respect to where we were then, sir. and nobody knows this better than you because you have spent so much time over there. >> it is a different game i think is a good way to say it. >> absolutely, sir. >> what is the strongest ground component in iraq? is it the iraqi security forces or the shia militia? who has the most capability right now? >> the shia militia have a lot of numbers. in my opinion they are not good fighters. they don't have good trade craft. they don't -- >> is it fair to say they cannot be used to liberate mosil? >> i would say if we go down that path, senator graham, we will make a significant mistake. >> i couldn't agree with you more and we're relying on the iraqi security forces and i think that's a long way away. libya, general rodriguez, thank you for your service, what percentage of libya would you

say is under the control of extremist groups like isil? >> isil and daesh control the area in and around sirt. i couldn't give you exact percentage. the other places have transitory effect. >> would you consider libya at this point a failed state? >> yes, sir. >> thank you all very much for your service. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thank you to the witnesses. i echo the comments about the appreciation for the service. the many times you have been before this committee. general rodriguez, i want to ask a couple of questions touching on each of your expertise about the training we do with foreign militaries and in africa i know the u.s. military is a preferred training partner in many nations seek our assistance. i kind of like to have you talk

about the success of those training efforts over the course of your three years in the position and what other nations do significant training of african military? i view this as one of the most cost effective investments that we make. i would like to hear your thoughts on it. >> yes. senator, thank you. we are by far the largest contributed to training african peacekeepers in africa. we have a tremendous amount of successes. just to give you a one benchmark now, the u.n. missions in africa are 47% provided by african soldiers. that is a significant increase over the last several years and almost 180-degree turn from a decade ago. and then we have a great program that's really led by state department for training soldiers and all the soldiers that are trained to go to somalia as

an example from all five nations trained by state department supported by africacom as well as 11 nations in mali. we do a tremendous job of training all of the u.n. missions who are heading out there. i think they have done extremely well overall. they continue to be challenged in some areas. they have had problems with discipline in some of those units but over all a huge success story. as an example in berundi, almost everyone of their units has been trained and headed to amazon and then come back and has increased professionalism of the forces. the u.n. also does some training as do the united kingdom and the french, sir. they are the biggest contributors. >> the training we do is not only training around dealing with security challenges, but in some of the nations the military has sometimes been the force for civilian repression, rule of law and human rights issues.

i assume that one of the training sets of expertise we provide is how to do the security job and do it in a way that respects the rule of law and human rights. >> it is, sir. and it's all about the rule of the law and how to support government in a democratic nation. >> general votel, would you talk about the same thing with respect to special operations and special forces, the training work we do with other nations? senator king and i travelled to the region actually to lebanon a few years ago and witnessed some training that the laf was incredibly thankful for but just talk about the training component of what you do. >> thank you, senator. and the example you just cited lebanon is a good example of many of the ways in which we are working with international partners, particularly through their soft elements.

i think one of the very best authorities that congress has provided to us is to allow us to work closely with some of our partners here to develop capabilities to assist in our counterterrorism efforts. i think that has been a very, very successful program. so what we try to do is we try to leverage the long-term relationships, the long historical relationships that many of our countries in particularly their soft forces have in some of the regions. for example, the french soft are partners in north africa, the british, of course, have inroads in a lot of different places and we try to leverage that, as well. we are also looking to work with partners to develop capacity to export their skills. so when you look at a country like poland, for example, that is a good example. we worked for long term with

that country, and they have actually been somebody who can deploy, support our activities and bring others with them. i think the investment that not only we are making but a lot of partner nations are making i think are leveraging well through relationships and partnerships. >> this is budget appropriations ndaa season so we are looking at line items and expenditures. my opinion is that one of the best things we do if you look at the pentagon budget, the amount that we spend to train foreign militaries either in their real estate or bringing leaders over here it's just a fraction of a fraction of a d.o.d. budget but might be one of the best investments in terms of building capacity and also relationships that can be important. i just encourage you. thank you for your service. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, gentlemen, for your service, many years of service to this country and our people. general rodriguez, last year you testified that libya based

threats are growing, and if left unchecked i believe they have the highest potential among security challenges on the continent to increase risk to u.s. and european strategic interests in the next two years and beyond. what is your assessment of the current situation? do you see these threats continuing to impact not just the united states but our allies? >> yes, senator. and it's continued to grow in the last year as i mentioned and it also is because of the ungoverned space in libya that also contributes to migration challenges that our european partners are facing. i think i agree with all of those statements made last year. >> as we look at libya and really how unstable this area of the world has become and the

impact, the negative impact it's having on not just that area but as you said with migration in europe, as well, are we going to see a unity government form? is there any hope that that is going to happen or are we going to continue to see the threats grow faster than the possibility of the formation of a unity government? >> i think the unity government as encouraged by everybody has a chance of moving forward. it will be dependent upon how they handle spoilers who are really not in it for the future of libya. so that will be the real determining factor. the other concern right now for the building of the government and the ability for libyans to contribute towards stabilization is the resources which have continued to go -- their ability to generate resources continue to generate over time. as the instability has

increased. so that's the real risk now, ma'am. >> in your best military advice, what are the additional steps that could possibly be taken in order to combat that threat that is in libya against the formation of the unity government? what are the steps that you see that we could take? >> the first course is to continue to press on all the diplomatic to get some kind of government that can function enough that is legitimate enough on the eyes of the people that it can function properly. on the military side it's all about working with our partners, first of all, all around libya whether it's the european union in the north who has a mission going on to help with the migrant situation or nato both have missions in the mediterranean sea, as well as shoring up all the partners around as an example tunisia which we have done a good job of

helping to build capacity to withstand the challenges there. and somehow at some point in time they are going to have to, the international community will have to figure out how to halt the expansion of daesh and degrade it so that this government has a chance to move forward. >> so you do believe that the formation of this government it's going to take outside help in order to stabilize this area? >> yes, i do. >> do you have any idea on who our partners would be in that, besides the european union? do we have partners outside of that? >> nato as i mentioned also has a mission in the mediterranean sea. european union as you mentioned. the real critical partners who continued to work are uk, france, italy as well as spain and germany. >> and do we have a plan moving forward on that? >> yes, we do, ma'am. >> and general votel, are you

concerned that the threat may outpace that political reconciliation in libya? >> i am. as general rodriguez pointed out that is a long term proposition. i think we do have to be concerned about that. >> general austin, have you seen cooperation between syrian kurdish groups and russia? >> we have seen some cooperation between the ypg element that's in the northwestern part of the country with the russians. >> is it frequent cooperation? >> i would characterize it as infrequent but, again, they are going to turn to the folks that they think can provide them capability when they need it most. >> have the kurdish groups attacked syrian rebels supported

by us? >> there is evidence of that. >> do you see that growing? >> i don't see it growing. i think right now during the cessation of hostilities we don't see much activity at all. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> thanks, mr. chair. thank you all for your distinguished service to our nation. general votel, i noticed in your testimony reference to enhancing our relationships with special operators from other countries, the interoperability of our activities with theirs, is that an area you see as a priority? if so what can we do to support it? >> thank you, senator. it is an area that i see as priority. in fact, over the last several years we have incorporated it into liaison officers from about

17 or 18 different foreign soft forces who are integrated with us right in our headquarters as a demonstration of how important we think it is. i think what you can do is continue to support our efforts in that regard. frankly, i think the biggest challenges that we have working with international partners is falling to information sharing arrangements we have with them. i find that is a friction point that we continue to work through. i think anything we can do in those regards would be very positive. >> is information sharing also an issue when it comes to other united states agencies such as the dea, the fbi? i noticed the reference in your testimony to those agencies, as well. >> i think in general, senator, that has improved a lot. i don't see those as significant obstacles. most of those agencies have representatives in my

headquarters, and they help smooth any potential conflicts we have. so i think our interchange of information and sharing with them is quite good. >> over the years we have heard testimony both in secure settings and in public settings such as this one about the opportunities and the failings to interdict illicit substances, heroin, opium which not only undermines our activities in some countries abroad, afghanistan being an example, but also, threatens our national security at home. in fact, we are debating now a measure on the floor of the senate called the comprehensive addiction and recovery act which aims to prevent as well as treat

addiction to illicit substances in our country. and i wonder if you could comment on both the opportunities and the potential failings of our nation in addressing those problems of interdicting and stopping the flow of heroin and other substances to this country and the growing of it in other countries. >> i think as you know we have had a long-term plan in countries like columbia that u.s. special operations forces and others have supported that have had some success to it. we do conduct a number of activities in southern regions here to support some of our partners in those particular efforts. and in most cases we begin to see some success when we do that. i think they look for our leadership, they look for our

partnership, the look to our expertise in helping them with that and i think what we generally see with those countries that we partnered with we see success and better efforts. certainly, the problem is extensive, and so, i think our focus on interdiction routes is important. in my view and my experience the same routes over which drugs travel, humans travel, foreign terrorist fighters could travel. i think these are multipurpose threats to us that have to be addressed very, very seriously. >> in some sense the flow of heroin is along the same routes as terrorists travel as other kinds of threats to our nation may come to this country. >> in my experience, senator, i think that is true. >> thank you very much. thank you for your excellent testimony today. thanks, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thanks to all of you for being

here and for all you do for the security of our country. general rodriguez, the "new york times" report from february 27 recounted at the time when intervention in libya was being discussed then secretary bob gates stated that libyan leader moammar gadhafi quote was not a threat to us anywhere closed quote and then director of defense intelligence agency quoted gadhafi was a thug in a dangerous neighborhood but keeping order, closed quote. general rodriguez, how has the chaos in libya, specifically the proliferation of weapons from gadhafi's stockpiles and the infiltration of isis and al qaeda affiliates, led to further destabilization of north africa and the middle east and

threatened our security interests? >> thank you, senator. the first effects of that destabilization was probably in mali when many of the fighters as well as arms ammunitions explosives headed that way which created some of the challenges down there. so it has destabilized north africa all the way down to mali. the other challenge is the militias who have grown up and around and use many of the ammunition stocks for their power and influence not only internal to libya but external to its neighbors. and then the challenges have continued to grow because of isis and its brand of terrorism to threaten places like tunisia. and then, of course, the destabilized and the total chaos in the area there has contributed to the migrant problem.

>> thank you. in a long report last week from the "new york times" it was made clear that then-secretary of state clinton and the white house were persuaded to support western intervention in libya in 2011 largely due to pressure from western european and arab allies that seem to indicate that they would lead the operations allowing the united states to lead from behind as it was put at the time. what's your assessment of the involvement of european and arab nations in libya now after that intervention has now led to chaos and sort of islamist insurrection? >> i think as secretary said many times i think we would all hope that many of the european nations would do more in this arena.

>> the united states has been supporting saudi arabia's military initiative in yemen now for over a year. this one is for general austin. sharing intelligence and providing logistical support. this time the houthis have not been driven out and the humanitarian crisis that is there seems to be exacerbated. terrorist groups like aqap and isis affiliates are able to have safe haven and gain strength, finances and weaponry in the conflict. general austin, what is your overall goal in supporting the saudis in yemen? and would you assess the saudis intervention in yemen thus far as being successful? >> first of all, i assess that the current state of play in

yemen is that they are at an operational stalemate. i think both sides have pushed hard against each other and because neither one has an overwhelming advantage they don't seem to -- neither one feels a need to come to the table and negotiate in earnest. having said that i think even though i characterize it as operational stalemate i think is trending towards the coalition, the saudi-led coalition, because of some incremental gains made here recently. our goal is to support the coalition in their efforts to reestablish the legitimate government in yemen. we are hopeful that we can bring the saudis will be able to --

the coalition will be able to bring to the table and negotiate a settlement to allow the government to come back in and re-establish itself. if it does that it will enable us to work with that government to do more to counter terrorist networks like aqap. we will be able to do more. but it doesn't mean we're not doing nothing right now, senator. as you know we are with all the means that we have available we are pressurizing aqap on a daily basis. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chair. general austin, could you give us a quick update on the status of the investigation into the allegations of corruption of the intelligence analysis function in centcom? >> yes, senator. the investigation's ongoing.

the dod continig continues its k and as i said from the beginning the leadership will do everything within its power to support the efforts of dod ig to get to the bottom -- >> do we have a projected date? it has been some time since that investigation. >> it has been. i would differ to provide the ig to confirm that date. >> did you stand up investigation of your own of these allegations being the principle victim of them? >> as you know it would be inappropriate for me to do that while dod ig investigation's ongoing. >> and you don't have any idea of when the ig will be completing work? >> i don't, sir. i hope it is soon. i would also tell you as i said before if the ig or the

investigation finds out or determines that there have been inappropriate actions i will take the appropriate measures to address whatever the infractions were. >> thank you. >> you know, it's important to me that my intelligence analysts and all of my subordinates provide me unvarnished input. on a routine basis. >> i understand that. that is why i characterized you as the principle victim. if you're not getting good intelligence, it compromises your ability to perform your function. let me change the subject for a moment. afghanistan, the current schedule is 9,800 to 5,500 on january 1st of '17. the problem as i see it is to get to 5,500 you can't just turn a switch on december 31st. there's got to be a drawdown of some kind starting probably in late summer. are you concerned given the heightened level of taliban activity that we would be making

a mistake by embarking upon a drawdown of that nature to get back to the football analogy of 10 yard line or 5 yard line? it concerns me that we again are back into being calendar driven rather than conditions driven. >> yes, sir. as -- the way i view this is that you have to have a plan. and you build that plan on the facts and you make assumptions at the time that you build that plan. >> given the -- you've testified to a heightened level of taliban activity and greater stress on afghan forces. isn't it time to assess that plan now? if we wait until august or september we are already in the midst of a drawdown. >> sir, that's where i was going. as the facts change and as the assumptions are no longer valid it is appropriate to go back and review that plan and make adjustments as required. >> is that happening right now? is there a reassessment

underway? >> well, the new commander is on the ground and he is assessing things now. at all levels we will take a look at this and make the appropriate recommendations to the leadership. >> i certainly hope that we don't find ourselves in a situation where we are drawing down at a time when both in terms of personnel and authorities we need more authority to maintain the really significant gains that have been achieved. general rodriguez, is al shabaab and boko haram growing? are they adding members and i know they don't hold territory but are they adding areas of influence? >> boko haram does own some significant territory in northern nigeria as does al shabaab in limited areas of somalia, senator. and right now in somalia there has been a tactical upswing in

somali or, i'm sorry, al shabaab activities. i think that is a tactical change right now, and we are doing everything we can to support the troop contributing countries to ensure that is just a temporary change. >> final question. general austin, the cessation of hostilities would you characterize it as locking in of regime position? cessation of hostilities in insurgency seems to me always favor the regime. how do you characterize where we are now? is this a pause or predecessor to peace talks or is this locking in the regime? >> left to be seen what the outcome is going to be, senator, but clearly, the goals of the cessation of hostilities would be to allow humanitarian assistance to get to disadvantaged ople. that's happening. that's a really good thing.

the other thing that we want to happen is for this to lead to talks and eventually a better outcome. we are hopeful that that would happen. that's left to be seen. we can expect there could be incremental tactical gains made by the regime and supported by the russians, but i think that long term the russians don't own the clock. and so, if we reach a point where this drags out for an extremely long period of time, then i think it is going to play to the disadvantage. >> and the cessation of hostilities is better than all out war we were seeing before? >> absolutely. >> on behalf of the chairman, senator koch. >> thank you for your testimony

mere today and your long service to our country particularly the two who may no longer have the pleasure of appearing before our committee any longer. general austin, i want to take stock of russia's intervention in syria president obama and several senior administrator officials used words like quagmire. how would you take stock of russia's intervention given the stated objectives? are they achieving their objectives at acceptable cost to putin regime? >> i can't speak to exactly what their specific objectives were but i can tell you, senator, that my assumption would be that they wanted to make a substantial difference as fast as they could and transition to something else very, very quickly. they have not been able to do that and i think what they are finding out is this could go on for some time. >> you stay on page 12 of your testimony. it is apparent through russia's actions that primary action is to bolster the assad regime and skipping down a few lines, you

say assad would almost certainly not be in power if not for robust support by iran and russia. if that is one of their key objectives, is it fair to say they are meeting the objective of stabilizing the assad regime? >> they have certainly bolstered and empowered the assad regime, yes, sir. >> you say further on page 13 none of russia's military actions have helped stabilize syria or end the suffering of the syrian people. could you elaborate on that statement? >> we still see thousands and thousands of civilians being disadvantaged. the barrel bombs continue. so this is -- their intervention has not made things better for the people of syria. >> can you give a rough estimate -- i know it won't be exact -- but a rough estimate of how much of russia's air strikes are targeting islamic state positions and personnel versus nonislamic state positions?

>> i would say a small percentage, sir. i think as you know what they said was that they wanted to come in and counter terrorism or counter daesh. what we have witnessed is in almost all cases they have gone after counter regime forces. >> you ferter note on page 10 that russia's cooperation with iran appears to be expanding beyond near term coordination for operations in syria and is moving towards emerging strategic partnership. could you say more about that emerging strategic partnership? >> it remains to be seen where this ends up but we have seen a strengthening of that relationship as time has passed. russia came in, aligned itself with the regime and also iran and lebanese hezbollah. what i worry about is if that relationship between syria, russia and iran develops further

then it will present a problem for the region. >> on page 21 you state something similar there. they, iran, also continue to support some shiite surrogate groups in saudi arabia, houthis in yemen, further complicates the security environment as they look to expand their cooperation in areas that include the sale of high-end weapons. could you say a little more about the high-end weapons that worry you? >> we have seen recently some sale of high-end air defense capability from russia to iran. and that's a problem for everyone in the region. and also, coastal defense cruise missiles as that type of technology migrates from russia

to iran it will eventually wind up in the hands of lebanese hezbollah. >> i am glad you raised coastal offense cruise missiles. i would like to ask a question. eastern mediterranean, north africa, all kind of sits at the ao s as well as european command. but what are the implications for a long-term permanent presence with the robust modernized weapons that russia has in syria? what are the implications for our sea control of mediterranean, some of our allies in the region? >> there are potential threats there, senator. and i think -- you know, russia has had a presence in this region as you know for some time. and i think we would have to do everything we can as a part of international community to put pressure on russia to make sure that these weapons are not -- that they don't move around the region freely. >> general rodriguez? >> i agree.

i know general brelov does, too. we talk about this and this is important for it not to get anywheres. >> and, general rodrigz, if i could shift topics my final question, what can you tell us about ongoing violence in berudi, specifically, the extent to which old ethnic rivalries are driving that conflict and the impact it could have on the great lakes region more broadly? >> yes, senator. thank you. the violence thus far is mainly of political violence and has not degenerated to the direct ethnic issues that you talk about that have occurred as you know in the past. we are watching that every single day to make sure that that does not grow. but most of it is politically motivated, ethnically motivated. >> thank you very much.

>> on behalf of the chairman, mr. nelson. >> thank you, chairman. gentlemen, thank you for your public service. thank yougeneral austin, for your long, enduring public service. we have been proud to have you as a citizen of tampa. as with general votel. and he will continue to be a citizen of tampa for a while. let me ask you about libya. do we have the capability, general rodriguez, to prosecute a war in libya against isis while at the same time going after them in other parts of the world, including iraq and syria? >> senator, i think the answer to that is yes. it's a question of how much risk

the nation has to take with the readiness of the forces and how much you are going to commit versus how much you're going to maintain. >> and as i understand it you all have a recommendation to the white house. obviously, you can't share that. that's internal conversation, but in your status of forces, you feel that you've got the capability that if the president's decision is to go after isis and other extremist elements in libya that we have the ability to thwart those elements? >> yes, sir. i do, senator. >> thank you. would any of you want to comment on the efforts around here to cut back on your headquarters staff?

>> we have worked out hard throughout the headquarters to figure out where the best place to cut that and that continues to move forward. and we'll support the efforts we are required to take. >> we clearly want to leverage all of the capabilities that exist to the entire system, senator. we want to avoid duplication of effort wherever possible. as you look at u.s. central command, as you know, sir, as mentioned earlier we are involved with four major military operations simultaneously if you include afghanistan, iraq and syria, yemen and then this current battle against -- ongoing battle

against terrorists in the region. it takes a fair amount of effort to maintain all of that, and also, do things to promote stability and security throughout the region, as well. but the effort to cut back on staff applies to everyone. you fully appreciate i have to do my part. but again, you know, we also need the capability to maintain the efforts that we're involved in. >> senator nelson, i would agree with the comments that have already been made on that. certainly, there are opportunities for us to simplify and stream line and reduce duplication. we should always be looking at that. the concern that i would have so common is we did make decisions in the past to move people from our headquarters to theaters special operations command. we have recognized this in the past. we certainly should continue to look at how we create more efficiencies and certainly more

effectiveness in how we are doing our headquarters responsibilities. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the three of you for your outstanding service to our country. general austin. in particular. i want to thank you for all you have done for the army and america. i had the opportunity to serve with you a decade ago is a highlight of my military career although i must say i am concerned about the lack of marines sitting behind you. i know that -- that was a joke. in all seriousness to the staff, too, i know how much they put into these kinds of testimonies so i want to thank all of you men and women sitting behind you. i wanted to follow up on senator mccain's and senator cotton's comments on the iranian weapon sales from russia to iran particularly the s-300 missile defense system.

there was a recent article that talked about that system which would be capable of rendering iranian skies inaccessible for most u.s. and israeli jets. one thing that hasn't come up in the testimony, isn't that just a blatant violation of the u.n. security council conventional weapons ban against sales to the iranians that's still in existence? and a violation of the current iranian nuclear deal that the united states and other countries signed? >> senator, i don't know if it's a violation of the nuclear deal. i'll have to research that a bit. but clearly, it's concerning to everyone. these are things that will increase the amount of effort required to do whatever work we need to do. we will certainly find the ways and means to get the job done if required to do that.

this makes it more difficult but not impossible, senator. >> i want to turn -- the three of you have decades of experience with regard to the service in the u.s. army. earlier we were talking about a lot of focus on our special operations troops. seems less focussed in my view on our conventional army. as you know the qdr in 2014 required the army to get down to a number of 450,000 active duty soldiers. i think general millie and others in the army are looking at that as bringing very high levels of risk given the new security challenges that our nation faces, not only in centcom and africom aors but

really all over the world. i would like your professional military opinion on that number given the increased threats that you personally see in your different aors, the transnational terrorists that you are focussed on, general votel. do you agree with statements that our army is getting dangerously small given the current threat environment and that the number of 450,000 troops in terms of active duty army is too high a risk given our current threats? in your professional military judgment. >> in my judgment i do agree with general millie and the comments he's made in regards to that. i would just add as i mentioned in my comments here that as the special operations commander we are extraordinarily dependent on services and the army in particular because of what they bring in institutional and infrastructure capability that we are absolutely and 100% dependent on. i am concerned as these

reductions take place the impact that it has on us directly and indirectly. >> so, general, that's a great point because i think there's a lot of focus in this committee that, well, we don't need big conventional forces. we don't need airborne forces anymore. we have great special operators. and they are great special operations. but they certainly can't do it all in today's threat environment, isn't that correct? >> senator, i couldn't agree with you more. i would not want to give anybody the impression that special operations command had all the capabilities it needed to do the operations that we do. literally everything we do is supported by some conventional force whether isr from air force, basing from the army, logistics support, at sea capabilities by the navy. so we are extraordinarily dependent on all of the services to support our activities. >> general rodriguez, general austin, can you comment on your

professional military judgment on what you think the number right now in terms of 450,000 active duty army does to our nation's security? >> i absolutely agree with the chief of staff of the army. that is high risk and how he characterized that because of the both the current operations that are going on with counter terrorism as well as the threats from the four major challenges out there between korea, iran, china and russia. thank you. >> as you know, senator, in a former life, i was the vice chief of staff in the army. i was concerned about the direction that we were headed then and certainly even more concerned now. and i do agree with the general millie's comments. >> 450 is too small? >> yes, sir. we are getting dangerously small here. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's hard for me to believe, general roz, it's been nine years.

before that time you remember it as part of three different comes including the pac com. i remember back during the clinton administration i was opposed to sending the troops into bosnia and the excuse being used at the time was because of ethnic cleansing. i recall saying on the senate floor for every person that's been ethnically cleansed in bosnia there had been 100 in west african countries. it was something that was needed. it was brought up by senator -- i can't remember which one it was. i think it was cotton about berundi. that there is a problem. there are a lot of problems in africa. they don't rise to the top where you can see it but the president there is one that our state department opposed and i would

like to know were you -- it is my understanding because i know him personally. i have been with him several times. i have been to berundi. he was put into office. but it was not an election. and the reason our state department was opposed to him running again because the term limits -- the term limits would have set in if that first term had been considered a whole term. you follow me there so far? and then when the courts came around, the supreme court in berundi and agreed he was entitled to run again and then i think i always believe one of the big political problems you pointed to in answering senator cotton's question is the fact that our state department was very active in that race. our state department was very objected to the fact that he is running again, that he was running again in spite of the fact that their supreme court made that decision. did you have thoughts on that at

the time or were you involved in that discussion? >> i was not involved in that discussion, senator. my thoughts continue to be focused on the military and their role. >> good. i appreciate that. i wish the state department sometimes would follow that advice, too. there are other problems brought out here. we have been talking about libya and boko haram and northern nigeria, al shabaab in somalia. other than those and the discussion on libya, what otherñ areas do you see are taking place really hot issues right now in africa other than the three i just mentioned? >> sir, obviously, al qaeda and us lamic and across northern mali and then you already mentioned berundi but we have challenges like that in both south sudan and central african republic. >> maybe in zimbabwe, too.

with some of the problems we have down there. south sudan, that's an interesting situation because i remember for years they wanted independence and then they finally get it and then end up in a civil war. what's the situation on that civil war? >> the civil war continues and both the leaders are being obstructionists. people to limit the ability of that government to get back together again. >> they are supposedly right now no ethiopia i think it is having peace talks. do you see anything productive going on there? >> well, first, the fact that the regional partners are pressing them diplomatically to come to a solution is a very, very good sign. i think that, unfortunately, that's happened before, and we have not seen progress and we are hoping for a break through this time. >> one last area i have been

interested. in 2005 i had two senators with me. boseman and mike enzi. and that was the first time that the lra had surfaced in the minds of people as to how serious that thing was and joseph cody while he started there ended up going as far south as congo and maybe western rwanda and then the central african republic. just last week, one of his top people, you probably pronounce it better than i can. was done away with. now we over the years we found others of his top people, joseph koni. it seems like he continues to go on even though the level of the abductions and tragedies subsided quite a bit. do you agree with that? >> yes, we do. we continue to pursue him with the african union task force. >> that's all i care about.

thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chair: one to follow up on the chairman's opening statement when he that you canned about the mike management warfare, strategic, operational, tactical and how when you go down that level there is obviously some civilian involvement but further down the conventional wisdom is less civilian involvement. one of the classic criticisms of the vietnam war and the conduct of that war is how it was micromanaged. pictures of president johnson in the white house picking targets in vietnam is often seen as a symbol of mismanagement of that war. and yet let me give you a couple of quotes from articles that talk about what seems to be extreme levels of micromanagement. i know these aren't easy questions.

i would like to get your view on it. there's a wall street journal headline article that says campaign is being designed to allow president obama to exert a high degree of personal control going so far as to require the military obtain presidential sign offs for strikes in syrian territory. similarly, former secretary gates recently said when he was talking about operational micromanagement said it drove me nuts to have nsc staffers calling senior commanders out in the field second guessing these commanders. when i was deputy national security adviser if i try to call a field commander going around secretary of defense i would have had my head handed to me probably personally by the president. does the white house approve

targets in terms of our operations in syria? if so, is it helpful to have 20 somethings with no military experience on the staff guessing what commanders or second guessing what our commanders are doing in the field? does that happen? in the wall street journal it said the president would approve military targets in syria. does that help our operational tempo? it seems like it is micromanaging not even operational level of warfare but down to tactical which i think most of us think is a huge mistake. care to comment on that? i know it is not an easy question but to the extent you can be frank about that and how you see micromanagement would be helpful to us. >> the question as to whether or not the white house approves our strikes or picks our targets in syria, that is an easy answer.

and the answer is no. that doesn't happen. >> they don't approve targets strike packages or targets that were focussed on in syria in terms of what we are bombing or anything like that? >> no, senator. that doesn't happen. we have a process where we generate the intelligence. it goes into our target analysis, target generation process and then it's approved by military commanders. >> and then related to that there was when the iranians took our sailors prisoner for that time, was there involvement? how did that happen in terms of roes? we had sailors out there with 50 caliber machine guns. they are pretty forceful weapons. was there involvement there from higher political forces that talked about roes that we can't return fire?

how did our sailors get captured by iranian forces? why didn't they return fire when they had the iranians come upon them? >> to answer your question as to whether or not there was intervention from a higher level in the white house in this particular incident the answer is absolutely not. things unfolded fairly rapidly with these young sailors. it is -- the investigation on that has just been completed. it has been forwarded up through channels to be reviewed. it will take a bit more time for it to be finalized. but what you know has been reported in the sailors veering off course, had a mechanical issue that they addressed and stopped to address and when they

did it they were detained by iranians. in terms of specifics on what happened between the iranians and the sailors, that will come out as the result of the investigation. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> it is interesting in the hearings how it matters how the question is asked. i think facts are stubborn things. for example, for 16 months we did not bomb the fuel trucks that isis was using generating millions and millions of dollars in oil revenues. it's a fact that it was a recommendation that we hit those oil trucks. it wasn't turned down. it was never approved. this is what is so infuriating to so many of us. for 16 months these fuel trucks were unmolested and god knows how many millions of dollars of fuel revenues were generated.

16 months later we finally dropped leaflets and told drivers to get out of their trucks. this hearing is adjourned. [ no audio ]

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tonight on c-span3, an update on military operations against isis in iraq and syria. france's interior minister discusses the counterterrorism efforts after the paris attacks. public health experts on how to p prevent the spread of the zika virus in the united states. from baghdad, army colonel steve warren gave an update on military operations against isis. he answered questions about air strikes against chemical weapon facilities and military policy on detaining of isis fighters. this is 45 minutes. >> steve, good afternoon.

the down button is not working. there we go. thank you. steve, it's -- i had to push the kirby button. it's a pleasure to see you back on that end. thank you for joining us today. we will turn it over to you. good morning. >> good morning, jeff. good morning, pentagon press corps. so i've got a brief opening statement and we'll jump into questions. on march 8, the 82nd airborne division relinquished command of the combined joint force land component command to the 101st airborne division air assault. that happened during a ceremony here in baghdad, like i said, on 8 march. the mighty all americans of the 82nd division showed their meddle here for nearly a year. they earned the trip home back to see their families, all the way. it was a pleasure serving with

the 82nd. together with the coalition, the screaming eagles of the mighty 101st division will continue to work by, with and through iraqi security forces to make against against isil. with that, let's move on to the battlefield. tom or jeff, if you could pull the map up. in ramadi, which is star number one, the iraqi 76th brigade and the counter terrorist service continued operations just north of ramadi. they have cleared nearly 11 kilometers of along two axis. jumping up a little further north in mosul, which is circle number one, coalition aircraft helped the iraqi army complete a leaflet drop yesterday. i have a copy of the leaflet here to show you.

i'm not show -- it's either hard copy or they have the digital vision. i will let them handle that. while that's happening, i think it's interesting to note on the leaflet job that we have seen some reporting indicated that the leaflet job may have struck a little bit of a nerve with isil. according to reports, we have seen isil lock down the population in the neighborhood where the leafle fell. they went out there -- isil went out there and picked up the leaflets. when you see the leaflet, you will see it's kind of a leaflet intended to let the population in mosul know they haven't been forgotten and the iraqi security forces are going to come liberate them. moving on to the rest of the battlefield. back down south, star six, the corridor, the isf have begun a new operation. it's called desert lynx. the pup of desert lynx is to

fight up the river valley and to eventually clear the area. progress so far has been good. cts moves north from a suburb of ramadi and the iraqi army begins to push south. to eventually get there. moving over to syria. star number seven. opposition forces continue to engage isil along the forward line of troops there. earlier this week, opposition forces seize ed two areas. unfortunately, isil counter attacks and forced the opposition to withdraw. while the opposition was not able to hold that town, we're pleased that we have seen the willingness and ability of the forces to plan and execute offensive operations. we look forward to seeing more of that.

star number nine on the map, in the last week the syrian democratic forces seized that town. in the process, they closed off nearly 2,500 square kilometers of isil controlled terrain. friendly forces are now working through the clearance of the pocket. in total during the operations to seize the area, the sdf, syrian democratic forces, gained 3,126 square kilometers. they were supported by over 150 coalition air strikes. strikes alone killed just short of 600 enemy fighters, destroyed 42 vehicles, a dozen heavy weapons and 126 enemy for tt fortifications. >> i have a new circle in southern syria in the lower and

left third of the map. in that town, syrian opposition forces seized an isil-held garrison on march 4th. that's in the tri-border area. we also supported that with some strikes. so that's it for my walk around the battlefield. i wanted to keep it short so we can get to your questions. with that, i think i saw lina sitting there. >> steve, just one quick question on your leaflet drop. it sounds then as though the population probably didn't get to see a lot of these leaflets if, as you are saying is correct, the isil forces picked them up. is this something that the u.s. is going to keep doing over time or was this viewed as not a success because it didn't get to the people? i have a second question.

>> so to be clear on the leaflets, these leaflets were planned and designed and printed and everything by the iraqi army. they asked us for some help dropping the leaflets. so we provided that. my guess is that, yes, they will probably continue to conduct these leaflet drops. unlikely that the enemy is able to pick up every single leaflet. because they drop them in the thousands, tens of thousands. so some will get through. this is just another method. one of the things that it the iraqi army is trying to do is to connect with that population there in mosul to let them know, we haven't forgotten about you. you can see in the leaflet where they list all the cities that they have liberated so far, ramadi. i think the purpose of -- the reason the iraqi army wanted to get that in there is to bolster moral and give hope to the citizens there in mosul.

i expect you will see more of that. not everyone can be successucce. it's no reason to stop trying. >> second question is on air strikes. there has been confusion here. i was hoping you might be able to clear it up. the daily strike press releases that we get, can you give us a sense of whether or not all air strikes are included in those press releases? and can you say if not, what are the types of things that aren't included? give us a sense of the breadth and depth of that. >> sure. in fact, i took some calls yesterday. since then, i went and did a little additional research. i intent today resear i spent today researching this for you guys. what i discovered was generally good news. we do everything we can to report every single strike on those releases.

we have missed one or two for admin errors. these happen. but our standard is that if a bomb falls in iraq or syria, it makes it to that press release. yesterday, i was under a different impression. i thought some of our special ops strikes were excluded from those releases. i have since done the research. turns out that, no, even the special ops strikes are included on those press releases. we don't single them out as having been conducted by special operations forces. but they are on those releases. to answer your question more cleanly, every bomb that is dropped is reported out on those strike releases, whether it's a high value individual or a bunker or a tactical unit or a chemical weapons facility. now, that gets us to the next

part of this, which are is how specific are we on the description of the targets? so, for example, on a high value individual, often what you will see -- for example, the omar the chechen who we killed order we struck earlier. that was folded into one of the strike releases. it read a small tactical unit is what it said, in the vicinity. maybe it said something else. a small tactical unit. because that's what it was. it was omar the chechen along with about a dozen other fighters who were in one spot, is the definition of a small tactical unit. and we struck it. so that's how we write it out. on the chem weapons facility we

struck earlier in the week as a result of intelligence that we gained from capturing the emir, that got listed out as weapons facility. then so the question is, why not list it as a chemical weapons facility? that's a fair question. frankly, we probably could have listed it as a chem weapons facility. it was really admin process on that one. it's important to note in some of these, we do very consciously vague it up a little. right? we're consciously vague. because we don't want the enemy to know what we know. we learned that lesson the hard way, frankly. when we did the first set of dash cache strikes, we got ahead and said we hit it.

sure enough, it moved. so we didn't like that. we could have just kind of said, we struck a building and left it at that. the enemy might not have realized we were targeting their cache. hopefully, that explains it. >> did you say that omar the chechen is dead? >> you broke up. can you ask that again? >> did you say the chechen is dead? >> no. i said he was struck. so we initially thought we killed him. here is what happened on that one. there was 13 total personnel when the bomb hit. we know that 12 of them are dead and one of them managed to limp away.

so we figure the odds were in our favor on that. we have seen some reporting out of some of the syrian observers outside of the country indicating that he may, in fact, have lived. we're looking into it. the bottom line is we're not sure. we know we bombed him. we just don't know if we killed him. >> hi. missy ryan. there was a report today from a group of aide organizations and non-profits that have been involved in humanitarian assistance in syria. they blamed among others the united states and its european allies for what they said was stoking the conflict in syria, making it worse rather than making it better, because ofqái arming groups there and then sort of just being part of this bigger proxy conflict. what's your reaction to that?

>> i haven't seen the report. but based on your description, we disagree. we believe that there is a legitimate international terror threat living inside of syria that international terrorist group is named isil. we believe that they have to be defeated. you know, this is a struggle of savagery against humanity, civilization against evil. this is not a struggle that we can simply turn our backs on in our view. so we believe that isil must be defeated. and so that's what we are endeavoring to do. barbara. >> colonel warren, while you point out that you report every bomb that drops in syria and iraq, what can you tell us about in recent days -- land-based

artillery strike, the u.s. conducted out of jordan, into southern syria? and how that would not be an expansion of the land combat role that you have. what can you tell us about this jordanian-based strike you conducted? >> so that was a high mark strike out of northern jordan in support of the operation. the brand-new circle i showed on the map earlier, it was in support of that operation to seize that garrison there. we have reported out the use of high marchs. we have been firing those since last summer.

it's a very versatile and flexible weapon system. we're able to use it as an all-weather system with pinpoint accuracy. it's every bit as accurate as the air-based strikes that we use. but that's all it is. it's another platform to conduct strikes. there weren't that -- i think it was three. we just fired three shots in support of the operation. but it's a good indicator that we can integrate with these southern-based opposition forces. and we fully intend to continue leveraging that. i think two things. number one -- two things we heard from the secretary many times is that we are going to find methods and techniques that work, and we're going to do more of those methods and techniques. this sean exampis an example of. six or so months ago during testimony the secretary talked

about how in our overall strategy includes strengthening the defense of jordan. right? this is something that we're very keenly aware of. the jordanians have been very close partners. to us in the fight against terror at large. certainly they have borne a heavy burden of displaced persons and migrants out of syria. so we are absolutely happy to help them. >> in this case, what made it a decision -- why couldn't you for the town -- the place you were trying to support where the fighting was going on, a couple of things. why couldn't you just use air? why this very unusual step of going the way you did? were you concerned about either regime or russian air defenses in that location for your

aircrafts, since it is a relatively new area for you to be involved in combat? secondly, is this the first land-based combat mission -- land-based out of jordan? and third, most important, will you go back to including in these press releases your artillery land-based artillery roct strikes which we have been told you are not including in the releases specifically? in other words, can you make these releases have more than just air strikes on them so we have a full understanding of what's happening? >> okay. i wasn't taking notes. so we will have to go back and forth a little bit here. i guess i will start with the last one. at strike was listed on there. i got a few calls about it. even though i was on leave.

it was just -- we call it rocket artillery. if you go back to the releases, you will see it listed on there. it was the first one there. we don't list every platform that -- in other words, if we drop a bomb in mosul, we don't say a bomb dropped in mosul by type of aircraft. we're not going to say bomb dropped fired by a high mar system. we're just not going to that. but i think -- i know that we mentioned the high mars, the fact that we used rockets in that day's press release. i think we're probably going to keep doing it that way. so this is the second operation in that town. the opposition forces conducted a mortar raid there probably

three months ago, which i briefed out from this podium. that one we didn't -- we did not con -- we might have to go back and look. we might have done some early strikes, like, hours before as sort of preparation. those were aircraft at the time. and then the opposition forces infiltrated across the border. they conducted their mortar rate and they exfigot out. it's the second shot. now they have taken -- they are holding a piece of terrain there. so that's good news. i can't remember if you had any other questions. >> why this time land-based -- land-combat based strike by the united states? why not air? did u.s. troops acompa s s acco on the ground raid several

months ago? >> okay. so, no, they did not. u.s. troops did not accompany on that. nor did they accompany on this one. why do we select high mars? i don't know, frankly. that's what the weaponeers decide. it was the system available. that weapon system worked for that target set. that's how we do it. they decide. had nothing to do with air defenses, nothing to do with any opposition situation. it was simply, we got the system, it's right here. we can use our aircraft somewhere elsewhere the high mars can't reach. it was simply a practical decision. >> hi, colonel warren. on the chemical facilities, could you give us a sense of how pervasive these chemical facilities are? are there a couple in the country? are they all over the place? for the strikes that we have

seen reported in the chemical weapons -- the group. they have noted a couple of strikes not too far away from where u.s. forces are training iraqi forces. have the u.s. forces taken any additional posture changes? are they wearing chemical suits? anything you can give us more visibility on that. >> well, there's no u.s. troops near there. so there's that. we are, of course, prepared, operating in a chemical environment. we always have. we have been being prepared to operate in a chemical environment in the nation of iraq since 1991. this is nothing new to us. we're very familiar with this threat. so we're ready. what was the rest of your question? >> i thought they were there.

maybe i'm mixing it up. basically, can you give us some sense of how pervasive these chemical facilities are throughout the country? >> well, this enemy has been very clear that they would like to employ chemical weapons as one of their tactics. they have done so several times now. that we know of. and several other times that we suspect and we're working through the process now of trying to determine it. so i mean, it's a legitimate threat. it's not a high threat. we're not frankly losing too much sleep over it. they used two chemicals, primarily. one is chlorine. the other one is sulfur mustard, a blister agent. chlorine is a common chemical.

it's the same that people use to purify water and put in their swimming pools and other things. it's a readily available industrial chemical. its fairly ineffective as a weapon because it's very non-persistent. it goes up, disappears. unless it lands on you, you are probably going to be okay. it dissipates very rapidly. the mustard, obviously, is more threatening. but the mustard that they are using is more kind of a home brew. it's not very potent. so frankly, i'm not aware of anyone having actually -- being killed from either of these chemical weapons used on the battlefield. so there's that. how much do they have? unknown. when we find it, we will strike it. this is something that we're working on to determine how

much -- i don't think it's probably one of their number one priorities. they've got other priorities. but it's something that they're wo working on. it's harder because they lost their leader. he is sitting right now in an iraqi holding cell. they have lost one of their principal chemical weapon production facilities, which we struck the other day. they have got less of it now than last week, i can tell you that. how much total they have, that's to be determined. >> when the emir was captured, a lot was said yesterday about how we couldn't be more transparent about this information because of the need for ongoing attacks. but i'm also getting -- maybe i'm getting it incorrectly from you. the sense that maybe the mustard and chlorine aren't as big of a threat as maybe they were advertised earlier this week. just give us a sense of how dangerous is this?

is there a need to not -- is there a need to keep where these chemical facilities are secret if the threat isn't as big as i guess maybe we thought it was? >> well, sure. we don't -- what we don't want is for the enemy to know what we know. right? i mean, that's what we try to protect. we try to prevent the enemy from knowing what we know. why? because that makes the life easier. that's not the business we're in. we're in the business of making their life harder. i mean, that's our fundamental, underlying operational security philosop philosophy. if the enemy knows -- the more the enemy knows about our knowledge, the better it is for him. we want to know what the enemy knows about us. because it's better for us. so that is the back and forth. we have to balance that, obviously, with our duty to be

transparent and to inform people of what's going on. how we're operating here. it's a difficult balance. we don't always get it right. we try our best. nobody wakes up in the morning trying to think about ways to withhold information from america. right? we do the opposite of that. that said, we do have to be careful. we don't want our enemy to have any more information that will help them. we understand that this discussion we're having right now is probably giving the enemy a little bit of help. but it's a risk analysis. right? we say, well it won't help them that much. it's very important america knows what we are doing. this is a daily thing we wrestle with. >> sir. >> one question. just for talking about some saudi arabia. they are backing some groups. do you have some confidence in

those very strong player on the ground? >> i'm sorry. you are going to have to repeat that a little bit slower. >> i want to talk with you about groups supports and backed by the saudis in syria. they are strong player on the ground. could you tell me about -- what about your confidence in those groups on the ground? >> right. yeah. we are gaining confidence in each one of the opposition groups that we identify and work with. i'm familiar with both of these groups. they are continuing to gain

successes. they're continuing to learn how to fight this enemy. i think they fight a little bit against isil and they fight a little bit against the regime. so they're in multiple places at once. we're familiar with these organizations. we're continuing to watch how they operate. >> actually, you say that your confidence with those groups. according for with some reports from human rights watch, the one group committed some atrocities against civilian minorities. what is your view about that? do you maintain that you have some confidence? just for maybe you know about that, that they have been funded by former al qaeda representatives in iraq. so could you be more specific in the confidence you have with those groups?

>> yeah. i can't be more specific. you know, there are almost uncountable number of small groups running around in syria. this is a tough, brutal, awful civil war. we want to partner with groups who are vetted and who are aligned with our objectives, which is to fight isil. so i would have to go back and check and see if we have vetted these groups. i do not believe we have. i do not believe that we are providing direct support to them. we are aware of their presence on the battlefield. >> last question about that. don't you think there is any kind of problem that some group funded by former al qaeda representatives receives support, money and weapons, from

saudi, which is a coalition member and a strong player inside the coalition member? could you be more specific and give me, if you can, your view about that? if any problem for the u.s. authorities to be -- to get some ally like that? >> we're not allied with those two groups. we're aware of their presence on the battlefield. what saudi arabia does with them is really, i think, a matter best addressed by the state department. you know, our goal here -- what we're doing is killing isil. right? that's what we do here. we're in the business of fighting isil. that's what we're going to continue to do. as we find groups who are aligned with our view that isil needs to be attacked and fought, then we will vet those groups. if they pass that vetting, then we will continue to work with those groups. in the pursuit of our ultimate

goal, which is defeat isil. >> hi, colonel warren. i want to go back to chemical weapon issue. can you please clarify how often isil is using chemical weapons in a daily basis in the conflict, in the battleground? do you confirm any major incident where they used chemical weapon? there are two major incidents which occurred in august 2015, one in syria, the other one in iraq. in the incident, they find a five-day-old baby was killed and the other 35 peshmergas according to the report. can you confirm they were conducted by isil? how are the facilities playing in the production process?

>> so there's been a number of suspected chem weapons strikes in the last year. some of those we have confirmed through lab testing. others we have not. i don't know which two you are referring to. i don't have a list in front of me. there's been a handful of them. you know, we continue to be concerned by these. you know, this is back to my discussion with tara earlier. the key thing about these chemical weapons, of course, is that they make everyone very nervous. they have a strong psychological impact, which is one of the reasons that we want to eliminate them. the other reason being that they're a weapon. the fewer weapons isil has, the better.

so i don't know which exact two strikes you are talking about. but i can confirm that there has been a handful of confirmed chem weapon strikes over the last year. and an additional handful of suspected that we are trying to work through to determine whether or not they actually were chem strikes or not. that's all i can remember from your question. >> mosul university and mustard gas production, are they using the facilities there? >> mosul university. so i don't know. i will have to check. we know that they have a presence in mosul university. we know there are some -- there's a chemistry department over there previously. presumably, there's equipment there that is useful. whether or not they're assembling chemical weapons there in the university, i don't

know. >> just one follow-up on the situation. last month, you said that you were considering to support the kurds in terms of their fight against isil. have you made a decision on this? where are you? do you have an update about the situation in the advancement of the kurds? >> no update on the situation with the kurds. andrew. >> colonel, back to the high mars in jordan. could you give us an update how many troops we have in jordan and what their mission is? >> i would have to get that -- will have to take that one. i don't have it at my fingertips. there's several types of missions of juror dan ordan.

we have a presence at the training center there. now we have also got some cjtf-specific operations that are going on. i think you will have to get the big picture elsewhere for cjtf, for us. it's the small high mars detachment. i don't have a number. it's small. double digits. david. >> steve, you have been talking about the strikes that were in response to the interrogation of that chemical weapons engineer. you've been talking about it in terms of one strike against a production facility in mosul. is that it? one strike? were there multiple strikes? if so, what were the other targets? >> there was two.

so far there's been two. one of them -- this just is how i'm doing it. one of them we have been looking at anyways. confirmed it through them. so got it. the other one we got from him completely. so one was already about to hit, both in mosul. i don't have the exact location but in the vicinity. that whole area is the thickest isil area in north. >> was the second one also described as a weapons production facility? >> it was. one of them was on sunday. the other one was on tuesday. >> quick question. general austin told the senate that he had recommended restarting the syria train and equip program.

could you tell us anything about that? i'm assuming this was base d recommendations from general mcfarland. >> phil, unfortunately, i'm going to have to take a pass on that one today. i hope i will be able to talk to you about it next week. next wednesday. i have to -- unfortunately, i just have to take a pass on that one today. i'm sorry. >> lucas. >> colonel warren, what is the u.s. military's policy on detaining isis operatives? >> our policy i guess would best be summed up as short-term and case by case. so there's only been two so far. neither one has been -- neither of those two has been the same.

in the case of the first one, we held on to her for some time and then eventually moved her over to the custody of the iraqi government. in the second case, this chemical guy, we only held on to him for a short time, about two weeks. then we moved him over. we're not equipped for long-term detention. we're not set up here for that. we're not in that business. but there's no real one size fits all answer. as we take people off the battlefield, we're just going to have to make the decisions as we go. >> what is the definition of short-term detention? is case by case -- is that the de facto policy? >> yeah. that is the policy. that's how we're approaching it here at the cjtf.

there isn't even a hard definition of short-term. 14 to 30 days as a ballpark figure. but even that is not really completely nailed down. >> how do i explain to my mother-in-law betty harper from mississippi and other americans out there who are a little confused that if this war against isis is this comprehensive war, it's by all accounts going ing ting to tak fight isis, how do you scare that withholdin a holding a de to 30 days when there's a lot of information to glean from this person months down the road? >> well, this is not a catch and release program, lucas. i mean, we capture them and then we don't have the means to hold them. we just give them to the iraqis to hold. if we have to go back and talk to them, we will talk to them.

if there's more information that comes out, if we have to confirm information, they're still in iraq. we will intear gate them more. >> are you considering building other facilities to hold these guys longer if necessary? >> no. >> just one more, colonel warren. there have been over the years have been numerous prison breaks in iraq from insurgents being freed. how confident are you that iraq can hold the isis members that you all helped capture and intear gate? >> we're confident they can hold them. if some escape, we will catch

them again or kill them. >> andrew. >> colonel warren, back on the high mars in jordan. quickly, this is the first time that detachment has conducted a strike. is that correct? also, has that detachment been there for a while? is it a relatively new presence and new option for you all? >> first time they have done anything. and i will have to check. they've been there, seems to me like it's been a couple of months. honestly, i can't exactly remember. i will have to take that one for you. i will get you the answer through roger. >> anybody else? yes, ma'am. >> jennifer ladd. i was wondering if you could repeat what the said at the first minute of what you said.

we couldn't hear you. >> i apologize. the first minute of your topper was cut. i hate to do this to you. as a closer, could you give us the first minute of your topper? >> absolutely. i think my topper was only two minutes long. i will give you the whole thing. here we go. on march 8, the 82nd airborne division relinquished command of the combined joint forces land component to the 101st air division during a sen moceremon in baghdad. the 82nd showed their meddle here and they have earned the trip back home to their families all the way. together with the coalition, the screaming eagles of the mighty 101st division will continue to work by, with and through the iraqi security forces to make gains against isil. on to the battlefields.

do i need to read the battlefield or no? >> no. >> we got it. we're up to where we picked up your audio. thank you very much. thank you for your time. look forward to seeing you next week. thanks to mrs. harper in mississippi and thank you, everybody. have a great weekend. >> thanks, guys. see you on wednesday. c-span's washington journal live with news and policy issues that impact you. tomorrow more than, christopher anders will join us to discuss a newly released report detailing the nearly 20 times that the defense department acknowledged deploying unmanned spy drones in the u.s. mr. anders will weigh in on the

privacy and legal implications of those deployments. daniel ikensons will be on to talk about how republican and democratic presidential candidates are not only criticizing past trade dueals ad then deals currently under consideration. then we will discuss the passing of nancy reagan who was an advocate of alzheimer's disease research. we will talk about the state of the disease and treatment in the u.s. watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. join the discussion. when i tune in to it on the weekends, usually it's authors sharing their new releases. >> watching the non-fiction

authors is the best television. >> the cy can have a longer conversation. >> book tv weekends. they bring you author after author after author that spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> i love book tv. i'm a c-span fan. [ applause ] the interior minister of france was in washington, d.c. he talked about france conducting count erterrorism attacks after the event. ambassador, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, i would like to thank you for welcoming me today. i am honored to be speaking in front of you at the prestigious george washington university where so many great american

political figures honed their skills. i am thinking of former secretaries of state, john foster dallas and colin powell as well as former first lady jackie kennedy. i also would like, of course, to warmly thank the members of the center of cyber and home security, especially the director who was kind enough to invite me to give you this lecture on france and the terror threat. france and the united states have a very long-shared history. and despite the occasional quarrel, we have always been bound by very strong, even passionate friendship. i would even describe it as a

unique friendship because when we are confronted to our times, we always pull together. after the attacks in france last year, i read the great american philosopher explain that for you the french are not seen, which is why you were so deeply affected. by the tragedy we just experienced. it's also for this reason that we were driving by the same emotion after the slaughter committed in san bernardino on december 2, 2015. i would like to express my deep condolence to the families and their grief. i therefore would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart,

both personally and on behalf of france and the french people for the solidarity you demonstrated during the terribly difficult time we have just been through. the strong support shown by president obama and the american people meant so much to us. we will never forget. and france will never forget. and we will never forget the reaction of three american citizens, spencer stone, anthony sadler and alec scalatos. to avoid another terrorist tragedy in the train which was carrying more than 500 passengers to paris.

for that, the president awarded them our highest decoration. in 2015, my my country was the target of terrorist attacks of unprecedented kind and scale. 149 innocent victims lost their lives and others were seriously injured. in january, the targets chosen by the terrorists had a symbolic significance. the editorial staff of "charlie hebdo." famous satirical newspaper. police officers. they targeted freedom of conscience and expression, democracy and pluralism, and the values of the french republique.

on november 13th, 2015, the killers struck indiscriminately at the very heart of paris, in our street. the bataclan concert hall and outside the stade de france. they attacked our young people. they attacked our way of life. among the bataclan victims was a young american student, naomi gonzalez. my thoughts go out to her family, loved ones, friends. before talking about the main lines of action we are conducting against terrorist networks in france and in europe, i would like to give you my analysis of the threat we are all facing. i believe we must understand it in order to protect ourselves more efficiently. over the past ten years, the

threat has considerably evolved. the november attacks were planned from syria and coordinated abroad, yet all those were perpetrated by people radicalized on french soil. sometimes in a very short period of time. today, in fact, the threat is more and more diffuse. from our point of view the threat now takes many forms. on the one hand, it involves individual or small groups with accelerated training in handling weapons in syria or iraq. back in europe, sleeper cells capable as in november 13th of moving into action in cooperation with the syrian base of isis.

on the other hand, individuals who are being progressively radicalized through environment, sometimes with the help of very informal networks which are thus even more difficult to identify. they feel they are responding to a general call to jihad by isis or by many other terrorists inspired by an organization. consequently, sociological and psychological profiles of jihadists or candidates for jihad has become more varied. some are criminals or former criminals who have been radicalized in prison or through encounters with islamists. this was for example the case of one of the terrorists involved in the attacks of january 2015. others are psychologically

vulnerable and for various reasons, have developed feelings of hatred for the society in which they grew up. others finally tell themselves they are looking for meaning and have a fantasy conception of the islamist revolution thanks to the propaganda on the internet and on social networks. the jihadist organization rely on elaborate propaganda. i am thinking especially of the videos broadcast on social networks and of online media prepared by isis such as --. the battle against terrorism -- have traveled or are seeking to

travel to syria or iraq have been radicalized online. basically the new jihadis is a combination of society and social networks. i am deeply convinced that authorities must cooperate with the actors of the digital community. just under a year ago, i was in california to meet the representatives of the major digital companies for enhanced cooperation on terrorist threats. since then, we have managed to agree upon a set of best practices which we collectively adopted in 2015. together, we are establishing a form of positive cooperation which must be encouraged. my staff and the digital professionals meet in an atmosphere of mutual trust and

france has been a pioneer in this area. one may ask what is exactly the terrorist intent. not only to kill, but to foster terror, so that no one can feel safe anywhere. for that, there is an atmosphere of mistrust. our citizens pit against one another, on the contrary, neglect the fundamental principles of legitimacy by seeking innocent victims, terrorists attempt to place society on a permanent war footing. they seek boundaries between domestic and foreign, combatant and non-combatant and between civilian and military. this is what we must avoid at

all costs. the response to terrorism is a state and the rule of law. very early, france realized the totally new and multi-faced nature of the threat. since 2012, we have constantly strengthened our counterterrorist capabilities and adopted our traditional arsenal to the evolving situation. i would like to tackle a few of the main aspects of this response. in france, in europe, of course, and quite obviously in cooperation with the united states. first and foremost, at the national level, to combat terrorist action and propaganda we have other means better suited to the new type of the natural threat.

since 2012, counterterrorism law has allowed prosecution of french citizens for participation in various crimes abroad which could not be done previously. this is vital for handing down sentences against returnees who were in syria or in iraq. then a second counterterrorist act adopted last 2014 instituted four major innovations. french nationals suspected of wanting to join active terrorist groups in the middle east are barred from leaving french soil. forbidding non-resident foreigners from presenting a threat to national security, from entering or living in the country. finding the individual terrorists -- as an offense and

finally, legally blocking and removing web sites and photographing terrorism. those measures are being applied in an extremely firm way and are proving efficient. in july 2015, we also adopted a major law on intelligence. our intelligence services now have a modern and consistent legal framework in line with the new threats, the most recent technological changes in the developments of national and international law. at the same time, we strengthened our homeland security and intelligence services by giving them additional human and monetary resources. last june i also created a specific terrorism prevention department that oversees

monitoring of identified individuals and is enabling us to establish and update a system that covers such sensitive areas as education and facilities. so while the threat level has never been higher, france's response has never been so strong. this is demonstrated by the fact that 11 attacks have been foiled since 2013. six of them during last spring and last summer. we obviously strengthened our means against terrorists but we also developed innovative methods to prevent radicalization. telephone reporting hotlines set up in april 2014 allowed us to save over 4,007 reports.

it enabled us to guide many families who benefit from valuable support and can report the risk of departure of syria or iraq when one of their relatives is on the brink of leaving france. thanks to this, we have already prevented many people from leaving and we acted before french youngsters succumb to violent radicalization. secondly, strengthening our protection against terrorism is also a key issue at the european level. it is why finally after the november attacks, i have obtained from our european partners many major improvements, strengthening of internal border control in order to finally implement systematic check at the borders for all

persons entering and leaving the eu. this will also apply to european citizens through the systematic conservation of data bases, the information system and international data base search as interpol -- of lost and stolen passports in order to ensure these controls are effective, member states must systematically include data in the european data bases. i also made very concrete proposals with regard to combatting the trafficking of fake syrian passports since we know that several terrorists involved in the november 13 attacks used false identities to enter the european union. i therefore requested that experts in the fight against documentary fraud be deployed in the eu's external borders,

especially at the migrant registration centers, the so-called hot spots in greece and italy. we strongly emphasized that the european data bases may be used to identify, register and check all the migrants passing through these passports in order to allow our services to better detect and monitor the air travel of dangerous persons, we finally reached an agreement on the european system. the european parliament which unfortunately are still not included this on its agenda must now swiftly adopt the agreement so that it can enter into force. and we are currently negotiating a revision of the eu directive on firearms making it possible to strengthen the control of legally owned firearms as well

as an actual plan to combat illegal trafficking of firearms, notably from the balkans. france has been calling for this essential reform for over a year and a half and we must now implement them as swiftly as possible. finally, i would like to stress the importance of the ongoing cooperation with the united states in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. when we jointly decided after the november attacks to intensify our strike in syria, and iraq, we also resolved to work on improving and strengthening the exchange between our intelligence services regarding our common enemies. moreover, because france got involved very early in fight against terrorism and because our country developed effective tools in this way, we are proud

to be today a partner of the united states, particularly in this common fight. french parliament has recently ratified the so-called trans-atlantic agreement which will strengthen cooperation between our two countries on criminal investigations, that can help us identify wanted persons. you can count on my commitment to intensify to the greatest extent possible the cooperation between our two countries in the fight against terrorism. i'm meeting with jeh johnson today and with loretta lynch next week in paris fully consistent with this goal. above all, in the face of the new terror threat, we must not make the wrong assessment.

we must not at any cost fall into the trap that [ inaudible ] who are trying to pit citizens against each other. it was stated very clearly, the fight is an idealogical struggle, not a clash of civilizations although it causes a major security threat that justify tough measures, we are taking, radicalizati fortunatel remains a very minor phenomenon in western societies. the fight against terrorism is a global challenge and a test for the cooperation of our democratic societies. i am confident in the resilience of the french people.

my compatriots took to french streets in the millions in a spirit of fraternity to demonstrate that they were not afraid of terrorists, that they were ready to fight, to defend our freedoms. once again together, as we have done so many times in the past, we will fight and we will win. thank you very much for your time and attention. [ applause ] >> thank you. the minister has kindly going to answer some questions. they will be simultaneously translated so bear with us for a question. i will take the prerogative of being seated here and ask the first question and minister, thank you for such a comprehensive picture that you painted for us. one of the quotes that i found

spot on and something i think we all agree with is that the threat has never been higher. can you give us some specificity in terms of scale and scope in terms of numbers in addition to the foreign fighter dilemma, what are your thoughts and considerations in the broader maghreb where clearly, france has been a target of terrorist activity in the past? so any figures you can leave with us to give us a sense of scale and scope, and then secondly, since we're at a university, i'm going to ask for you to grade a couple things. firstly, to grade the cooperation between the internal and the external services in france to be able to get a full rich picture of the threat environment. so how are your internal security services working with your external intelligence

services. then how would you grade your relationship with the eu in particular, with information sharing and some of the need to integrate data bases with your eu partners at the borders, and then finally, of course, the relationship with the united states. i think the hybrid nature of the foreign fighter threat has really changed. it's not -- we used to think here we have to worry only about returnees or we have those that are inspired jihadists, inspired in the united states. you are starting to see a hybrid of both. i would be curious of what your thoughts are on this. >> translator: many thanks. i am going to if you will allow me, answer in french in order to promote at every university i go to and visit tosh promote the

language of my on language, the french language, which i love very deeply and of course, if i need to switch to english, i will, if it helps you. can you all hear? first, the phenomenon of foreign fighters. we have about 2,000 french nationals, mostly young people in iraq and syria. this number has raised by 63% since early 2015. in order to be more specific, among these 2,000, about 600 are present with daesh in iraq and syria. almost 300 are veterans that are back, if you wish, back in france and are dangerous which

means that among these 2,000, about half of them have the experience of combat with the terrorists. we have a good number on their way there and then we have some that we watch closely who are trying to go there. so it's an important phenomenon and we are trying to stop it. the first success was our legal system, our law system, that as i mentioned in my presentation. first grade thaw want me to give, the cooperation between our internal and external services. what's the cohesion of the intelligence services. i have to say that the grade is better than it has ever been because these challenges, these threats oblige us to share more,

to connect our vigilence and the leaders of our intelligence services under my responsibilities have to work together continuously through -- under my authority. so they constitute very strong element to protect our country. let me share with you an anecdote. after the attacks at "charlie hebdo" in early january, on the very evening of these attacks, there was a news report and the journalists on the infonews, journalists are merely a few yards away from where we thought

they were in this, and as homeland security minister, i cannot understand that on an operation with special forces, that are so delicate, that we have journalists just within a yard, one yard, from our police people. just because of the sensitivity of the information but also because of the risks and believe me, at this instant, i got immensely angry. i gathered all my collaborators and i sat in a small room and i said if in such crisis we are not capable to prepare these operations while informing journalists that without exposing them, and it's imperative that you share information.

we cannot be -- we cannot face the threat. so for me, i'm not interested in knowing which is our service that is going to be the winner. no. our objective is that the republic, the french republic, wins and prohibits those terrorists to act. it's not about one service or the other. so as long as we are not cooperating, we are not sharing the information, we are not leaving this small room that we are in. so you will be allowed to sleep and i will give myself this right to sleep a little and we will be together and there will always be somebody in my name if i'm not here to collaborate and share this information and that's how within 72 hours, we were able to take over the situation.

regarding the european grade that you want me to grade, so much progress has to be done. why? we cannot win if we are not together. you see, we have now this greece and italian hot spots. we need to have people inquiring within the european data bases, but not all countries feed this data base the way france, for example, does it. then we need -- so i mentioned the information system which is a data base, but we have other european data bases and we need to connect them with each other. we have euro daq, for example, digital prints. we need to be able to use it for security reasons. at this point it's not -- the legal system does not --

framework doesn't allow us to do it but we need to change that law. if you have digital prints, you connect data bases but if the people coming into the eu have fake passports, then all that work upstream is voided. so as you know, we had two suicide bombers at the stade de france that had been fingerprinted in greece but had fake passports when we found them. this is unacceptable. we need to find a solution to this problem. so for french intelligence, grade a. for cooperation within europe, it's a b because we can do really better, even if cooperation with the american u.s. services, a b.

i started with an a, a b, but don't worry. it won't be a c. do not worry. the cooperation with the u.s. intelligence services is excellent and has never been as strong. when we were faced with serious, most serious difficulties, our both countries have pulled together especially in the counterterrorism fight. i hope you will forgive me for not giving you any details over this cooperation. if i were doing this, i would run the risk of not being minister tonight. i would be fired and my work is not finished. recent events have in fact led us to reinforce both cooperation and trust. >> if you have a question, please provide your name, your

affiliation and one thing, minister, before i ask that question, that i think you raised a very pertinent relevant point. that is the role of media not only covering these sorts of issues, but from an operational tradecraft perspective. we had our first significant situation in the boston marathon bombing where you had media well intended but potentially unintentionally identifying what our operations are, what our thinking is. this ace issue that i think goes beyond and extends beyond simply media but also to social media, where everyone and their iphone could suddenly become a potential source. that's a great topic i hope we will have some time to discuss. but we had a question. we will start with pat and go to francois. please identify yourself. try to keep the question short. >> minister, bit of a question

but also bit of information to share and support the minister's background. we can certainly say from the european perspective, director wainwright is sending our full resources to try and get an eu integration to belt the information gaps in ct and the migration smuggling center, european counter terrorism center. in addition, i have to say that during the attacks in paris, the terrible attacks, i witnessed firsthand the u.s. agencies standing up to the plate and giving intelligence leads particularly in the financial tftp program which we understand we cannot disclose operational matters but we are very supportive to the french investigators. my question really is, cooperation has never been higher and indeed, we have always found the u.s. has always stood up to the plate when we're in trouble. does the minister feel is there any particular area where we could add value to the existing

operations we have and task force fraternity, anything we could do better for you? >> i agree with you. all you tell is the truth. we are all involved in europol and all involved in europol to be more efficient together. of course, we would like more cooperation inside europol but not only inside intelligence services -- for example when we were confronted to the terror attack in november, we of course exchanges a lot of information between our intelligence services in order to be sure that we should be able to find a good way to stop the terrorists as soon as possible.

but we also exchanged information between security forces because when we are confronted to such situation, it is very important to be sure that the intervention of the security forces, for example, belgium, france, germany, austria, for example, will be strong enough to stop the jihadists on their way. we are trying to find new way or new means of reinforcing the cooperation inside europol between the intelligence services and the security forces. there are a lot of -- in the european unions. there are also a lot of debates between european unions and the states. a lot of agreements are possible in order to be more efficient and we are working about that

strongly. it's a very hard job and very interesting with very interesting prospect. >> francois? >> catalyst partners. merci. thank you, frank, for this venue. i think i will ask it in english just so that everybody else understands. one is three months before the awful event that happened, there was a deposition that essentially outlined what was going to happen in what kind of venue it was going to happen. how could that have happened and what has been done to make sure that when somebody spells out potential issues like this, it's taken seriously?

question number two is how much money can be given to turkey and how much control can turkey really do when a lot of human trafficking is done out of turkey? thank you. >> translator: a judge received a deposition laying down what was going to happen. i want to say who is this judge? what was the information that he received? we have many judges in france. we have many judges working on inquiries and on investigating all over the world, by the way, and even if i knew what you're alluding, i may not even be able

to reply because there is the secret of the investigation as you know. i cannot -- i'm not the minister of homeland security. in a country where there is no separation of powers, there is separation of powers in france, so i'm in a difficult position here. but i don't even know, understand what you are alluding to. second question, turkey. that, i understand what you are talking about. to tell you the truth, i even see it too much. it's a topic that is in front of us every day, especially sensitive and complex that requires a lot of clarity in our understanding and action. how can we decrease the migratory flow, not because we do not want to open our doors and welcome the homecoming, hospitality but if we welcome, we need to be able to master

this welcome, to master the flow in order to be able to keep worthy hospitality. we need to be very lucid, very clear because with the greatest generosity, we might lead and create huge humanitarian crisis so we need to be able to have -- to be in control of this process. we need to have hot spots that are functioning. we need localization to a special camp, for example, needs to be done properly and in an orderly fashion in order to do all these things, we have to also ensure that the people that are in the refugee camps can be

hosted in those camps in the best humanitarian conditions so that they can go back country as soon as their country is capable of welcoming them back, or we are going to deprive a country like syria, for example, from an entire generation of young people who could reconstruct their country and also to prevent smugglers, people smugglers, to stop their traffic. so in those camps in turkey, in particular, we need to create very good camps there. it might be a very good solution. so with germany, we discussed with turkey in order to organize this kind of organization to organize this mechanisms so that the turks can be faithful to their commitments, so that the

eu funds be distributed in a responsible way with great rigor. >> we have time for two more very quick questions. i know rich here and then we will go all the way to the back. i'm sorry for favoring the right. i didn't see hands up. >> my name is rich wilhelm. i'm retired. as you know, in this country, minister, there is a huge debate either taking place or about to take place over the encryption in telephones. as a result of the authorities have not been able to access one of the phones the terrorists killed in the san bernardino attack. it's a very complex issue but do you have a position on

unbreakable encryption in any form of digital communications but particularly with respect to what is going on right now with the iphone? >> joining the minister as a senator who knows a little bit about that. >> translator: yes, i want to underscore the presence here of senator richard, who is minister of defense since between '97 and 2002. he's most involved in those questions and he's most happy to be with us. feel free to reinvite him to talk about those topics. he would have many things to tell you on those topics. i hope i'm not bothering him or obliging him by saying this, it

would be for your university a great opportunity. so you are inviting me to take part in the u.s. debate. >> it's an easy one. >> translator: i could be embarrassed. i could avoid the question but in fact, it is not a u.s. debate. it's a debate -- it's a u.s. debate today but it's a question that we are all facing. i alluded to attacks that we avoided that we foiled. when i look at those attacks that we foiled and i cannot of course unveil the content of the inquiries, what i'm talking to you about has been in the press already, in the french press, we had to face exchanges, communications between terrorists that were encrypted. those communications that we had access to were encrypted.

so our peoples have very strong demand. they want to be protected from terrorist crime which means protect our democracy and our civil liberties from the will of terrorists that want to destroy it and at the same time, promise us that it will be done at every second in respect with our individual civil liberties. so that's both the strength and the constraints of democracy that we need to target terrorism while respecting this very sensitive bands so i understand some information regarding terrorist activities are hidden within a phone, for example.

and so of course, authorities need to have access to it. i have looked carefully at the judicial debate that you are having particularly the justice element so i understand it. i don't want to get into the details here. but we need to face this question head-on. if tomorrow we are not capable to use encryption -- sorry, if we are not able to crack encryption, our citizens who care so much about freedom and privacy will say but what have you done to protect us because these attacks are going to continue indefinitely if we do not solve that problem. so then we will have other debates, much less healthy. what is a democracy worth if it's not protecting us? so it is most important topic philosophically but also

practically. then there will be a debate around internet and as follows. how can we develop all that digital work contains in itself in terms of capacities of communication exchanges, relationships between human beings across the globe, if freedom had been demolished, destroyed by the terrorists. the ecosystem of the digital work is democracy and if democracy is not capable of defending itself, the ecosystem of the digital work collapses. so you see how everything is connected. it's not that on one side there is the digital work and civil liberties and on the other side states and government trying to defend security. no. we need to have a joint venture between the states, the

governments and the digital work. how? we need to create trust, mutual trust so that together, we can prevent terrorist acts so we need to define principles, rules, that won't let states to take advantage of the necessity that they have, this obligation that they have to intrude on the privacy of everybody and that balance can be achieved. last year when i went to the silicon valley i said that we wanted the blog sites that are calling, encouraging terrorism. i said we want to take them down. and they understood us. so i understand what's going on in this debate. my responsibility, it's my responsibili responsibility, i do not think that in order to solve this

problem, we need to be in a position with these operators. they are our partners and it's also their interest to be our partners, because if we cannot solve the problem in the trusting community, the ecosystem of -- on which these companies thrive will collapse. i know that in saying this, i have not satisfied your appetite for a scoop but i am not minister of homeland security or defense minister. if you like scoops, the there a other ways to indulge in scoops and of course it's not with a big declaration and big noise that we can solve this problem. it's with determination and rigor. when i'm no longer homeland minister of security, i can come

back and speak slightly differently. >> we have time for one more question in the back. please identify yourself. >> eli lake with bloomberg view. i wanted to ask how many french citizens is the french government currently monitoring and can you talk a little bit about what that monitoring entails? >> translator: i see through this question that the simplest questions are not always the easiest ones to answer but i'm going to try to answer. we are monitoring several thousand people, individuals, but not all of them are necessarily terrorists. we are not convinced that all of

them are but some of them respond to low signals, some we are certain that they are in connection, in communications with terrorist groups or radicalized groups but it doesn't mean that they themselves are radicalized, but at some point they may. so this is the spectrum. the difficulty of counterterrorism today is less the difficulty of intelligence that we have but it's the difficulty in analysis once we have the intelligence. when we have a low signal and we think it's a low signal attached to an individual, does that person for example doesn't seem to be involved, doesn't mean that person is not dangerous. for example, we had in marseille a few weeks ago a young high

schooler who tried to kill, to have -- to kill a teacher. we didn't know he wasn't a good student. we had no idea. he had self-radicalized himself on internet in a very short term so we try to distinguish those who are less dangerous, those who are highly dangerous, those who were foreign fighters and are there, those who were foreign fighters and have come back, those that are on the way, and we are trying to enhance continuingly our capacity for analysis. we organize in terms of human resources with -- we work with universities, we develop of course collaboration within our services, with foreign intelligence services, so that when we cross-reference all of

these, we can have an analysis that becomes more in tune with the reality and that's really the challenge that we are confronted with and not just us, but the entire world. >> we could go on for hours but the witching hour is here. let me underscore before i say thank you, one point that you brought up in your remarks and i think if we were to look at this issue holistically, the missing dimension of our own counterterrorism state craft is recognizing to paraphrase bill clinton, it's not the economy stupid but the ideology. this is one area where i would love to see more effort not only within the united states but in partnership with other countries to expose the hypocrisy of the islamist ideology. this is something i hope we can do in tandem. with that, mr. minister, thank you for sharing your insights with us today. while it's a truism

trans-national threats do in fact require trans-national solutions and your courageous leadership on some of today's most difficult challenges i think deserves to be singled out. thank you for what you do. thank you for what france does. merci. let us continue this fight together. thank you and may i ask everyone to please remain seated while the minister exits and please do leave your headphones as well. mr. minister, thank you. [ applause ] >> i would like to thank you for treating me so kindly today. it was very interesting moment for me. i'm sure that the exchanges we can organize in the university are very important to understand what we are confronted to and also to be more efficient in fight against terrorism because the link between the

intelligence services and the universities of the world are constituting a strategic issue if we want to win the battle -- >> we will win. >> we will win. thank you for this moment. be optimistic. i'm sure that partnership between france and the united states will be very efficient in order to stop terrorists in the world. thank you so much. [ applause ]

we'll have two campaign events tomorrow on c-span. first at 10:00 a.m. eastern time, donald trump holding a campaign rally in vadalia, ohio. at noon eastern, live coverage of hillary clinton in st. louis, missouri. you can watch both events live on c-span and catch up on any campaign events you have missed on our website. c-span.org/campaign 2016.

i am a history buff. i do enjoy seeing the fabric of our country and how things, just how they work and how they're made. >> i love american his tore tor. they're fantastic shows. >> i had no idea they did history. that's probably something i would realliy enjoy. >> with american history tv it gives you that perspective. >> i'm c-span fan. >> next, a discussion about the zika virus and the risk of it spreading in the u.s. the bipartisan policy center, the u.s. global leadership coalition and the harvard global health institute hosted a panel of public health experts at the capitol visitors center. this is about an hour.

>> good morning, everyone. it's my pleasure to welcome you all to today's event about the u.s. response to the zika virus. i'm director of national security at the bipartisan policy center. [ inaudible ] producing the event on global health issues. the short answer is that pandemics and health threats if allowed to fester long enough spread globally and can become threats not just for wherever they started, but for our own u.s. national security. it's a well-worn cliche in washington that washington never acts until a crisis forces its hands. there's at least two problems with that. the first is that prevention is usually cheaper than

intervention and secondly, that if you are dealing with a crisis, you tend to think that everything is unique, that you are doing something for the first time in standard of learning lessons from past examples. two recent reports highlight the importance of not waiting for crises to evolve in global health. the first written by senator daschle and frist, the case for strategic health diplomacy, looks at pet-far and argues about the success of that program and what can be learned from it. the second put out by the harvard global health institute, will ebola change the game, ten essential reforms before the next pandemic looks at when we can learn from ebola. the pandemic we were dealing with last year. this year, today, we are talking about zika and hopefully we will learn from our esteemed panel what lessons we can learn from past interventions, what the real threat from zika is and what the u.s. can be doing to help battle that threat today. so on our panel, starting on my left, we have the senior advisor

focusing on aging, prevention and global health. he worked for a decade at the u.s. department of health and human services, ending his tenure as deputy assistant secretary for health. next to him, ambassador carl hoffman, the president and ceo of population services international, a nonprofit global health organization that operates in 60 countries worldwide. prior to that, the ambassador served as ambassador to togo. on this side, the director of the harvard global health institute and the kt lee professor of health policy at the harvard t.h. chan school of public health. and as moderator for our discussion today, serving to try to tease out the difficult issues, is lindsay plaque, director of government relations for the u.s. leadership coalition. thank you for joining us. i look forward to an engaging discussion. thank you. >> great. thanks. thanks, everyone for being here

today. this is really i think important conversation but also a very timely conversation that we are going to be having. i justhis room probably knows that the administration requested $1.9 billion in emergency funding to combat the zika virus just about a month ago. most of that funding is for the national institutes of health and centers for disease control and prevention but a chunk of it, about $375 million, is for the state department and u.s. aid to really assist those countries most affected by it in central and south america. then of course, our international organizations, the world health organization, the pan-american health organization, paho, are already working to combat the disease at its source. so if this sounds familiar to you, it's because it should. two years ago, the world was facing a similarly scary disease on a much larger scale, but very scary. countries in west africa were being decimated by ebola. the disease was spreading across the borders and as easily as someone getting on an airplane

to the u.s., the disease popped up here on our shores. so the questions that we need to ask today are quite simple. what lessons did we learn from ebola and how will they help us respond to zika or the next pandemic, how can we better utilize existing platforms and partnerships to build resilient health systems so if at all possible, we are not dealing with emergency situations all the time. and then of course, what more needs to be done today, tomorrow and in the next several months to combat zika, both in central and south america and of course, here in the u.s. so to help us unpack all of that, i'm really pleased as i mentioned to be here with our panelists to discuss this today. we have mikes floating throughout the audience. in just a little while we are hoping for a lively and dynamic conversation with you all, so i'm going to start off with a couple questions but we will turn to you and just look for a microphone when we get to that point in the conversation.

so let me start. you recently co-authored the report will ebola change the game, ten essential reformspanp. here we are with the next pandemic. what were those lessons and how can they inform our zika strategy? >> great. thank you, and thank you all for being here. i am excited to be here, obviously not ideal under these circumstances of facing another pandemic when we started that work of our panel about a year ago, about 14 months ago, we thought well, this is not just about ebola. it's about preparing us for the next one. i don't think any of us expected that the next one was going to be 14 months later. if you look at the global response to ebola, the big lesson in my mind is that we failed miserably to do what we had all agreed we would do. we had a plan in place for responding to pandemics like ebola and it just, it didn't work. almost no part of it worked.

the national systems that were supposed to have kind of disease surveillance, public health response, those didn't work in the three west african countries. the regional response from w.h.o., the regional office, that part didn't work very well. and then certainly the global response that was supposed to be coordinated by w.h.o. out of geneva failed miserably. and the bottom line is that if we had responded even somewhat well based on a plan we had in place, we would have prevented 90% to 95% of the deaths that occurred in west africa. this was a wholly preventible disaster and it didn't work. so the question, of course, is why and what are the big lessons we could learn. i'm happy to get into more details on them as we go along. but at a high level, the key things are you need countries with basic health systems to be able to identify and respond to

disease outbreaks. we are only as safe in america as the weakest country in the world in terms of having a basic public health infrastructure, right? that is a lesson we learned 15 years ago with terrorism, where we learned that failed states can be a place for attacks oour homeland. epidemics work very much in the same way. where are vulnerable spots, and there are a lot of them around the world. second, we need a global system that responds effectively. you're not going to be able to prevent every one. and we recommended a series of reforms. we actually thought hard, should we recommend we get rid of w.h.o. if you make w.h.o. go away tomorrow, with you're going to have to create another one. you need an agency that can coordinate across borders and you need an effective w.h.o.

and again, we laid out a series of principles to do that. and then the last set of recommendations were around research and development. each of these diseases reminds us it takes us too long to develop diagnostic tests. it takes us too long to develop vaccines. the key point coming out of i think both ebola and zika is we've gotten lucky on both of them. ebola is not that contagious and zika started in a country that had a pretty good health system, brazil. and we identified the problems early. i'm not confident on the next one we're going to be as lucky. and because we can't predict where it will begin or what disease it will be, we need to start preparing. and there's a series of things we need to do to get going. and the time to do that is now. >> it's interesting, you say we, that's very much a collective we. it's not just a u.s. government proposition or government proposition at all. it takes partnerships with international agencies. it takes civil society and the

private sector to really create a comprehensive strategy. so carl, i would love to ask you about these partnerships and how they complement government programs, what you've seen obviously from your work in the field, how we can do a better and what is the right mix of partnerships. >> thank you, lindsey. and thanks to everybody for being here today. i think ashish laid it out comprehensively and we shouldn't underestimate the scale of challenge you articulated there. what we're really talking about is certainly in the case of west africa and the ebola context, the part of the world where just about every institution is weak. public institutions are weak, private institutions. it's obviously a place with

stronger institutions, stronger governments, stronger leadership. and so obviously the two viruss are different, and represent themselves in different ways. so i think we have a better shot in the current context than in the context of ebola. but partnerships, from my perspective, you know, when we look at an effort to mobilize all the actors in a particular geography or a market to respond to a public health challenge rein we tend to look at this now through the lens of what we call the total market approach, we try and understand where the failing exists in each marketplace. it could be in terms of government policy, it could be in terms of the health sector, it could be in terms of civil society actors within the health sector. it could be in terms of what the private sector is doing to be engaged. every one of those is subject to

market failure as we respond to a health challenge like that. the context for zika is much more promiselinging in terms of all the different players that can be brought to bear. between the private sector, they can have a hugely important role to play. in the immediate context for zika, we know that even as all the research is under way, and a day doesn't go by where we don't learn something new about what this really means, right? we still have to focus, in particular, on the women who are pregnant now, who are considering becoming pregnant, remembering the fact that half of all the pregnancies in latin america and the caribbean are unintended. what are the practical steps

that can be taken right away to help protect them. and we know insect repellant is a part of that. private sector is the one that's manufacturing insect repellant and marketing it in all these markets in latin america and the caribbean. so, you know, that's a conversation that needs to take place rapidly as we talk about practical steps to help women deal with the consequences of this threat right now. >> interesting. i want to ask you about the report of strategic health diplomacy. i know you looked at petfar as a case study for this. can you tell the audience what uh yo mean by this, what it is and how it can be used in terms of the response to zika. >> by addressing global health, we can advance our national security sfwres. it's bringing global health and

national security closer together. when we do global health work, we always look at it from a humanitarian and a moral and a public health perspective, but what we wanted to do in the bipartisan policy center report that blaze referred to, we know that it was tremendously successful in terms of reducing morbidity, mortality, reducing maternal and child transmission, inkreeing education for health care workers, but we wanted to see whether there was any second order effects related to the global health initiative. what we did in this study that bbc released is sub saharan african countries. we looked, for example, at public opinion and found that in petfar countries, public opinion

of the united states was significantly higher than the rest of the world. when surveys were done in residents of those countries, it was asked if petfar hadn't come in, what would your impression of the united states be and it was always lower. we looked at the developmental index. and and they outperformed non-petfar countries. we looked at vulnerable populations like the prevalence of hiv and military personnel. we looked at aids in orphans and found significant reductions in petfar countries. and then we looked at gofr nance issues, rule of law. the con cluks of the report is that we weren't trying to prove or demonstrate causation here,

but there's a correlation here that there's something here that there's an important connection between health improvement, public health and global health initialives and our national security interests. i think the lessons learned from ebola for strategic health diplomacy initiatives and for zika are one, initiatives need to have very clear goals. and these need to be understood by all partners. there need to be defined interventions going back to clear goals, i think carl is absolutely right. the focus here is really on ensuring that pregnant women do not get infected by zika, and also child bearing women have the information, education and resources they need for family planning. so there have to be clear goals. there need to be defined interventions. they need to be implemented in a way that's sensitive to local context and culture. and i think ashish will probably talk about it with respect to ebola, but understanding culture

context is critical for strategic health diplomacy initialive. you need to be in it for the long term. you need to build the capacity and you need to be transparent and accountable. these are all lessons learn eed which we'll probably talk about. but when we looked at pepfar and looked at why was you can successful and also these second-order impacts, these are things that bubbled up and i suspect they'll be fortunate for zika as well. >> thank you. i want to follow up on your lessons learned, particularly with the regional and international response in some of our international partners. some have said the speed at which the w.h.o. declared zika a public health emergency was a direct reaction to the criticism they received over their response to ebola. as of now, what do you think of the international response? >> that's a great question. a couple of things, if you think

about time line, at the end of march 2014, doctors without borders said we are overwhelmed. this is obviously in west africa and the context of ebola. we are overwhelmed, this disease is out of control. we need help. end of march 2014. in august, the w.h.o. declared a health emergency. about march, 300 people had died. by august, the disease had become far more widespread. that delay is what a lot of us have focused on and have asked hard questions about why was there that delay? and how do we make sure that doesn't happen again? i do think as a response, w.h.o. has been far quicker. there have actually been some people who said it was too kbik to declare this time. it's not the same disease, it doesn't spread the same way. w.h.o. did it very narrowly. they did it in the context of microcephaly and said this is a

public health emergency. i personally don't think they overreacted. i think it's a personally reasonable call, but it doesn't reassure me and i'll tell you why. right now, there's a spotlight on w.h.o. and there is a real question about whether w.h.o. can play the role we all need it to play. and in that context, they're being far more responsive. this is not the stress test that we're looking for. the question is, what happens two years from now when the spotlight is off. when people aren't paying attention, will w.h.o. have put in the kinds of changes it needs to respond to the disease when it is not in the headlines? that's what we need w.h.o. to do. we don't need w.h.o. to tell us we have a problem when it's in the headlines every single day. i think it was a perfectly reasonable thing they did. it has not offered me reassuran reassurance. and there's structural reforms it needs to go through that it has not gone through yet,

including being far more transparent, having far more accountabili accountability. we lay out some specific things. but until those things happen, i'm not going to sleep any better at night thinking w.h.o. has learned its lessons from ebola. i think they're doing what any of us would do, right? if you mess up, the next time in the spotlight, the same question comes up, you're going to get it rite. but it's not clear that you have learned the lessons for the long run. >> i want to ask uh yo about the idea of international cooperation here. you spent a lot of time at department of health and human services and now at bipartisan policy center. but what are the critical areas of international cooperation? what are we doing well, what do we need to do better in terms of the international response. >> in 2001, we had bird flu, then h1n1 then ebola.

the three pillars of what people think about, this is really enshrined. everybody in this country, in the world ought to be able to prevent, detect and respond to outbreaks, as well as emergencies. when you think about the key areas that we need international cooperation on, i think we're seeing it to a certain extent here with the zika response, first surveillance in the laboratory capacity, which is critical. there has been good cooperation here. you have scientists in brazil right now running case control studies to better see the association between zika and microcephaly. laboratory capacity is a critical piece in that. we're seeing a positive sign in terms of sample sharing right now. that's a critical piece in terms of responding to outbreaks. provider training is critical as well. making health care workers all

around the world have access to protocols and the best level of evidence to care for whether it's women with zika, whether it's children with microreceively. in this particular instance, and lindsay, for diseases that are mosquito born, vector control is absolutely important as well. i think one of the most important areas of international cooperation, however, is education, communication and public messaging. making sure the general public understands the nature of the outbreak, what is causing the outbreak? that this isn't something that's sort of made up. making sure they understand how to protect themselves. so focusing on prevention. i think this is one aspect where -- i think the w.h.o. is leaning forward with respect to zika here. the importance of disspelling

myths, the importancereduce ing stigma. the importance of meeting countries where they are and giving facts and information to the general public is a critical piece, and really the entire international community i think needs to work together on that piece. >> may i ask a question? i agree with that. i think the importance of communication and public health strategies and in global health in general are critically important. i would love the opinion of these two public health physicians about how you think we're doing so far in terms of zika communications. how is it going? >> i'll give a quick one. one thing that's clear is we dependent do a good job with ebola. i think we can begin with that. one of the key lessons on these things is trying to tell people not to worry is one of the most ineffective things you can do

when people are worried. acknowledging the fear, understanding the fear and walking people through it. my general sense is that it's been much better under zika. people have not down played it. i've heard early from cdc, from other leaders in government, we know zika is coming to the u.s., and now we know it's here and it's going to be more substantial. in the ebola crisis, there was a sense of we know how to manage this, we have a great health system, this will not spread here and the first nurse who got it in dallas kind of blew that whole story up. the bottom line is it actually wasn't that badly handled. it was just the communication did not work very well. i think it's going much better but i would be curious if anyone disagrees. >> i agree. i think one of the differences i think between ebola and zika.

with ebola, we were focused on three countries. with zika, it's 31 countries. in brazil, there are hundreds of thousands of health coaches going into the community trying to educate people. the public health infrastructure is a little bit more robust. colombia, another ally of the u.s., perhaps similarly. but if you look at other countries, el salvador, haiti, countries like venezuela where we don't really have excellent diplomatic relationships, we don't know. and i think it's an excellent question, particularly in some of these countries we just don't know how the public health communication and messaging is going. and i think that's sort of a key point as well. trying to meet countries where they are. there's some countries like brazil and colombia where we can be a little more confident in how things are going. there are other countries where we don't know a lot. there are some reports that we're not really getting good reporting back from some of these countries in terms of new cases and things like that. so it's unclear what messages

are getting filtered to that population. so i think it's an important point. >> one of the lessons was not just what you're saying, how you're saying it and to who you're saying it. i don't know if you have an opinion on what the lesson was coming out of ebola in terms of local context. i know you all do work in central america. how do you ensure we don't have a one sized fits all approach to this communication problem. >> if i could, i mean, i think -- the point was made very effectively. a critical piece to any effective response was understanding the local context. and even understanding the individual context, right? it's a communication challenge. it's in social marketing terms, a social marketing organization, we look at that as consumer insight. how do we understand what drives the individual to motivate them to adopt a behavior that's good for them and the community.

you made a similar point, ashish, in terms of fear not being the right way to motivate the effective sons. so if you'll permit me, lindsay, as a marketing organization, i sell things a lot. so i happen to have something here with me. because no salesman should be anywhere without something to show. and what is this? this is a prototype that our folks developed over the last couple of weeks as we took into account what w.h.o. was saying about potentially the need for something like a zika kit or a safe pregnancy kit. i think in the context where you're trying to motivate people to adopt the healthy behavior, it's important to give them something to do, something positive that they can do. and sometimes that involves a product. or a service. more than an example.

a zika kit might have a cloth that could be used to demonstrate how you apply repellant. and inside we have this concept of simply a kit that would include various things. it might include repellant, and i couldn't bring it into the capitol because we had some cans of off in here. but you get the idea. repellant here that could be useful during a trimester of pregnancy. and the idea would be that a pregnant woman would have access to a kit like this and would come back to a health center for a regular check-up, maybe every three months and would get the contents refilled. then you might have condoms. we know now that sexual transmission is certainly has

been documented. so how do we help women ensure safe pregnancy? well, safe sex. and then we might have something, for example, like a multivitamin that cowl help them during their pregnancy.m3ç;m5th mosquito net as part of this. but these mosquitos don't bite at night, as we know. you would have information as well that could be appropriate for low literacy settings. something like this. the idea is coming up with something that could be a tangible response to people who would want to be able to deliver something meaningful to pregnant women that they could use as a way to guide their response to the danger. the cost of this is prohibitive. mainly because of the repellants. there might be a do nation program that goths could broker.

condoms aren't a significant cost, vitamins aren't a significant cost, but the repellant is. something like that, $20 beyond the reach of many of the low-income populations we're trying to reach. but with subsidy, you could use something like this. the reality of the consumer you're trying to reach. >> ashish, did you want to add? >> i'm going to keep harking back to ebola because i think the lessons do apply broad di. i had an option to chair a panel about a year ago with the health ministers of the three west african countries and the archbishop of guinea and talking about their response. the one word that came up over and over again in english and in french was the word trust or the

lack thereof. you can have the best public health message in the world. you can have a great surveillance system, you can have a great health system. but if people don't trust it and they don't trust you, it's not going to work. and the truth is that trust is not built in the middle of a crisis. trust is built over the long run. and what they described was by the time these countries did sort of have a plan and were trying to get -- for people in the community, there was very little trust in the public institutions. maybe carl brought up the idea that there are weak institutions in west africa across the board. there was very little trust in these systems. so when somebody came, you have a spouse or a kid who's sick, somebody comes and says we're going to take them away to a hospital, you're pretty suspicious and they take them away and the person dies. and if that keeps happening over and over again, the next time you get sick, you avoid those public health officials because you don't trust them.

and so a part of communication that is contextualized is beginning to have a communication strategy that begins to build that trust. what we try to do is we try to do it in the middle of a crisis, it doesn't work. i think that's a major part of what slowed down the response. i think we've done it much better, we don't know how well it's happening in venezuela, for instance. we don't know how well it it's .haing in other places. i think zika has gone much better. my only fear is we're going to feel like, we figured this out after ebola and we're done. i see this as we've gotten lucky. this happens in a much better place with much better systems. the next one may not be so lucky. >> i want to ask you one more question. then we're going to turn it over to the audience. going off this kit, it's a prevention kit. how do we change the paradigm from dealing with emergencies to

preventing emergencies. how do we go from reactive to proactive on these issues. what's the political will? what will it take for the global community to shift the way we think about these things so we're not fighting the current emergency, but we're planning for the next one. we're doing both at the same time. if you could all actually chime in and then we'll turn it over to the audience. >> that's an easy question, right? i think we have to -- we do have to sort of understand the context of what's happening here. we spend enormous amount of resources and do it over the long run on things like preventing nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists. why do we do to? we never had this, thankfully. it's never happened before. we understand that if that were to happen, that would be a nightmare scenario, and we are perfectly willing. and rightly so in making investments on those kinds of

things. i think we have not seen p pandemics as posing the same kind of existential threat to the people of this country and to people around the world. and yet it does, right? i'm going to go back to ebola -- the average ebola person spread it to two other people. the average case of measles, the average person who gets measles spreads it to 18 other people. if you imagine a disease where it spreads quickly and it's fatal and lands on the u.s. shores and it's a disease we never heard of, it can be quite devastating. by the way, preventing that, yes, it's about building health systems. but it requires a long term sustained effort. how do you create political will to do that? and we clearly have figured it out in other arenas. my take is that we have to think about pandemics nuch in the way we think about other issues as national security risk. if we do that, i think we're

going to be much more open and willing to make those kinds of investments. i chaired this panel for harvard and the london school. there was another panel that the institute put together called the global health risk frame work. they made an estimate that it would cost $4.5 billion a year. i don't know if that number is right, it's probably close to right. it's the best number i've seen out there, but it's a trivial investment if you think about this as a national security risk. really globally, we' got lots of partners in europe and other places that can help pay for that. so i think we need to get started and get moving on that. the only way we're going to do this is not to see this as, this is about ebola or zika. this is really about keeping the american people safe. >> very briefly, we're always going to face as individuals and as a society the problem of

prevention versus cure. we all know there's many things we should do personally for prevention in the future. it's true for us individually and for society as a whole. i'm an optimist. i came to global health really through the foreign policy national security avenue when i started working in africa 30 years ago as a foreign service officer. i realized then and, you know, the american embassy where i was stationed realized that issues around hiv were clearly important to our national security. and you look at, i think, your report demonstrates this. you look at the success of programs like pepfar and the president's malaria initiative in the u.s. context, and really the tremendous progress we've seen in global health over the past 20 years and you have reason to be optimistic about

our ability to get this right, or get it better. get it better than we would have said 30 years ago. so i look at this as glass half full. >> i think an important principle of emergency preparedness is from a health perspective and a cost perspective. it's always better to be in front of the curve instead of behind the curve. and if we think that preventing potential outbreak would cost x money, it's going to cost exponentially more if we wait for the crisis to occur. ensuring that political leadership and understands that i think is critical. i think it's also an important mindset to instill amongst our political leaders that outbreaks and pandemics, you know, they don't necessarily always just come and go. it's very important to continue the ebola investment that's being made in west africa right now to ensure that the public health infrastructure is strong,

otherwise ebola will come right back. this idea that we're done to ebola, let's move to the next one, you know, let's treat outbreaks one at a time i think sort of misses the point. the point is you need to be invested in the long term. you need to build relationships with countries. you need to invest in capacity building. that's what establishes the bilateral ties that you can work with these countries on for so many other topics. that builds the trust that i think ashish was talking about as well. so i think prevention is critical, not looking at individual outbreaks sort of one at a time. all right, we've done that, that's done, let's move to the next one. i think it's important for us to remember. >> why don't we take two questions and have the panelists respond. go ahead.

say your name and organization. >> my name is alisa waxman. i work in the ebola unit. i'm working on the lessons learned for coordination for the ebola recovery efforts. and one thing that's really important to me and my team is to have the lessons that we learned actually influence policy and how we structure ourselves around responses in the future. what would be some key things to look at or ways to draft these recommendations so that they don't just kind of get shelved but can be used to influence things a the a higher level? >> great,ty. >> i see a couple of other hands. >> i saw a couple of hands. >> i'm with act associates.

i have a quick question about diplomacy and ensuring that funding is inclusive. we all know that global health funding is frequently siloed. this pot of money is for hiv, this pot of money is for malaria and this pot of money is for ebola. we also know that human beings can have ebola and hiv and also malaria. i think one of the lessons that came out of west africa was coordination and collaboration between different programming. i don't anticipate that we'll start funding things in different ways. so my question is, not to pick on haiti, but i will. how do we collaborate as donors and also within our u.s. government organizations, whether it's u.s.aid, cdc, nih and these other countries to ensure in areas we're already working, whether it's in vector control or condoms for hiv that we're collaborating and not recreating the wheel or adding secondary programs. for example, haiti has a very

large prevention for condoms from pepfar. >> we have practical recommendations and the importance of collaboration, not just within the u.s. government but international as well. if anyone would like to start. >> let me take a second one first. i think the time for -- and i completely agree with what anna and carl have said about the phenomenal success of pepfar and the president's malaria initiative. i think the time for the president's initiatives on disease x is now behind us. they were exactly right for the times. they've done great work, and they need to keep going. but there are several reasons why that time has passed, a lot of which you have articulated. but one of them is we can't

predict what the next disease will be. we don't need an initiative on ebola, on zika and a disease to be named later. it's not an effective strategy for a variety of reasons. you start to deliver parallel infrastructures. there are countries like rwanda that have taken their pepfar resources or other kinds of those vertical programs and started building broader systems. so that is doable. i think we have to figure out ways of encouraging that and make broader investments in health systems. we heard a lot about strength strengthening. this is a phrase that on one hand is exactly right. and on the other hand, people say what does that mean? do we commit to build health systems for the long run? and the answer is there are real important ways in which we can be helpful, but countries will only be safer and more secure and more effective if they have health systems that work.

i think that's a shift in global health that needs to happen. why don't i stop there. >> i did say i was an optimist before, but on these questions of vertical programs versus the logic of a horizontal approach, i'm going to have to confess i'm a bit of a pessimist. i understand why these things grow in vertical fashion. pepfar is perhaps the global context. p p pepfar was a tremendous and remains a tremendous bipartisan success in the recent congressional history because the humanitarian and the national security and all the other aspects were brought together in a bipartisan fashion. it's been sustained because of that. if the approach had been the

president's emergency program for health systems strengthening, it would have totally failed. we know that. that's a political reality we have to reckon with it. it's inefficient, it is regrettable in many ways, but it is the way we have mobilized many of the resources that we have to deal with the global health challenges that have delivered a lot of success. we have to recognize that. and i would rather take that vertical program that's got resources than a horizontal program that doesn't. just the last point on condoms in haiti, we're responsible for the condom market in haiti such as it is. and i totally agree with you, first of all, it's important to have a functioning condom market in every country. and condoms have multiple

benefits, as we know, in the hiv and family planning context, and certainly in the zika added on as well. lots of different actors ensure a condom market functions well at the national level. and it involves donors, private sector, social marketing, commercial marketing, and we're passionate about it and i know a.c.t. is, too. >> i'm not an expert in usaid and state department global health vertical programs, but in an ideal world, we ought to be able to be nimble, right? so when it comes to zika and we understand there's a need in the area of family planning and repreductive felt, we realize a lot of these countries have graduated from us receiving support dollars from usa aid, if

a crisis could potentially be challenged to these countries where there's a need. take vector control and malaria. there's a crisis here. the mosquito could be different for malaria. we ought to be nimble enough to take resources in one area and when there's a crisis, be able to apply them. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. and i think as carl said, there are realities here. i think being nimble when we can i think is very important. >> great. /'m sure the pam lists will have times if for your questions.

you point out the role of the private sector and perhaps get the panel's reactions with thoughts about the global security agenda for some of the framework for this work. thanks. >> i've only heard about the microcephaly problem and i was wondering how sick does this make any person who gets it? is and if it doesn't make them sick enough, i think maybe it could spread more because they don't go to the doctor. >> we mentioned the condoms in the kit and family planning and so forth in the context of zika. the microcephaly issue and the sexual transmission ability are now pretty tight, right? and the complication of zika

being present in largely catholic countries really complicates that conversation and i'm wondering if we're making any headway on women's reproductive health in light of the zika epidemic. >> great, thanks. why don't we take this one right in front here and then we'll have all of you pick and choose. >> zika, like ebola has affected the poorest of the poor. we need community health workers who can get to the poorest communities. i would like to hear about the platform that becomes the security that we seek. >> thanks. i think what i might recommend is we have four questions on the table. if we could just kind of go down

the line. don't have to answer all of them, but we're running out of time quickly. ashish, we'll start with you. >> let me take the second one about zika and how sick do you have to be. this is a little bit more medical than policy, but it's worth knowing. you keep hearing about, well, the alleged connection, it is true we have not nailed this down. it's pretty convincing there's a clear relationship between zika and microcephaly. there's probably a pretty clear connection between zika and another disease that people can get after the disease. the thing that i think has been the biggest surprise in the latest data that's coming it, two things you don't have to be all that sick. you thought you have to have high fever and a bad rash. we're increasingly finding that a lot of women had a very mild disease. may not have been aware that they're sick.

some get sick for a day and they're better and yet can still have quite substantial neurological effects. mic microcephaly can be mild, but most of the time it's pretty devastating. this is not a mild disease and it's not a life thing. if you think about how widespread zika is across 31 countries, this is a very substantial human toll. i do want to just make one other point and i'll turn it over to my panelist. i completely agree with our colleague from partners in health. these things always affect the poor the most. this is the nature of illness, people who are wealthy or have more resources can respond more effectively, have a lot more abilities to find their way through the system. and, you know, the lesson of global health i would argue over the last two decades, but certainly the last five years is again that notion that we're only as safe as the most vulnerable in the most vulnerable places in the world.

i completely agree and understand with carl, the argument that the president's emergency program for health system strengthening for building community health workers doesn't have quite the same saf shea or the same contraction. how do we make sure the resources that we have, we try to grow those resources and also invest them in things like community health workers. again you can have the best technology and the best diagnostics. you have to think about how to solve that end of the problem as well. >> i completely agree with that. we know what the right thing to do is here. it's politically challenging, but it's certainly the right thing to do. i feel like i've been on a mosquito tour this week. on monday and tuesday, i was in conchasa. the context there is malaria. different mosquito, different

bite pattern. now we're talking about the zika mosquitos. but just a sobering fact in terms of primary health care, the weakest link point that you make, i was astounded by this. but, you know, congo, about 70 million people, total government expenditure for all purposes in the congo this year will be about $5 billion. that's all that the government of congo spends on everything. so you see the scale of challenge. building a primary health care system in the congo worthy of the name would cost many multiples of $5 billion. that's everything. we're talking about everything. so it's back to this point about weak infrastructure, weak institutions. sobering. coca-cola, we've collaborated in different places around the world. fantastic supply change skills, capability to move product.

world class ability to influence behavior. that's what marketers like co a coca-cola do. and obviously you have a work force around the world. i think it's very important to learn how to partner with private sectors like that. i wish it were the case -- i think it's too soon to say. i hope it's the case that public health emergencies like this opens up wider space for women's reproductive health issues. it's a hope at this point, certainly not a reality. >> i'll just add very quickly, in terms of public/private partnerships, we've had tremendous success and there's a lot of need for water, san sags and hygiene. i think vector control would be a nice area if we could get some more public/private partnerships. it helps us on the vector born disease side and helps us on the

wash side. so i think i'll just put in one plug there. i think we've already covered the microcephaly piece and really touched on the importance of reinstructive health here and family planning. this is one of the most important things for any health care system including ours here domestically. any country, if there's anything we can do here to help support the primary health infrastructure of these countries i think would be tremendous. it's about a smart global health. >> if anyone has a question, feel free to come up afterwards. we also have both reports on the side table if you're interested

in those as well. >> thank you, lindsay, thanks for doing such a good job moderating. with such brilliant minds we have on our panel weshtdn't worry, but telling people not to worry isn't effective. so please worry. >> we have the tools and the experiences and lessons from past examples to think about working on zika and more ambitiously thinking about how to avoid the next pandemic. so hopefully all of you will keep thinking on that and definitely, we in conjunction with others will as well. so i want to thank you for their work today. and thank you all for coming.

this weekend on book tv, live coverage from the tucson festival of books from university of arizona. it begins saturday at noon eastern and sunday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. featured authors on saturday include douglas brinkley on fdr. author and activist jonathan kozal on education, linda

hirschman on the supreme court. sunday's featured authors include market regan on immigration, and politics panel with ari burman on voting rights. throughout our live coverage of the tucson festival of book, many authors will join us to take your phone calls and comments. on sunday night at 9:00 eastern, it's afterwards with michael eric dyson, author of "the back presidency." blchlt dyson is interviewed by april ryan for american urban radio networks. >> the practical considerations were, once you get elected you want to get re-elected. it's one thing to be elected the first black president, but to get re-elected as the first black president may be even more remarkable, may be even more difficult. and he had toover come barriers. when he ran the first time he had no record. he was a senator for a little while, but he was a tabula rosa,

he was a clean slate on which people could inscribe their hopes, visions, fantasies, and project on his thin body their eye deals. but now when you've got a first term, you've done stuff. the people like or don't like. they're against you or for you. they're supporting you or they're critical of you. >> go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> john king is the acting education secretary and president obama's nominee. his confirmation has already passed out of the committee and the full senate will vote on i a proving his nomination monday. he sat down with an interview with the editor and chief on education week. he talked about the importance of k through 12 education. this is half an hour.

>> moving on, you're going to get a chance to hear about a very important player in k-12. acting u.s. secretary of education john b. king jr. who is on his way to being confirmed as u.s. secretary of education. secretary king is a career educator who taught, served as a principal, operated a charter school and was new york state's education commissioner before joining the u.s. department of education last year. now with less than a year to go in the obama administration, secretary king is charged with reauthorizing law. so please join me in welcoming secretary king to the stage. thank you.

>> good afternoon. wow. that was low energy. good afternoon. >> good afternoon! >> that's better. it's a privilege to be here with all of you, grateful to leslie for the introduction, grateful to education week for being a voice for students and educators and also for being a place for constructive, thoughtful dialogue. we're not always going to agree on every policy issue in in education in the united states for sure. it's important that we have places for thoughtful, well informed dialogue and education week is exactly that. i'm grateful to be here. i'm also grateful for the opportunity to talk with a room of leaders who have a tremendous opportunity to have impact on behalf of our nation's children. so i know we're going to get to a q&a so i won't speak for long. but i wanted to first try to frame a bit about our progress that we've made over the last

seven year, some of the challenges that we face and the tremendous opportunities we face ahead. since the beginning of the administration, we have seen significant reductions in the dropout rate. that's thanks to leadership from folks in this room. it's a very encouraging sign. it's encouraging that we have tens of thousands more students who have access today in the high quality early education. we have millions more students who have taken advantage of opportunities in higher education. we recently graduated not only our largest ever graduating class from college, but the most diverse ever in college. also because of work that folks in this room have done.

there's tremendous progress to look back on over the last seven year, but we also all understand the scope of the challenges we face. the fact that despite that progress we have high schools in this country with graduation rates below 50%. despite that progress, we see significant achievement gaps, persistent achievement gaps for african-american students, latino students, english learners and students with disabilities. we also know that we face an enormous challenge of mass incarceration in this country. as you look across this country, we are -- we should be leading the world in investment and education and too often we are leading the world in incarcerati incarceration. if you look across country and see places where young people, particularly young men are more likely to end up in prison than they are to end up going on to college. so we face enormous challenges as a country. education alone can't be the

answer to be those challenges. education is a part of the answer. and surely we understand that schools are embedded in communities and the challenges our communities face. the kmaj challenges of poverty of homelessness and adequate access to health care. those are community challenges that we've got to face together. but schools can play a pivotal role. those in the room who know me know that i believe that not only as a matter of public policy, but i believe that deeply from personal experience as an educator and as a student. i grew up in new york city and brooklyn. went to ps 276. oh, you're from there. that's good, that's good. when i was 8, october of my fourth grade year, my mom passed away. i lived with my dad who was quite sick with undiagnosed alzheimer's. and he passed away when i was 12. my life could have gone in a lot

of directions in that period of life. teachers could have looked at me here's a latino african-american student with a family in crisis, what chance does he have? they could have said the obstacles he has outside of school are too great. what chance does he have? but teachers saw hope and possibility and created spaces in schools that were transformative. they created spaces in schools that were interesting, engaging, challenging, compelling, where we did productions of "alice and wonderland" memorized the capital and leader of every country in the world. i had amazing teachers in new york city public schools who are the reason -- that's right. they are the reason that i'm alive today. they're the reason i'm doing this work. they're the reason i became a teacher and a principal. they're the reason my life turned out differently than it could be if folks had given up on me. and it wasn't a straight line. when i was in high school, i moved around from different

family members and schools and i went to boarding school and i got kicked out of boarding school. i was angry as a teenager. i was angry, frustrated, i was disappointed. i was struggling with the experiences i had had as a kid and any frustration with adults in my life. and i got in trouble. and folks again could have given up on me, but they gave me a second chance. and so as we think about what education makes possible, it's not just about creating safe places that give students an opportunity, but it's also about ensuring that students have those second chances, that we never give up, never throw away one of our children. and so we're at this moment, i think, of tremendous opportunity with the new every student succeeds act. and i hope our conversation today will focus on that wi. we have the opportunity to rethink how we define educati educational excellence. we know that english and math performance are necessary for long-term success. but they are not sufficient.

a quality education must mean more, a quality education must mean a well-rounded education. it must mean what we all want for our own children. science and social studies and access to the arts. and opportunities to have physical education and develop personal health. opportunities for emotional learning, acquiring the kinds of personal skills that carolyn has worked so hard to help us understand and describe. we've got to broaden our definition of a quality education. and every student succeeds act gives us that opportunity. so we're at a tremendous moment where as district leaders, educational leaders in new york communities, you need to be a part of those conversations about how we define quality, what it is we ask schools to focus on. we also have, i think, a tremendous opportunity in the discussion around every student succeeds act to focus intensely on issues of equity.

the new law is a civil rights law. it is an update of the elementary and secondary education act of 1965. it matters that it was adopted in act of 1965. it matters that it was adopted in 1965. it must be viewed in the civil rights context of 1964, it is a civil rights law intended to protect equality of opportunity. we must be laser-focused on opportunity. are students of color getting the same access to international placement and courses? are african american and latino students getting equal discipline? are they getting science, and social studies and the arts? are english learners getting the support they need, not only to acquire english, but to become bilingual, because we know their

home language is an asset. and are schools focused on ensuring they get those skills. we also have an opportunity to think differently about school interventions. one of the weaknesses of no child left behind was a one size fits all approach to school accountability. if a school is doing poorly, you must do x, whether it matches the reasons the school is doing poorly or not. we have an opportunity to rethink that. states have an opportunity to rethink that. the department will set guard rails, but states will make decisions about what kinds of interventions happen when a school is struggling. ensure teachers are ready to work with students to become bilingual and multi lingual. it's an opportunity to bring in teachers who have succeeded with english language learners to help coach and mentor and change the program at the school. if a school is in a community of

concentrated poverty, it's an opportunity to ask, are there wrap-around opportunities that would make a difference for kids? i was in houston and they have an on-site dental clinic and health clinic, and they're seeing the benefits in their school. so intervention will look different, but that will require thoughtful decision-making at the state level. we also have the opportunity in the new law to focus on expanding access to high quality preschool. we know the return on investment is clear, 8 to 1, 9 to 1. states can use the new law and new resources which we propose in the president's budget, to drive opportunities for more of our kids, particularly or low-income kids to get access to high-quality preschool. but you've got to be a part of these state conversations to make them transformative. want to ask two more things for

us to think about before we go to the q & a. i think it's important to gather our energies to lift up the teaching profession. we have to acknowledge that over the last ten years, the conversation around teaching has felt to teachers and principals like they're being attacked or blamed. and we have to acknowledge that. and then we have to ask, once we acknowledge that, we have to ask, how do we change that? how do we shift the narrative? how do we make sure we are lifting up the teaching profession? that we are celebrating teaching excellence, that we are creating time in schools for teachers to collaborate and do the kinds of professional development, common lesson planning, watching videotape of instruction, looking at student work together, the kinds of collaboration that places like singapore are using to drive outcomes -- great outcomes for students. how do we ensure that our teacher preparation institutions are equipping students with the skills they need to succeed on

day one with our diverse classrooms of students? if we want teachers to succeed with english learners, we need to ensure they get the preparation. that needs to be a part of the conversation in our teacher prep and school leader prep programs. and we've got to ensure that our teacher and school leader prep is delivering a diverse pipeline of candidates. the majority of our students are students of color, but only 18% of teachers of color, and only 2% are african american men. we must do better. that is about better preparation strategy, better recruitment strategy, and better retention strategies. ensuring that folks have the working conditions and salary and support that will lead them to stay. so, excellence in equity, lifting up the teaching profession, and then finally, i wanted to raise a tremendous opportunity we have to tackle the issue of college readiness and college completion, career

readiness and career success. we've done a lot of work together as a country to try and raise standards over the last decade, to point schools to college and career-ready standards. but requiring those standards is not the same thing as ensuring that they happen. so we've got to work together to ensure that the experience of students in the classroom, give them the skills of writing and problem-solving and thinking that are essential to college success. that they are acquiring the kinds of skills around perseverance and grit and determination that will help them overcome the struggles they will face as they transition into college and careers. and we've got to make sure that our high school students -- i was a high school social studies teacher. we got to connect what students are doing in the classroom to what they will do afterwards. whether it's the ap class, the ip class, the dual enrollment

program, or the career experience as an internship and help them make the connection between high school and what they'll do afterwards. so, college and career readiness are our shared responsibility. there's work we can do in the higher education sector to focus higher ed institutions, is not enough. got to make sure institutions are focused on them graduating. in the k-12 sector, there's more we can do to ensure our students are prepared for college and career success. i want to get us to the questions and answers. i want to say three final thank yous. i'm grateful to the folks in this room who believe that all means all. when we say all means all, are we living that every day? did we mean the kid who just got back from the juvenile justice facility? when we say all means all, do we

mean the kid who's had interrupted formal education, and is many grade levels behind and doesn't have english language? when we say all means all, are we taking responsibility to create school climates that are safe and supportive for our lgbt students? and so this question of all means all, i appreciate that folks are gathered in this room because we're committed to this principle and together we must live that each day. i'm grateful that we're in a room of people who understand that the best ideas come from classrooms, not conference rooms. we have to be vigilant. even if the principal sometimes ge -- principle sometimes gets challenged. singapore's teacher leadership and supporting teachers, are creating opportunities for teachers to help their students succeed, it's the central goal of our work and that we have to

build up teacher leadership. and finally, it's a pleasure to be in a room of people who understand the centrality of education to the american promise. who we are as americans, is a place of opportunity and opportunity begins with schools. it's not that schools can do everything, but it is to say that access to an excellent education is foundational, it is a civil right, and it's a pleasure to be in a room of people who are not only committed to that principle as an idea, but are working to ensure its reality every day. so, again, thrilled to be here, looking forward to the q & a. thanks. [ applause ] >> thank you, john, very much. so we're only going to take 10, 15 minutes or so. and so i'm gonna try to be somewhat lightning round in my questions, to see if we can

cover off a fair amount of terrain. how many of you knew that john was on the colbert on cbs late night last night? i stayed up to watch it. i stayed up. what was that experience like? >> it was very fun. we were there for a donors choose event, celebrating folks across the country who committed to pay for teacher projects that our donors choose, it was very fun. the most important thing for my 12-year-old, ana kendrick was also on. my daughter was very precise, i needed to meet her and tell her how much my daughter appreciated her, admired her, wants to be like her. so i waited to meet ana kendrick. mission accomplished. >> nice, dad, nice. [ laughter ] okay, so in looking back ten months from now, what are the couple of things that you want to be able to say that you feel best about having accomplished?

concretely. >> that's a great question. i think creating the framework and guard rails for every student succeeds act implementation in a way that empowers folks in this room to make a difference on issues of excellence. the other, it's actually on higher education, trying to, in our regulatory work, and our work with congress, to focus higher ed institutions on not just getting students too college, but through college, to graduation. >> and i'm going to rift off what you say and not just following my questions here. what's your timeline for the reg -- getting the regulations, because you're going to be right up against even when you get the regulations, you're going to have -- there's going to be a change in administration. are you gonna want to start being able to approve state plans before you leave? >> right now, we're still in the input and comment-gathering phase. we've started the negotiated

rule-making process, the regulatory process around assessments. we're developing our timeline based on all the input and public comment we got from hearings and published request for comments. our hope is that we will be able to create a good framework by the end of the year and that states will then be positioned to have their plans in place for the 2017/2018 school year. >> the end of the calendar year. >> exactly. >> so by definition, it will be the next administration where most of the approving and moving toward implementation -- >> i think that's right. but our hope is, and one of the goals, you know, in this conversation, is, folks have to start now, thinking about what are those accountability indicators, what are those interventions, what are the changes that people are gonna make. that's not a conversation that should wait until after this whole regulatory process is done. >> i've actually had a couple of conversations with people who say they're already on, like,

state teams. how many of you are on state or district teams to work on this kind of work, to be able to transition? good. so there are some. so, john, how do you think about the bully pulpit that you have? i'm very interested in this notion of what the narrative is, and how you build demand. as you said, i think we've got a lot of work to do to really flip that. how do you think about your role in that? >> well, you know, i -- part of why i try to share my own experience is to make sure that we remember the difference that school can make for kids. and it's both a celebration of what's possible in schools and a reinforcement of the urgency we all need to have. because i had teachers who didn't know. they didn't know what i was going through at home. they didn't know how difficult an environment it was.

but they made school great. and every person in this room has somebody in your classroom or in your school building who is going through a crisis outside of school. and your building may be the only place they get a good meal, it may be the only place where they have an adult who they feel cares about them. your building may be the only place where they get to be a kid. we have to remind ourselves of that. the people who take on that responsibility ought to be valued and celebrated and supported. >> you were intentional in making sure your message was an inclusive one and that was expansive in the way you were putting it out there. i think that's been some of the problem in the way some of what has been going on in k-12, it feels like we're trying to -- at times, i'm talking very generally -- show where the negative things are instead of saying, wait a minute, can't we all -- so talk about this

message of inclusiveness. >> yeah, yeah. we have a tendency to get into a lot of debates where we try to have good guys and bad guys. we sort narrowly define the options and i think, in the way the new law helps us by saying, okay, what do we think is best? what do we think it right? what do we think ought to define a high quality education? and also leaving room for variation. states and districts will take different approaches. but i think we have an opportunity to have a more nuanced conversation, instead of a binary winners and losers conversation. >> so, with -- are you saying e essa or if we say essa, i'm dead serious about that.

[ laughter ] >> i worry about these kinds of things. what part of essa do you think people aren't paying enough attention to? >> that's a great question. two things come to mind immediately. one is the english language learner dimension. and we just covered this, but i think there has not been enough conversation about now english language proficiency is a required part of the accountability system. as it requires folks to look at long-term goals, students who seem stuck in that, and those who have disabilities, a category which is often underattended to. so that's one. the other is the title 4 program, which is a grant program that folks will be able to use to do things like arts and school counselling. and physical health and access to ap classes. that's an important conversation

for states and districts to have now. how are people thinking about using those dollars to advance their definition of what great schooling should look like. >> as you know, there's a lot of conversation about the states' lack of capacity to be able to take on what it will be just by definition, more work. the pendulum is swinging, you know, to some great degree from the federal government to the state government, and on down. what will the department do to attend to the capacity issue? >> so, i think school officers have really jumped into this work eagerly. tony efertz from wisconsin has made equity the theme of the year and i think they're very focused on it. we're trying to work with them, to think about technical assistance that we'll provide, technical assistance that they'll provide to states. i think one of the keys here is that the state level

conversation needs to be robust and needs to engage educators thoroughly. this is not about making tweaks to current systems, just to satisfy the new law. >> to get a check. >> to get a check, exactly. so if folks see this as a compliance exercise, we'll have missed a very important opportunity. so it's good that there were hands that went up, that you're involved in your state process, but i wish every hand would go up. i think these conversations need to be driven by innovative, courageous, local leaders. >> so i apologize to you all and to john, that this is very superficial, but i'm trying to hit some topics. talk about testing and accountability, that too is going to the states more. and the idea of different ways of piloting new approaches to assessment. >> yeah, two quick thoughts on that. in the fall, the president announced a testing action plan, with the idea being that we need to acknowledge that in some places, yes, we think it's important to get information

about kids' performance, but the assessment has become excessive in some places and is crowding out good instruction. so one thing to do about is a process where folks would audit what assessments are given, review those, decide if they're necessary, eliminate ones that are redundant. and replace those of lower quality with more thoughtful performance tasks. so replacing just a simple low-level bubble test with a research project or a science experiment that students write about and write about their analysis. there's that opportunity. so there's local assessment that we've got to reflect on, and the other piece around assessment, i think, as states think about this, we've got to make sure that the assessments and the work we're doing on curriculum and instruction are lined up with each other in a thoughtful way. >> yeah. >> and i worry that there's --

again, if folks just rush to satisfy the new law, or rush to participate in the assessment pilot without thoughtful analysis of how the assessment work fits in their broader vision, we'll have lost an opportunity. people say to me, we want to do what new hampshire's done. because they're doing this work on performance-based assessment. they've been at that for years. working closely with teachers and principals to put that work together. so this is something that people need to be thinking about now, if they want to build that system long-term. >> so what was the lesson you feel like you best learned from your experience in new york as you're talking about this next stage? >> well, so, the testing action plan, this idea of folks doing audits and bringing students and teachers and parents together to look at the assessments, we started that late. we should have done that right from the out. we also had a program about teacher and leader effectiveness that asked people too use the

evaluation work we were doing, to perform mentoring, induction support, professional development, coaching, and that grant program helped shift how people were think about the evaluation from just being about putting people into performance levels, to, how do we use this information to inform their work. i wish we'd done that earlier. there's a recent study on tennessee and how they're using their evaluation around teacher coaching. i think that's powerful work. and we started that late in our race to the top effort. and i wish we'd started that work earlier. >> so i'm going to ask a last question. i have lots of questions. early childhood, career technical, you did a good job of making sure those bells were rung. you and president obama have talked about a new federal program to incorporate socio-economic ways of thinking

about what immigratintegration look like, there's been a little pushback from folks who think that may be a retreat from talking about race. talk about your intentions there. >> we did a similar version of this in new york. basically incentives for locally driven, voluntary efforts to create greater socio-economic integration. if you think about where we are more than 60 years after brown versus board of education, we have places today that are more segregated than they were a decade or two ago. clearly some of that is about housing policy. a lot of that is about housing policy. but there are many places in the country where the schools are more segregated than housing because of systems of school assignment and school enrollment. so there's an opportunity to think about great work happening in hartford around this. can a dual-language program be a

program that attracts a diverse population of students? can a arts program, an arts magnet attract a diverse population of students? can you take two k-5 schools that are socio-economically isolated and make one a k-2, and one a 3-5 and achieve socio-economic integration. one of the things i love about the schools that my kids attend -- [ applause ] that's good, montgomery county, folks. they're diverse, and it's because of intentional efforts by adults in the community to make that happen. we have to encourage that. >> and it would be an rfp that would put account guidelines for like -- >> exactly. there are places where the district lines that create those

barriers, so maybe a partnership of districts. they would apply for funds and use it for implementing new socio-economic initiatives. >> join me in thanking acting secretary john king. thanks so much. [ applause ] this year's student cam documentary competition was our largest yet. nearly 6,000 middle and high school students took part alone or in teams of up to three. in all, we received nearly 2,900 entries from 439 schools across the country. even from schools as far away as taiwan and the united arab emirates. now it's time to award $100,000 in prize money to our winners. for this year's contest, students were asked to produce documentaries using our road to the white house theme. specifically, to document what issue they most wanted the candidates to discuss during the 2016 presidential campaign. through their entries, students told us that the economy, equality, education and immigration were all top issues.

our judges have finalized their decisions for one grand prize winner and four first place winners. 150 prizes in all. there is one fan favorite selected by you. now we are happy to announce our top prize winners. our grand prize winner is olivia herd, a tenth grader from jenks high school in jenks, oklahoma. her winning documentary titled, up to our necks, addresses the federal debt. >> june 4th, 2015, the united states was $18.153 trillion in debt. that doesn't happen overnight, people. so how exactly did america get up to its neck in debt? every year a budget is formed. doling out large sums of federal money to three main areas. the first of these is discretionary spending, which in 2015 received $1.21 trillion. the second session is mandatory spending, which received $2.45

trillion in the year 2015. lastly, there's the interest on the federal debt which received $229 billion. >> as our grand prize winner, she wins $5,000 for her documentary. and the c-span bus will travel to her school so we can present her with the check. our first prize winners for middle school are sisters. mia is an eighth grader, and ava a sixth grader in blacksburg, virginia. their winning documentary is, what should be done about money in politics? >> you see flyers in your mailbox. advertisement on the radio and tv and the internet. this is the way politicians try to get elected. politicians spend millions of dollars on their campaigns. as soon as one election ends, the fund raising for the next election begins. every day that congress is in session, there are fund-raisers all over the country. in 2012, the presidential election cost about $2.6 billion. you can't help but wonder where does all this money come from? >> the first prize winners of our high school central category

are 12th graders. griffin olis, michael frazier, and zehn wani. they all attend troy high school in troy, michigan. their documentary is titled, the one percent. and it addresses the scarcity of fresh water. >> today americans are drowning in issues such as immigration, medicare, terrorism, leaked e-mails. although these are important, the issue that will affect the most persons is the issue of the 1%. >> 1%. >> 1%. >> 1%. >> not that 1%. this 1%. the shining blue jewel of the united states. the great lakes. >> truly one of the unique resources in the world. largest fresh water resource in the world. there's nothing like it. >> our student cam first prize winners from our high school west category are a 12th grader daniella mock-zubia, and tenth

grader sofia taglienti. they attend a metropolitan art institute in phoenix. >> the prison systems around the united states have changed radically in the last 20 to 30 years. let me address arizona. 20 years ago, our prison population was about 20,000 people. now our state prison system is over 40,000. the composition of the prison population has also dramatically changed. >> finally, our fan favorite was selected through your online voting. we're happy to announce the winners who will receive an additional $500 -- our first prize winners for high school east category. 10th graders from montgomery, blair high school in silver

spring, maryland, ben miller, william ederror and charles gryder. their documentary is driving forward and it tackles highway and bridge funding. >> americans love moving around. we love fast cars, big trucks, road trips, horsepower and 70 mile per hour speed limits. we drive farther and have more cars than any other country in the world. for all our love of what we drive, we tend to take what we drive on for granted. america's 2 million miles of roads and 600,000 bridges are aging, congested and often dangerous. >> thanks to all of the students and teachers who competed this year. congratulations to all of our winners. the top 21 winning entries will air on c-span starting in april and all the winning entries are available for viewing online at student cam.org. next part of this year's conservative political action conference. we'll hear from fox news national security analyst k.t.

mcfarland and talk radio host mark levin. first a debate about immigration with congressman louie gohmert and republican activist kate bryan. >> and now we have two takes on immigration. please welcome our moderator, vice president of external relations at the heritage foundati foundation, becky dunlop. ♪ ♪ >> good morning, all. we have a wonderful discussion this morning on a topic that is important to each of us in this room, in fact, each of us in this country. our first presenter is kate

bryan. kate is a communication strategist and writer, living in washington, d.c. she holds her bachelors degree from franciscan university in steubenville, ohio. but she also attended and received a political communications masters degree from the dublin institute in ireland. she previously worked at the american principles project and at live action. she also worked in the senate in dublin, ireland. and she worked as the research director for two leading pro-life groups in ireland. she's appeared to numerous television and radio programs and she should be welcomed here today. please welcome kate bryan. [ applause ]

♪ >> good morning. in 2016, there is one republican voice that we should be focused on when discussing immigration. this man has consistently dominated republican politics and continues to do so. this man is loved by many, despised by others. this man has captivated television audiences and is well known for his great hair. this man has addressed immigration in a powerful way and i truly believe that he is the man that we, here at cpac, should look to when discussing this contentious and important issue. this man, of course, is ronald reagan. [ applause ] we are gathered here today under reagan's famous words -- "our

time is now." now, these weren't words of encouragement, these were meant as a challenge to us as conservatives that our time to lead is now. it is truly our time to lead on the issue of immigration. with the political rhetoric on immigration, it seems as though there are only two sides to this issue. you're either for obama's amnesty, or you're for self-deportation. however, this is a third way, a truly conservative approach to immigration that ronald reagan himself supported. an approach to immigration that is based on the rule of law, but also respects the proper role of immigrants within the makeup of our society. it's an approach in which principles form policy. we currently have 11 million people living in the shadows of our country. we have a southern border that is not fully secured and there are parts that are completely

lawless. a circumstance that human traffickers, drug cartel, and terrorists are surely already taking advantage of. our nation is facing a grave immigration crisis that is putting our national security at risk. the conservative approach to immigration begins first and foremost with guaranteeing the national security of our territory and securing our borders. double your fencing, along with manpower and technology, would work to stop and deter illegal entry. we should also mandate, e-verify to ensure that only legal immigrants are employed, and fully implement a biometric, entry-exit tracking system to ensure all immigrants leave by the time their visa expires. but the truly conservative approach to immigration does not end here. it also recognizes that immigration has been good for our country and for our economy and that the market is better

equipped than the government to regulate our country's migration flows. we all understand the plight of the middle class, stagnant wages and we're struggling to provide for our families. this is not due to immigration. rather our challenges are a result of flawed monetary policy, overregulation, overtaxation, and a culture built by elites at berkeley, harvard, and even right here in washington, d.c. the truth is, even in this slow-growing economy, america needs foreign workers, not just to do the jobs that americans don't want, but to do the jobs that are necessary to create other good-paying jobs for americans. now, contrary to popular rhetoric, immigrants are not taking jobs away from america -- americans. they're actually creating jobs

for americans. and if we truly care about our middle class, we should work to facilitate the legal flow of foreign workers, rather than creating obstacles to it. take the current guest worker programs. they're now highly regulated and do not reflect the needs of our markets. what our country needs is an effective, guest worker program and this is a uniquely conservative proposal that is so conservative that president obama, democrats in congress, big labor, and all the leftist immigration advocates vehemently oppose it. under this program, an american company that cannot find american workers -- and i repeat -- cannot find american workers, can bring foreign workers into the country legally to temporarily work here. once their work here is done, they will be sent home and may re-enter, if and when they are needed again. this is the concept of circular migration that is consistent

with free-market principles, that we as conservatives consistently defend. the majority of law enforcement experts agree that it's unrealistic to deport 11 million people or that they're going to leave voluntarily. especially when they've been here for decades and their families are part of our communities. and many have children who are american. which is why we need to see the face of each immigrant and deal with their situation accordingly. we should grant legal status, not amnesty, to some, but not all. who have acknowledged that they broke the law and paid the appropriate penalties for their offenses. this does not mean amnesty, nor does it mean granting them a special path to citizenship. if someone wants to become a citizen, they'll have to follow the current process established by law, just like everyone else. america has a long tradition of immigration. president eisenhower opened our doors to cuban refugees. president nixon and president

ford did the same for the vietnamese after the vietnam war. and lincoln did the same for the irish. many of us here in this room today are the fruits of these immigration stories. the story of immigration is america's story. my ancestors traveled here from ireland during the potato famine. they suffered greatly under british rule and it was only because conditions were so bad that they had the courage to make the difficult journey to america. immigrants today are facing many of the same conditions. often fleeing violence, starvation and brutal tyranny. being american is not determined by blood, heritage, or faith, but rather by embracing our shared history and common democratic and constitutional principles. ronald reagan himself once told a story of a letter that he received from a man just before he left office. reagan said, i don't know why this man chose to write this

letter to me. but i'm glad he did. he wrote that you can go to france, but you can't become a frenchman. you can go in live in germany or italy, but you can't become german or italian. we went through turkey, greece, japan, and other countries, but he said anyone, from any corner of the world can come to live in the united states and become an american. [ applause ] amen. our nation has always had the unique ability to embrace people from all corners of the world and make them fully american. and anyone who doubts that immigrants can assimilate and become full members of american society truly doubt america. america is not a nation of nativists. we are a nation of patriots. nativism is not a part of the conservative philosophy, nor it is a part of america's founding,

but patriotism is. as conservatives, we talk every day about the dignity of the human person. we fight for the protection of life from conception to natural death, and we stand on the founding principles of our great nation. including the belief that every man is created equal in the eyes of god. and that every human being deserves the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. the majority of today's immigrants, particularly from latin american, are conservative and stand with us on these principles. look at the march for life and the march for marriage, where huge numbers of the hispanic community turn out consistently every single year. it's time for us to remember our history and embrace ronald reagan's optimism. he described a tall proud city, built on rocks, stronger than oceans, wind swept, god-blessed, and teeming with people of all

kinds, living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. while we were in the midst of a very passionate debate about immigration, we must always remember who we are as conservatives and remain steadfast and consistent in the founding principles of our great nation. the time for us as conservatives, to lead on immigration, is now. god bless america. [ applause ] thank you, kate bryan. our counter-point now will be brought to us by one of our

heroes. congressman louie gohmert. [ cheers and applause ] congressman gohmert was first sworn in as a member of the house of representatives in january 2005. he represents the first district of texas, which encompasses over 12 counties. he boldly stands on america's founding principles and is constantly coming up with big, innovative ideas, solidly based on constitutional fundamentals. congressman gohmert is chairman of the natural resources subcommittee on oversight and investigations, and the vice chair of the judiciary subcommittee to crime, terrorism, and homeland security. prior to being selected to serve in congress, louie was elected to three terms as district judge in smith county, texas. he was later appointed by texas

governor rick perry, to complete a term as chief justice of the 12th court of appeals. he received his undergraduate degree from texas a&m university and his law degree from baylor. he is also a veteran, having served his country as captain in the united states army. [ applause ] please welcome congressman louie gohmert. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> all right. it is great to be here with you. you know, i'm glad to be invited to cpac. for a while there, for a number of years, we didn't really want people who, like, might want a new speaker, or might talk about radical islam. so i'm thrilled.

there's new leadership in cpac and they would allow a guy like me to come speak. so it's awesome. it's great to be with you guys. i know that a lot of people like to paint a rosy picture, and i'm an optimist. my sister says you're the optimist among us four kids. well, i like to paint a rosy picture, and so many remember the line from "forrest gump," you know, "life is like a box of chocolates." i would submit to you, when you wake up and see the real world, it's really more like a jar of jalapenos. [ laughter ] because what you do today can bite you in the bottom tomorrow. so you gotta always be cognizant of that. and when we talk about immigration, you know, i did pretty well in school and -- but i'm still always learning things. sometimes i'm surprised that i

remain a little naive. but i have learned, when you hear the word "comprehensive" in washington, that's a code. comprehensive means there's a whole lot of stuff we want to pass that nobody would vote for if they need what it is, so we need a really long bill to hide that in, so we can get it passed. that's what comprehensive means. [ applause ] you want to do it right. you don't have comprehensive bills. you have bills that are short enough for everybody to read. now, i've spent a lot of time on our nation's border. i've spent a lot of time, not just going on the little trips that the dog and pony show and the power point proposals and programs they have for you as a member of congress when you show up. i don't like those. i like to show up and just go out in the middle of the night, eventually, though, they do know who you are and they get word,

but dana was telling me yesterday, boy, when we went out with you, in the middle of the night, you knew the dirt roads. that's the way to go see the border. when you're out there in the middle of the night with border patrolmen, with no supervisors around, they really open up to you. and one of them told me, you know what, the drug cartels and the gangs call us in mexico at homeland security? i said what? he said logistics. y'all seen the commercials for ups. you get us your package, we're your logistics. we get that package anywhere you want to go. well, it applies. in case you weren't aware as i've learned the hard way, every mile of our border, whole border, is under some drug cartel's control. you don't cross that border unless you have permission of the drug cartel.

so when somebody comes across, normally they've had to pay the gangs to bring them in. that's why one of the border patrolmen had said late one night, we were out there talking. he said, you know, i speak better spanish, being hispanic, than some of the men and women coming across. and i don't let them get away with some of the things that others do. they have their list of questions they're supposed to ask people that come across. one of them is, why did you come across to america. and he said, you know, over 90% of the time, the answer is, to escape gang violence. he said, when they tell me that, i let them know in spanish, you may fool some gringo with that answer, but you and i both know, you paid a gang to get you into america. so don't be giving me that stuff. and he said, 90% of the time they'll say, well, you're right,

but we were told to say we're evading gang violence by coming. they know. i've seen them in the middle of the night. when a group comes in, look at their identification stuff and start trading. and pass them around and they ask, here's mine. really? you guys are passing all this stuff around. and i'm still -- i still get messages from our border patrolmen, all hours of the day and night, and what they're telling me now is that the drug cartels are very smart. they send a group across, and they know when two or three groups come across, that's going to take up all the resources, because the obama administration has lessened the number of border patrol that are actually out there standing at our borders. so when a group comes across, they have to move in, especially if they throw in some kids, and of course all our hearts break when you see a poor little kid that's been drug across mexico from central america, other

places. so we got compassion. but wouldn't it be more compassionate to say, you're not coming across mexico. you're not dragging your daughter that may end up as a slave to sex cartels. we're not going to allow that to happen. don't even bother to come. because we have secured our border. wouldn't that be better? [ applause ] wouldn't that be more compassionate? and how about the millions of people in the world that we're told want to come to america, and want to do it the right way. and all of those who have come the right way. isn't it more fair to say, wait a minute, you're not coming in unless you come legally? and if you've come illegally -- i guess we're all subject to how we grew up.

but we had a community swimming pool at dellwood park, a little town i grew up in. and every year, they called it splash day. people would line up, the pool was opening, and mr. ellis was in charge. and he believed in the rule of law. and if somebody tried to cut the line, he wouldn't make them get back where they were before they cut. he would make them go to the very back of the line and it cut out all the line-jumping. because people knew it wouldn't pay off. now, we've had testimony before our committee -- judiciary committee, the immigration committee. we've had people telling us, look, these people are coming for more opportunity. they're trying to get away from bad circumstances and coming for opportunity. why would you want to deny them? well, nobody wants to deny people opportunity. but i would ask, why did they leave where they came from? well, they're coming for more

opportunity. no, no, no. why don't they have that opportunity where they were? well, there's corruption, there's -- you know, they don't follow the law there. exactly. where they come from, they don't follow the rule of law. they don't apply it across the board. and so think about it. they want to come to this country and once here, say, now that we're here, we want you to be like the corrupt country we came from, we want you to ignore your laws and that would like us like the country they came from. we can't do that. we owe this country more than that. and one of the things that has been forgotten in this country, when we talk about voting rights, absolutely. every american ought to have those rights. and don't think for a minute that if somebody says no-no, we're going to let people come in legally and no path to

citizenship, no right to vote, that's already happening. people that have come in illegally, they're jumping on the bandwagon to get citizenship, and if you think for a moment that people who are given amnesty of any kind, a legal permit of any kind, are gonna be kept from voting, you're sadly mistaken, because as soon as you give them amnesty, people will come right behind it and say, how dare you, you're being like the slave traders who say, slaves were only 3/5 of a person, of course those were all democrats and republicans don't believe in that. but that's where it will go. they'll get the right to vote. and we've got to train up people to understand, there are voting rights, but there are voting responsibilities and unless you're educated as to what it takes to keep this little experiment and democratic republic, we won't keep it. people cannot come in and get citizenship until they understand what it takes to

maintain the greatest country, the greatest government in the history of the world. that's what needs to be done. [ applause ] folks, we're in trouble. this country is in trouble. and what happens from here, will determine whether we get another 20, 30, 100, 200 years. we have got to get this right or people will rise up in the future, and they won't call us blessed. they will curse our names. we have got to get this right. we have to stand for the rule of law. we've got to stand up and say, we're not giving special privileges to anybody. and if we will do that, we can say with lincoln, that this nation, under god, can have a new birth of freedom again. we can do it again. so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people will not perish from the earth. thank you. god bless you. [ applause ]

>> well, point, counter point is always good at a conservative conference. you heard from kate bryan and congressman louie gohmert. i'm going to wrap up here by saying two quick things. one, i had the privilege of working for ronald reagan. it was a great privilege. he was a great president. and you know, when ronald reagan signed his reform bill for immigration, his deal was with tip o'neil and liberal republicans. so you can be sure that ronald reagan didn't get all he wanted, but he also said, this is the solution. if you pass this, and we provide amnesty for three million,

you're going to fund enforcement of the borders. it was after that he reminded us many times -- trust but verify because part two never happened. so what we agreed on today, america's united states conservatives are for legal immigration, because we're a nation of immigrants. we're the melting pot and we should be. but a sovereign nation has to secure its borders. we agree on that. a nation that's based on the constitution must uphold the rule of law. no amnesty. no new comprehensive laws. let's enforce the ones on the books. [ applause ] we want immigrants to be assimilat assimilated. when legal immigrants come to america, we want them to be -- as ronald ereagan said -- we wat them to become americans. and we want to have economic

growth so there are jobs for anyone in this country who wants to work. and when we have that economic growth and every american has a job, great. let's look for new workers. so we have lots to agree on in this business. i would say, if you're going to be making speeches on this, do stop by the heritage foundation book and get solutions 2016. so you have all of the articles and all of the ammunition you need to go out and make this case in your community and help lead the way on this issue. thank you very much. god bless you. ♪ ladies and gentlemen, please welcome national security analyst k.t. mcfarland. [ applause ] ♪

>> good morning. did everybody watch the fox news debate last night? woo! fox news is pretty good, isn't it? well, that's where i work. how many of you watch fox news? okay, you'll get this. i'm the brunette. [ laughter ] and for the last six years, i've been on fox news on a regular and daily basis, talking about and analyzing the national security issues of our day. before that, i had a long career in government, starting when i was 18, working for henry kissinger in the white house situation room. i worked for nixon. i worked for ford. i went to graduate school, and then i worked for president reagan. at the pentagon, i was one of the highest ranking women. i i got the highest national pentagon award for the civilian service. and then in 1985, i did the absolute impossible, nobody would ever do it again, i walked away. i found love, i got married, my husband's right there.

i moved to new york, we raised five kids. so for the next 15 years, i wasn't from washington. i was more concerned with who got elected class mother than who we were electing to congress. actually, i got elected class mother twice. [ laughter ] but, you know, i sewed -- i made christmas ornaments, we did the bake sale, we had the mothers association. so that's where my life was for 15 years. and then on september 11th, 2001, i dropped my two youngest kids off at school and i went to lower manhattan, and i saw the twin towers be hit by two planes. and that changed my life. changed all of our lives. i immediately started writing a memorandum to my former colleague, colin powell, who was secretary of state, to talk about, how should we fight radical islam and how do you bring the american people along with the fight.

i was sort of minding my own business, doing a few speeches here and there until my teenage daughter -- any of you have teenage daughters? all right, she looked at me and said, mom, when are you going to go to work? when are you going to get out of the house and stop having lunch with your girlfriends? so she inspired me to go back to work and i did. as 15 years of being a stay at home mom, became a national security analyst. ran for the united states senate, lost to hillary, and then started working at fox news. so what i have observed in all those years, and the reason i tell you this, well, first so that you'll think i'm really smart, but secondly, so that you'll understand where i'm coming from. i want to do a little poll. and raise your hands. how many of you think the economy is not where it should be, that we haven't recovered economically? keep your hands up. how many of you think that we're getting kicked around all over the world, by the russians, the iranians, the chinese, you name

it, even the north koreans. how many of you think we have lost our way as a nation? that the values that we thought made america great are no longer important to most people? they are to us, but not to most people. and how many of you think that the washington cartel doesn't listen to us anymore? okay, everybody, right? okay, even the waiter in the back of the room, his hand is up. [ laughter ] and you're right. if i had taken that poll in 1980, you would have had the same results. in 1980, the economy was flat line. we had to make up a new word for it. it was called "stagflation." the american diplomats were hostage in iran, we couldn't rescue them and get them out of there. and we had lost our way as a nation. we had a president, jimmy carter, who gave a speech in the oval office, a pathetic speech about the ways of the american people, that we consume too

much, that we were polluting the planet, and that it was all our fault. okay. well, that's the -- does that all sound familiar to you? isn't that what you're hearing now? it's all our fault. we're no longer leading from the front. we're leading from behind and the economy is flat lined. so it's the same debate and conversation. let me tell you what reagan did about that in 1980, because i think it offers us a lot of examples to how you deal with it today. in 1980, ronald reagan came to cpac, he was ten points behind. he was running for president, it was a primary. he was ten points behind. the media said he's not smart enough to be president. the republican establishment said, he's a warmonger, he's going to get us in trouble. let me think. the democrats said he's going to crash the economy. wait, he wasn't smart enough, he didn't know enough about foreign policy, he was gonna crash the economy, he was gonna divide us.

well, ronald reagan came to cpac, he made his case, and the republican party believed him and not the establishment. then he went to the nation, and he made the same case. again, everybody criticized him. you go inside the belt way, they thought ronald reagan was going to be the anti-christ if he came to washington. if they believed. but ronald reagan won because the american people heard him and he changed the world. he did what he said he was going to do. he fixed the economy, he cut taxes, he cut government regulations. he made it possible for small industries to start small businesses and by taking the handcuffs off of american ingenuity, he allowed the tech revolution to begin and flourish and that is what has kept america strong and powerful and at the head of the world economy for a generation. he also said peace through strength. he built up the american defenses, and he said, we're not just going to co-exist with the soviet union, we're going to

beat them. not going to war with them, but we'll beat them economically, use all the tools in our toolbox. diplomacy, economics, repair our relationships with our allies. he did all that and launched the longest period of peace probably in world history. the third thing he did, he restored our faith in ourselves. and because he believed in us, we believed in us too. and because we believed in ourselves, the world believed in us. and the world looked to that shining city on the hill. so as you look at today and tomorrow, you're gonna meet all the people running for president, the establishment, the non-establishment, they'll all tell you how great they are. you make that decision. i can't tell you who to vote for. i mean, i could, but i won't. [ laughter ] i can't do that. you have to do that, because you're the people. but when you decide, go out and do something about it. i can tell you, though, that

whoever you choose, here's what they have to do. first, do what reagan did. take a page out of his rule book. fix the economy, cut corporate tax rate, cut individual taxes, streamline regulations. let's frac, baby, frac. let all of the ingenuity that's in the united states come forward. we have a dozen new technologies just waiting to be developed. if you cut corporate tax rates, $2 trillion comes flowing back to the united states as the seed capital to make those. fix the economy first, mr. president, whoever you are. the second thing is, restore america's defenses and restore who we are as a nation. this leading from behind stuff has not worked. president obama -- and i think he probably is well intentioned. president obama came into office, here's the mind-set. america has not been a force for good in the world. we pollute the planet, we cause wars, starting to sound familiar. and he said, i'm gonna take

america back a notch. and america's going to come back a notch, and then everybody's going to come forward, in a rules-based global international order, and it's going to be cumbaya, chocolates, roses and fairy tales. what's happened, we've stepped back, seen the chaos in the world. the russians trying to take over eastern europe, the chinese trying to grab the south china sea and fire and catastrophe throughout the middle east that goes from north africa to the levant to the peninsula, saudi arabia, all the way to afghanistan. that's the world he's bequeathing to the rest of us. but the thing that president reagan thought was the most important thing that he did and i think one of the worst things that president obama has done, he's divided us more than we've ever been divided before. and whether you like this candidate or that candidate, at the end of the day, you gotta come together. because our threats are real. the threat of radical islam, we've tried for 15 years to get

rid of it, and we haven't figured it out. we had a big land war in the middle east, and that didn't work. president obama's totally ignored the middle east. that hasn't worked either. but we have new weapons at our disposal that even ronald reagan didn't have. let me show you what they are. see this? everybody has one. that didn't exist those years ago. that's an iphone. and if everybody in the middle east has an iphone, what happens? they topple governments right and left. who do our adversaries have in common? china, russia, north korea. who was that on the phone? that must be the chinese foreign minister. the chinese -- >> i'm afraid i don't know the answer to that. >> that's siri. be quiet. [ laughter ] what these countries have in common, they don't let their people do this. we could take down the cyber

walls of the chinese, the russians, the north koreans, it's a weapon at our disposal. the other weapon is this. it seems to be shrinking, but this weapon what we have, we didn't have ten years ago. this is our domination of the world currency. the banking system of the world runs on dollars. it's an economic weapon that we've failed to use adequately. we don't use it lightly, but it's at our disposal and we can use it against our adversaries. we need to build up our military and remember our veterans most importantly. how many of you know a veteran or have parents or grandparents who were veterans? when i worked for ronald reagan, one of the things he did was to heal the soul of america. and on memorial day 1983, he

stood at arlington memorial cemetery and he waited for the cason, the parade that was coming from the capitol building all the way across memorial bridge, to arlington cemetery. the american military it lined that entire parade route. and what ronald reagan accepted were the remains of the unidentified soldier from vietnam. 1983. it was almost ten years after the vietnam war. and none of our leaders were willing to talk about that war. and reagan said, i'm accepting this, and i'm putting these remains in the tomb of the unknown soldier. i was there at arlington that day, and i'm selfishly going to admit to you that i was there with my boss, cap weinberger, secretary of defense, hoping to hear ronald reagan use the words i'd written. and then i looked around where i was standing and i saw veterans. they were in wheel chairs. they were in camouflage.

they had dirty old ponytails. they had their medals pinned to their t-shirts, and they were crying. because no president had acknowledged their sacrifice. and we have betrayed them and denied them. that was a stain on the soul of america, and ronald reagan cleaned that stain. [ applause ] >> so, ronald reagan came here and said, our time is now. so i have one last question. how many of you were born after 1980? old folks, don't even bother. young folks, i was part of the revolution that reagan launched. and reagan and us, while i was a foot soldier, we changed the world. we changed our country, we changed our party, our country and ultimately the world. it's your time now. and you have a choice. you can just sit around, watch

it on fox news and go about your business, or you can become involved, you can give your time, you can give your efforts, and you can go out and change the party, you can change the country, you can change the world. so your time is now. go out and do it. thank you. [ applause ] [ applause ]

>> thank you. it's a great honor to be with patriots and conservatives. god bless you.