and that complication makes it doubly difficult for us to do our job. the negotiation that's necessary to have local consent to deliver aid depends on engaging without building an array of local actors whose power changes sometimes on a weekly basis. the wider point about the russian role, i think, has to be split into two parts until the passage of the u.n. security council resolutions, there was no cover for the cross border work that we and others were trying to do. and so the issue then is trying to get that cover. since the passage of the resolutions, however, we haven't actually been able to do more work. we found our situation constrained in part by the position on the battlefield but also the lack of official backing from those who supported the resolution. that's why the emphasis that nancy has put on turning those words and that resolution to action notwithstanding the history that the chairman referred to remains very, very

important. security council resolution is only as strong as the nation states who back it and their willingness to see it through. >> you know, yesterday -- and i want to move this question now to assad and putin's relationship with assad. yesterday made a comment, and i quote, refugees undoubtedly need our compassion and support. the only way to resolve the problem is to restore statehood. my question, and i'll start with dr. gavinaw, can we solve this problem as long as assad is barrel bombing his own people, targeting open markets and children? the question before us is can we solve this? one level is obviously the immediate crisis and then the long-term solution. as you said, this is no longer a blip. it is a trend. if that trend is there, going back to what senator cardin mentioned earlier, we have to develop a different strategy. this is not just about feeding people for a few weeks.

it's about educating, training. in trying to prevent this now, at least getting at the immediate crisis, how should we look at putin's comments relative to assad and what iran's position has been over the last decade with regard to bashir assad? >> i can only answer this from the perspective of what i heard from refugees. i hope you'll take my answer in this context. i certainly think that if negotiation takes place with assad and has to be credible with a large number of people who fled the country, they should be an immediate stop to the deliberate attack against civilians. any process that does not control that from day one will be doomed. it will not lead anywhere in terms of satisfying. it's very violent. whether he is prepared to do that is a precondition for getting into peace negotiations,

i don't know, to be honest. and i'm not anywhere close to this discussion. but i think it's essential that people are going to be associated through a peace settlement, have to make a commitment to stop immediately the sort of deliberate attack on civilians. in a conflict there will always be civilian casualties by the very nature of the contact. but the deliberate attacks on civilians is something that is far too egregious to sustain a peace process. >> we've all traveled to the region. senator card sbinin and i were this spring. if the united states had accepted refugees that would be the size of england, for example. they're overwhelmed. we see that. what i'm really concerned about long term are the children. we talk about it being half the problem basically today. will you speak to that and elaborate a little bit more about what we can do in the immediate future and what the long-term implications those

are? it looks like a breeding ground for dissent. will you speak to that and what we need to be doing now in order to prevent further exaggeration of this crisis in the future? >> yes. you're absolutely right. there is an enormous population of children who are out of school, both from the syria crisis and iraq and through the region who are the next generation growing up without a future, without a sense that they have something positive to connect to. and so as we look regionally at this whole issue of how to counter violent extremism while at the same time we are not, as a global community, enabling these displaced kids to connect to education and something more positive in their lives, we are absolutely creating, as the activists in iraq told me, you know, seven hot spots.

seven time bombs. and so there was a very important effort launched two years ago cold no lost generation, an effort to gather focus across the humanitarian and development community on education and on enabling there to be fuller support for kids. and one of the challenges that we have -- and david spoke to this -- is that we get trapped inside the differing mandates and stove pipes of the way in which we deliver humanitarian and development assistance. and so my hope is that this current crisis will really catalyze us to move further and faster on some of the innovative ways that we know we can use to provide more appropriate assistance that gives people a chance to have a living, to get the kind of help they need to recover from trauma, to get their kids educated. that is one of the most important things that would enable people to not leave the region because they have a sense

that only by going to europe or the united states will they have an opportunity for those basic ways of having a more dignified life. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i might just point out that barrel bombs are being delivered by air. i think everybody understands that. i can't imagine what these many refugees and people around the world are thinking about nations like the united states and others that know this is happening as we're sitting here in these nice circumstances and are continuing every day to allow that to happen. plus the torturing of people in its prisons yet we're going to the u.n. security council and talking about hollow, hollow resolutions. anyway, senator menendez? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for your testimony. let me just briefly join the chorus of voices that have recognized the international

rescue committee. i've done work with them. it's extraordinary work and should be incredibly proud to lead them. as someone who comes from a community that were refugees to the united states, i have a very strong appreciation of the willingness of the country to accept those who are fleeing for whatever the reasons. so i'm a strong supporter of broadening our response. but i also understand that at the core of the problem, as miss lindbergh said in her testimony, that the most generous contribution of the united states only scratches the surface. at the end of the day unless we get to the root causes, we are treating symptoms but not the causes of what makes people flee from their home. and in this case and in the case of syria, the ongoing conflict. the barrel bombing, which unfortunately is in and of itself a horrific act, is also

exacerbated by the use of chlorine gas in violation of international standards as well as my thought was that when this committee passed an authorization for the use of force to stop assad's use of chemical weapons against its people that we would be looking at a permanent stoppage of chemical weapons against its people. and while i certainly rejoice in the fact that we did do a lot to relieve the risk to the people of syria by a variety of chemical weapons, we have not relieved them from the total risk at the end of the day. and so at some point, it is hollow if you don't follow through. so what i wanted to get a sense of, first of all, on your statement the most generous contribution of the united

states scratches the surface. maybe plrks millibrand, you can help me with this, too. in other countries, the number of refugees flowing into them, what would be the percent, vis-a-vis, taking place? >> one-fourth of the jordanian population. in occurred stan it's one-fifth of their population. these are unimaginable numbers. >> 20% to 25%? >> 25% in jordan is syrian refugee right now. lebanon, sorry. >> just to follow that, 85% of the world's refugees are in developing countries. the european comparison would be germany has agreed to take 500,000 refugees -- accept 500,000 asylum claims over the next year and each of the next three years, a population of 90 million. italy, population of some 60 million, has taken in each of

the last two years 120,000 refugees. the uk prime minister has pledged they'll take 4,000 a year in a population of 60 million. you can see the variation there and the big gap between the neighboring states in the middle east and the european government. it's worth saying the u.s. at its peak was taking about 180,000 refugees a year in '89, '90, '91. >> so 85,000 total refugees, that is not necessarily syrian refugees, that would be about 2% of the american population. so i say that in the context of understanding the challenges of other countries here compared to what the united states is

looking at. and i say to myself in that regard, you know, we are either going to choose to help countries where, in fact, refugees are flooding to in the first instance and to -- well, we are, to be more robust about it. or we have to think about what is a number that is acceptable here in the united states as part of an international commitment. but i want to go to the core question, which is how do we stop at -- i would assume -- correct me if i'm wrong for the record but none of you advocate that in order to stop the refugee crisis that we should accept the violation -- the violent violators of human rights and core principles as a way to solve that. is that right? you're nodding, if you could say

yes for the record. >> yes. >> okay. if that is the reality, in the case of syria moving away from assad, even in transitional -- but at the end of the day moving away from assad. i only see the circumstances getting worse, not better. we're doing nothing to stop the barrel bombing, including that with chlorine gas. we have russia, that is now sending all types of military hardware and creating an air base for itself in syria. i see at the end of the day that they have been a patron of assad and will continue to be a patron of assad until they see a solution that protects their interest at the end of the day. so, in the interim, i see them using that force. and whatever entity they are using that force again -- let's say isil, inevitably in a circumstance such as this, it will create more refugees.

and i see iran that has continued to support assad. so, i don't see a lessening of the refugee crisis. there are still, as i understand it, millions displaced, who have not become refugees. at some point their displacement is going to lead them to be refugees. when it leads them to be refugees we'll have an even more significant crisis. so at the end of the day, isn't our goal while in the interim doing everything we can for those who sought refuge to really dedicate ourselves to ending the violence, stopping the barrel bombing and getting a transition in syria? because if we don't do that, there isn't enough space, time, money to ultimately meet the crisis of the lives of these people. >> senator, you spoke very powerfully about symptoms and

causes. and you have to treat the causes as well as the systems, i think you're saying. you're absolutely right. the way i would put it for my own organization's work, we can staunch the dying but we have to stop the killing. staunching the dying is very important. we could be doing much, much better. we could also be doing more than staunching the dying. we could be staunching the radicalization, the misery by much more effective work by both inside syria and the neighboring states. if your question is, are there true limits to the effectiveness or impact of humanitarian work in the absence of peacemaking of a serious kind the answer has to be unequivocally, yes. until we stop the killing we're not going to be able to be doing justice to the people on the ground or the values that we all stand for. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you.

senator gardner. >> thank you, mr. chairman. miss lindbergh i have a couple of questions for you. security council resolutions in 2014, couple of security resolutions passed, in february 2014, you mentioned demanded parties promptly allow humanitarian access and resolution 2165, calling upon notification. >> i think as david mentioned there is a monthly report on progress and there is a routine where lack of progress is reported and there isn't any teeth in the resolution to do anything about it. hence, senator corker, your skepticism. you know, there isn't a chapter seven provision because there isn't agreement among the

security council members. and for a number of years there was a bit of a charade where there was not even full belief by all the security council members that we had a humanitarian crisis going on inside of syria. i think what is going on globally today makes that a very difficult case for people to still make, for countries to still make, that we don't have a humanitarian crisis of truly epic proportions. and it does provide one tool for forcing the conversation and forcing the agreement that the killing is at the root of the crisis. >> in terms of 2139, what ought we be pushing in terms of -- >> i'm sorry? >> 2139 in terms of what we're pursuing. >> there's no enforcement built into the current resolution. it was a hard-fought effort to get the passage of it the way it

was and it is without teeth. >> okay. you talked a little bit about -- in response to the chairman's question, a little bit about barrel bombing and isis and the movement that you described, what would change if the refugee crisis if barrel bombing were to be stopped? how would that change the refugee situation? >> well, it would certainly decrease the deaths as we've heard the targeting is often of medical personnel, of clinics, of markets. we've seen the utter destruction of cities like aleppo. people are fleeing often because their lives are just literally in shambles. and their loved ones killed. there is still obviously the threat of isis and of other armed groups. it's a very chaotic situation. and yet in pockets there are

efforts to still maintain a life. and there are efforts to still have local administration in parts of syria. and so i would add that we also need to continue and double our efforts to support those who are on the ground, who are seeking to create some sort of ongoing stable lives for their communities. >> would you like to talk about that in terms of putting an end to the barrel bombing, what that would do? >> as it continues with isis and others? >> there are two ways of looking at it. one is obviously on the more political side and that's something that you'll be thinking about as you contemplate your views about the ultimate resolution of the conflict. but there's no question of the position on the battlefield. it creates traction on the wider diplomatic and political front. and i leave that to you. on the humanitarian front, there's no question that the

daily humanitarian abuse -- someone said to me aleppo is hell. i had to escape from hell. it's as blunt as that. frankly, we've had our own people who are not actually our staff but were benefiting from our services go home. we lost seven of them. barrel bombed. now, this is a daily reality for people who are, to pick up something the chairman said at the beginning -- giving up hope. at the moment they say their chance as putting their fate in the hands of smugglers and criminals who say they'll get them to europe as offering them more than staying in their own homeland, in their own country. and that is obviously an indictment of the global response over the five years of the conflict.

>> now stretching across the swath of war-torn countries. as we continue this conversation i want to make sure we're providing the most effective support possible. humanitarian aid refugee aid in the united states, europe, isn't going to solve the problem alone. we have to get to the bottom of the barrel bombing and continued drivers of this conflict. because we can open up as much as we want but the crisis will still exist. >> thanks to the witnesses for the work and your testimony. just to explore, the u.n. security council resolution, what it called for, has been incredibly disappointing. i know everybody worked hard to

get it passed in 2014 originally. that wasn't easy. the fact that it was brought up in the middle of winter olympics in russia probably made it harder for them to throw the veto in with they have in the past with the eyes on them during the olympics. senator mccain was probably the first in this body, beginning really in the fall of '13, to start to talk about the notion of the no-fly zone, some military force to save space and most likely in the north of syria, turkish border where people could go if they're fleeing assad. they could go and the thought of that creation of that zone and protection of it with military force would allow the cross-border delivery of aid under circumstances where the aid workers and others wouldn't be jeopardized. i was originally not a fan of that proposal. by probably february 2014,

seeing the numbers dramatically increase, my first visit was at a time when there was 750,000 refugees and now it's 2 million. other countries are seeing the same thing. now we're seeing it spread through neighboring nations and throughout europe. it's not easy. i'm assuming that they're -- i assume there's a whole lot of challenges in doing that. but to me, it just seems like if we don't go upstream and try to create some safe area, with an additional nearly 8 million displaced people within syria, that the crisis is going to continue. and even if we wave a magic wand and say the u.s. will take ten times the number of refugees we said we would take, it's a drop in the bucket that compares to the challenge that is likely to come. am i wrong? is that a strategy that's the wrong way to go about it? i'm not sure you would get a majority of votes in this body for it. i think the vote we had about

using military force against the use of chemical weapons against civilians barely got a majority in this committee and likely will not get a majority in the senate or in the house. still if the administration were to advocate strongly for it, there is some bipartisan support for the notion. as folks who do this work, am i looking at this wrong? >> senator cain, i have long wrestled with this question through this crisis. you know, the history of safe zones and no-fly zones for humanitarian purposes is fraught with cases where it didn't work well and it's filled with moral hazard. and at the same time i think that as the crisis progresses and the level of killing continues -- that is prompting this level of crisis for us to continue to not take some action that is forthrightly about civilian protection creates

enormous tragedy for the people of syria and it's not at all consistent with who we are as a country. and it seems to me that as we did in places like kosovo that it warrants a very, very hard look that with our allies or through concerted diplomacy with other actors who claim to be interested in putting solutions on the table that we look very closely at how to provide civilian protection. what is the best way of doing it and have that be the joint concerted goal of our actions and look at what the military means might be required for no-fly zone or security area. >> other thoughts? >> i say two things, senator, about this. first of all, i think it would be very welcomed if the debate about no fly zones moved from slogans to details because the details really matter. >> uh-huh. >> secondly, i think ngos like

ours can offer the benefit of experience of different ways in which governments around the world have tried to deliver no-fly zones because we've suffered from the details being got wrong. and i think that immediately you see that a safe area which is designed to protect some people in some part of the country immediately creates the moral hazard that nancy referred to because, for us, barrel bombing any part of the country of syria is an affront. not just in parts of it. but that only is to make the point that, obviously, the debate about safe areas engages other questions and merely syrian protection, proposal for safe zones as recently in the armed services committee last week was for reasons beyond the humanitarian. and that's why i think our best contribution is to advise on the humanitarian impact of different models of military and other

action to protect civilians. on that basis i think we've got something to say without taking away from you the ultimate judgment that you have to make about who to put at risk and in what ways. >> but clearly we're all in a position here where the existence of a u.n. resolution that calls for cross border delivery of aid without the consent of the syrian government and the stopping of border bombing, that that resolution now a year and a half old with zero enforcement of it -- i mean, the impotence of that and the message that sends and the willingness of the members of those nations to do anything to back up their word is incredibly destructive not noenl this circumstance but generally. wouldn't you agree with that? maybe this is the wrong panel to ask this. but is there a legal precedent for a group of nations taking action to enforce a u.n.

security council resolution that the u.n. is unwilling to enforce? >> the closest precedent would be the kosovo experience. where obviously there wasn't a u.n. security council resolution and the u.s. administration at the time decided not to put a vote in the u.n. it didn't want a russian veto. but the action took place. i can't think of an immediate precedent at the time of the kind you describe. >> looking back on that action, what is the humanitarian sort of ngo's conclusion about that in retrospect? was that a good thing to do or not? >> having been with an ngo at the time, i think there was widespread concern that kosovo was undergoing the beginnings of

mass atrocities and that without the campaign, there would have been terrible, terrible loss of life in kosovo. and with some mixed feelings, there was gratitude that action was taken that saved so many lives. >> uh-huh. so action taken to save lives in an ethnic cleansing situation even without the predicate of a resolution council calling precisely for delivery of aid in this area. i know you can make mistakes and there's risks and mixed feelings about it. the general sense was gratitude that the actions were taken. what projections have your organizations done -- i'm about done but what projections have your organizations done about the likely pace of continued migration out of syria the next year or two if sort of status quo continues? >> just to finish off on your

previous question, the other relevant example would be the raw a. ndan genocide earlier in the '90s than kosovo, of which people have very strong opinions. >> and on that, just -- was there a security council resolution but no international action was taken or it was taken horribly late so that the -- you know, the slaughter was just dramatic levels before anybody did anything? >> i want to go back to your first question, senator, projections and outflow. i don't think we have numbers in mind. certainly the people leaving now, certain level of education and who have the resource to pay the smugglers. that is going to dry off. >> yeah. >> and the people staying in turkey, lebanon, jordan, et cetera, are those who are getting to the levels of absolute misery. these are those we have to retain. >> i'm sorry, i didn't answer your question. we didn't make any -- none of our projections included a

scenario where the german government would say three weeks ago anyone from syria can claim asylum in germany. and so the truth is what projections have we done? they need to be revised in a very substantial way. now i think it's only fair to the committee to say both within -- from within syria and from within the neighboring countries there's been a significant uptick in the last month or two months of people leaving, including people who are staff members and others. undoubtedly there's not just a movement inside syria, there's also a movement from people from syria and the neighbors are leaving. the second piece that's very significant is the number of people we anticipate crossing the agean during winter we anticipate to be quite high. i was told that the u.n. are projecting 20,000 people to cross the agean in december,

which would be unheard of. obviously, the dangers of hypothermia and other health hazards are very large. if where you're going with your question is do we have to prepare for very, very significant numbers, leaving syria and leaving the neighbors in the next year, the answer would be yes. and, obviously, what's happening in europe shows the difficulty of playing catch up on this. europe has had its eye on the euro crisis and the ukraine crisis. it hasn't had its eye on the refugee crisis and playing catch-up is in a much weaker position. there's a warning there about what might happen in the next year. >> i've gone over my time. thanks, mr. chairman. >> before turning to senator reyes to clear something up, senator cain mentioned the ethnic cleansing taking place in kosovo. for what purpose is assad barrel bombing clinics and others? it's not a military strategy

there. for what purpose would he be barrel bombing his own citizens? >> i've been interested in my two colleagues. there's two ways of seeing this. assertion of strength, display of strength and certainly he is engaged in using air power, the only force, syrian belligerent with air power to attack some of the rebel groups. and he is not taking any care as to where the mortars land. >> senator rich? >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, when you look at this, this is a pretty depressing situation because the solutions that are on the table, as i understand the u.s. policy, is that number one, the policy is to return people back to where

they came from. that's the first objective. that doesn't work, number two, that they be kept safely in the areas where they're housed and only thirdly do you look at resettlement. if you look at those policies, you wonder if that really works under the present situation. i think the description of this is epic. certainly is an understatement probably. but these people that now have -- the number is about 20 million, as i understand it, worldwide. is that a fair number that you work with? you talk about 20 million people who have left their homeland and essentially people who maybe wouldn't have left under normal circumstances but now have been forced out -- once they've been forced out and they see what the rest of the world is liked they aren't inclined to go back, as is the number one policy, supposedly, that we have, of seeing that they return to their

homeland. so when you're talking about 20 million people, i mean, that number is staggering. what troubles me is after this has happened -- and people have watch this had with the internet we have now, the communications that we have now. what's going to continue to happen in the future to people who look at this migration that has taken place and have said, you know, i'm tired of living where i am. this isn't good here. i'm going to move on. even though they're not forced out that they are going to make that move and as you noted, the woman you talked to said look, there's only two places to go, the united states and europe. this is a challenge of staggering proportions. what we have now, which most people don't realize -- but i think what's coming in the future when people see that this migration takes place -- and you can do it.

you can become a citizen of another country by simply packing up and moving. how do you see this playing out? this is a problem that looks to me like it's just going to overwhelm the planet. anybody want to take a run at that? >> just to make you more depressed i think the relevant number is 60 million, the number of people forcibly displaced right now. 20 as refugees, 20 as displaced within their own countries. >> but probably subject to the same thought process i just went through. >> absolutely. >> we've left our home. why stop here when we can move on to -- >> i think we've talked a lot about some of the urgent, shorter term solutions that one might employ in dealing with the roots of the syria conflict, which is this raw, bleeding

conflict that is driving a lot of people through the region. i would put a couple of other considerations on the table. one is that in iraq where there is movement right now to cle clear -- we have the urgent opportunity to help people return where they're able to and where they would like to. and usip has been working with communities on the ground in places like takrete. you really need to work on a concerted dialogue process that gets rid of the mistrust and rebuilds the social cohesion so they can go home and live side by side with neighbors who might be different from themselves. and as we look at investing in our military action in iraq, we need to ensure that we are investing in all of those solutions that do enable people to go home so they don't join

that migration that you've talked about. among the syrians who are going to europe these days, among the 20 or 60 million, almost everybody is from a country that one would term as fragile. weak, ineffective or -- and/or illegitimate in the eyes of its citiz citizens. these are the countries that have the billion people living in poverty. they are the ones that have that mixture of owe pregnancy, of violent conflict and poverty that are driving people to seek better lives. longer term, we collectively need to refocus how we think about development programs, moving development, humanitarian assistance to work hand in hand with security and diplomacy. we just had new, sustainable development goals passed in new york this week where there was the historic inclusion of

something called goal 16 which basically calls for inclusive democratic societies with accountable justice for all. which sounds very polyanna-ish but every nation has signed off on this, giving us a platform for insisting that we not continue to have these kind of bleeding sores around the world that create these kind of humanitarian crisis. and keep so many people in misery and poverty. >> can i briefly address -- i think a very important point that senator rich has made, which is to understand the distinction between someone who is fleeing for economic reasons and someone fleeing for reasons of political persecution, which is what defines a refugee. it's a world on the move. there are 200 million people moving around the world for economic reasons. and i think one of the lessons of this crisis is it's very important, indeed, to maintain

the status of a refugee, well-founded fear of persecution and the erosion of that status has damaging implications for the politics of this issue and policy of this issue. the truth is, it's harder to reach america as a refugee than any other way short of swimming across the atlantic. the checks, the vetting, et cetera, are far, far tougher to arrive in the united states as a refugee than under any other visa or other regime. in a way you can understand that. because there are rights associated with refugee status that are earned. if you have a well-founded fear of persecution that you have rights and the state has obligations to you. i think it's important that we don't allow that status to be undermined. when it becomes part of a simple migration debate -- in honest truth that's what's happened in europe. for the confusion of the migration debate with the refugee debate it's very, very hard to hold the public never mind to run the policy. >> interesting.

thank you, mr. chair. >> before i turn to senator markey, to put things in context, our staff looked up the numbers relative to the yugoslav war of a decade. there were 148,000 people that were killed and 4 million people displaced. if you look at the scale, this one causes that to pale. and yet no real action relative to the barrel bombing. senator markey? >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary milliband, i have been and remain a skeptic of policy recommendations that increase the risk of americanization, westernization, of the armed conflicts in iraq and syria. i would much rather see us work to influence parties toward internal compromise as necessary to end violence and work together to establish governments that fully represent and fairly treat all people.

most recently, we have heard that u.s. policy may be moving toward creation of so-called safe zones. protected by coalition air power where a moderate sunni force could be supported and where additional forces could be trained, internally, displaced persons could find refuge and syrian opposition could organize. but on september 16th here in the foreign relations committee we heard testimony who told us that such zones cannot be considered safe. i have been advised that there are three requirements for true, effective humanitarian safe zones. one, parties to the armed conflict must agree to the creation of the zone and to

respect it. and it is critical that this force not be a party to the conflict or supporter of any party to the conflict. thr three, the zone must be demilitarized meaning it must not be a base for any military activity or operations by parties to the conflict and this must be rigorously enforced by the impartial security force. in august, the u.n. special envoy for syria, stefan mistora completed a round of sanctions that the u.n. has endorsed. could you provide your opinion on how diplomatic support for his efforts could be increased? how might a process create true

humanitarian safe zones in syria that meet the criteria i just mentioned? >> thank you, senator. i would say two things. first of all, your skepticism about military engagement is widely shared and. >> the greater the responsibility to act on the humanitarian and the political. secondly, i said earlier that i thought that in the debate about safe zones, no fly zones, it was important to move from slogans to details, which is what you've done, and also learn the lessons of history. because all of us actually, my colleagues here, with far more personal experience than me, can speak to the different ways in which different tactics for the establishment of safe zones have worked or have not worked. where i can comment and the

well-known example of the kurds who were protected, in the way one of my frustrations is that we've got to go beyond just using those two examples as clubs with which to beat the argument. we need to get right underneath the details. the truth, to my mind, is that the situation in syria and iraq at the moment is unlike anything else we've seen before and we need to learn from history but not be imprisoned by it. you asked about the diplomatic engagement. the statement that is to look not just at the numbers but the absence of engagement. ongoing engaged backing on a

day-to-day basis. and that contrasts with the situation of the balkans where there was accepted content of formations by the security council and others to put.

it does. and the humanitarian crisis is an important way in. it is not the leading edge of this crisis as it presents globally. secondly it's very dangerous to conflate military approaches with civilian protection. and any approach that conflates those goals, i think, is a perilous way forward.

so i think that's a contrast with general petraeus and think it's important to put that out here on the table. i think that's central to this issue. mr. chairman, i wanted to ask an additional question about yemen. >> sure. >> that can wait. is that all right? >> just out of curiosity, since we understand your point of view -- and i think david milliband does, too. are you saying on the other hand that you would support u.s. intervention to stop the barrel bombing if it was not about military activity taking place within that safe zone but protection of civilians? >> are you asking -- >> no, i'm asking you that just out of curiosity. because that would be a

breakthrough. >> i think the breakthrough, honestly, has to be obama and yeltsin -- i mean obama and putin sitting down and reaching an agreement on this i think that's the only way it's going to happen. any other intervention, i don't think, will be effective in the long run. we need a political resolution of this and everything on the table. and we need the major powers to get this back out of the cold war framework. that's my view. >> thank you. >> and i apologize. >> mr. chairman, for the record, before i get or my organization get signed up to propose -- >> no, no. can i say you did not answer. >> i just want to say that none of these points of details really matter. let's take the point of a demilitarized zone. in an area of a country flooded with arms of all kinds is a nice aspiration, but doesn't speak to the detail of the situation on the ground. and i would suggest that the

imperative is to look at what a detailed proposal actually is and then measure it against the situation on the ground and the objectives for it. in the end the application of the principles is what's going to matter. frankly the devil is in the detail. my goodness, we've seen that in the last few years. >> frankly, miss lindbergh, looking back to last winter and spring, it seems we were on autopilot to support a decision to intervene in yemen without a full examination of alternatives. what are your thoughts on this? what do we need to do to assess what we might have done differently last winter and spring? particularly diplomat icadiplom? >> well, i would answer it this way. we're seeing where the military intervention is preventing humanitarian assistance from

reaching populations that were very, very vulnerable to begin with. and we are already seeing the beginning of pockets of famine in yemen. and if there isn't an ability to provide assistance on

on the next washington journal, we'll continue our coverage of the republican moiccu chair javier becerra will weigh in on the upcoming change in gop leadership as well as the budget and a possible government shutdown. then congressman john flemming, a member of the conservative freedom caucus on federal spending, funding for planned parenthood, and a contest to replace outgoing house speaker john boehner. washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span and we welcome your comments on facebook and twitter.

wednesday republican presidential candidate donald trump holds a town hall at keene high school in new hampshire live at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> the annual documentary competition for students in grade 6 through 12 is an opportunity for students to think critically of issues of national importance by creating a five 5-o'clock to 7:00 minute documentary in which they can express those views. it's important for students to get involved because it gives them the opportunity and a platform for them to have their voices heard on issues that are important to them so they can express those views by creating a documentary. we get a wide range of entries. the most important aspect is content. we have had winners the past

created by just using a cell phone and we have others that are creating used more high tech equipment but it's the content that matters and shines through in these documentariedocumentar. the response from students in the past has been great. many different issues that they have created videos on that are important to them. we have topics ranging from education, the economy and the environment really showing a wide variety of issues that are important for students. >> having more water in the river would have many positive impacts to better serve the community and the businesses inside it. >> and you said without oil we've come to the consensus that human cans not run without food. >> prior to the individual with detectives education acts, children with disabilities were not given the opportunity of an education. >> this year's theme is "road to the white house." what's the most important issue you want a candidate to discuss in the 2016 plat e presidential

campaign. it's full on into the campaign season. there are many different candidates discussing several issues. one of the key requirements in creating documentary is to include some c-span footage. this footage should really complement and further their point of view and not just dominate the video but it's a great way for them to include more information on the video that furthers their points. >> the first bill is the water resources reform and development act also known as worda. >> we've heard about meals and fish sticks and mystery meat tacos. >> there's a vital role that the federal government plays. it's especially vital for students with disabilities. students can get to our web site, student cam.org and they can find out more information about rules and requirements and also find teacher tips, rubrics

to help incorporate into their classroom, more information about prizes, incorporating c-span video and ways to contact us if they have any further questions. the deadline is january 20, 2016, which is exactly one year away from the next president inauguration. members of the house homeland security committee task force held a press conference tuesday about a report investigating terrorists and foreign fighters traveling to syria to join isis. this is 40 minutes.

. good morning, i want to thank all the members of the task force in creating a bipolar report on combatting terrorism and foreign fighters. in my judgment, the threat to the homeland has never been greater. this is a product of isis growing in the region and in iraq and syria. there's a threat of foreign fighters traveling to the region and then coming back to europe or to the united states. we've had over 30,000 foreign fighters from 100 different countries to what is called the

caliphate to fight. we've had 5,000 individuals with western passports so that's of great concern when it comes to visa waiver countries. we've had over 250 americans travel from the united states to the region, many of whom have returned to the united states. this threat coupled with the threat over the internet that we have seen he which has evolved from bin laden in caves and couriers to now a new generation of terrorists using the internet to radicalize individuals within the united states. so this is a dual threat that we face and again the task force worked for six months in a bipartisan way and the findings are concerning. the findings indicate that we -- number one, the threat is getting worse not better.

that we are losing in this struggle. to keep americans from the battlefield because there are still people coming from the region and coming back. i think most importantly that we lack a national strategy to deal with this problem. we took a delegation to europe to examine the problem, found that there were many security gaps with respect to travel from iraq and syria through turkey into western europe. for instance, e.u. citizens go past their watch lists. but the bottom line i think is that until we deal with the threat where it is, until we have a strategy to deal with the threat where it exists and eliminate that threat we'll continue to have this problem. and until we have a combatting violent extremism effort n the united states to deal with radicalization from within on

the prevention side we'll continue to have the problem here in the united states. i think the stats are alarming. over nearly 70 isis followers have been arrested in the last year in the united states of america i think that's a wakeup call to action and i think that's what this task force was formed to do. to create recommendations to deal with this alarming and increasing problem that we face here in the homeland. i am hopeful that we will produce legislation as a result of the key findings of this report from the task force. so with that, again, i want to thank all the members on both sides of the aisle for coming together, something we're not -- you don't see very often in this congress. working together democrat and republican to address a very, very serious issue. and with that i'd like to recognize the ranking member.

>> thank you chairman mechanicc. the committee worked for about six months but had a specific mission not to produce legislation but to produce recommendations. they've worked hard, there's no question about the terrorist threat that we faced. there's no question about americans going to join isil and other foreign fighters abroad. but the question is whether or not we can determine that some of those people are trying to get back into the united states and getting here. so what we had to have was a bipartisan task force to look specifically at this issue. they've produced a report, we're

happy. now i look forward to the bipartisan effort to produce legislation based on this report. the chairman is correct. this committee is one of the few bipartisan committees here in this congress. when bad people want to hurt americans, they don't ask party, they don't anything, they just want to hurt americans. so it's in that spirit that we offer this task force report but more importantly we look forward to working with meaningful legislation because of this task force. thank you. >> i thank the ranking member and i want to echo those comments that terrorists don't check our party affiliation before they want to kill americans. and so with that i want to introduce the chairman of the task force john katko.

>> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you bennie thompson. one of the things about homeland security is we're doing what we should be doing in congress -- we see a problem, attack the problem and try to find solutions for it. i appreciate the chairman and mr. thompson for empowering us on the committee to do this job and to form this task force and just let us do our work. a lot of work we did do. we had 16 member briefings and site visits, 29 after the briefings, we traveled to eight foreign countries. some of the countries, we sat across the table from benjamin netanyahu for two hours the day before he formed his cabinet talking about the isis threat and terrorist threat he faces all around him. and it was very insightful. we then travelled to baghdad, iraq, right on the front lines and got it from the leaders in iraq as well as the military leaders in the united states that are advising iraq. we went to turkey to check how the flow of foreign fighters going through turkey into syria

is happening and what they're doing about it if anything. we then went to the western european counterparts of ours to find out why there are such gaping holes in security in western europe and that's one of the alarming findings we had is that that hole is significant. there are about 5,000 westerners at least, at least, and i stress at least because we don't know what we don't know but at least 5,000 westerners have gone to join the fight in isis. many of them are from europe, the vast majority of them and europe has very relaxed travel standards and they don't screen passengers the way we do. it's much more difficult to determine if someone is going over to turkey or syria to join the fight. so that's a huge problem for us because when they come back from the fight they may decide to come to the united states and radicalize and since it's visa-free waiver countries it's a problem.

then, of course, you have to problem with the 250 known americans that have attempted to travel to the zone in the last two and a half years and the numbers have gone up significantly. those individuals pose a huge threat to the united states in a couple of different ways. if they go there and come back, they're ticking time bombs in the united states. they're recruiting others to join the fight with them and they're helping to radicalize individuals over the internet in the united states. and with respect to radical saugs over the internet, that poses probably the biggest problem for the united states because it's that problem that is the most difficult thing, most taxing thing for our law enforcement officials here in the united states. we've had 6 some of incidents like the chairman noted the last year, year and a half ago of americans that have been involved in isis-related incidents or planning isis-related attacks in the united states, that number is expected to grow. there's a lot of work we have to do going forward and this is

about finding problems and presenting solutions. 32 specific solutions in the reports but let me tell you some of the general overviews of those solutions. or general issues we have to address. the gaping security loopholes in europe is one of them. trying to get the europeans and our foreign counterparts throughout the world to work with us and have a centralized database for tracking these foreign fighter travelers. we have to focus on combatting domestic radicalization in a huge way. we have to figure out how to provide off ramps for individuals who are becoming radicalized, identifying them, doing the hard work on the community level. that's very difficult. we need to work on having a national strategy here. we don't have that. we also need to figure out how to do a better job of identifying those individuals trying to go over to europe. one of the things you have to look at is the problem with how the recruiting americans here.

they recruit them on the internet and go to the dark spaces of the internet which we can't monitor we have been a court orther, it's very difficult. that's a real problem us. we have to figure out how to do a better job with that. we have to work with our global allies much better than we're doing now in much more coordinated fashion and we have to encourage information sharing which mr. loudermilk identified during the course of the task force about information sharing between local, state and federal officials and doing a better job with that that there's many more things they have to do but the recommendations are specific and you'll see a lot of proposed legislation coming out of this. we worked very hard on this and i want to thank everybody involved in this, mr. vela did a great job on the democratic side and my republican colleagues here mr. radcliffe, miss mcsally, mr. lauder milk a loud hurd. freshman congressmen and i think the report shows we've done our home work.

i want to thank the chairman for allowing us to do this work and thank my colleagues for the great work they did. >> i want to thank you chairman katko for your hard work. i now recognize the congressman from texas mr. vela. >> thank you, i, too, want to thank chairman mccall for this. and chairman katko took over this committee after he came in and on behalf our our colleagues i'd like to thank you congressman katko and the rest of my colleagues and committee staff who worked very hard over the last six months. i won't repeat a lot about what's already been said but the thing here is that we're dealing with an enemy. people ordinarily want peace but in this case we're dealing with an enemy who wants to concur and cause a lot of harm. the threat of the course over

the last six months evolved over the course of our eyes because interned radicalization popped up and things were happening all over the place. so the most important thing about this report is what it shows us is we've got a whole lot more work to do so that we can confront this threat and hopefully we know our committee has come together in a bipartisan fashion but this is an issue that should have no party lines because this is an american issue we're talking about safety to our people and hopefully we can convince the rest of our colleagues to move forward together to confront this crisis. >> thank you congressman vela. the chair recognizes mr. hurd from texas. >> thank you chairman and ranking member thompson, the chairman katko, that was pleasure working alongside of you. i spent almost -- over nine

years as an undercover officer in the cia. i was the guy in the back alleys chasing al qaeda and the taliban and having seen enemies like that up close and personal and seeing what isis has evolved into is scary. there are clear and present danger to the united states and we need to do everything we can to stop them in their tracks. one of the shocking things for me in a good way was information sharing has improved since i joined the cia in 2000. that was good to see but there's still more work that can be done. chairman mccall and chairman katko eluded to our european partners who needed to do more and using the information that we're sharing with them but one of the scary things about isis is their ability to leverage social media to get their message out. they're influencing and touching millions of people a day and we need to counter that message and they're inspiring folks by saying "come to syria for an adventure." but you're more likely to get a

bomb dropped on your head than finding adventure in syria so our men and women on the ground are doing a great job but we need to be more aggressive in syria so i'm looking forward to continuing the work of this committee. and making sure we protect the men and women in the united states of america against this scourge. thank you. >> congressman hurd, the chair recognizes congressman loudermilk. >> let me thank you chairman mccall and congressman katko for allowing me to be part of this extremely important task force. i think the work we were doing came to full recognition to us the 245 our major concern is terrorist attacks on american soil while we were on our middle eastern and european trip was when the attack in garland, texas, occurs and it was a wakeup call how important what we were doing is. because we're talking about protecting americans on american soil. these foreign fight yooers,

those we know of and don't know of come back here. they're looking to do attacks on american soil. is one of the challenges we're looking at, how do we better protect americans? how do we multiply our forces on the ground? we have better cooperation between the various law enforcement agencies than we've ever had but we have a lot of improvement. the way we can have a force multiplier is better cooperation between our local law enforcement and first responders and those federal agencies. we've made improvement there but there's more improvement that we can make as well and that's one of the areas i focussed on after hearing about the texas attack is how can we better improve? how do we integrate those local law enforcement who already have boots on the ground? they know their neighborhoods and communities and can provide intelligence to the federal government as well as the federal government use those resources better. we'll look at how to better improve that. georgia has done a good job through their fusion center and

cooperation but we have found ways we can do that better. thank you for allowing me to participate. >> the chair recognizes the gentlelady from arizona ms. mcsally. >> thanks, chairman mccall, ranking member thompson and chairman katko. it's been a pleasure and honor to be appointed to this task force and the work we have done has been exactly what my freshman colleagues and i said we came near do which is solve problems to protect america and impact the future of our country as far as the security goes. while congressman hurd was chasing guys on the ground, i was shooting 30 millimeters out of a-10 against this kind of threat while i was serving in the air force for 26 years and this threat has grown and metastasized into something that is much more nimble and we have to catch up. they are -- the terrorists are acting at the speed of broadband while we're acting at the speed of bureaucracy. we talked about the numbers but those are the numerator but we don't know the denominator. there are so many unknowns. we don't know who's been

radicalized and who's sitting at home getting radicalized on the internet so this is a very serious and sophisticated threat and we have to be much more nimble and responsive and i appreciate the work of this task force and the recommendations we have in order to move this forward. we have to be doing a better job between us and our allies to address this threat and be more nimble. we have to do a better job within the agencies of our federal government. while we have 10,000 irs agents make sure you don't taken a improper home office deduction on your taxes we have less than two dozen individuals focusing on countering violent extremism. that won't work for us. we need to step up our game. we need better information sharing and more flexibility and nimbleness to respond to this and also between federal, state, and local officials and civil society. we have to step up and do this together but we need a strategy and these recommendations will address these shortfalls. so we look forward to continuing to work to address this threat

and keep america face. >> the choir recogniair recogni congressman from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. prior to coming to congress i had the opportunity to serve as a terrorism prosecutor. in fact, i served by special appointment in the largest prism financing case in u.s. history so i know well the dangers homegrown terrorism present. i'm grateful for the opportunity to have served on this task force but the main take away we have to focus on here is the lack of a national strategy in combatting foreign fighters and the vulnerabilities that has created. it's my hope that our report, its findings and recommendations are not simply filed away but become the foundation for a national strategy in dealing with this problem by both the executive branch and the legislative branch and i certainly intend to make it part of my focus and part of my

mission as i go forward in congress. so thank you for the opportunity to be on this task force and i appreciate the leadership that all my colleagues have provided by on this issue. thank you. >> people always ask me what keeps you up at night and it's really the individual we don't know about. we have a lot of good intelligence, i think the fbi and homeland security are doing a great job identifying the threat both abroad and within the united states but it's a case we don't know about. the foreign fighter who traveled to syria and came back to the united states, as chairman katko says, the ticking time bomb. it's a case of the individual radicalizing over the internet that could pop up and kill americans. it's the chattanooga case. we had no flags, we had no warnings, no warning signs. that keeps me up at night.

we have a lot of work to do. i think this report will go a long ways towards protecting americans here in the united states. we have to have a strategy to deal with this. both a military strategy abroad, a political solution but also a prevention strategy here in the united states to stop this threat so that we can carry out the mission of this committee to protect the american people. so with that i'd like to open it up for questions. i believe is jj green with wtop is first. [ inaudible question ] >> reporter: what we've been hearing for three or four years, we know about this threat and we know about them using social media and the images that we've seen what they're capable of and

we all know it's a big problem. so i wonder if you would give us an example of the number one thing that needs to be done that the american people can actually see some concrete results from immediately? what is the one thing that -- the top thing that can be done that will see some results immediately that you recommend? >> well, i don't think there's one simple solution to this problem. as we traveled abroad to the middle east seeing the threat we were in baghdad a week before they took over ramadi, met prime minister netanyahu, went into europe. the security gaps they have in foreign travel in europe that can get into the united states a real threat but the radical sags over the internet. when you have 200,000 isis tweets per day going out to thousands of followers in the

united states everyday to kill military, to attack military installations it's really hard to get around that from a security skand point we've done a good job trying to stop that but it's the internet capability that's very different from the days of bin laden where now you have this new generation that's very adept at social media. i would say a couple things. we were very fortunate to take out the military strike of the number one isis cyber commander sending out these directives but there will be others to follow after him, i think the prevention piece that's been pointed out has been severely overlooked. we spend billions of dollars to both kill terrorists and keep them out of the united states we spend very little focus on prevention from within. outreach to these communities. but in mose of these cases like

ta tamerlan tsarnaev was kicked out of his mosque for being too radical but that wasn't picked up by authorities. i think if we have better outreach to the communities, ranking member thompson and i have passed a bill out of committee to combat violent extremism. it needs to be more of a prior to and focus within the administration. i'll open it up to any members who would like to respond to tha that. >> i'd like to follow up really quick with that. >> sure. >> reporter: i'm interested in your take on how this adversary has changed since 2000 because that's one of the issues we've heard a lot about is that we've been engaging them like we're

still stuck in the al qaeda post-9/11 days when in reality they're a whole other generation of digital warriors out there is what i've been told so i'm interested in your view. >> they're not hiding. isis is a very new phenomenon from the al qaeda of the early 2000s and their ability to reach out to new people, that means they increase their surface area of attack in ways that we can understand their networks but you can still stop them the same way we stopped al qaeda in afghanistan. in december of 2001 when the fall of kandahar, the any southern afghanistan which was the head of the -- the headquarters of the taliban, we killed two-thirds of al qaeda leadership and pushed out the taliban out of the entire country and there were only 400 americans on the ground, 300 special forces, 100 cia

officers. we were able to accomplish that because of a superior air power that the world had ever seen and relationships with groups on the ground, northern alliance, different pashtun groups. and that framework exists in syria and that's how we should be looking at our strategy on stopping them down there but we have to counter their message as well. there's a spanish professor that's now at georgetown who was highlighted -- he's looked at about 800 campaigns that isis is using and they're using imagery from tv shows like "person of interest" movies like "american sniper," video games like "call of duty." and when you look at the media that isis is producing it almost almost like these popular images that we've seen and we don't have this whole of government effort on countering this

violent extremism. it can't just be the united states, it has to be our sunni arab partners in the region helping to leverage the message as well. so we're falling down on the midwest messaging game where isis is superb. >> you stated that 300,000 foreign fighters have gone into syria in iraq? >> 30,000. >> reporter: excuse me. where did that number come from and what numbers are they mostly coming from? >> that's from basically the federal law enforcement members, intelligence community, they've developed those numbers. let me just emphasize, those are the ones we know about. you don't know what you don't know. when it comes to 250 americans, that's just the ones we know about, many of whom have returned to the united states and we're very concerned about that as well. they're really coming from all over the world.

they're coming out of europe and northern africa, they're coming from australia, they're coming out of indonesia. so what you're dealing with is sort of a global jihad phenomenon that we're seeing these radical islamists filling the power vacuums left in northern africa and the middle east primarily and then recruits coming out of europe. we have a lot of these cyber warriors, for instance, coming out of the uk. junaid hussein was a british citizen who traveled to raqqa which is where they're operating out of. so i think that's the -- to me the frightening thing is that the fact that it is a global phenomenon. that this is not just confined to the old days iraq and afghanistan. this thing is metastasizing all over the world now. predominantly in northern africa and the middle east. but we're seeing it spread throughout europe and australia and we don't want to see that

spread into the united states. >> reporter: you mentioned at least 40 u.s. fighters have returned. where are they and what efforts is being made to find them? >> we think about 50 have come back. look, if we can arrest these individuals we do if with under the constitution cannot charge them with a criminal offense, providing materiel support, we have to monitor them. but, again, if you don't -- we don't good intelligence on the ground in syria. we don't have good human intelligence so it's really hard to know who has traveled. i give the fbi and homeland great credit for stopping a lot of this and arresting almost 70 isis followers in the united states. these are astounding numbers,

though, and you can only stop it for so long and if we don't have good human intelligence on the ground to identify who has gone to the battlefield and who has come back, that's a hard threat to stop and it's hard to -- as a former federal prosecutor, you have to have evidence to charge them and if we don't have that good human on the battle ground to know they joined the enemy it's very difficult to prosecute that case. >> reporter: [ inaudible question ] >> well, i think it's -- good intelligence can stop this and the intelligence sharing within our european partners is key to this. tsa has ramped up their security precautions. there was a threat from the corazon group.

the istanbul airport is the epicenter for the foreign fighters. 40 million people go through that airport per year. for a while they turned a blind eye because they were fighting assad. who they don't like. now they're screening inbound but the outbound screening isn't where it needs to be and we're concerned about that outbound traffic coming out of the region to western europe and possibly the united states. i would i would argue europe has a real problem. until the european parliament passes new legislation to vet they're going to continue to have this problem. not to mention the syrian refugee crisis we're witness today. >> reporter: you talk repeatedly about the need for greater

international cooperation. you said we don't have good human intel on the ground. now we're seeing russians moving into syria, the russians, the iranians, assad regime, iraqis all working together on intelligence. are we talking about potentially working with people we don't particularly like? we don't particularly trust? is that going to become necessary? they have a lot of intel. they're not our friends. does that change some of the recommendations in your report at all? >>. >> well, i think russia has filled a power vacuum. i think we've had a failed foreign policy and strategy that led to this in terms of dealing with assad or isis so with that vacuum we have russia coming in forming a geopolitical alliance between iran and syria and ca calling check mate on us. i will say the one thing we have in common with the russians is our dislike for the terrorists. they have chechen rebels.

the boston bomber is a chechen rebel. they have the northern caucus region and i think they swlu is happening in the caliphate and the islamic state is becoming such a great threat and no strategy out there to deal with it effectively that they're stepping into it. and they're also filling the power vacuum. the complication is their obvious support for asat and as long as he remains in power he remains a magnet for the jihadists. i've said the long term solution has to be a military and political strategy but also dealing effectively with assad. i hope the president as he visits with mr. putin today and the united nations can work out a strategy to effectively work to eliminate the threat of isis but also to find a way to remove assad from power. whether it be a graceful exile

or other means but that has to be a part of this overall evasion. >> you talk about legislation. what might that look like? >> i thisty biggest one is having a national strategy. that's the biggest piece of legislation. the other is trying to close the security gaps we see in europe. but the fact that we don't a strategy, we have a combatting violent extremism bill that i would like to see come to the floor to deal with this problem on the home front. you have to deal with the problem over there but you have to deal with in the the homeland as well and this radicalization over the internet is becoming increasingly a problem. when we went on our trip to the middle east and europe the big focus was foreign fighters and when we came back it was my god they're radicalizing over the internet and there are hundreds of thousands of these missives coming out per day to radicalize

americans. it's a very difficult challenge for law enforcement in this country not to mention as was indicated earlier the idea that they can go into dark platforms to community kacate. they're very savvy. they get a hook on the internet and then they get into what's called a dark platform to communicate and we can't see those communications even if we have a court order. you can't stop a threat that you can't see and if they can communicate in darkness that makes the threat even higher is and we need to shine a light on that darkness. that's another piece of legislation that we'll be looking at is how can we change that so we can monitor these communications. if someone in raqqa, syria, is talking to someone in new york about conducting a terrorist

attack and we can't see that communication that puts americans in danger. >> reporter: [ inaudible question ] have you worked with the administration or discussed with them or other u.s. agencies to talk about where to go from here? >> the ranking member and i talked to lisa monaco, the homeland security advisor to the president. i think she recognizes the threat level here. i know she's had discussions with turkey, an important nato ally in this fight against isis over there. i believe as was said earlier that this needs to be a sunni airplane fight against the sunni extremists. under american leadership with our special forces embedded but it has to be the sunni airplane. it's their backyard. stepping up to the plate to

defeat the sunni extremists. for too long we've carried the water there and 1 h 00,000 u.s. combat, we're the infidel over there and i don't think there's a political appetite for that but i do think an indigenous force under american leadership in nato with our forces embedded is the best strategy to defeat this threat. >> reporter: you talked about a couple pieces of legislation. where are they? is there support for passing anything in the senate as well? >> well, we just came out with this report and so the next step is to identify the legislative steps necessary and also dealing with the other key committees. i think, again, this is one of those issues that as the ranking member indicated this is about protecting americans. this should not be a partisan

iss issue. these bills should be able to pass through the house and the senate even given their 60-vote rule for god's sake, if we can't pass this legislation what can we pass? i think the white house would invite this type of legislation. john if chairman katko wants to comment any further. >> as you go through it, there's 32 key findings and those findings will be the genesis of the legislation so if you look at the findings you can see what we've already talked about. if you want more specifics to the various federal agencies and officials, if we look at page 56 of the report it lists the different places we briefed with, state department, fbi, justice, homeland securitul

. >> reporter: how much an indictment is this against the obama administration's policy. you said the lack of the strategy as you put it, does it fall squarely on the white house or the dodd? >> i'm not trying to make a partisan attack. we're just telling the truth. the threat is reel: you can try to down play it but the threat is real to the homeland. when you look at the numbers, they don't lie, the stats are real in terms of the numbers of foreign fighters i've described. tens of thousands of them many americans the thousands of followers in the united states, the hundreds of thousands of isis directives over the internet per day. i'm very concerned about our security and so i would hope the president would take this as an

opportunity as he meets with our foreign partners and mr. putin to resolve this crisis because if we don't handle it over there, if we don't address it honestly and call the threat what it is and know that it's a real threat we won't be able to eliminate the threat and therefore the american people will always be at greater risk. and that's all we're trying to accomplish. we're not trying to throw partisan jabs, we're just speaking the truth about the threat level and what we think needs to be done to stop that threat both overseas but also from coming into the united states so they can kill americans. thank you. on the next "washington journal" we'll continue our coverage of the republican effort to defund planned parenthood. democratic caucus chair javier

becerra will weigh in on the democrats' approach to the issue and the upcoming change in gop leadership as well as the budget and the possible shutdown. then congressman john fleming, a member of the conservative freedom caucus on federal spending, funding for planned parenthood and the contest to replace outgoing house speaker john boehner. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 on c-span and we welcome your comments on facebook and twitter. the house arms services committee considers the department's cyber strategy wednesday. we have live coverage of that hearing at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. a signature feature of book tv is our all day coverage of boong fairs and festivals from across the country with top snon fiction authors. here's our schedule. in early october, the southern

festival of books in nashville. the weekend after that we're live from austin for the texas book festival and near the end of the month we'll cover two book festivals on the same weekend -- from our nation's heartland it's the wisconsin book festival in madison and back on the east coast, the boston book festival. at the start of november we'll be in portland, oregon, for wordstock followed by the national book awards from new york city and at the end of november we're live for the 18th year in a row from florida for the miami book fair international. that's a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on c-span 2's book tv. next, a hearing on state health insurance markets. a house subcommittee is examining the on going management and implementation of the affordable care act. this is two hours.

good morning, the subcommittee of oversight and investigation convenes this hearing today to examine the state health insurance marketplaces established under the affordable care act. we seek to understand is sustainability challenges these state exchanges continue to face. the centers for medicaid and medicare services has awarded $5.51 billion to the states to

help them establish their exchanges. let me repeat that. the states receive $5.51 billion in federal taxpayer dollars to set up their own exchanges yet the j.c. yay had no specific definition of what a state exchange was supposed to do or what it was not supposed to do. this is compensation without limitation. since the funding for these exchanges came from the entitlement side of the budget there was no oversight throughout the appropriations process. there was no budget with the state exchanges rather grand money flowed freely and rewarded bureaucratic "innovation." no one wanted to make sure that didn't create more government bloat. in fact, the states represented in our panel today -- california, kconnecticut, hawai, massachusetts, minnesota and oregon were rewarded over $2 billion of federal program dollars. oregon has already pulled the

plug on its state exchange and hawaii is in the process of doing so. the faucet of establishment grant money finally turned off at the end of 2014 when state exchanges were supposed to be self-sustaining. despite this enormous taxpayer investment, state exchanges are still struggling. they continue to face it problems, lower-than-expected enrollment numbers and growing maintenance costs. here are just a few more recent headlines from news articles on the state exchanges. "obamacare exchanges are a model of failure." "nearly half of obamacare exchanges face financial woes." in another one "obamacare's failed state exchanges." the alarm bells are not only being sought in the media -- sounded in the media, earlier this year the department of health and human services office of inspector general alerted cms acting administrators that the state exchanges may be using federal establishment grant funds for operational expenses which is prohibited by law.

hhs's oig urged them to develop clear guidance to the appropriate use of grant funds. the guidance that followed was still vague, permissive and lacked real word examples. in fact, cms has seemed more focus on doling out taxpayer dollars rather than overseeing how the dollars are spent. the u.s. government accountability office just issues a record demanding cms conduct more oversight over the it projects. gao found they did not document, define or communicate its oversight roles and responsibilities to the states. further, cms often did not involve vessel haven't executives to improve federal funding for state's it marketplace projects and although cms established a process for testing state systems, these systems were not

always fully tested. we have a pnl of witnesses today representing state exchanges with its own challenges and circumstances. the state of hawaii was awarded $205 million but the governor announced its hawaii health connector does not generate "sufficient revenues to sustain operations" and will shut down. the commonwealth of massachusetts accepted 234 million for its health connector but enrolled only 13% of its goal the first year, temporarily placed individuals in medicaid because it couldn't determine eligibility and cost massachusetts abestimated $1 billion in additional funds. the state of minnesota initially received $155 million to launch its state exchange, the exchange received an additional $34 million from cms in part to fund ongoing fixes to the it system. despite this infusion of funds, minnesota has announced it would revert to an old system next

year or minnesota care premiums because of the continued exchange problems. the state of california received over $1 billion in federal grand dollars to establish its exchange, covered california, the most of any state. despite call center and web site woes, california had the highest enrollment of 2014 but only retained 65% of its 2014 enrollees. this year's california's enrollment numbers reached 1.4 million, falling 300,000 short of expectations. cms awarded the state of connecticut approximately $176 million in federal establishment grants and as of september, 2015, approximately 96,000 individuals were enrolled only 50% enrollees were previously uninsured. oregon received money for covered oregon. despite this heavy investment covered oregon was dissovrled early this year and transferred

its responsibilities to the department of consumer and business services. the state is currently operating as a federally supported state-based marketplace and relies on healthcare.gov. so we're here to understand the challenges these state exchanges face. why are they struggling to become self-sustaining given the extraordinary taxpayer investment? is it a lack of accountability or oversight? where has cms been and are they encouraging fiscal restraint or taking a hands off approach which has allowed money to be spent uncontrollably? and where an exchange has decided to shut down has cms tried to recoup any federal grand dollars? lastly, are the exchanges doomed to fail? hopefully we will get answers to these important questions so i thank the witnesses for testifying today and i recognize the ranking member from colorado for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think we can all stipulate that some states have struggled

with the technological hurdles of setting up their own marketplaces. we all knew the affordable care act would face challenges in some aspects of implementation and i've been saying for a long time that it's this committee's role to conduct oversight and improve that process so i'm glad we're having the hearing today. i hope we're not hoping the state exchanges fail. i hope we're hoping that we can improve it and we can make itlá better. i think despite the fact that we had a rough start in many places, the aca is working and has greatly approved access to high quality lelt insurance coverage. in the last five years, we've made preprogress in helping millions of americans throughout the country gain access to quality health care. here are notable statistics. since passage of the law five

years ago, 17.6 million previously uninsured individuals have gained health coverage through the aca's virs provisions. nearly 10 million consumers have enrolled in state and federally facilitated exchanges. about 2.7 million of those individuals use state exchanges to select private plans. according to newly released data, the uninsured rate fell from 13.3% to 10.4% from 2013 to 2014, representing the largest single year reduction in the ininsured rate since 1987. in 2014, hospital uncompensated lower than 2013 levels as a result of exchange coverage and medicaid expansion. the aca also improved health care delivery systems, hospital readmissions are down and indicators of patient safety

like hospital acquired conditions have improved significantly. all of the states before us today have taken significant steps to improve health coverage for their residents. their uninsured rates have plummeted due to efforts to implement the affordable care act. despite the technical and financial challenges that confronted ay hawaii. its uninsurance rate has fallen and it stands at 5.2%. in just a few years since 2013 minnesota has reduced the number of people without health insurance by more than 50%. their uninsurance rate is one of the nation's lowest at 4.6%. massachusetts which already had one of the nation's lowest uninsurance rates in the country is down to just 3% in 2015 which is a 38% decrease since 2013. connecticut which now has a robust state-based marketplace cut its uninsurance rate by 60%.

in connecticut the uninsurance rate is 5% and california, which also had one of the lowest -- the highest uninsurance rates in thecountry, it was 21.6% has also managed to drop its rate by 45% since 2013. now the uninsurance rate is 11.8% in california. and finally, oregon which had one of the nation's highest uninsurance rates of 20% in 2013 also reduced its uninsurance rate by 55% to 8.8% today. how did this all happen? how did states managed to insure so many millions of people? the affordable care act has really provided these tools. so as we discuss call centers, web-based portals and all these other things, let's not forget that the affordable care act is really working to achieve its goals. i want to thank our californians

for joining us, mr. chairman, and i want to yield the balance of my time to ms. matsui from california. >> thank you very much for yielding. peter lee, thank you for coming to testify today. and let me reiterate, the affordable care act is working. california is an early adopter in so many areas, not to least of which is health care. we have moved from paying for volume to paying for value. and to inform our system to make sure that everyone has access to quality affordable health care. covered california is an integral part of that, i'm happy to say over 41,000 in my district of sacramento and nearly 2 million americans obtained coverage from 2012 to 2014. that's a reduction in the rate of uninsured. in sacramento, in 2012, 18% were uninsured. in 2014, it was down to 12%.

that rate is likely to be lower in 2015. we need to continue to work to bring those numbers of uninsured down. by supporting the advancement made by covered california and other exchanges not by moving backward. thank you, and i yield back. >> gentle woman yields back. i know mr. walden who's not a member of this committee wanted to sit in this hearing and has the right to do so. you will be recognized for two minutes. then you can yield to mr. walden for two minutes? thank you. >> i was a practicing physician before, and i just want to talk about the insurance rates. coverage does not guarantee access to health care. deductibles are up. premiums are up. the cost is being shifted to the people. the uninsurance rate may be down, but the access, i would argue, has not improved traumatically. if you're a schoolteacher or

other middle class employee, if you have a $5,000 deductible, do you have affordable health insurance? i would argue that you do not. in many states, physicians aren't taking new medicaid patients. i know this, because i'm a physician, and i talk to physicians all the time. in fact, many physician aren't taking new medicare patients let alone medicaid patients. in fwoeking onion insurance rates is not the only parameter to look at when you're looking at the ability of our citizens to access quality affordable health care and i yield to mr. walden. >> thank the gentleman and the committee for letting me participate in this hearing. when i was in state legislature in the oregon health plan itself was passed. when i became a majority leader we realized there would be a lot of work to put together the plan, and i chaired it. i concur with those who think we need to do more to reform the

delivery of health care and access to it. i have a pretty good record on doing both. mr. chairman, i want to thank you for holding this hearing on this issue, though. mr. allen, thank you for coming out from oregon. as you know, oregon received $305 million in federal grants to build cover oregon. only california and new york, states with about nine and four times the population respectively received more. so we've got a lot of money out there. the exchange was launched with much fanfare. i heard kitschy long-live oregon. when the lights went off and the curtain went up it failed to cover a single person online in one city. not one person was able to sign up that way. oregonians were forced to sign up using paper applications. the state decided to abandon the i.t. platform and move on to to

healthcare.gov. eventually, they shut down the entire program, which it did on june 30th. hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars apparently down the drain. last february, chairman upton, murphy and pitts and i requested information. many questions about oregon remain unanswered. . how did this happen? who was in charge? what can be done to make sure this never happens again anywhere in the country? we're sell awaiting the answers, frankly. going forward, the mover to federal exchange poses a whole new set of questions. mr. allen, i underspan you weren't there running this thing. so we're not here to point fingers. we're here to get answers as to how this happened and what we do now and how we're going to fund the next phase of this. i still don't have a clear understanding of what happened to $305 million establishment grants, and did cms even try to

recoup this? did they do their due diligence? in spite of your repeated assurances that oregon exchange is financially self-sustaining, i think there are questions over how the state will pay the federal government for using health care dofr when it's required to do so in 2017. i know you state that the increases are a matter of rebalancing itself. the collapse of cover oregon, though, is clearly an epic disaster for oregonians and for taxpayers across the united states. frankly, the aftermath hasn't inspired additional confidence in our state government or cms, i'm deeply disturbed about the role of the former governor, who has had to resign, and the role of his campaign consultants in calling the shots. so i hope the hearing will help us learn more about what

happened, why it happened and what steps can be taken so that this kind of debacle never happens again. >> i yield back. and we represent mr. pallone for five minutes. >> over five years ago we passed the affordable care act and fundamentally changed the health care system in this country, we expanded access to health care pour millions of americans and ensured that no individual could be denied coverage for arbitrary or discriminatory reasons. we guaranteed that insurance companies were in the business of making our citizens healthier, not just making a profit. and we strengthened the program and put it on firm financial footing. today my republican colleagues will tell a different story. we'll hear a lot about technical glitches, inefficiency, broken irmts t. systems. we're just to listen to the republican sigh, we are led to believe we poured money down the

drain. no doubt there are lessons to be learned from the imminimum entation. make so mistake, the affordable care act is working. we are seeing successes throughout the country and the data is there to prove it. recent census data shows that the uninsured rate has decreased. states that chose to embrace the full measure of the law and expand the medicaid programs and establish state-based marketplaces have seen the greatest gains for their citizens. and this success is true for the six states that we have joining us here today, despite early technological challenges in some of these states everyone here today has expanded access to care and significantly lowered their numbers of uninsured. it's important to look at how state-based marketplaces could be run more efficiently and effectively and how we can enhance the health care delivery

system this this country, but let's do this with an eye for improvement, not as an eye to score political points. let's have a discussion on how to reach the remaining uninsured. and how to best address the challenges that remain. with that, i'd like to yield my remaining time to split between congressman kennedy and representative capps. i'll initially yield to mr. kennedy. >> i want to thank the ranking member for yielding. it is always nice to see a familiar face amongst our witnesses at hearings, and i'm pleased to have a chance to welcome louis gutierrez, mr. gutierrez throughout his career has championed the use of technology to help government do its work better, whether it's as our commonwealth's executor or the executive director of massachusetts health connector.

particularly when it comes to health care. in his latet role, he's worked diligently to ensure massachusetts maintains its status as a state with one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country. as the rate continues to fall nearing single digits thanks to the affordable care act, i'm looking forward to hearing more about your efforts to make our system more efficient and effective as well as any best practices that you've encountered that could be applied across this country. thanks so much for being here. yield back. >> remaining time to ms. capps. >> thank you. to the ranking member tor yielding and letting me, also, letting me waive onto this sub committee for what i know to be a very important discussion. i wanted to come and personally welcome mr. lee, the executive