets to be trained in pakistan which are not very popular in afghanistan given the history of the relationship. and nevertheless, this government has taken that step. they have frozen the acceptance of some military assistance from india, said let's take another look at this, let's wait. it has intensified relations with china in part because of wanting to impact pakistan,

recognizing that chinese-pakistani relations are very important for pakistan. and having china more involved in afghanistan is also seen by the leadership as indicating to pakistan that their fear of india being so involved is balanced now by wanting their friend chinese involved also. and saudi arabia's another country that has been in intensification of relations with in part because of the impact that could have, or they would like it to have on reconciliation and relations with pakistan. now, on the negative side of the ledger, in my judgment, one is this uncertainty about the long-term u.s. commitment to afghanistan.

already the dramatic reductions and force presence i think probably leads some in the taliban leadership, the military wing at least to say let's test the forces and now that they are largely on their own, although there is the u.s. help, and if there is a belief that beyond 2016 there will be none that may encourage them to wait and see what balance of forces or power would be after this coming fighting season and then maybe post until even after 2016. so that's one issue. and i believe the government recognizes that they need to prepare and push for engagement relatively quickly. and i think there is some

disappointment that the meetings that they expected to see happen with representatives or the leadership of the taliban have not yet occurred. they thought with all the measures and steps they've taken perhaps a meeting would have happened by now. but at the same time that they need to prepare for and intensify fights in the coming season and also push simultaneously for reconciliation with all the elements that they described, my own judgment is in the near-term

prospects are not very promising because of this uncertainty with regards to the u.s. longer term and the desire to test the forces without as much help internationally as possible. there may be opportunities for the government with elements because the taliban and the opposition is quite fragmented and diverse, perhaps more opportunities in the near term in that domain than a comprehensive settlement that even if a meeting occurs i think it's going to be a very protracted process. there may be a period of both fighting and perhaps even if a meeting does occur. >> i think everything we're saying on the subject has been said by my colleagues, but that won't stop me from saying it again. two critical elements were noted. as ron said, this ultimately has got to be an afghan matter.

a peaceful future in afghanistan is not going to be negotiated by the united states. it has to be done by afghans. and then as zal said, we have got to persuade both allies and adversaries as well as those on the fence that we are in this for the long run. we have many great qualities as americans. but we have a few shortcomings. and one of those is a lack of what i call strategic patience. we're good at going in with drums and bugles when the campaign starts and when it gets hard, costly and blood and treasure and it's taking way too long, meaning it's not over a week from friday, we start finding other things we want to do. now, what has happened in the greater middle east over years of this, this is something our allies fear in us and our

adversaries count on. so our greatest contribution to negotiations is not really being part of it. it is demonstrating to friend and foe alike at this time we're in this for the long run. because that is the only way the calculus in pakistan and among the taliban i think is going to change in a way that would make a negotiation first possible and ultimately successful. there is something i think we can do if and when serious talks are held. and that is to be sure the afghan government understands the importance of involving women in the negotiating process. i talked about this before. you know, what happens to women in afghanistan in the long run is very much a concern of ours.

and this is not measured in employment opportunities. it can be measured in lives. and if we want to facilitate and foster a solid negotiation and ultimately the prospect of a solid agreement, the other half of the afghan population has got to be an integral and key part of this process. >> at this point we're going to entertain your questions. i'll ask you to stand as you offer your question and identify yourself. please keep it short. and if you wish to direct it to a particular panelist, do so. so right down in front here. please wait for the mike. yes. >> i'm eleanor. i served with usmod in both afghanistan and iraq from 2008 to 2010.

i was appalled from the start when i heard we were planning to go to war in iraq. i thought it would be a disaster. and i was particularly concerned about what happened pretty inevitably, which is we pulled back from what we were doing in afghanistan. it became sort of second place. i'd be interested in your views as to whether i suppose -- i don't know how productive it is. but whether this really did set things back in afghanistan, whether things might have worked out better had we not distracted ourselves. >> i will speak first because i know the least about it.

>> i doubt that. >> you know, the united states was and is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. yes, iraq soaked up a great deal of resources. but i would suggest from my perspective, this goes back to something zal said. what really affected our engagement in afghanistan was the initial position that this was going to be an economy of force mission and we were very slow to come off of that. iraq may have been a contributing factor but i think it was that initial mindset that we were going to keep our investment and exposure in afghanistan to a minimum. i will always remember in those early days in 2002 we had a -- having taken a shot at the british i will now give them a pat on the back. we had an enormously capable isaf commander, a british major

general named john mccall. and he and i kind of looking ahead to some of the challenges of the extension of government authority came up with this idea of essentially a two-battalion u.s. force. one kind of based in kabul, air mobile, with the assets to ensure that mobility and the other battalion deployed on the key provincial centers. kandahar, mazar al shareef, harat. kind of the level of a company plus. very able to hold their ground against any likely force. and if there was a serious challenge you had that air mobile battalion set to go in and really kick some posterior. so two battalions.

we sent our messages to london and washington. and like four hours later i had my response. which was crocker, go sit under a tree until this insanity passes from you. there was no way we're going to send two battalions into afghanistan. and i just think it was a very long time before we realized what we were up against. >> i believe that it has been exaggerated that because of iraq afghanistan suffered. i believe that because of iraq at least during my period as ambassador i was to a degree successful in increasing resources for afghanistan,

saying -- and that given what we're doing in iraq, which was huge, that afghanistan needed more attention perhaps, not as much as iraq given the challenge at that time in afghanistan wasn't as great as the challenge in iraq. the level of violence was not as high. there was concerns about resurgence. there was concern about misbehavior on the part of what was called warlords at that time, that we needed a greater level of effort. i got a positive response more on the civilian side by increasing the reconstruction budget by over a billion dollars. but on the military front ryan's analysis is quite right and

there was not only an unwillingness to send more forces along, the concept that ryan talked about, but even to accelerate the creation of the afghan national army because there was a push to get an agreement before doing anything on the final number, which the afghans were pushing for 100,000 plus and we were saying it should be 50 or lower. and i finally, i remember at one meeting, got a little despondent and said we can't get to 100 before we get to 50, so why don't we get started rather than hold the start of the project to get the afghans to agree to 50. we're not going to get to 50 in

three or four years, so we need to move earlier. i do think that iraq may have had some impact -- and i'm not the right person to ask this. whether some assets that are particularly relevant to the conflict part were diverted. it may be that on the reconstruction side afghanistan benefited because the numbers became so large that adding a billion to afghanistan for the two conflict didn't see -- although i see ron's complaint about his issue during his period. but at least in my time we got -- we didn't suffer on the economic reconstruction front. there may have been some suffering that may have occurred on the military -- on the military side. but i don't know in detail what that was -- i think there was some, however. >> i think we did hurt for the

diversion. but i think when one tries to say exactly how much or how much better things could have been, that becomes very proikt, very hypothetical. on the military side unquestionably we hurt. we lost and could not get the overhead observation that we needed. in fact, that was drained off. we were losing special forces. we were having great trouble getting the conventional force maintained, let alone expanded. economics gets to be a very complicated question. i salute the political and bureaucratic skill of my predecessor, who was able to get a very large increment. i was then told, well, if you don't spend it all you don't need any more. yes, we know where we're going to spend it. this is a frequent u.s. government problem.

if you have a lot of money people say you've got money in the pipeline you don't need any more, even if you don't know how to spend it. and if you spend it quickly people say look at the waste. so you're under pressure to spend and then criticized if you do so. it's hard not to get out of. the most complicated question, though, is one i absolutely cannot answer, and that is the degree of afghan government response, afghan political responsibility for the fact that by 2005 and 6 you had a situation ripe for increasing the insurgency as well because of a lot of ruinously bad governance. so you had people who put down their weapons after 2001. part of the taliban's problem was a lot of people just went home. a certain number of hardcore people in 2001 under the bombs

looked around and said where are my buddies? many of those people were treated very badly. now, that's -- you know, after years of civil war that's to be expected in many respects. but the rapacious score settling of people who came to power with us drove many other people back into the insurgency and helped create the conditions for an insurgency. whether we could have actually done very much about that, whether anybody could have done very much about that, you could have a very long discussion. but we should not in kicking ourselves for taking our eyes off the ball forget the afghan share in creating these conditions. >> may i add one footnote? >> briefly. >> yeah. i think ron has made an excellent point. that in addition, in a general point in afghanistan we were

involved in two things that may be in iraq too. i don't know whether ryan would agree with me. which is that we had a state and nation building almost, which were terrible words to mention at that time, that in fact we had a situation in which there was no state in fact and we were trying to help the guns set up a state. and a nation building to some extent to get an agreement, a compact among them what it means to be afghan or what it means to be iraqi, how they're going to organize that state and how they're going to participate in it. but at the same time increasingly we were doing counterinsurgency operations as well. and sometimes the requirements of one was in tension with the requirements of the other. meaning in order to do counterinsurgency we could cooperate with people that were not necessarily desirable. and sometimes people say why are

you working with ex-mini warlord or a big warlord or whatever names you gave them? because you needed to get things done in that area. from a security and counterinsurgency point of view. but your state and nation building project would have required to -- and we had a vision and a strategy for how to decrease their capabilities and make them be political participants, accept the new rules, and not to be a source of instability and problems for the local population that would then help the insurgency in a sense because of their misbehavior in turn created that. the afghan responsibility as ron said quite correctly, their behavior, but there was also

these conflicting requirements that -- demands on us as well and the way we responded to it. >> you know there's another piece that i don't think my colleagues would disagree. ryan mentioned this light footprint or unwillingness to engage. that meant that president karzai had no ability to confront political troublemakers because we wouldn't help him do that. so political appointment became his only tool. it's not completely foreign to america if you've noticed some of our ambassadorial appointments. but -- no, that's not yours. >> political appointee. >> i'm not talking about who -- i'm not talking about the fact of political appointees but the question is the competence. as you know. but this was his only tool because he had no force, no money, and we didn't want to provide force or money for

political discipline. so there is a huge afghan responsibility for the conditions that grew but also a responsibility with us for not having helped provide any tools that might have given an alternative. >> in the very limited time we have and the large number of people who'd like to raise a question, i'm going to take three questions and hope we can get through at least those. >> let's flip a coin. one of us won't talk. >> [ inaudible ]. the one country you haven't mentioned here is iran. which raises the question of the security interests of the countries around afghanistan. i think the proposition that we have a vital interest in afghanistan is debatable. it's probably not the place to

debate it. but certainly the iranians, the pakistanis, the chinese, the indians, the russians have a vital interest in iraq and afghanistan. of course afghanistan even more. do you see us going back for some sort of regional strategic architecture, do you see us cooperating with iran and the chinese in an arrangement where the major powers of iran and afghanistan can cooperate? >> let me have the question over here. all the way in the rear. the gentleman there. >> u.s. army service member. i served in afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, and my question is given what president ghani's sincere efforts in -- how sincere pakistan is of historical awareness about long-term commitments to support afghanistan and pakistan for that matter. and our short-term commitment of extending the relative and small number of forces to the end of 2016. >> lou, did you --

>> the iran question got covered. >> let me take another question here. right here. yes. >> i'm a professor at the college of william and mary. [ inaudible ] >> is your mike on? >> it is. thank you. that we don't have much of a negotiating position left to bring the taliban to the table. but i would say that the aid that we give to pakistan is a way of bringing them to the table. and i would like to ask the panelists what would it take for us to use our support to pakistan more strategically with regard to afghanistan? >> i'm going to take one more question and then we'll somehow

divvy up the responses. all the way back over there. that gentleman right there. wait for the mike, please. >> with respect to the political cohesion of the unity government as an institution, do you see abdullah abdullah as having a certain breaking point in terms of his relationship with ashraf ghani, and what would it be? >> okay. that's a lot for you to chew on. why don't you choose which ones you would like to respond to? zal, you want to -- >> thank you. well, on pakistan, as i mentioned at the beginning, that was a great source of frustration for me. that we couldn't make more progress with it on dealing with

the issue of the sanctuaries that were being developed. and i think at the present time i am uncertain myself as to has pakistan made a strategic decision by people that matter that a reconciliation in afghanistan is a critical or a vital interest of pakistan. there is evidence that the internal situation has deteriorated, the security situation, that extremism and terrorism poses a huge problem for pakistan. 165,000 troops now, pakistani troops, are on the durand line, near the durand line fighting. therefore with a government in

afghanistan that is clearly anxious to improve relations with pakistan, i mentioned some of the steps. there's a whole range of others that i did not mention on the economic front, the government, the current government, president ghani in particular has thought about and is open to and actually advocate of increased economic cooperation with pakistan and the region, this whole idea of actualizing this idea that existed almost from the day we went to afghanistan, this land bridge idea that afghanistan could be a transit point for regional economic integration and development. and that whether given the change in afghanistan with the new government and the worsening security environment in pakistan that they would have made a qualitative shift. i'm not sure. there are indications that yes, maybe.

but there are also lingering perhaps evidence or concerns or indications that maybe that the desire to dominate afghanistan through proxies may be still there. and we'll see. we'll see. on the u.s. leverage, i hope that it will be the former, that they will have made a decision. on the u.s. assistance i think it is a key factor. pakistan is in terrible economic shape in terms of the insecurity has worsened the economic situation in sort of discouraging investment in pakistan and trade has been quite problematic. and there is more of a need for external support although the lowering of oil prices has been

temporarily at least for now helpful. but we have been reluctant to push that to the maximum extent possible. and because of the fears of the consequences of economic collapse i have been an advocate more of using more of a leverage because of the importance especially when our people were getting killed, allies were getting killed by forces at a sanctuary in pakistan. but i understood and the complex calculation that informs our relation with pakistan including security of nuclear forces that a collapse could create unintended consequences that would make our job that much harder. while i was sitting in kabul i was obviously -- my preeminent

concern was we need to stop the sanctuary. but i understood why people in washington had the broader calculations that they did. >> at last a difference in views. while zal was sitting in kabul i was sitting in islamabad. and here again history i think is very instructive, not just history objectively if there is such a thing, but how history is perceived and influences decision makers of today. in pakistan the narrative of the u.s.-pakistani relationship and it's their narrative, i'm not saying it corresponds to reality but it's their narrative, is that we're not a reliable partner. and this goes way back. 1970 we did not stand with

pakistan in their eyes in the struggle that led to the creation of bangladesh and that dismembered pakistan in their view. as we have said, we pulled out. didn't have troopd in. but we were very much engaged in the anti-soviet jihad. and pakistan was our partner in that. then we pulled pitch and sanctioned them on the way out. what that means, my assessment, is that we have to be darn careful how we use assistance as a lever because we may think it's a lever. they would see anything moving in that direction -- and we have experienced this -- with some initiatives in congress as absolute proof positive there go the americans again. they are getting set to really stick it to us and that is an

existential threat and we are going to hang on for life to an asset like the taliban. not necessarily because they like the taliban. clearly it has bled over to their own security problems. but they could see far worse coming in afghanistan if we pull pitch in pakistan and afghanistan. we have to be very, very careful with that. >> i guess that means i have to respond to the other two questions that you guys walked around. >> piece of cake, ron. >> on iran, first of all, i'm not sure that iran -- in fact i tend to think that iran does not see afghanistan as anywhere near in the same category that it sees iraq. iraq has been -- or the geographic space occupied by mesopotamia has been a threat to the shi'a world since at least the battle of karbala. the years i was in iran under

the shah every year, tabriz in the west every year the iranian army drilled its retreat from the iraqi invasion and its regrouping and pushing back from that invasion. so their view of iraq as a potential strategic threat is very deeply engrained. there is no similar view of afghanistan partly because afghanistan hasn't really had that level of threat maybe since it held off the last siege of iraq, and that was over 100 years ago. iranians are neuralgic about what we may do with iraq. and afghanistan. there is no potential of threat from us about which they're serious. so they do italian veen. they court influence, but they have also been helpful in creating better conditions in afghanistan. they were helpful at bonn. the dialogue which we had with them in kabul continued until

after i got there but then i was ordered to stop it which i thought was a mistake. the short answer is i believe cooperation with iran in an afghan context is definitely possible. there are lots of ways you can mess it up from both sides. on the question of is there a point at which dr. abdullah will break or will find he has to break from the alliance? in theory of course there is such a point. a point at which he feels he's taking too much political embarrassment, that it destroys his career, that it destroys the potential of his alliance having a bid for power that simply embarrasses him. but these are all questions of degree. they are all dynamic questions. they're not sort of -- there's an absolute make or break issue that you can easily define. there are some issues that are particularly important to him, i believe. the issue of a new election

system is very important to him. the reformed election commission. these are issues that he used to sell his supporters on their requirement to make a secondary position in the government. so if he is too embarrassed in the outcome of those issues that could be a problem. but he also has every reason to hype his presentation of those issues when talking to us because he wants us involved. so analysis of this has to be very careful. the bottom line is yes there is such a point. no, we don't know where that point is. yes, we need to be involved in order to try to avoid getting to that point. and no we shouldn't be panicked at any particular moment to rush in in desperate fear. there is a point but it's also a point that is important to the

ghani side of the government. collapse of this government is going to be i think potentially fatal to both of them. we need to keep reminding them of that and hope to god that they can sort things out between themselves most of the time. it's there. we have to work on it. it's not automatic. >> i started this afternoon's program by likening the three ambassadors to the three tenors. whatever the differences may be i'm sure you see the connection here in that we have had this afternoon three gentlemen with strong voices, clear voices and most of the time in harmony. let's join me now in thanking them. [ applause ] >> well done. you guys were great. >> yeah, well, that's -- now i

get to eat lunch. >> thank you. >> now you can eat. >> now i can eat. the annual white house correspondents association dinner happens tomorrow with remarks from president obama and cecily strong from "saturday night live." live coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. and this morning we talked to joy woodhouse who called her sons during our "washington journal" program and who will be our guest at the dinner. >> now you may remember if you watch this program regularly back in december we had on two political consultants, brad and dallas woodhouse. they and during their segment -- and they're on opposing sides, by the way. one is a republican.heir seg one is a democrat.

and during their segment they received a phone call. here's the phone call. >> now we go to joy in raleigh north carolina. >> hey. somebody from down south. >> caller: well you're right i'm from down south. >> oh, god. it's mom. >> caller: and i'm your mother.famil and i disagree that all families are like ours. i don't know many families that are fighting at thanksgiving. >> is this really your mother? >> it's our mom.thanks >> caller: i was very glad that this thanksgiving was a year that you two were supposed to go you w to your in-laws.of t and i washi -- and i'm hoping you'll have some of this out of your system when you come here for christmas. toget >> we were not together this ars thanksgiving. we are most years. i pe >> caller: i would really like awas peaceful christmas. and i love you both. >> let me jump in because this was not planned.l in m she called in on the normal line. but since you did lik call in mrs. woodhouse, what's it like to raise these two boys?

>> caller: well it hasn't been easy. joins >> and now joyce woodhouse joinslking us on the phone from north carolina. the reason we're talking witdeh nt mrs. woodhouse is because this weekend the white house correspondents dinner is being held, and joyce woodhouse and her sons the republican and the democrat, brad and dallas -- woodhouse, will be joining us at our c-span table. as our guests.you mrs. thinwoodhouse, what do you espo think about comingnd to the dinner? >> well, i think it's just fantastic. every year i watch this event on c-span because you come in early, and i have always dreamed of going to the event. a couple years ago my son brad and his wife jessica attended, and i watched the entire event,

and i did see them. rep although they did not situb at the same table. they had -- because she's a republican and someone had invited her and someone else had invited brad. so they sat at different tables which was interesting. >> well, we're looking forward to having youha up here and e you meeting you. me whoet are you looking forward to meeting at the dinner? who are you hoping to see? >> caller: well, i'm looking forward to meeting you people from c-span. you've been so kind to me.sident a but i'm looking forward to be hearing the president and the comedian. and i'd hate to be the comedian because i've watched this, as i said, for a number of years. and the president is -- he's a great comedian himself. his timing is really good. so i'd hate to follow in his

footsteps. but i am, and i'm looking forward to meeting the president and ms. obama because i'm going to get to go to the reception with -- or to the chairman's reception with mr. scarlet. so that's going to be great.te an ho >> congratulations. that's quite an honor. keep are you going to be sitting at the table between your republican and your democratic son to keep the peace? >> caller: probably. but if i think they're going to may act decent i might sit beside and h somebody fromav c-span and have a nice nice conversation with them.hey get >> so what if they get out of hand? >> caller: well, i'll try to rein them in. but as i've said before it's not easy. c-s one thing, after i was on c-span, which i obviously hit a

nerve. i had people call and put on facebook like i have two daughters that are always hting fighting at christmas and we ve have a horrible christmas. that and i didn't mean to give that nd impression. i have eight grandchildren and it really gets loud before dallas and brad and even jessica gets into it starts arguing. but -- and i would prefer that they didn't. grudge. but later they go out and they do things together. they don't hold a grudge. and which is good. i mean, they talk back and forth some. they hang up on each other. but they still love each other and are decent to each other omorro when they see one another.safe >> joyce woodhouse, looking forward to having you up here in washington tomorrow as a guest of c-span. safe travels on your wayjo up.

and we'll see you at the dinner. thanks for joining us. >> caller: well, thank you again. and i just appreciate how nice you folks have been to me and my family. >> live coverage of the annual white house correspondents' association dinner happens tomorrow night at 6:00 eastern on c-span. well coming up next, a conference on how digital searches, government surveillance programs, and new technologies are impacting fourth amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. in this panel legal analysts discuss the latest sufrnls and data gathering technologies and how they're outpacing today's laws. american university's law school organized this event. >> the national constitution center in philadelphia. the national constitution skrernt a unique place. it was founded by congress to

disseminate information about the u.s. constitution on a non-partisan basis. and we are one of the only places in these polarized times that bring together all sides to debate not political questions but constitutional questions so that you the people can make up your own mind. we just launched an incredible series of town hall national debates co-sponsored by the federalist society and the american constitutional society where we're going around the country to debate constitutional issued. we launched in washington last week. next up new york and chicago and san francisco, and it's just a great example of the faith that confronted with the best arguments on all sides of constitutional questions people can be elevated and educated. this is a dream team to discuss the future of the fourth amendment. it's eclectic. there's a remarkable diversity of views. and we have a lot to discuss. i'm going to begin by posing a broad hypothetical which is not so hypothetical anymore.

then each of the panelists will make brief opening statements. then i'll ask them to engage the hypothetical and we'll be off and running in the best charlie rose style. here is the hypothetical. imagine that tomorrow president obama said in order to protect the security of america tiny drones would be sent flying in the air with minuscule cameras attached and using these drones the government would reserve the right to focus on anyone, say, me, follow me forward to see where i was going if the images were archived they could then go back and follow me backward to see where i came from, and basically allow 24/7 ubiquitous surveillance of any person in the world. and the question that i want to ask the panel to engage is would this violate the fourth amendment to the constitution, which protects the right of the people to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures? the supreme court has not ruled

squarely on this subject although there are some interesting cases that cast light on it and each of their perspectives will be fascinating in taking on the constitutional question and then we'll dig into the statutory questions and all the interesting movement there is in congress at the moment to adrs the question of ubiquitous surveillance in public. let me briefly introduce our panlts. they will make brief opening statements, and then we'll be off and running. ahmed gapur is visiting assistant professor at uc hastings college of law where he directs the liberty, security and technology clinic. he's a former computer engineer. he has a clinic that litigates constitutional issues involving espionage. lead trial counsel for barrett brown. a journalist accused of being the spokesperson for the hacktivist group anonymous and has served as counsel for many national security companies. he was habeas counsel for

prisoners detained at guantanamo bay. why don't you go first? >> like any good attorney i will say that it depends. how big are the drones? how close are they? and also is the data being aggravated and is to being processed? i think all these issues are very important to consider both from a normtive perspective and a doctrinal analysis. i think that the question that you present is actually not a very futuristic scenario in that we've got a lot of public space surveillance as it stands. we have the technologies that allow for license plates to be monitored. we have cameras all over the city. all of this is information that there's a viewpoint that this is all public information you that

don't really have a right to privacy walking around in the street. i mean, the jones case at least alito's concurrence, at least talks abouting ing aggregation. but to me that's not a collection issue. it's more what you do with the data. so to answer in short, i think the current doctrine would probably allow mini drone surveillance under the fourth amendment in public spaces. >> great. and why don't you go on to flag some of the issues that you'd like for us to talk about tonight. >> i think the interesting issue for me is not necessarily the collection of information because you've heard from a lot of really smart people working on that and i think they're doing a great job. but as a criminal defense attorney i'm sort of jaded about a hopeful outcome in terms of what we can and can't collect

and the idea of privacy in public space. i think the interesting issue for me is then what happens with the data. so irrespective if we win any of these challenges we're going to have a great amount of data with the government you've got technologies that implement artificial intelligence and learning. and so the goal for a lot of this big data stuff is that goal is that you can identify patterns that humans are not capable of doing on their own. you've got a situation where a computer is telling you that this person is a bad person and you should follow them or you should search them or you should arrest them or possibly drone them. at a accuracy higher than any human analyst, but you don't know why.

that's the question for us. when you have a highly reliable algorithm that cannot articulate why it's giving you an outcome. and that outcome is one of culpability. what do we do? >> great. very interesting observation. the drone surveillance is probably okay. you are concerned about these algorithms and whether or not they're reliable enough to create individualized suspicion. take up both of those. >> just the caveat is that is not normative answer, it's doctrinal answer. >> let's start by describing how you think the current courts would rule on these questions and what some of the pressure points are. he worked in the privacy practice. previously legislative assistant to senator dick durbin on the committee, a graduate of bates college and northwestern university school of law. david, your quick take will

delve in more deeply on whether or not 24/7 camera drone surveillance would violate the fourth amendment. and any additional issues you want us to dig into. >> yeah. mike's own, thanks, jeff. having heard the hypothetical and responding to it now in realtime, it strikes me if you start with sort of fundamental principles around the fourth amendment and the doctrine that has come -- and the fourth amendment protects people and not places. if you're going to have that type of 24-hour, 7-day a week surveillance, that's ubiquitous and suspicionless that would implicate the strictures of the fourth amendment. there would be real problems with that kind of surveillance, even if it's happening in areas that traditionally have maybe been subject to lesser fourth

amendment protections. >> let me just ask you to push the mike, which i forgot to do, as well. it's this little green button there. you've got it. you think under the case which we'll talk more about, it probably would implicate the fourth amendment. what are some of the pressure points you want us to delve into? >> so there have been a lot of interesting discussions today about the evolution of the fourth amendment, particularly with respect to the internet. i think if the recent past is prologued or there are a lot of reasons to be sanguine about the development of case law with respect to cases and controversies around the fourth amendment. i think as pointed out earlier, though, that presupposes there will be cases and controversies to litigate. and even in the aftermath of the snowden revelations, there are still significant barriers to standing that may prevent a lot of these cases and controversies from ultimately being heard by the courts. there is another form.

congress is addressing a lot of these issues. one of the benefits of addressing some of these fourth amendment issues before they come to the courts and even as the courts are seeking to litigate and address these issues is we are in some ways unencumbered by antiquated and constitutional doctrines like the third party doctrine and fourth amendment case law. and delineating and creating the right policy prescriptions to fourth amendment issues in the digital age. so i want to talk really briefly about a few things that have been happening. two, actually two things that have been happening. and one, i think, that is going to happen in the future that's going to be pretty important for the development. we are part of the due process coalition. cdt and greg have been as well

since 2010. we are still dealing in some respects with the embryonic stages of reform and trying to update the statute to codify a warrant for content standard as many of you know. it makes distinctions, i think, that don't comport with users' reasonable expectations of privacy today. at the heart of service providers, it's this notion of 180-day rule where contents of your communications are subject to the warrant requirement up until 180 days and thereafter at the 181st day all of a sudden can be subpoenaed. all right today in the sixth circuit companies like google require a warrant for all content regardless of the age, regardless of where it is stored and when it has been opened or

when it has been opened. there is legislation that is pending in congress has been pending. right now, it has over 250 co-sponsors in the house of representatives. if it were voted on today in the house, it would pass. i have a lot of confidence that the same results would be true in the senate. not the least of which, it helps to pave the way for future as many of you know in the next couple of months, section 215 in the usa patriot act expires at the end of may. there's been an important and robust debate around the fisis statute and how it ought to be modified. those who have taken an independent look at the section 215 program have concluded pretty much with unanimity that it ought to be reformed.

whether it is for sort of, you know, reasons of effectiveness or legality. and, you know, fortunately, senator leahy and others have taken a broader look, not just focusing on section 215, but also on other fisa authorities that have been used to collect communications, meta data in bulk. so we've been encouraged and supportive of the usa freedom act, which was introduced, i think in 2013 and gone through several different iterations. but would address other authorities under which communications and metadata has been collected in bulk or could be collected in bulk. we're very much looking forward to that debate, which is going to happen soon and hopeful to come to the right result as far as that goes. finally, let me just address one topic which is not so futuristic. and how we are going to deal with government access request, vis-a-vis the internet of things. there are a lot of fundamental questions around the types of

rules that ought to apply. and it isn't entirely clear as a threshold matter whether the electronics communications privacy act does apply. i would submit that for remote computing services like google in many respects, it will. that the type of information that is collected from internet of things devices, and you think about your nest thermostat or drop cam inside of your home. that would suggest a lot of detail about you about your habits in daily live and ought to be subject to the fourth amendment. ought to be subject to the warrant requirement. there are sort of questions about entities that might not fit neatly into the category of remote computing services. and so i think there's quite a bit of room for some smart thinking among folks who are in this room and also in congress

to think about forward looking approaches. to think about how we would fashion a statute in 2015 based on the expectations of privacy that people are entitled to have and they do have today. i'll stop right there. >> that's great. thank you for teeing up all of those fascinating questions about reform, that's the electronic privacy act in congress. about the foreign intelligence surveillance act reform and access to internet of things. and thanks to your sense that the 24/p drone surveillance would violate the fourth amendment. we have a circuit split between david and ahmed. do you think that 24/7 drone surveillance would violate the fourth amendment according to current supreme court doctrine? >> has this little drone found me in my bedroom? >> only in public. when you get out in the morning, it follows you. it follows you to the bar. it follows you to the church, to your political rally. but it does not go into the home. it's only surveillance. >> so this little drone. when the supreme court was

considering u.s. v jones, the government, that was the case where the court said if the government attaches a gps device to your vehicle and then uses it to follow you around for 28 days that violates the fourth amendment. but it said that violates the fourth amendment because there was surveillance plus the trespass. and that was the key to the case. but the government in that case said that doesn't matter fourth amendment doesn't protect you because you're on the public roads. exactly zero justices accepted that argument. that gives me hope that the drone that follows you around is violation of a fourth amendment. unless there's a warrant that permits it. >> so eager fo