now, we might shuchuckle at thi. i am incredulous when i hear he believes this. i think he does. we have to bear this in mind when we consider his behavior. justified or not, he has this fear and he is turning toward coercion in a way that he has not in the past. he is cracking down when you can go to jail as people are these days, it's very selective for wearing a putin mask in public or reposting putin means and the repression is very much aimed against people who ridicule the president not people who ridicule others in government. it's against, in any way casting on him. we are seeing a movement toward greater coercion than the regime has been willing to engage in. it certainly does have the ability to do so. the strong preference for methods and control survive the election season of not only the next week or so but the next

year and a half, i think his mystique might survive. if he begins to pardon from the generally nonviolent means of governing, a key source of popularity and the public and elite's trust may lead to a road. let me stop there. >> thank you very much. steve. thank you for putting the issues in context though from my perspective it would be also interesting to hear from the experience of political succession -- which may challenge some of your arguments for the sake of our debate. steve, the floor is yours. >> thank you very much, igor. steve is right as far as we know, president putin has not had any of his opponents boiled

alive. although, i tend to be skeptical about that. let me -- i want to focus -- [ inaudible ] >> that putin didn't. i'm a little unsure about the sourcing of the claim that president kareem has opponents boiled alive. morally capable, perhaps. i want to say, talk about quickly about three things. one about the state of putinism and what the elections might mean for it, secondly about russia in the u.s. election campaign and third the future of russian american relations after the elections. i agree with steve that the most important stabilizing factor in russian politics is putin's authority and popularity. popular approval.

i might disagree a little bit with what i call the second most important, potentially destabilizing factor. that is that the rest of the system and the policies that it em bodies and the results of ordinary people are far less popular. i believe that the third most important fact is that the expressions of dissatisfaction related with other aspects of the system other than putin can, under certain sircircumstances have -- the thing most on putin's mind is last time around, the protests that were sparks after the parliamentary were not directly against putin himself. they were about the fraud in elections for a body that i

completely agree with steve is meaningless. since 2012, putin's popularity has gone way up. mainly it's the crimea effect. russia's approval has gone down mainly because of the economy, what people experience in their daily lives. the lavata center, before it was told you couldn't do it anymore, a drop approval from 39% to 31%. the lavada center tells us that the description of united russia, the party of crooks and thieves is widely accepting. i think there's a little bit of a paradox here for putin. when putin is on the ballot, he wins. the problem for him next week is he's not on the ballot.

so, people -- there's a greater risk people will vote what they think. he has tried to solve that problem in a number of ways. steve says by more repression. but, also by showing his heavy personal responsiveness on issues that people care about. i always recommend that people go back and look at the last installment of the call-in show. that's putin listening to the people. and hearing an earful of grief. he's tried to make russia more attractive, primaries, campaigns, new candidates, debates, his lecture to united russia last week about listening to people. trying to show the fairness of the process. steve mentioned turof, but

didn't mention he had been replaced. a risky move to replace him with somebody who doesn't think putin is always right. prepared to say, gee, the elections don't pass muster. i'm not sure how well this has worked for putin. and i would bet he's not all together sure himself. the lavada poll does not give you a lot of confidence. there's -- here's the problem in contemporary putinism. putin can say till he's blue in the face he's against corruption. if lavada center reports that people believe the system is corrupt all the same, it does kind of undermine the credit that putin wants to get for being against corruption. how will he, just to put this in the context of this week, how will he cope with perceptions of

unfairness in the count? that's what happened last november. i don't know. i don't know whether there will be a real strong protest. there are many things putin has done that would fall under the repression category to make it harder for people to protest and to find out about the real results. but, you know, that was sort of true in 2011, too. and when the central election commission declared that united russia got 49.32% of the vote, people went nuts. question is, can united russia get less than this this time and still have it be seen as a victory? there's a lot more to say about this. i'll leave it at that. let me turn then to what igor wants me to talk about, which is why russia is so important in the election and putin

especially. it's a simple answer. trump made it that way. this would not have happened with any other candidate. to my mind, it is harder to decide what is more comical about trump's praise of putin. is it that -- is it the claim that the reason he's praising putin is that putin praised him when he didn't or is it seeming so swayed by praise? why should a big -- why should a candidate for the president of the united states be so susceptible to mistranslated praise? would he, for example, say, kim jong-un was a great leader if he praised him? now, you could say, of course, putin isn't kim jong-un. i'll grant you that. i think he absolutely isn't.

and for reasons that, you know, steve described extremely well. but the whole idea that underlies trump's descriptions of putin is that he's a strong and respected leader, compared, he always makes this comparison to barack obama. doesn't seem to be something that the world, in general, agrees with. if, for example, you take poll results across europe, what do you find? well, you find that barack obama is actually enormously respected. you know, the approval rates that obama gets in all the countries of europe with a couple exceptions, are overwhelming. they are in the 70s and 80s. they are like putin's popularity. but, putin does not get that

kind of -- putin is, in fact, not respected across europe. people do not think with donald trump, oh, yeah, putin is a great guy. a strong leader. in control of his country, all the stuff trump says. to the contrary. it's overwhelmingly negative. there's one country putin has more positive than negative and th that's greece. you can figure that out. most countries in europe, putin's popularity is in the 20%, low 30s range. in some countries, it's in single digits. you don't find this for many other leaders. although you do find it for one other international political celebrity. you know who that is. it's donald trump. the only person who polls worse than putin internationally is donald trump, himself.

in the united kingdom, the only country he's visited other than mexico and i think it would curl your hair to see the poll results in mexico about trump's popularity. the only countries visited and the ones he's reached out to over brexit, what are the results for trump in the uk? 8512 negative. so much for the claim that, you know, putin and trump are strong leaders who are respected around the world. now, i gone sagor sadid this is free. i'm not sure it's right. it's an odd calculation, i'll give you that to bet he can make russia a positive factor. in the past three years, american opinion, which was actually kind of mixed about russia has turned sharply

against. as largely as a result of the ukraine crisis. consider them in the summer of 2014, at the height of the ukraine crisis, opinion about russia was 7515 negative according to pugh -- pugh-pugh polls, far worse than a year before when it was split. it has eased a bit, but still the number of people who think russia is either an all out adversary or a problem is still basically in 60%-65% range. that's before hacking. now, admittedly it's before an agreement on syria, which may or may not take polls. it is still a formidable obstacle for anybody who wants

to make political hay out of associatiing himself with vladimir putin. i would like to see real digging into this question as to whether or not this is actually helped trump. i tend to think of it as something different. it is not a political, a shrewd political calculation. in some ways, trumps views about a lot of things are -- you can detect in them the crude and cynical attempt to play on american population. you know, anti-immigrant stuff, but the case of russia is different. he's telling us what he thinks. he's not actually, you know, it's not pay dirt. this is not a political winner. this is potentially a big political loser and, yet, it's

still what he -- it's the line that he has pushed. now, let me turn to a little bit about the future of russia-american relations. that, of course, is the implicit subject of a lot of debate about putin, even though it's very implicit. this has been a pretty messy -- to call the political debate we have had so far a debate is to credit it with a little more elegance and coherence than it really deserves. but, i think there is underlying debate and to -- on this, i would commend to you ross' column in the new york times yesterday, which said, you know, trump, in his usual way, has

kind of put his finger on something that we ought to be talking about more, even though we shouldn't agree with the answer he's come up with. the question is, what russia are we talking about when we say that putin or trump is totally wrong or totally right. are we talking about the russia that conquered crimea? clearly guilty of aggression in eastern ukraine and created a gigantic war scare in all of europe. or, are we talking about the russia with whom we might be trying to or might be with whom secretary kerry is trying to work out some kind of cooperation in syria. or, perhaps, the russia with whom the united states ought to be trying to cooperate in

strategy toward china. you know, the russia that you have in mind in those two cases might suggest different policies. this question is being posed by other people who are elegantly debating and seriously debating this issue, just not mr. trump. i would recommend by old friend and colleague bob's bob called "return to cold war". essentially saying our alternatives now, cold war or -- some kind of, you know, fierce hands on competition or some kind of arms length cooperation.

ross' column doesn't answer this question, but he does, i think, ask the right questions. where do the strategic goals of the united states point in russian-american relations? to my mind, the obama administration actually has a more sustainable answer to this question he tends to think. if you disaggregate the pieces of the relationship and the obama administration's policy, i think you get the following answer, sort of take four or five pieces of the relationship. in europe, what is the obama administration's answer? it's something like a new cold war. it's sustaining nato and eu unity around sanctions over ukraine until russian policy in ukraine changes. if you look at the middle east,

it's something different. it's probing for cooperation. it's assuming that their can be some potential alignment of u.s. and russian interests for all the discomfort. third, if you take a whole set of nuclear issues, particularly nuclear arms control, the assumption of the obama administration is there should be some possibility of working toward a cooperative approach and there has been substantial cooperation on nuclear issues, although the russians said, we are not interested in arms control, thank you very much. we are okay on nonproliferation policies, not interested in arms control. and the final element of the obama administration policy is, you know, personality is a bit of a turn off, putin's

personality, but it's not a fundamental abs >> callerobstacle. there was an agreement over syria. there's no agreement on ukraine and there wasn't any agreement on ukraine was not the price of getting an agreement on syria. at the g-20, the french and the germans stiffed putin. he agreed to power talks. my prediction would be that this inelegant but sustainable policy of the obama administration is largely the one putin continues in an administration. there are internal tensions in it, that it's difficult to sustain, maybe difficult to sustain, but i think

sustainable. i'm at least not convinced it can't be kept to work. it's not ideal, but i think it is a workable strategy, who the obama administration strives to get a bumper sticker for as good res reset. but, you know, the fact that you don't have a bumper sticker doesn't mean you don't have a policy. you know, speaking of the reset, what was it about, essentially. what did it amount to? it amounted to transactional improvement on particular issues where there was an alignment of interest and personality was a plus. really like that guy in the

video. now, you know, the new version of it would be transactional improvement where interests are aligned, perralty a minus, let's say. but, i think a minus that it's still relatively easy to accommodate to a policy that is mixed in the way that i've described. thank you. >> thank you very much. before opening the floor for q & a, i'll take this opportunity to ask one question to you steve. steve fish. when talking about political transition, i think we may involve some examples of successful transition in the country's with very weak institutions and i already mentioned several years ago and

was big just recently. everyone was talking about the crisis during the transition in these countries and other asian countries but there is no crisis. so, he will take this experience. what can we say about russia? to you, steve. that overwhelming government foreign policy thought is ready. there is almost a consensus within the russian community that the best american policy toward russia that moscow can expect will be based on the principles. donald trump is open for trade in russia as a real us.

at the same time, we all know that many prominent republicans, as well as scholars who call themselves realists change the assumption that donald trump is a realist. i do not want to go into the debate over the foreign policy world view of donald trump, but i would like to ask a more specific question, can we reasonably claim that if elected, trump's policy toward russia will be based on realist principles or not? thank you. >> thanks for that good question. what about pakistan, could they be models for russia? if putin was in trouble, disabled, unable to perform the functions of office or died would it be leek the last week or so?

it's certainly possible it could be. we have to bear in mind several things. one is that russia is a measurably more complex policy. and another thing is nobody expected there to be elections right after the president departed the scene and for those elections to determine who is the next president. these are dictatorships of the type that have been more closed than russia has been for a long time. dictatorships that are more completely closed down than russia is. in russia, people would -- then there are elections that have to be put off. the third thing is putin is younger and healthier than those

who died fairly young. he wasn't in great health before he died and the other was 80 years old, as i recall. his departure was expected for some time. he was planning succession, even if behind the scene for years. others around him did the scramble for power. that has not happened in russia. putin is much younger, he isn't planning for succession. he's, in fact, very self-conscious in preventing anyone from thinking here is my successor. not one person has an interest in his death. he loves not having a vice president. no one knows who would come to the top. in fact, he doesn't allow anybody to do that. so, i think russia would be a much more complex case. could it be a smooth transition in the cases i recall someone not called for to come to power who bore a striking

resemblance -- and whose mother was good friends with him 40 years ago. as i recall, came to power and he was like the number five man in government, but it all happened anyway. i can't really see that happening in russia. i can't see what happened in russia either. it could. it could. the idea that they are models for russia is for the reasons i just outlined, fairly unlikely. >> can i say a word about this? i totally agree russia will not follow that model. but, i think it's -- but, i would be surprised, actually, if the constitutional neuseties were not observed, if -- if putin died today, my prediction

is named acting president and would run an election in 90 days. but, what you discover is actually russia hasn't needed to be run like a dictatorship. russia is ready for an open system and people would sort of think before too long discover, you know, why are we doing this all this time under putin? we are kind of a modern country. why do we -- there would be deputinization. it would be a weaker system that would have weaker leaders but maybe people would be ready for that. maybe they would discover that pluralism and functioning institutions have advantages, just a wild guess. now, about realism.

when i'm not on leave at columbia as i am this year, i would -- this week, be starting a course today, in fact, where we examine and apply theories of international relations. the first week, we of course do realism. i would kind of find it hard to assimilate trump's views to the readings that we give to the students. for example, it seems to me very unrealistic to try to undermine your own alliances. realists do not advise that. that's a crazy thing to do. you are supposed to try to understand and husband the elements of your power and to just say -- maybe i won't defend my allies would not be

recommended. so, i don't think -- i don't think this is realism. this is amateurish improvisation. it has -- the realist element of it is this idea of reaching out to adversaries. but, in that respect, the obama administration is much more serious about it and understands how to do it. i think, if you had a trump administration, you would have a complete bedlum within the advisers who would be appointed by mr. trump because the russian -- excuse me, the republican foreign policy establishment is so deeply divided about trump that any credible set of advisers that you brought in would be also deeply divided and would have to

figure out what kind of foreign policy to put together. i think it's -- one cannot come up with an example of any major presidential candidate who has been so at odds with the foreign policy establishment of his own party. but, i don't think that means he would find a totally new set of advisers. you have to mix the old and the new and those people would be madly trying to figure out what kind of policies they could pursue that would kind of meet the bosses inclinations and their own preferences. >> thank you. now, when we have established that russia is not -- and trump is not -- we can address other

issues. >> i heard the weakness here and i challenge steve sestanovich for a bit. with you, let's bet that in the elections he is not running and putin's 2.0 -- >> i'm sorry, in what elections? after putin dies? >> not dies, but -- >> i have never reflected on this kind of bet my whole life, but go ahead. >> if not today, others deciding who their candidate is and it's highly unlikely it would -- in

terms of discussion, i want to ask the panel, the three of you, how the cooperation between russia and the u.s. as you describe fits with the demilitarization with russia and the problem in 2006-'07. it was a time of $700 billion. how does it fit with our engagement or lack thereof in the soviet union and what should be our position. with that, of course, we can talk about cooperation and competition. thank you. >> thank you. we do not have much time, so i would suggest to collect several questions and then -- >> let's also divide them up.

maybe i'll talk about half of that and steve might talk about the other half. >> okay. >> quick question. until recently, there was a debate in russia among russian politicians who were represented basically by two most remarkable people. one was -- who for the last, let's say five or six years was predicting this was going to be the last year of putin. and the other one was -- who was saying putin is going to be there forever. when he dies, there will still be putin. do not hold your breath. it's a simple thing. are we supposed to wait until putin dies or should there be another scenario option possibility that putin is going to replace before his demice.

thank you. >> one more question before -- yes, you, please. mm-hmm. >> thank you very much. i see that the accents there are some russians here. i have two short questions. the first is, if question. so, what do you think does russia really need democracy in america or presidential system is just the natural way because of the loss of 70 years we all the time go to the same system hiring one strong leader and ak which youly that's it, one strong leader. the second question is, we were talking a lot here about trump. so, if he wins, what happens with foreign u.s. policies toward russia and what do you think may president putin -- hillary clinton for comparison with hitler.

thank you. >> thank you. >> i'll start. in response to ariels question, i don't think this spectacular remilitarization of russia is consistent with cooperation with the united states. i see steve's point about how the obama administration has these different components in its policy, but at the same time, i really don't see a lot of cooperation with russia going on at all. there's not much going on that i can see. this isn't the days of reset, which is modest in itself. i don't think there's anywhere to go but up in terms of relations. i don't really see how much cooperation is going on. should the united states be concerned with democracy and human rights in russia? absolutely. at the same time, the idea of promoting democracy in russia is tricky. it was never a great idea. this is not something russians want. it's great to promote democracy

in mongolia or albania where people like democracy. they need help, great. i'm all for helping them out. to try to help a people, not more than 20% or 25% of them want the help. i think is actually not a good idea. this gets to our -- i'll skip to the last question, does russia need american-style democracy? what russians don't seem to want it so my answer is no. i'm a democrat, not a liberal as much as a democrat. if people don't want it, then they shouldn't have it. eventually they might want something more. i have been disappointed by the turn in russia ever since putin came to office. my last book on russia was about this. at the same time, i don't think that democracy promotion is something we should be engaged in in a country like russia. it helps the bad guys and plays very much into putin's hands. i want to say something about our colleague, i think alex's

question. you know, one analyst says putin, his last year in power. we have been hearing this since 2000. it never happens. i don't understand why people say this. it's profoundly stable dictatorship. as long as putin is there, it will be stable. will he be just as popular five years from now? we don't know. i'm impressed as the o conmy turned down, his popularity turned up. he'll get a boost out of crimea. i'm struck that he's been able to delink it. he is blamed for nothing by most russians. steve mentioned corruption. he is not blamed for that. it is the government. that's other people's problems. putin is looking out for us. is he corrupt himself? people say he is. has he taken a lot?

they seem to tolerate it. i'm on board with those who say he will be there as long as he wants to be. at the same time, we don't know if it will be ten years from now. i don't think we should be holding our breath and i think we have to deal with this guy. waiting around for him to pass from the scene, a very strong autocrat who is only -- how old is putin? early 60s, right? 63? he could be here a long time, sit around and wait for him to leave power. let me jump to our other colleague's question. what if hillary wins the presidency? she knows she has to deal with putin. steve said there would be continuity from a obama administration's policy. maybe. at first. but i think hillary has ideas of how to deal with russia. it will come out. here is what i think is going to happen. first of all, she has to show how tough she is. she is a woman in power and she liblgs showing she is tough.

she's going to be tougher with putin, right? she's not going to apologize for the comparison to hitler. it was indirect. will putin forgive her? of course he will. he's going to have to or forgive her anyway. she's going to be tough at first. give her a year or two and she will realize it is in our interest to deal with this guy and cut more deals at a deeper level on the playing field of common interest than obama has done. he's given up, in my opinion, on federal relations on russia. we are going to soo a tougher policy followed by relaxation. as harsh as he is on nuclear arms control right now, we are not interested in that. we want to remodernize. this is a guy that is open to negotiation as long as we are willing to give a little bit as well. so far, we haven't been willing to give on anything.

if somebody offers him anything of value, his rights, i think he'll be willing. >> steve? >> um, a lot of different and interesting questions. let me pick up on what steve said about secretary clinton and about trump, which you also asked about. if trump is elected, the first order of business is going to be managing the chaos and panic in american alliances. trying to reassure people that they didn't meet -- the president didn't mean all of those goofy things that he said. and that will involve walking back a lot of bad ideas and trying to show that actually the united states is still committed to the kinds of principles, western solidarity, nato unity

and that will involve, actually, i would bet, as hard as it may seem to think about it right now, kind of standing up with european leaders who have taken a strong stand on ukraine. you would end up, you know, there's a significant possibility that preserving unity among american allies would involve a reaffirmation of ongoing policies. about promoting democracy, i like to quote gary's view. he said for many years, he has a slightly different angle on it now, i think, that russian democrats do not need -- do not look to the west to create or

promote democracy in russia. what they want is simply for united states and the west not to pretend that russia is a democracy. that means a kind of clarity about the kind of regime that steve has described in his remarks. it means talking about human rights. it means understanding and reaching out to civil society in the way the united states does encounter other countries in the world. russia is no special target here. but, seeing relations with civil society in other countries is a normal part of international

relations. by the way, seeing corruption as a normal that is characteristic of relations of other countries, a threat to international order. the fact that russians have not been able to pick up on the vast -- was your word unspeakable corruption? i think you said something about that. vast and unspeakable corruption of the state doesn't mean other countries won't become increasingly concerned about that. just a last point about militarization because i completely agree with the underlying point that ariel makes and steve's response to it. the huge increase in russian military spending in the past ten years, you know, more than

doubling, has created new obstacles to cooperation. the biggest obstacle to co- cooperation in syria has been the fact that the russians are an active participant in the war. that means -- that has made it extremely difficult to find a common position. that would have been almost out of the question ten or 20 years ago. i mean, really, totally out of the question. so, that will be a new factor. i don't think it completely rules out cooperation. it just makes it more complicated. the russian reaction to any of the negotiating offers that are made on military issues is going

to be more unyielding, less interested in cooperation. by the way, i think the idea of respecting russian rights as, i think steve's words, in the near abroad, a nonstarter. not either at the beginning or any point in a company administration likely to be part of a formula for seeking cooperation. that's just going to be an area where the united states and russia don't agree. >> we have very little time left. we'll take three more questions, please. that's it. >> i was struck by steven fish's description of putin as a popular and effective dictator. i guess my question, is this

more of a reflection of his unique -- russia's unique culture? >> i have seen putin's closest allies and others could go, somebody said anybody who spoke and were familiar with the candidate for possible leaving. other people would be subject to the scenario, your assets can be taken away. my question is, do you see that as a separate dynamic leading to instability or stability or whatever? even as younger people, many of them leave. steve sestanovich, it doesn't

matter who wins, in effect the policy will be the same because of a deeply anti-russian feeling in america that goes back to yugoslavia or whatever. i wonder, are we focusing too much on personality and not enough on what maybe the russian leader sees as fundmental characteristics of the u.s. as we talked here about the fundamentals of russian society. >> mr. sestanovich, the leader after trump is more unpopular in the world as putin. i was surprised if you look at the far right in europe, which seems to be somewhat of an inspiring figure. i was wondering where do the

votes come from. couldn't putin and trump, a basket of implorables from the appeal of this type of finish? >> please. we have four minutes. >> to richard's question, is this about putin's political skills, popularity or russian culture? i think both. putin's skills is so in tune with what people actually want whether they want another leader. very unappealing to people. his personal style and policies. he is the antigorbachev. he was popular with us and at home. putin is the op cyst. i think he knows which buttons to press. he feels it himself. he's a typical russian when it comes to political views. that's a recipe for success. of course he's very skilled politically no doubt about it. in terms of the question about

putin's what you call the purge of his administration, starting off as chief of staff who has been dismissed, anybody on the informal form of address of putin as candidate. in fact, he is getting rid of old comrades who have known him 20, 30, 40 years and don't regard him as a god and do not take putin as a natural order of things. i don't think it's just because he wants to surround himself with -- i think partly they have their own games going, not just their own power basis to threaten him which he has long brought under control. they have their own games going with each other. he wants to clear it in a cleaner, newer public administration working for him. the question on stability is interesting. if he surrounds himself with younger people who seem to regard him as his leadership as the natural order of things and

who don't give him the bad news and don't speak to him even if they are on glee with him. if they don't tell him the truth about things. comrades from the old days do, in terms of what is going on in the country, that could be bad for stability. like he wants to hear the bad news. he wants, privately of course, he doesn't want it public. but he want to know what is really going on in the country and abroad. i think that if they don't feel comfortable enough with him to do that it is potentially destabilizing that could be, of course, a bad thing. in terms of putin being unpopular if the world, i think the polls cited in europe are right on. but i think that's just europe. i spent time in china a few years ago, couple summers teaching in china. he played very in a very flattering way into chinese media and he is a great heard. best european leader out there.

and they believe it. he is very popular in many countries around the world. and putin is, a live alternative for what they've got even if he is unpopular if europe. i think we need to bear that in mind as well. he is trying to show putin as an alternative to the united states in terms of thinking about foreign policy. his legitimate, saying demonstrating that in the middle east and i that i lot of the world is sitting up and paying attention. >> quickly on that point, it is a pew trust, pew research poll from late july, and they do an interesting break down of approval of a number of world leaders. and for all we've heard, putin is the one with the slenderist approval ratings across europe.

that may be different in particular countries, but not so many where it breaks say 30% approval and there are many where obama and miracle do. miracle not so popular if greece. china and india show more approval of putin though it's sti still -- it would be high by european standards but it's not the kind of popularity that you see for bm for example in most other countries and there's a real division. if you're an american ally in europe, you don't like putin. so in japan and south korea, you find hostility to putin. i would add one other thing,

rick, to your question about putin's skills versus history. putin has presided over fabulous economic growth. and an increase in living standard for ordinary people that depending on how you count, you could say is quadrupling in disposal income. when i talk to russians, i say what is it that is the core of this kind of popularity. crimea helped but the fact that there's been 15 years of better economic performance, it is just money in the bank for him. yes, it's protected him against downturn, although actually the downturn was starting from, you know, he had lost a lot of popularity. by 2013. and crimea bumped it up.

about american attitudes, i think russians and i think this is true in the russian elite, true in the russian diplomatic corps, tend to con flight anti-putinism and anti-russianism. i think there is a real element to the unpopularity of putin and and it taints reaction to russian policy and makes them stronger. he is an easy target in western rhetoric. but i don't think that that's quite as strong a sentiment when you talk about the country as a whole. the whole idea of it that russians have that this is just cold war thinking strikes me as not right.

it in many ways reflects disappointing positive expectations after the collapse of the soviet union. it's not so much that the ideas never changed, as that the hopes were deeply disappointed. and you've got some people in the russian elite saying this, saying publicly that russia was paying a price for a confrontational foreign policy, that made it harder to solve economic problems. that is not something a lot of people picked up on. but if russian economics difficulties continue, you will hear that repeated and echoed and not just technical

technocrats. this is a -- russia is entering year three of a recession. that is something that very few political leaders can ride out without paying a political price for it. and i think putin may be a real houdini but i don't think he will be completely immune to the political negatives that will result if this -- if there's not an economic turn around. and he has said this, that their economic obstacles are very great. he has said that without fundamental changes russian growth will hover around -- people remember the number? zero. that's not good. that's not a good formula. and so i think with him, the elite certainly the start, you will be begin to hear more

criticism of policy. even in the run up to the election. because it's an opportunity for people to try to lock putin in to different policies. >> thank you so much. please join me in thanking them. >> an interview today with csis, the program, folks, maybe a month ago, russian nationalism. it is on their website. i would recommend you take a look at it. we will be putting up independent film makers who have quite a bit of time in ukraine, independent film documentary of about half an hour's length within the next 24 hours.

we will put that out by e-mail and look for you to enjoy that, support their efforts. secondly, next wednesday, the 21st, we will have daniel traesman in town for a book release. that's the national press club. we will have the specific time-out, e-mail out as well. december 1st, andy cutchens will do a report for the next administration recommendations for u.s. relations and also obviously a look back over the past 25 years and where we're at. thank you for your support today. we will see you at one of those three or two events or on-line with the documentary. thank you very much. >> thank you. [ applause ]

c-span's washington journal, live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up tuesday morning, national journal hot line editor kyle trigs stat will talk about campaign 2016 and the chance that democrats will retake the majority of the house in november. and kate and vickie from the national partnership of women and families action fund will be on to discuss hillary clinton and donald trump's reposed child care and family leave policies. be sure to watch c-span washington journal at. okay a.m. tuesday morning. join the discussion. >> the smithsonian african museum of national hist reand culture opens its doors to the public for the first time on tuesday. . speakers include president obama and founding museum director

lonnie bunch. also in attendance will be first lady michelle obama. former president george w. bush and mrs. laura bush. u.s. supreme court chief justice john roberts. congressman john lewis and david exhorton live saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. next, defense secretary ashton carter and former defense secretary william perry on technology and innovation at the pentagon. they also discuss several issues including industry partnerships and cybersecurity efforts held by the hoover institution. this is an hour. >> hello, everyone. familiar facees. >> good afternoon. my name is tom gilligan.

i would like to welcome you to the hoover -- johnson center. welcome, dick, so glad you could join us. also, welcome you and thank you for joining us today. our discussing is titled innovation in u.s. defense policy. secretary of defense perspective. it will take a deep dive look at how the u.s. employed technological advantage in defense of the nation and whether that remains a feasible proposition. what was once the novel use of stealth technology, guided precision weapons, satellite command and control is now challenged by new technology such as autonomous weapons, cyber and advanced manufacturing. with an accelerating research and development process, will the u.s. be able to continue to rely on technological dominance for its national defense. moreover, what role does the private industry play in this future?

the moderator for today's discussion knows both participants well. as the former washington bureau chief of the new york time bill has had front row seats to consequential national security events of the last few decades. in 2008 when bill retired from "new york times," he came to stanford where he is an adjunct professor for center for international security and cooperation. also serves secretary of stanford board of trustees and associate vice president for university affairs. thank you in advance, phil, for what i'm sure will be a fascinating discussion. we're also delighted to have two incredible public servants as our speakers today. honorable william j. perry has been at the front lines of u.s. national security for half a century. starting his career as analysts writing reports reaching president kennedy during the height of the cuban missile crisis.

he hit the pinnacle of government service when he was named 19th u.s. secretary of defense. as secretary perry led efforts to reduce dangers of nuclear weapons in the post soviet era and secure safe transition into post cold war world. awarded him presidential medal of freedom. when he retired from a career in government he took on another service, teaching and research of the at stanford senior fellow with institution and friedman institute for international studies. honorable ashton carter is the 25th and current u.s. secretary of defense. as the chief executive of the department of defense and principle policy adviser to the president, secretary carter is responsible for men and women of the united states armed forces. similar to dr. perry, secretary carter has devoted much of his professional life to public service and advancing science and technology in the defense of the united states. he's held a variety of positions in the pentagon including deputy secretary of defense, under-secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and assistant

secretary of defense for international security policy. prior to his current role, secretary carter was annenberg distinguished visiting fellow at the hoover institution. and payne lecturer. together they have spent years in and out of the government focused on how they can promote and maintain peace and stability. when they were in academia, bill at stanford and ash at harvard co-directed defense project, program on how to prevent large-scale threats to security from emerging, co-authored op-eds reports. they have mutual admiration and respect through friendship. i'm sure you'll see that today. have an opportunity to recognize this long-term friendship and benefits it property to security. give thanks to mike franks and washington team and pentagon

staff here, debra gordon, robin perry and lisa perry for making today happen. finally, a quick note before we begin, both participants have in advance chosen not to speak about nuclear party under consideration by the administration and will not be commenting on that subject. further note, we have the secretary for about 30 minutes. his day job calls him elsewhere. thanks for doing that, ash, thanks for fitting us in. we appreciate it. there will be a bit of a change in the middle. if everyone can remain seated we'll carry on with secretary perry /*ry at that point in time. we appreciate it.ry at that poi. we appreciate it.y at that poin. we appreciate it. at that point. we appreciate it.at that point . we appreciate it. i'll turn it over to you. >> it's no accident these two gentlemen are here to discuss defense technology and innovation as most of you know, bill perry started his life as a mathematician, has a ph.d in mathematics and ash has a ph.d

in physics. as i say, when you look back at the history of innovation and defense department, you often find scientists serving in top civilian jobs as the catalyst for that kind of change. so let me just set the stage very briefly because we don't have much time with secretary carter. i would remind you that science and technology and defense are indivisible in american history. if you pick up the story with world war ii. you have geneva bush working as head of science research and development. of course there was the manhattan project during world war ii, which was staffed by many imminent scientists. then if you come to what i would think of as the first sort of explosive period of technological innovation in the post-war period during the eisenhower administration, you have the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the nuclear navy under admiral rickover and the

development of reconnaissance satellites. then if you jump ahead, i think that the next big period of technological innovation really began in the carter administration and largely thanks to bill perry and harold brown, who was of course secretary of defense. by the way, also a physicist. in that period we saw the beginning of the developmental efforts that led to the gps system, that led to stealth aircraft and precision munitions. so the subject for today really is what i think people are now referring to as the third offset. the prior offset, so-called off sets were done to give the united states an advantage in technology where we lacked some

of the manpower to face soviet threat and warsaw pact. so here we are today. you have launched a lot of very interesting initiatives and offset. i think we're headed, at least from what i read, to more semiautonomous weapons, maybe fully autonomous weapons systems. you're working with silicon valley. so when you think about what the goals are for what you would like to achieve with this, what would be the top two or three be? >> the goal for me is the same as it was for bill and harold and all of my predecessors, which is to make sure that we remain the finest fighting force in the world. we're that today for two reasons. i should say one is because we have wonderful people, whole different subject. also one where innovation matters.

the other is technology. what we're doing today to try to stay the best, technical substantive terms, as you said, keeping up with the times. you mentioned cyber, you mentioned autonomy. you might have mentioned bio, also, because that's the revolution that will come after information revolution in a sense. we need to be there for that as well. in addition to the technical substance and we're present across the entire waterfront. we always have been and will always need to be. there's a stylistic change from the time when bill was doing this, and i was working for bill and even before then i wan to come back and tell a story about bill later. but first of all, i always tell people we don't build anything

in the pentagon. we buy things, first and foremost. we buy them from private industry. so the key is our relationship with the private technology sector. the alternative was tried by the soviet union. we just do it all in-house. didn't work out very well. it has always been our relationship with private industry that has been the channel through which we got the best technology. now, that has to be different in today's world. that's what i'm trying to adjust to, than it was in the world where i began and where bill was. in those days the technology of consequence in our world mostly was american. and much of it government sponsored. those two things are still -- were still major players, but those two things are not to be

taken for granted anymore. so we have to have a new relationship with the dynamic innovative culture of the united states from the one we had when i started my career. so there's a technological -- there's a change in the technical substance we're trying to achieve but also the central change in style. that's when you see me coming out all the time to the palo alto area and elsewhere around the country trying to connect to the innovative community. it's in recognition of the fact that they, unlike i, young scientists and engineers, it was part of my dna growing up that you had a responsibility and connection to public life. that's just not -- there's nothing wrong with people, that's just not a reflex anymore. we have to reach out, especially hard, to connect with them and draw them in.

>> some of the things you're doing, some may know defense innovation unit experimental, diux. defense department set up these units in silicon valley, boston and austin. you're planning one elsewhere? >> sure. we're going to keep going because there's lots of good technology in the united states. it's a great thing. it is a cyber world and we can all talk to each other over skype and so forth but animal proximity matters. having somebody in the neighborhood who is from us and of us and reaching out and trying to meet people on their physical and really mental territory matters. so i'm grateful to stanford, which was an important part of helping me set up diux down at ames, then boston which has a somewhat different technological center of gravity. that's good. just last week out in austin, vibrant technological community. people who -- if you talk to somebody who hasn't been part of this, and you give them a

chance, these are young people who want to make a difference. they want to have what's up here. just like all people younger hoover scholars. same thing, same as you. they want what's up here to make a contribution. when you tell them they can do that in the field of national security, and that that will be really meaningful, and you'll make it possible for them to do it, enough to join the military, although that would be great if they did, but we'll find some other way to make it possible for them to go in and out, do it for a time, then go off and do something else, broaden themselves in some other way and recognize kids are different from kids in my day and kids in bill's day. and we have to adapt if we're going to draw them into our

mission. >> right. so i think if one is a student of the defense acquisition world, and i spent a fair amount of my time as a journalist writing about it, it's a very slow moving process, quite cumbersome, bureaucratic. what you seem to be trying to do is create an alternative universe in defense acquisition. agile, accelerated, buying things off the shelf, increase, in places like silicon valley and getting involved early on in the development of technologies that you think may have military applications. so this is not such an easy thing to do on one hand to accomplish that, and on the other hand, don't you face a lot of resistance in those traditional consolidated defense industry about this, in fact in the military services themselves? >> the last part is easy. no.

the reason is they are great companies that work for us for a long time. they are in the same situation as high-tech companies that i just described the department of defense it's self being is sels. namely, needing young, good talent. needing to draw people into them to the importance of what they do. so there's compliment every time i get someone to work on our problems, that's someone who potentially will work for them. in many cases, it's a small company they will buy. and so this becomes a feeder for the traditional defense industry, which, you know, i was secretary of technology and

logistics, essentially the job bill had for harold when harold was secretary of defense and he knows it extremely well. it was a different era. in this respect it was the same. there are things that take 10 years. you're going to build a design and build a brand-new ship class, going to take a little time. what you can't afford to do in today's world is make everything take that long, because just look around you. world of technology is changing too fast. you'll fall behind and people won't want to work with you because they are not going to work with people who fall behind. so it's a double whammy if you can't be agile. so we need to do that and we're -- the wars oddly, war is not a good thing but a spur to agility. you can't stand to not be there

on time with something for somebody who isn't just getting ready for some hypothetical fight. they are actually fighting today. and so we learned a lot about agility during that period. i myself learned a lot about it. so our acquisition system believe me on the last one is going to tell you everything is perfect there. but the companies are in the same boat we are. and the same boat basically every major institution, they are trying to get young people, especially young talented up to date people in their environs and working on the problems that matter to them. look around you. just about everybody here in this whole town and whole country is doing the same thing, competing for the faces you see around this room that are bright, have a future, up to date. we have to do the same if we're going to stay the best military.

>> let's take a concrete case, which is north korea. >> not agility. >> no. >> just checking. >> the missile defense system that the pentagon has been working on for many years is shall we see not perfect. so my question is when you think about what you're trying to do with diux and other acquisition, what do you imagine would be outcomes that would be applicable to the north koreans, frank? >> well, first of all, north korea is just to be deadly serious about it for a moment, bill perry is someone who himself tried very hard to get on a different -- get us on a different path with north korea

but it wasn't to be. they are what they are. it's not a game. it's not in the headlines a lot and so forth. but we every day, the slogan of u.s. forces in korea as many of you probably know is fight tonight. not because that's what we want to do but because that's what we have to be able to do. we are ready to do. so we have a very strong presence there. our south korean allies get stronger every day. that's not the rock army it was. they are extremely good. we have a strong ally in japan. unfortunately the diplomatic predict is bleak at the moment.

and we continue to be open to an improvement in that and try to get russia and china and others interested down that road but hard to project that's where it's going. therefore for me as far into the future as i can see, we need to stand strong in deterrence. now, you mentioned missile defenses as well. i'm going to differ with you just a little bit, because we do try to stay ahead of the north korean missile threat. you're right, missile defense is a difficult mission. and when it comes to a major nuclear threat like that posed by russia we know and have long known we have no way to protect our selves except deterrence. but we don't accept that with respect to north korea and we're not going to for as long as we can possibly avoid it. we do aspire to protection of our selves. we invest a lot and try to stay ahead of what they are doing numerically and qualitatively, but it's -- you've got north korea, you've got iran, you're

talking about problematic situations. russia, asia-pacific generally, isil which we need to destroy. so we've got plenty to do today. north korea is one of these things that never seems to go away. i worked on it once, once upon a time, 1994. i at least spend half of my time as assistant secretary of defense working for bill perry, 1994. it was deadly serious back in those days. can i play you a bill perry story i have to get out before i need to go? because it's really aimed at some of the hoover people here. and it's really aimed at some of the people here who are trying to figure out where to go with their lives. to do what, you know, what bill's done, what i do as secretary, and more importantly, our, you know, 2.8 million folks which i think are the noblest

kind of way to spend your lives that you can have. which is protecting our people, frankly, to make a better world. there's just nothing better to go home and tell your family what you've been doing all day than that. but a little story, bill may have known this, i may have told you this story before that you didn't know at the time. i was totally in physics, not knowing anything else to do with physics, i went tote scientist conference. here in washington. i came in sessions and sessions and sessions about physics. which is my field. is and there was one sort of physics and public interest kind of panel. or not panel. speaker. and i had some work. that hour was free, i sat down, and there's a person from the defense department, bill perry i

realized later, probably years later. and he was being essentially badgered by the audience about smart weapons. and that the question that they thought was a gotcha question to bill is, what are you going to do when one of these complicated microchip-enabled things breaks? i'll never forget the phrase, by the way, sergeants today would be furious hearing this. you know, how is some sergeant going to fix that chip? bill said, he looks at me, they're not going to fix it, they're going to throw it out and get another one. and i remember the audience. i thought that's an interesting guy. a smart guy, look what he's doing. look what he's doing. and a little light went off that

later down the road when i got kind of lured into this. by that offer, just do it for one year. here we are, 38 years later, something like that. and there was a little spark in there. i said, wow, that guy's something else. i'm sure you don't remember that. maybe you gave that speech a million times. but for one young person in the audience that said, wow, connecting mission and understanding. pretty cool stuff. >> so when one thinks about autonomous weapons, fully autonomous weapons, even semi-autonomous weapons like we're using today where we have nuclear-tipped missile as board unmanned submarines controlled by machines, that something you can imagine.

>> well, i believe that in the matter of use of lethal force, there will always be -- speaking of the united states, a human being involved in the decision making. i think that's necessary. and i don't anticipate that not happening. a system is better that have greater and greater degrees of ability to carry out certain functions for themselves. or increasingly autonomous. in most cases, you really need to continue to think of a human machine, overall system, even though the machine gets more complicated. >> so how did -- >> and interestingly, before all of this discussion started, i issued a directive. this is sort of eerie, i was deputy secretary, too. as defense secretary four years ago, i sent a directive that

says exactly that. that there always needs to be a human being in the decisionmaking involving the using of lethal force by the united states military. >> so, you know when we think of technology today, we're also finding the downside of technology and the loss of privacy, particularly. so, as you launch the programs, what are you doing, if anything, to try to also launch consideration of the legal, political and perhaps even moral questions that will be raised by new defense technologies? >> well, i just gave you an example of us trying to look -- this is now four years. we're talking about autonomous systems and people. so, we do -- we do look ahead. and think ahead, in so far as privacy is concerned, in particular, internet privacy,

one thing i would say to you is that we are enormous consumers of information protection technology. because there's nothing more important to us. that is our principal cyber machine. that is what i tell our cyber people, cyber commanders, that is job one. because there's no point in having all of those ships and planes, and everything else, they're all connected today. so we have to have our network connected. so we're big supporters and big sponsors of network protection, the largest in the world, by far, in terms of what we invest, and level of protection we demand. >> you know, i think we see almost weekly stories of supposedly impervious systems that are hacked.

and it raises a specter of a future in which defense operates so heavily through these systems that they are vulnerable to attacking. bill often talks about a miscalculation and possibly having a nuclear war. you know, aren't we going to potentially leave ourselves in a situation where some of these systems can be taken over by foreign powers or terrorist organizations? >> no. we -- not in the case of nuclear arsenals. a special case in which we have special safe guards i do have confidence in for other reasons not to be gone into here. but in general, you're right. we worry about it. we're concerned about it. anybody who thinks they're invulnerable is kidding themselves. so, for us, that means it's a constant battle. we're constantly looking. i'll give you an example in a

minute. but you also have to be thinking what if i lose that connection or i lose that ability. so we train our people to, we call it operating through an attack of that kind. so you have a fallback operational mode and style that is not complete frustration if that happens. and in protecting ourselves, as i mentioned, one of the things i've done is innovation which i'm always looking at suggested to me by people outside. one of the things i try to do is talk to people who are not part of our world but care about their safety, their family's safety and their children's safety. and who will take an interest and a little time. i set up an innovation board, eric schmidt. the chairman.

jeff bezos, reed hoffman, we've got some personnel things that we do. what i said to them is i don't expect you to know anything about defense. that's not the point. but you do know what agile forward-looking companies and people are thinking. tell me some things that might be valuable, might be useful. we can't use everything because we're not a company. we're the public sector. but in one of the ideas i got early on this is the kind of thing i've asked eric to provide me more of. it turns out nobody in the entire united states government has ever done a bug bounty which is what a lot of countries do. what a bug bounty is when you go out and invite white hat hackers to have at you, and report for a reward of some kind, vulnerabilities that we find.

nobody in the entire government -- we did it -- it's called hack the pentagon. it was spectacular, we got for free, a friendly, very thorough examination of tax service for which we were able to make hundreds of adjustments. the kind of thing you can pay for but it wouldn't necessarily have been as good. in our case, we can't give people rewards or people their rewards to having to hack the pentagon. so, we've got lots of people who did this for us. now, there's an example of something that isn't novel about it in the rest of the world. but that we, for some reason, our people have fun. that's the kind of idea i want to get. as i said, i can't do everything

because we're the professional. so there will be things that companies do that we'll never be able to do, it's not appropriate for us to do but there are lots of things that we can do. that's a part of adapting our style, as well as our technological content to today and in the future. even as bill did so brilliantly back in the carter administration. >> i think we have exhausted the time that you can spend with us. >> so, you get to be with bill. >> i'm afraid i have to go do something else. i appreciate it. i want to repeat what i said about bill. bill perry was, if i -- as i think about myself now talking to audiences and trying to draw people, at the tech conference last week in san francisco. i'm looking out at these faces.

and a great majority of them have not served in the military. this isn't like the world war ii generation. the draft generation or anything like that. you look at them and say how can i connect to them and inspire a generation to do something in public life. i'll just say that bill perry was a big inspiration to me. many other people, many other people, in my generation. but certainly to me. he not only represented that connection of thinking and understanding to service. but also great civility. and decency. and that matters a lot. here's someone i always knew

would do the right thing, stand for the right thing. stand behind people. and i think that's important, too, that we all be, you know, morally solid for the next generation, to the best of our possible abilities, and he was. so, he had all of that. and we're just very lucky to have him. i think our country and our world are lucky to have him. bill. >> thanks, ash. >> good to see you all. [ applause ] >> i feel like we're on a relay race. >> yeah, right. >> ash crust passed the baton. so, my apologies for not bringing you into the conversation, but the time with sitting with the defense secretary is precious.

bill, knowing what you know about innovation in the military. knowing what you know what ash is trying do, what would be your advice for him? what should he avoid, and what should he be on the lookout for that would surprise him and up-end his plans? >> let me start off, we talked about how important autonomous systems today compared to 23 years ago. i don't know about autonomous, it's a remotely controlled situation. we don't give machines authority to cyberlaunch nuclear weapons. and a certain stand-out as well. we have great improvement and effectiveness in having a

machine with autonomous capability, almost in all case as with nuclear weapons. we keep a people in the loop in the decision making. that's an important consideration. some of you here are old enough to have seen the movie where they had the doomsday machine. the thing you have to argue with this, not only do people err, machines error.o, machines error, machines error. the best designed machine can err. so, we have people in the loop as well. when i told you about it, many times, about the time i was at the head of defense command where the computers were short, ibms on the way to the united states.

the point i want to make about that story now, is that our computers are making an error. but our system understood that machines make errors sometimes. therefore, we require a human being to be there. luckily for the country and all of us, the human in the loop that night was an astute thoughtful general. so, that's a very, very important point. you and ash didn't bring it up but i wanted to bring up that point. >> what do you think the trapdoors are for ash carter as he moves ahead with this program? or his successor. since you've weren't down this road before with new technologies. what are the things to look out for that could turn into problems? >> he mentioned already one of them, which is introducing state of the art technology into the systems does require working with industry. we do not have state of the art. we do not have capability within the government to make state-of-the-art systems. we go to industry to get that done. and industry is different than

ours when i was secretary of defense getting things developed. people then understood the importance of what they were doing. when i was undersecretary, it was easy to get people to go out in industry and get people to do things i asked them to do. it's not so easy for ash. he is creating defense industrial experimental -- >> yes, defense innovation unit experiment. >> yeah. and one of the main points to that is to get industry on our side and doing these things. it's a tough job and he's works as hard at it as anybody could possibly work, and i think we'll have good results. but it is very different. when i was the undersecretary of defense many, many years ago, in the '70s, 1970s. when we did the opposite strategy. more than 95% of military equipment had electronics in it.

electronics for vacuum tubes. and it's hard to think of that today. and so, one of my jobs wasn't just to bring in these concepts like smart weapons and so on, it was simply to get the american military equipment upgraded to modern electronics. for the cost advantage. for the weight advantage. for the liability advancing. advantages. advantage the industry was receptive. we had a semi conductor industry on one side and the defense industry. and they never talked to each other. so, i created one program called very integrated high-speed circuits. nominally, the purpose was to advance the next level of military equipment to -- i forget what dimension, micro, i guess, feature size.

so, we put out money, invited companies to bid on this. we did get that. we got the program in the advance. more important than the advance was i required anybody that bid on this program which was a very attractive program. anybody that bid on this program had to be a team, on the team had to be one defense company and one defense company. it forced two companies to get together. the good to that was far more important than the feature side of the semi conductor side. >> so, secretary carter allude -- >> excuse me, that's what ash is trying to do today. >> right, right. so, he alluded in his comments early on in his appearance to the cold war, sort of balance of power with the soviet union. and it was really a bipolar war in those days.oar

in those days.worar in those days.lar in those days.dar in those days.r in those days. in those dayin those days in th. for anyone like me who spent any time in the soviet union, i was based there for three years in the mid to late '80s. it didn't take long to see the technology was technologically backward. they may have been a superpower. but technologically they were nowhere, not even in the race with united states those days. today when you think about the things that ash carter is trying to do with artificial intelligence. and the kinds of startups that spring up in silicon valley, i think about other countries of the world, specifically, china, which is going to have probably as astute, technological progress as the united states is going to have in areas like ai. when you think about this, how does that change the sort of stability issue when you're trying to develop the american defense of the future? >> that's a big difference today

from when i was undersecretary. still, i remember i went -- after i got out of office, in 1981, my first visit to the soviet union. prior to that, i got all of these intelligence briefings about how the soviets were ten feet tall and so on. what we would look at in missiles they were damn good. nuclear weapons they were very good. i went there, went around and visited with people. went to factories and talked. and i finally concluded this is a third world country with a first world military system. even that was wrong. it wasn't a first world military system, it was labeled as nukes. i think that was kind of backward as well. i don't think that's true today. >> right. >> i don't think russia compares technically -- well, no country

compares technically to the united states these days. and technology related to defense. but they're what i would call pure competitors, in china, and pure competitors in some fields in russia. so that's part of what we did. then we counted on the fact we had maybe a 10, 15-year lead in intergratd circuits and we exploited that to the full.grgr exploited that to the full.rgra exploited that to the full.argr exploited that to the full.trgr exploited that to the full.ergr exploited that to the full.drgre exploited that to the full.grat exploited that to the full. cir exploited that to the full. what's really different now we don't have that lead anymore. we have a lead. there are more out there. it's not a bipolar world anymore. so, it really changes the situation in pretty dramatic ways. >> so, interestingly, in an historical footnote, bill, of course, was the godfather, really, of stealth aircraft. but that technology was based on theoretical work that had initially been done in the soviet union. by a scientist. and they were either unaware of the potential applications of that technology. or they simply didn't have the

ability to translate it into stealth aircraft. so that's a kind of striking example in some ways. >> russian chief of staff in those days actually proposed to the political world an erratic change in the military what he called, i remember the term, radio combat technical teams. basically what we were proposing to do would be the offset strategy. although we didn't know what they were doing, and they didn't know what we were doing, really. they got turned down. the answer was we've got three times as many tanks, guns as they do. who needs this technology stuff. we'll stick what with we got. a huge mistake on their part. they had underlying capability and very sophisticated scientist he and engineers he .

they could have given us a run for their money those days. one thing people often point out to me how wonderful autocratic governments are because they can make decisions like that which is true. sometimes, the decisions they make like that are the wrong decisions. and there's no self-correction in the system anywhere. once they make a bad decision, they just plow down that direction for a decade or so. by that time, it's too late to make the change. >> so, bill, you live in the bay area. the silicon valley. in fact, bill in many ways, i'd like to think of, one of the pioneers of silicon valley when he was working out there for sylvania back in the 1950s doing defense contracts on systems. when you think about what ash carter is trying to do. on one hand, the pentagon is trying to do business with silicon valley. through diux. on the other hand, as we learned from the edward snowden disclosures, a lot of the biggest companies in the valley felt like they'd been violated by the defense department.

after all, let's not forget the nsa is an agency within the department of defense. so, how does he bridge this kind of cultural suspicion of a defense department? >> with great difficulty. because that's a very strong feeling among many of the high-tech companies in silicon valley. that the government is out to tell them what to do. handicap what they are trying to do. and to what the giant is trying to do is prevent them from dealing with companies and countries they want to deal with. and it's now. all of these things annoy people to where they stand. and you don't have anything to balance that. you don't have the feeling on their part. yes, maybe this is bad, but it's worth doing because of the dangers and stuff that we face. so, he's having a hard time, i think, getting real support from these high-tech companies.

if anybody can do it, he can. he's really thrown himself into it. with the time and the energy. he applied what david packard, originally called management by walking around. when he wanted to get something done, he doesn't just delegate. he actively went out to silicon valley four times. meeting with the companies out there at the highest level, intermediate levels and set up an office in silicon valley. but he's trying to overcome that. but the barriers are very great. >> i have one more question and then we'll take questions from the audience. my question is, looking ahead to the next administration whichever candidate ends up as president, when you started the innovative programs you did during the carter administration, there was no guarantee they were going to be carried through to completion by your successors and future presidents. so, what's your advice -- let's assume for a minute that what ash carter is doing is smart and

pivotal to future defenses. of the united states. what's your advice to not only his successor as defense secretary, but i think more importantly to the next president and to congress which after all has to cut the check to pay for these kinds of projects? >> a very good question. in the field of national security, there has to be some nonpartisan approach. for success. particularly in our field trying to apply technology to defense systems. this is often throwing in even broader areas. when i left the pentagon with this offset strategy, reasonably well advanced, the development -- we had the airplanes, next, we had the

first test flight, we'd done that 3 1/2 years but it wasn't fully operational. it was a year ahead of us yet. i was concerned very much about that. as well as some other programs we had going which weren't publicly known at the time. when the reagan administration came in, they didn't even know about a good many of them. so that was of concern. in fact, they did just the opposite, they went to school on them, they learned what was going on, and they took the program from the development stage, to production and to the field. by the time we got to desert storm, the f-117, the stealth airplane, the smart weapon, all of these things were their function. made a tremendous difference in the outcome of that war and i felt some sense of pride for them. but i also understood that my

successor, dick delour, and his boss, ultimately the president, hadn't supported that the whole thing would have gone down. it's a very, very important part. we have to hope what ash is doing now will be sustained by his successor. >> there is no guarentee of that and if you asked me in 1981 i left office. and i would have said not and luckily i was wrong. they did pick it up and follow through and questions for the audience please identify yourself please and keep the question brief please. >> there's been a lot of focus today on science and technology but it's first and foremost an art form and we have the

greatest technology in the world in the military. i had four tanks in iraq in 2007 but even with all the great technology we're 0-4. zero wins and four losses in 4th generation warfare even with all the great technology. what is being done to make sure that we're not putting the cart before the horse in he guards to technology and operations in the conduct of the art of warfare. >> so explain. forgive my ignorance but we're 0 for 4. >> 4th generation warfare. >> so against non-state actors in lebanon in 1983, somalia in the early 90s and now in iraq and afghanistan. it's hard to say we have been successful and we had all of this great technology but we've still not had any success so what can we do to make sure that we're creating the right technology to properly implemented the art of war.

>> got it. thank you. >> i'm not sure that we will do the right thing but that's what he is trying to do. one footnote is research and engineering. we had a hot war going on in afghanistan at that time. the primary one is protection for the forward operating pose and again not just to the headquaters and really something needed done and the problem was to get a high 24 hour a day

observation that is coming from any direction at any time of the day or night. and the old fashion balloon up there and brings information back down on the ground and that was taking 5 to 10 years to get that done and got it down in a few months. so it was a case that the system does not per my things like that to happen. and people could do it and in the late 70s and in afghanistan, instead of trying to reform a correct assistant, we set up a special case. except rules don't apply and push it through. it was easy to do now and it's still possible to do it.

and some forebearnce from congress but generally if you have a good idea and you can sell the importance of security you get the support you need to get that done but you have to be willing to take a chance after we go out and do something which is wrong if you make a mistake. you know who is going to get ripped to pieces. these outrageous things. >> it's a very interesting example. it's not applicable directly to your question but i wrote a book about this. so when he became president and these new technological innovations were being promoted by a scientist he took them out of the acquisition system and

gave them to the cia of all people so the development of the first satellite system it was managed by richard bissel, the director of operations at the cia that had zero technological background but he knew how to get something accomplished that was summed up best in an anecdote where one of his aids was riding with him in washington and racing off to get pack out to the cia and he was driving the wrong way down a one way street and she shouted at him, you're going wrong way down this street and he said i don't care as long as there's no traffic coming we'll get there faster. that's the way he ran the satellite program. so other questions, please? here's the mike up front please. >> my esteemed journalistic colleague. >> thank you, phil.

>> i was struck by ash carter's information here and that protection is job number one and it comes on the heels of mike hayden having said verizon does a better job of protecting information than the government does and he's accurate on that. and that the u.s. government depends on verizon and others to protect. is there a disconnect here for the priority number one and the fact that there is not an effort by the government to accelerate u.s. government protection of information. >> yes there is a disconnect.

one thing i had say is in some aspects of our protection, the ones which are most important, he was supremely important to us, we paying special attention to that. so when you consider the vast amount of data and the vast amount of people in the defense department we get a mediocre effort. so for example in protecting our commanding control length that directs our nuclear missiles to be fired.

>> in the back please. >> i have a related question. as you know the pentagon appears to be planning for how to use cyberattack capabilities with respect to enemy and as part of a new push for what's been a full spectrum defense. there's many that see this as perhaps a useful approach. and could be a double edge sword

and it could create destabilizing dynamics. >> what thoughts do you have about what considerations our policy planners need to make or decision makers need to make with cyberattack and defense issue and nuclear command. >> i said before i think part of that is to advocate and sometimes the way to deal with an attack is to attack back. that doesn't make any sense. we have to be the very best at even the pass protection. that's probably where we are the weakest i think. that's very, very hard. we have so many networks. and so complex. and in a mixture of civilian

military and these networks and it's a difficult problem and the internet after all what is designed to be opened. and trying to fix that after the fact and it was a seemingly difficult problem. at various times and specifically for maintaining the security on the most sensitive and most important. and nobody could think they're going to fix this problem and always going to have a vulnerability to a cyberattack. and responding back when it's appropriate but it's always

going to be there. we need to also be prepared to live with it. take that vulnerability into account. >> so i think that we are at the witching hour. i want to thank everybody for coming today and appreciate it and thank you for hosting this event. >> thank you for the excellent moderating. [ applause ] >> so of you have been given the gift of my book there. i have two things on the book. one is them is read at least the preface and chapter one and

secondly go on to our website and click on the link which describes the nuclear nightmare where a nuclear bomb destroys washington defendant c. >> cspan's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you and coming up tuesday morning national journal hotline will talk about campaign 2016 and the chance that democrats will retake the majority in the house in november and then the senior fellow with the manhattan institute and vicki the vice president of the national parer inship for women and family's action fund moving on to discuss

hillary clinton and donald trump's proposed child care and family leave policies. be sure to watch them live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. >> and the director of the consumer financial protection bureau. the senate banking committee holding the hearing. you can see it live at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on cspan 3. >> the smithsonian national museum of history and culture opens it's doors to the public for the first time on friday.

it will be live at 8:00 a.m. eastern leading up to the outdoor dedication ceremony. speakers include president obama and lonnie bunch and first lady michelle obama and former president george w. bush and mrs. laura bush. u.s. supreme court chief justice john roberts and smithsonian secretary. live saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv on cspan 3. >> next members of the united nations meet in new york to discuss the growing threat of isis and how to deal with it as an international community. various foreign ministers offer ideas on how to serve justice to terrorists while critiquing a current system being used. this is an hour and a half. >> please take a seat.

we need to be on time if it's possible at the end of the meeting. if it's impossible to start. and to decide even on fighting immunity and bringing it to justice. and i said your courage in being here with us today. ladies and gentlemen, only a few days ago we commemorate the attacks on the twin towers. just a few miles from here. six months ago and attacks. and innocent people have fallen victim to terrorist attacks by

violent extremists throughout the world. in america, in africa. it must be fought and is being fought with a full mind of intentions and justice systems to bring the terrorists to justice. and mistaken the damage even beyond terrorism. conflicts are always ugly but we have witnessed it on a scale. in syria and iraq are at the

mercy of dash. thousands have fallen to their crimes and violence and in their willingness to attack innocent people and not hesitating to target especially the most vulnerable including women and children. and it was born and they fall in the category of the more serious crimes of international concerns. war crimes. crimes against humanity. maybe even genocide. indeed, why most victims of dash in iraq and syria are sunni and

shia muslims certain ethnic minorities, christians, and others in northern iraq have suffered particular prosecution at the hands of dash. the situation in iraq was probably the most dramatic. with evidence strongly suggesting that dash sought to destroy the group in whole or in part. i'm very grateful for him speaking here today to give a voice to the victims. 2249 last november and extremed his unanimous rejection of dash and other organizations.

widely describing them as a threat to international security and a threat to all of us. such movements must be stopped. this is why belgium is actively taking part in the political coalition since the summer of 2014. however it's not sufficient. not all crimes limited to dash. the middle east has peaceful groups to rebuild a society in the region's solid foundations.

and the country's concern to ensure justice of their own territory. it's demonstrated it's commitment to finding it. in contrast, in the absence of any credible criminal proceedings in syria. they continue to fall on the security council. to refer the situation in syria to the international criminal court and ensuring accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is already a share and here we need to recognize that we often lack the proper

insurance. and confront terrorism. and we need to work today to preserve evidence that may be used since there is no statute of limitations and we need to work together better. together with ar skrgentina and netherlands and extradition to assist in an investigation and war crimes. the crimes against humanity and genocide. this initiative is already supported by a cross regional group of over 50 states.

ladies and gentlemen, to conclude in some words i would like to say it was the following, dash must be stopped. the war in syria must come to an end. it is essential to bring criminals to justice. there's no doubt in my mind that we will achieve this. it is an ideology we are fighting. an ideology of the absolute value of every human being. we're coming together along a universal method. equal for all and that message will win in the end. thank you for your attention and approximate for your presence again.

>> translator: thank you very much. i would like to thank the foreign minister of belgium and also the foreign minister of the u.k. my delegation is very pleased to see that the you mited kingdom and belgium and other european states are taking part in this meeting in order to express our international solidarity. to condemn the crimes committed by dash and in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.

and in the he essence transborder. and that's why we present a challenge for our legal frame works. and we have all of these extremists of who are a challenge to peace and to international peace and security. and it also threatened the stability of states. iraq has faced waves upon waves of crimes from the terrorist groupings of it. they are threatening our songs and they are trying to set iraqi against iraqis and this is a

contradiction to the tolerance found in the islamic tradition. dash is targeting civilians in order to commit the most crimes and explosions including in civilian areas and in targeting these defenseless citizens and the elderly, women are abducted. they are raped. this is in contradiction with all religious teachings. the women are forced to renounce their religion. and in our cultural heritage also was not spent and we would like to mention all the people that suffered severe trauma

because of all the crimes and iraq is currently studying all necessary mechanism in the national sphere in order to bring them in order to punish them. and the magnitude of the problem requires a number of measures. we have to end the trend which needs to consider all people that are not from the same religion or sect as infidels. we also have all the areas that

have been the theater of attacks and persecution and we have to bring some support to them. we also have to try to bring reconciliations to those regions where all of these gangs have operated. we have to capture all of these and we have to judge them before courts of law. in particular those that have become official numbers of of isis. we have to be able to gather evidence and to prevent tampering with evidence. we have to rebuild

infrastructure in the region that have been devastated and we have to bring all kind of of assistance to the population. we also have foreign terrorists that need to be punished. there are also collected crimes that have been committed by isis and they should not go unpunished but we have to redouble efforts. and we have to react solidarity in order to bring them to justice and for the international community to step up it's assistance in order to bring solace to the victims of these crimes so that they could get rid of the aftermath and the

consequences and the trauma that have been caused by these crimes. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. thank you all of you for coming today. let me begin with one important piece of good news which is that they have failed and is failing it's ambition to create a state, it's preposterous ambition to create a fate many iraq and syria. they have been righted on the battlefield and lost half of the territory that they had in iraq and about one fifth of the territory in syria and thousands of people proclaiming their joy at being liberated from rule.

but where ever they are pushed back, they leave a scar and torture, massacre, rape, mass enslavement of minorities so today i want to make a simple and unanswerable point in the aftermath of such crimes. i believe we all have an obligation to ensure that justice is done. and i'm grateful for this joint meeting because we're compelled to do this by our duty to those that have suffered so much. and it's to create disunity and bloodshed and hate. we are uniting to fight and i believe we should unite to bring

them to justice. a agreed with my iraqi colleague that we will bring forward a proposal to the united nations to lead this campaign for the un to lead a campaign. >> we begin the gathering and the preserving and evidence of the crimes. it's vital from the beginning that as many governments as possible should show their support and delighted by how many have come across this afternoon but this campaign should be supported by as many nongovernmental organizations as possible as well. those who have survived atrosties and those that represent them must also be at

the heart of this enterprise and i'll very pleased that it's represented this afternoon. i think this campaign should focus exclusively on the accountability of other actors in the area and syria and must be dealt with but there are are other ways elsewhere where that accountability can be pursued. and all the victims, the sunni and the shia arabs still suffering under the rule and the minorities that need to be targeted. and the mild east and of course those that are maimed and killed in terrorist attacks in europe and elsewhere. and indeed, in this country, here in the united states. work has already begun on this in a number of countries

including the u. k. but we think the moment has come for a truly global campaign and i hope that you agree. i think it will take time. we should be under no illusions. it will take patience to get this done but i think if we get this right, we can remind the world what this struggle is all about. it is about the even actual triumph of our values. of unity and compassion and tolerance over the message of hate but above all it's about the triumph of justice for all of those who have suffered. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> we will turn now to the commission and please you have the floor.

>> thank you minister and colleagues and friends. i'd like to begin by thanking the secretary of state of foreign affairs in the united kingdom of great britain and foreign ireland of sponsoring this panel along with the foreign ministers of belgium and iraq. i'm honored to be on this town. >> this fight against impunity highlights the growth by nations and horrific abuse of human rights committed in iraq. last month my office issued a report entitled a call for accountability and protection. survivors ofs a trosties committed by isil. it documented systematic and widespread sickening abuses committed by isil based on

ethmic rehioligious identity an the sexual and physical abuse and the deliberate seize and starvation of communities. thousands of women, children and men remain captive or are still missing or displaced. these may well alt to war crimes, crimes against humanity and also very likely genocide given notably the stalts -- statements repeatedly made that they will force conversion or put them to death. these and other allegations of human rights abuses, see laviol and crimes committed in iraq must be investigated. the perpetrators responsible for these atrosties must know one day they'll be brought to account. the government of iraq has the

primary responsibility to deliver justice to its people. if as emphasized by a foreign minister the government faces impossible challenges in this task, it should seek to be held for the international criminal court under the principle. i have repeatedly advised iraq to exceed to its own statute in the meantime to except it's jury diction with retroactive effect and the security council to refer these aelthss to the icc. and of a un commission and by the withdrew nighted kingdom and we back this proposal. and connect evidence of all serious violations in iraq no by woman they were committed and it

is important all of this works together. and have the final say over the destiny. in the final country. it is they that matter or should matter the most always. >> yes, ladies and gentlemen, i'm dr. simon adams at the center for the responsibility to protect and it's my honor to monitor the rest of the discussion and i want to congratulate everybody on fitting into this room. as we he have heard it poses a

threat for all that refuse to describe it's extremist association and also war crimes against humanity and the un commission included it's crimes and other communities in iraq and it's operatives or a military campaign to regain territory that it has seen and it's necessary to show that the international community will not allow the genocide and other atrosties to escape punishment nor to expect the survivors to relinquish their justice. the government in this room made a commitment to uphold their responsibility to protect mass a

atroci atrocity crimes. i'm proud to call a friend and a colleague. nadia's courage is a source of inspiration and is representative of what is most feared. her story and survival is a direct challenge to everything they stand for. it's an honor to give the floor to ambassador nadai. >> translator: our colleagues at the international center for protection, thank you for addressing this and thank you for all of those that are

present and countries and amal clooney and also representative of the society, the civil society organization. they're proud of taking children to training camps. they're proud of their ethnic cleansing and the presence in muslim countries is a shame and they must be eradicated. they have committed human rights abuses and in all other sections of society against civilians and other minorities and those who do not fit within their culture. they imagine how they could drown, people drown women an

children. how they burn children alive. they have introduced a new type in the world that was unheard of before and they have created principles. the target and the destruction of humanity for years that we have been, for two years we have been executed. my people have been terminated or exterminated and the perpetrators are still roaming free. how can we be proud of our humanity if we we are not even able to call ethnic cleansing ethnic cleansing. my country did not even hold one session in it's council of ministers about the cleansing. or the eradication.

those as a whole, they do not accept it, adhere to the principles or to adhere to the rules of international law. and our graveyards are not even protected. and the entire world is not paying attention. could not even pay $10 to protect these cemeteries. more than 40 graves have been discovered and the the world is doing nothing about it. i do not understand why they do not accept an international inquiry into holding those who, the perpetrators accountable. it's an international organization committing crimes and terrorism on a world hefl. why are they not held accountable internationally and

the is the impunity. i'm asking myself. i wonder why a person like me is knocking the doors of the international courts to get justice. and protecting the peel. it wasn't informed in order to protect the civilians. the local and the rape of thousands and not even one member has been subjected to justice whether in iraq or any other country for the perpetrator of crimes. there was no national or local or international inquiry about this. and there was no try beaual locally or internationally. i cannot understand this. how are they not held responsible?

those barbarians -- why are they not held responsible internationally? so that those that come after them understand and learn their lesson? all the members of the united nations are committed to prevent genocide. i'm here to call upon holding the perpetrators of terrorism accountab accountable. i demand that iraq calls upon the united nations security council to start a new inquiry to hold an international tribunal for iraq to stop the extermination of my people and to stop terrorism against all the people. thank you. [ applause ]

>> translator: i'm happy to hear what nadia said and for her to participate at this level to make her voice heard. she mentioned the injustice in iraq. all kinds of injustice in iraq against all kinds of factions, muslims and others and it's important and natural that she

stresses upon the crimes committed against the group she belongs to. thousands of years i would like to state that the council of ministers has mentioned the faction with fairness and spoke about it on the 15th of march 2015 and adopted resolution regarding the extermination of other minorities that the message of the foreign minister of iraq anywhere in the world mentions them and the crimes committed against the women and the children everywhere and once again i'd like to salute her and

now i wanted to make the comments. >>. >> the next speaker has been in the front lines in the fight against impunity and bringing perpetrators to justice. she is also the legal council. >> thank you and thank you for inviting me to participate at this event. two summers ago isis, the richest and brutal terror organization in the world began it's campaign to start within islamic califate. it reserves the most brutal act for a curdish speaking group

that's neither muslim nor christian and that isis considers infidels. it has vowed to wipe them out simply because. >> so far over 5,000 have been killed and over 3,000 women and children remain enslaved by isis there has not been a single member of isis held to account in the court anywhere in the world for the genocide. i have been instructed to represent a number of survivors and in the course of my work heard the most harrowing

testimony. she was forced to put make up on in preparation of rape. her nephew is forced to become a child soldier and is now brainwashed and contacts her to tell her to join the killing force. one of her nieces who i met was only 16 when isis came to their village and took her away. she told me she was raped four times a day and broke down when recounting she could hear a 10-year-old girl be tortured and scream and cry out for her mother throughout the ordeal. another client was 13 when she was kidnapped and she told me that her captor's wife would laugh as her husband beat her

and others i spoke to a mother whose daughters were driven to suicide and i saw a 16-year-old girl that escaped and set herself on fire so she would be too ugly to be taken by isis again. they want acknowledgment of the crimes committed so they cannot later be denied. they want justice. they want the chance to face their abusers in a court and tell them what they have done. they want to appear before a judge if only there was one to hear them. >> if we don't act on genocide when will we act? if we won't prosecute isis who will we hold to account f. the security council won't step in then who will? i have put forward a proposal on

behalf of isis survivors seeking that the security council send a team of professional investigators to gather evidence of crimes committed by isis in iraq we already know 55 mass graves unprotected and unexhumed. this would investigate crimes committed against all iraqis including sunni, christians and shia. the evidence could then be shared with the international criminal court or new international or hybrid court as well as with national prosecutors. suspects identified by the commission could also be subject to financial sanctions which in-turn would put more pressure on isis's survival. and the president of this security council and representatives of the u. k., u.s., russia and france. i met with the eu and all of them have been supportive of the

idea that the un should now play a role in gathering evidence of these crimes. i was also specifically back this same proposal this afternoon. and also happy to hear the iraqi foreign minister call for a international role. and the supporter of the united nations that states are failing to punish genocide. i said i was ashamed as a lawyer that there is no justice being done and ashamed as a woman that a girl can have her body used as a battlefield and we can ignore the community for help. if we can't go after isis for these acts then all of us who are lawyers or diplomats or officials here today should be ashamed.

yes for now i believe we will look back and ask ourselves what did we do in the face of genocide and what did we do to combat this brutal group that seeks to wipe out minorities from the middle east and break the spirit of a generation of young girls. will we say it's too difficult or inconvenient or that we joined forces and put alleged war criminals on trial? i thank you the u.k. government for taking a lead in harnessing this global effort to combat isis and i hope that we will now move forward together to bring them to justice. thank you. [ applause ] >> i'm sorry. we're also running overtime and there's a lot of ministers that want to speak and i'm very brave to ask foreign ministers to

limit themselves to two minutes in their interventions but i now call on the minister of foreign affairs of jordan. >> thank you for holding this meeting and thank you for your work and for the passionate plea that you just made and i hope that we can all heed the call and do what we have to do but most importantly i think when one hears and one imagines the horrific ordeal that she and her people have been through, written staltements and speeche

and conferences become almost insignificant but we have to for the sake of humanity continue our work to try to avoid more of this happening. and it is happening unfortunately. we have this fight that is on going. the military fight and the attempt to fight against impunity and bring them all to justice but also the prevention in the future. there's others out there and as we keep reminding the world it's all connected and the approach has to be wholistic. it's not just dash. if it's not dash it's al qaeda or another terror group and they're there all over the place and i appreciate what amal was

saying in terms of minorities. there are essential components of society in our part of the world. whether in iraq or syria or in other countries and so we find ourselves these days meeting in one conference or another and trying to see how we can protect

ourselves. and that's the breeding ground for terrorism and extremism and all the atrocites committed by islam and in the name of many things that we have absolutely nothing to do as civilized world. so i think we have to do what has to be done. the rule of law has to be applied. there has to be intelligence sharing. there has to be criminal data exchanges. and 2253. and we have to pursue not just them but affiliates. and everybody who deals with the sale of artifacts or the sale of human beings we have to make sure that everybody held them accountable. and saying maybe conference

mania is becoming a bit too much but it is important for all of us to continue and coordinate and address this whole disaster. and a whole way. thank you very much. >> sure they'll be brought to justice and i approve all the initiatives. i just want to describe what i did myself on behalf of the prime minister. i wrote twice last spring to the un security council. to establish a mechanism to

investigate reports of violations and in iraq and syria. first letter was the may 30th. and in this letter i mention these must be investigated and made by a competent court. the perpetrators of these crimes must be held into account and i mention what all of this just said. and in march 2015 the high commissioner for human rights be ease the report and there's evidence that they committed war crimes and crimes against them and the pent up investigation and for the un security council and to the international court. and they agreed with that.

it is why i wrote to the security council. and the un security general.kub the security council that more than 50 mass graves have been discovered so far in areas of iraq liberated by daesh control. and then he called the international community to take steps to ensure the members of daesh for the atrocious crimes perpetrated. in that tradition, iraq's representative to the u.n., mr. mohammed ali al akeem also urged the security council to set up a special mechanism for investigating and bringing to justice the criminal of daesh. so canada therefore asked the security council to act pursuant to its primary responsibility for the international peace and security by establishing a

mechanism to investigate report of violations of international law by daesh in iraq and in syria to determine whether these violations constitutes acts of genocide. okay. i stop there. but i have that may 30th. i wrote a second letter. a wrote a second letter june 16. why? because the united nations human rights council concluded that in the case of population in sinjar, it is a genocide. so canada recognized that as a genocide. and we invited everybody to do so. i understand we need to be careful about genocide. not all atrocities are genocide. but here we have a report concluding that in the case of the city, it is a genocide. so what are we waiting to recognize that genocide, and what the united nations security council is waiting for? so we should -- the international community should go all together and to ask for

these crimes to be properly investigated. >> thank you, minister. and i now call on -- [ applause ] i now call on lebanon. >> dear colleagues and friends, we must put an end to the daesh totalitarian project. is a project that has proven to be viable for some, and thus is recruiting and expanding. such international terrorist organizations are committing the most serious crimes. and such crimes are more dangerous than exploding bomb and unconventional or conventional nature. rather they are exploding communities through poisoning its mind.

lebanon took the initiative in july 2014 after the mass exodus of yazidis, christians, and others mosul. described as war crimes and crimes against humanity. and the initiative was to communicate information to the prosecutor of the icc and asked her office to act without delay. the conditions to open a preliminary examination are met. yet we are still waiting after two years for concrete actions to be taken. crimes of such international scale committed by individuals from different nationalities require a determined international and adequate response. since 2014, we witnessed many

coordinated u.n. security resolutions on daesh and foreign fighters. and we witnessed as well several uncoordinated prosecutions at the national level. and we have fallen short from eradicating the threat. the daesh project is still alive. rather it is flourishing. don't look at its geography. look at its popularity. it is time to destroy the ideology, to strip the ideological sponsors to lift the veil on the financing of such groups. and to take well coordinated measures on the judicial level so that each perpetrator and terrorist knows that he will not stay at large and his sponsor will not remain unaccountable. the mass displacement of populations, the deliberate

targeting of ethnic and religious groups, and the prosecution of all minorities are leading to the chaotic recomposition of the region. leading to ethnic and religious entities that will keep on fighting each other and raising the level of extremism on all sides. these crimes should not remain in silence. those criminals should be silenced. and the consequence for the inaction to lead to the end of the diversity that characterizes the region. a perfect chaotic situation for the reining of daesh spirit. lebanon's that of diversity is the anti-mod of daesh. the cradle of civilization and humanity should remain. our duty is to bring those threat eing it to justice. our goal is to bring for all

without discrimination. justice for yazidis, christian, sunni, shia, and this is how justice can prevail. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, minister. and i now call on my fellow west australian minister for foreign affair, julie bishop. >> ministerial colleagues and friends, daesh has inflicted terrible harm on individuals, families, and communities across iraq, syria, and beyond. its atrocities contravene international law and are an affront to fundamental concepts of morality. its brutal attacks on civilians, torture of captives, systemic sexual violence against women and children, and other deplorable acts as nadia and amal have articulated are an

utter rejection of decency and humanity. australia has joined other nations in condemning the appalling abuses committed by daesh or isis. condemnation is not enough. we must defeat daesh. we must totally neutralize the threat it poses to civilians, the region and the world. australia is supporting the efforts of the iraqi security forces who are making gains against daesh through our military contribution to the global counter daesh coalition. we are also working to prevent daesh financing and recruiting and the spread of its ideology. a military victory against daesh will not be enough. we must hold individual daesh terrorists, including foreign terrorists fighters from across the globe to account for the terrible crimes. as a member of the u.n. security

council in 2013-2014, australia supported vigorously attempts to further crisis in syria to the international criminal court, including through a draft resolution that strongly condemned abuses by nonstate armed groups. regrettably, this draft resolution was vetoed. we continued to call on the security council to fulfill its duty and its obligation and ensure that those responsible for daesh's atrocities do not escape justice. is an important factor in establishing lasting peace based on respect for human rights and the rule of law. australia supports organizations undertaking important work on international criminal justice, including justice rapid response and the collision for the international criminal court. all perpetrators of serious international crimes must be held to account. this means investigating and where appropriate prosecuting

such persons in accordance with international standards. australia has enhanced domestic criminal laws to better enable the gathering of evidence and prosecutions against returning foreign terrorist fighters. australia strongly supports the initiative of belgian iraq and the united kingdom to hold daesh responsible for the crimes it has committed in syria and iraq. the humanitarian toll caused by daesh is staggering. australia has responded with funding and offers of permanent resettlement for thousands of displaced vulnerable people from syria and iraq, particularly prosecuted minority, women, children, and families who had the least prospect of ever returning to their homes. and this includes offers of permanent resettlement to yazidis from iraq and syria, christians among others. it is absolutely vital that we remain united and committed to holding these perpetrators to

account so that justice does prevail and that we reject for all time the barbarity of daesh. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, minister. and could i just remind participants we only have about ten minutes left. and we still have quite a few speakers. the problem getting into the room. but i suspect there will be an invasion also if we don't get out of this room on time. so i now call on the foreign minister of senegal.

[ speaking french ] [ speaking french ]

[ applause ] >> merci beacoup, minister. i now call on the minister of foreign affairs in hungary. >> thank you very much. thank you very much for putting together this panel. here i don't want the speak as a representative of a european country which has been hit by migration, which is partly because of activities of isis.

but i would like to speak as a representative of a christian country. and i totally agree with mrs. murad saying we have to name things as they are. instead of hypocrisy and political correctness, we have to call challenges and things as they are. and i would like to emphasize that according to our understanding in hungary, isis is a threat on the christian civilization. and here i would like to share an enormous concern that the persecution of christian communities in the middle east region is a development which the world has to address finally. unfortunately, so far we were a little bit hypocratic on that. when we started to speak about persecution of christian communities, we were always said oh, look, let's speak about religious minorities, which is right. we have to speak than as well. but we have to be very honest as a representative of a christian country that isis is a threat to the christian communities and the christian civilization. and from this position, i would

like to say ibrahim that crimes against the christian communities must not remain unpunished. and after any crimes against christian communities, we have turned to the international criminal court. and regrettably i have to tell you that no response have arrived. we have turned to the prosecutor general of icc in order to investigate the crimes against christians. no response. and i think it's totally unacceptable from officials not to react on such kind of issues. we were among those countries who turned to security council in order to cite these issues to icc. and now i think it's time to renew this issue. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, minister. i now call on the deputy foreign minister of afghanistan.

>> can you hear me? >> yes. i can for sure. >> let me start by thanking the foreign minute stories of belgium, the united kingdom and iraq for the opening remarks and obviously for hosting this event. let me also say that as someone coming from afghanistan, who has seen brutality and violence for the last three and a half decades, i was really inspired an moved by the courage of ms. murad. as a human being, i not only sympathize with you, but i think supporting this initiative as human, it's the right thing to do. and this is why afghanistan will support this initiative, to make sure daesh is brought to justice, and particularly the perpetrators. in addition, daesh is not something that is operating in iraq and syria. daesh is now a very serious threat to south asia and central asia.

it is now particularly recruiting. it is brainwashing the youth of south asia. and it's also creating division between different ethnic groups. for us specifically, there is a very serious concerns because there is an enormous amount of resources that are coming to the fighters of daesh. and that is something that we worry about. in conclusion, the one point that i would like to make is that individually as a country, we cannot deal with daesh. and this is why i think coming together and sharing experiences with one another is the best way to move forward. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, minister. and i now call on the deputy -- sorry, the deputy foreign minister of norway. >> thank you, and thank you to our hosts. it is crucial to show that

parties to the conflict, including isil cannot act with impunity. we owe it to nadia murad and all the others who have suffered under their yoke. norway is making significant contribution in the region. and one of our priorities is empowering the survivors of isis crimes such as nadia. we support several projects aimed at rehabilitation and reintegration of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence survivors. their families and communities. and i'm pleased to say that we are planning and near doubling resources in syria and iraq for 2017, almost 50 million u.s. dollars. norway has supported the commission for international justice and accountability. and since 2014, we have

advocated that the security council should refer the situation in syria to the icc, and that international crimes committed by actors on all sides of the conflict should be investigated. and we still stand by this demand. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, minister. i now call on the u.s. undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights. >> thank you. secretary kerry has concluded that daesh is responsible for committing acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. and as such, the international community must marshall the same determination to bring justice to daesh perpetrators that we do to secure victory on the battlefield. we need not wait in the pursuit of justice. already the united states helps excavate and protect mass graves to document daesh's crimes.

we support forensic teams to identify the missing. we use telemetry and geospatial analysis to find potential mass graves behind enemy lines. and we aid survivors of daesh's atrocities, including those who have suffered sexual and gender-based violence. ultimately, the full facts about daesh's atrocities must be brought to light by an independent investigation and formal legal determination by a competent court or tribunal. and we look forward to partnering with other governments to find the best mechanism to insure truth and accountability. and however we proceed with this initiative, we must remember that daesh's crimes are not constrained by borders, and that daesh is not the only perpetrator of atrocities in the areas that are contested. so the united states supports efforts to hold accountable all

perpetrators of atrocities, regardless of their creator affiliation through fair, credible trials in iraq, syria, and beyond. this is essential because where justice is absent or where it only applies to some, that's where violate extremism can take root and grow. and the promotion of justice is therefore not only a moral imperative, but a strategic imperative. together we must build political will, strengthen the relevant institutions, and empower the brave individuals like ms. murad to show daesh and to show others who would perpetrator atrocities that justice is never beyond reach. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you for that. for those remarks. and i now call on the deputy undersecretary for the minister of foreign affairs of turkey. >> thank you.

mr. chair, i'd like to first thank the foreign minute stories of belgium, iraq, and uk for taking this initiative. as turkey, we are fighting on different fronts. not only against daesh, but al qaeda, pkk, ypg. and we think that we would like to regulate that. a terrorist group cannot be regarded legitimately just because it fights another terrorist group. and we've been for the past five years we've been underlying this in order to protect our military victory against daesh, we must ensure that all grievances are remedied and new fault lines be avoided. we are fighting militarily against daesh. we are cooperating very closely

with our coalition partners. and recently with -- we have had positive results from operation euphrates shield. we have been successful in sealing our border with syria almost 100 kilometers of our border is completely sealed now. but we have to continue our fight militarily. but at the same time, we have to bring these terrorists before justice. we have so far detained close to 4,000 people. 1,700 of them are foreigners. and bringing these terrorists before justice is our priority. but putting them in prison is not the end of the story. we need to develop good

monitoring and even better deradicalization and rehabilitation capacities. this morning we were discussing this within the context of jctf discussions. the prevention. go to the root causes of this. because if you don't do this, then new daesh terrorist groups can come to life. so last but not least, we should collectively promote, strengthen the resiliency now so societies against xenophobia and sectarianism that feeds on and manipulates the fear from daesh terrorism both in the west and the east. thank you. [ applause ] >> we're very close to being out of time. but we're now a couple of speakers left. we're going to hear from the eu counterterrorism coordinator.

>> nadia -- does it work? i'm very moved by your testimony. but even more impressed by your moral leadership. fully support your initiative, ministers. we have to do it for the sake of justice. we owe that to the victims, to society, to the families. but we have to do it for the sake of -- by doing that, we deglamourize the daesh rhetoric. and we show that these people are ugly criminals. so just an additional argument. eu does its maximum to help you in this respect by pushing our member states to have the most up to date legislation covering all aspect of terrorism, by increasing information sharing between security service and law enforcement agency and maximizing different agency, euro poll, by the way, eurodres has a network. and finally by helping countries

to build their capability. we are helping iraq. well tried to help to secure evidence in syria. but i just want -- and i be short -- mentioning two challenges we will have to collectively address. first, have a better access to digital evidence. because in most cases, the only evidence we have to show that someone was fighting alongside daesh is a digital, an e evidence. and we have to make it easier and faster to get access to this evidence. and the second one is we have to define a criminal way to handle the written if and when there will be an agreement in syria, we will have to handle that in a better way. we left the mujahedeen delayed '80s which is the start of the problem that we are facing today. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you for that. i now call on my friend and colleague the secretary general of amnesty international. >> thank you, simon.

and new to the organizers of the event for giving me an opportunity to speak here. we have issued a joint statement from yazda, which is a yazidi organization working with nadia, with some other colleagues about which. it's gone online and please do look at that. i'm speaking specifically as amnesty international here. i was recently given access to iraq. and i thank the foreign minister and the prime minister for that. i had an opportunity to hear it on fallujah and also in the kurdish region directly from victims and survivors from the yazidi community and others on how much the brutality of the so-called islamic state has affected them. unfortunately, those yazidi women, girls who escaped have not got the kind of support that they need either. so there are many, many challenges. and there is no question that there is a widespread breakdown in trust. the yazidi community feel that

those who have to protect them are not protecting them. so we have a big, big challenge. just to give you an example, basima, a 34-year-old mother is in indefinite detention by the kurdish regional government since 2014 because she is accused of complicity with the islamic state. so it's absolutely right that the islamic state is held to account for their crimes against the yazidi community. but also far beyond that. but we know for a fact that accountability cannot be partial. accountability of authority in iraq and syria is equally important because the crimes on the international law go far beyond those committed by one or two actors. the case for example where 36 men in our view were executed after a flawed trial with confessions extracted under torture is one example of that. international authority should first and foremost ensure

justice and ensure victims have access to remedies. but we're far from that situation. they're not able to do that. and sometimes they're not willing to do this. i raise this with prime minister abadi and with president barzani and the kurdish regional government. some of the perpetrators are also in syria. and so we shouldn't forget that this cuts across iraq and syria. international justice mechanisms are relevant. but we know that neither syria nor iraq has the commissioners just mentioned have ratified the statute. they should do that immediately and accept jurisdiction from 2002. the security council should stop playing politics and actually make sure that they take care of their responsibilities. all governments should exercise universal jurisdiction over those commits crimes on international law. the hybrid court proposal is good as long as it's impartial and independent. and i wanted to say one thing in closing that the post daesh iraq that we're talking about will have to be survivor and

victim-led. trust across all communities is very weak. we're talking about the yazidi communities here, but i think if we talk to the sunni community, i met many of the kurdish leaders in the kurdish region. i think there is a general feeling that this is a moment for the shias and the kurds to compensate for all the attacks they faced under the saddam regime. we cannot have this situation. and ultimately simon wants me to close now that we are sitting today here when the refugee and migrant summit is going on. and we cannot look at these issues as separate. if we treat this issue of -- we have to understand that those who are fleeing from war and persecution have to be treated with dignity and rights. which countries should accept more refugees into their country. if we treat this as a war against islam and not the islamic state, then we're going to have a lot of trouble in the future. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, salil. i'm going to say my thank yous

now. i thank the foreign ministers of iraq, belgium and uk. i'm going to give the floor to the u.n. special adviser on the prevention of genocide to provide concluding remarks. thank you, adama. >> i would like simply to echo some of the point that have already been made. before i do, i would like to pay tribute as i many have done to the immense bravery of nadia murad in the face of extreme traumatic events that led us to two years ago. i think nadia is definitely an inspiration for all of us. it is clear from the statement that we have heard today that we all agree that there must be accountability for the brutal crimes committed by the so-called islamic state, by daesh. the investigation undertaken by

the united nation have found that these crimes may cute wonse crimes against humanity and were part of a policy that communities based on their religious identity. we are also in agreement that while iraq has the primary responsibility to protect its populations, we owe member states, the united nations, the broader international community have a responsibility to assist and support the iraqi government in this regard. the responsibility to act is in our hands. we owe this to the victims and the survivors who like nadia live with the scars of those events. taking step towards accountability for the crimes that have been committed against

them cute a moral obligation to each one of the survivors. we owe this to all those who have suffered directly at the hands of daesh and those who have suffered indirectly as a result of daesh actions, both as individuals and as members of their communities. accountability is essential. and not only to hold the perpetrators to account and obtain justice for the victims, but also demonstrate to all communities whatever their ethnicity, race, or religious belief, that they have a future. fighting is both about dealing with the past and about building solid foundation for the future. in iraq, the commissioner of serious violations that may constitute crimes has undermined

the social fabric of the country. in syria, since the beginning of the conflict, rampant immupugni affords to end the conflict. accountability for is important to rebuild public trust in justice and institutions. reinstate the rule of law and prevent future crimes and violations. and i do hope sensibly that measures will be taken also so that the perpetrators of the serious crimes committed in syria are brought to justice. and it is urgent. today we have explored options for bringing perpetrators to justice. i applaud the commitment expressed by minister al jaafari. your leadership on this matter is essential. national and international efforts can and should be complimentary. international support can serve

to strengthen national capacity. in addition, efforts to strengthen mutual legal assistance and facilitate prosecution of perpetrators outside of iraq, whatever their nationality can contribute to national and international accountability process. your excellencies, there has been worldwide condemnation of the unspeakable acts committed by daesh. now we must work together. we must work together so that we can see the perpetrators of these acts are held to account. we owe this to nadia. we owe this to all the victim of daesh wherever they are. and i look forward to working with you to take that commitment forward. and once again, i would like to thank all of you for your commitment. and i sincerely hope that all together in this room we will

join hands and continue this fight against these criminals. >> thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> foreign minister of iraq has just asked to very quickly just have a final word before we all leave the room. >> translator: i would like to express my thanks, my deepest thanks for your world of sympathy and support for all the suffering of iraq. and we are deeply appreciative to you for your position. but solidarity is a first step. it's not enough. we need to have a working plan.

because the crimes of isis have all encompassing. they covered all spheres of life and activity in iraq. i am speaking of some young girls, shiite young girls who have been burned alive, torched alive after being raped. these are unspeakable horrors. and we have to be extremely deliberate in our efforts. this is our civilization that is at stake. this murderous group is trying, is not leaving any stone unturned in order to destroy the roots of our civilization. it is stepping up its barbaric

acts. and that's why we also have to step up our efforts. and we have to enlist the help of the icc. we have not requested the setting up of a special tribunal so far. but i would like to enlist your help, all of you, in order to use the mechanism that we have at our disposal. without delay. thank you so much. >> thank you, everybody. c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up tuesday morning, national journal hotline editor kyle trig stand will talk about 2016 and the chance that democrats will retake the house in november. and kay heimowitz, senior fellow

and the the manhattan institute will be on to discuss hillary clinton and donald trump's proposed child care and family leave policies. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" tuesday morning. join the discussion. cia director john brennan moderates a discussion tuesday on intelligence and national security issues. he'll be joined by other foreign intelligence leaders at an all-day symposium hosted by george washington university. see that live at 1:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. and then texas congressman michael mccaul holds a news briefing on counterterrorism efforts. he serves as the chair of the house homeland security committee. see that event live at 3:00 eastern. also tuesday, james clapper, the director of national intelligence looks at intelligence gathering and current national security threats. he'll sit down for an interview

with david ignatius of "the washington post." and that will be live at 6:00 p.m. eastern, also here on c-span3. for campaign 2016, c-span continues on the road to the white house. >> we all want to get back to making america strong and great again. >> i am running for everyone working hard to support their families. everyone who has been knocked down but gets back up. >> ahead, live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span. the c-span radio app, and c-span.org. monday, september 26th is the first presidential debate, live from hofstra university in hempstead, new york. then on tuesday, october 4th, vice presidential candidates governor mike pence and senator tim kaine debate at longwood university in farmville, virginia. and on sunday, october 9th, washington university in st. louis hosts the second presidential debate.

leading up to the third and final debate between hillary clinton and donald trump. taking place at the university of nevada las vegas on october 19th. live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span. listen live on the free c-span radio app, or watch live or any time on demand at c-span.org. now the house oversight committee holds a hearing on the state department's response to freedom of information requests dealing with former secretary of state hillary clinton's e-mails. the hearing comes after chairman jason chaffetz requested the justice department to hold another investigation into clinton e-mails deleted by a denver-based tech firm. the fbi decided not to press criminal charges after its own year-long investigation. this is three hours. >> oversight government reform will come to order.

without objection authorized to declare a recess at any time. a very important hearing today. as you know, the committee has jurisdiction. they have jurisdiction on federal records. have jurisdiction on the freedom of information act, have jurisdiction on the national archives. it's a very important part of our process. we're unique in our nation. we are transparent. we do provide access to the american people for what they paid for. as you also know, secretary clinton served as the secretary of state from early 2009 through early 2013. but here is the problem. since 2009, there have been thousands of congressional inquiries, thousands of foia requests, subpoenas, media inquiries. and if any of those required secretary clinton's federal records, ie her e-mails, there was not a way for those requests to be fulfilled. this has created a mess, a disaster for the people on the front line who have to deal with

this. and we're thankful for the four people that serve the united states. they serve in the state department. we appreciate them being on this panel and having to deal with this mess that hillary clinton conveniently created for the state department on her way out the door. remember, when she left in early 2013, it wasn't until december 5th of 2014 closing in on two years later that secretary clinton returned 55,000 pages in hardcopy format to the state department. roughly six months later, this prompted ambassador kennedy to ask for the electronic copies of these records. but later the fbi swooped in because they had been given by the inspector general, the inspector general had highlighted that there was classified information residing in a nonclassified situation with people who did not have the proper security clearance.

inspector general found this. they did what they were supposed to do. they contacted the fbi. the fbi swoops in and they find thousands and thousands of additional e-mails, many of which were classified. most were not. most were unclassified. but they nevertheless found federal records, not just her e-mail, federal records and it's important to note that the severity of this. because the classification ranges everything from confidential to secret, top secret. you even have special access programs. required a code word access. this information was found on there. i'm sure there will be discussion about how few they were. but there is a reason in this nation why we go to such great lengths to classify this information and make sure that the adversaries do not have access to it. to address this nightmare, the state department had allocated

roughly in $200812.6 million to fulfill the foia requests. that has now soared to $33 million that the state department is having to use. unfortunately, they're using millions of dollars in lawsuits. now keep in mind what the state department is doing. they're using this taxpayer money to make sure that this information never gets out to the public. the public paid for this information. they have access to this information. and the federal government is suing to make sure that they don't get that. now fortunately, the state department keeps losing these lawsuits. that's why we start to get and have this revealed. congressional inquiries sometimes are feckless, because state and others -- and it's not just the state department. i want to be fair. but state department is one of the worst from my vantage point in terms of providing documentation that we asked for and congressional inquiries. it's very frustrating.

and now we're starting to realize why this information is so incomplete. because even the state department themselves didn't have hillary clinton's federal records during the four years that she served. and here we are in 2016 still trying to untangle this mess. and these people have to deal with this. you have people like the judicial watch and the associated press and others. you shouldn't have to go to court and sue in order to get access to information that should be readily available. under the freedom of information act, you're supposed to have a response within 20 days. but look at the kiss of the associated press. the associated press i believe was 2010 just asked for a simple thing. show us hillary clinton's calendars. her calendars. they wait years for a response. they get a trickling of a little bit. they finally go to court. and even with the court, state department is saying we can't produce these. are you kidding me? her calendars?

i'd like to see the hillary clinton's calendars. you're telling me you can't produce those? what is going on? so we have a duty. we have an obligation. hillary clinton created this mess. hillary clinton set up this convenient arrangement with herself. hillary clinton picked this timeline. i know people are going to say oh, it's the political season. i just got this information from the fbi. we are days, legislative days after this has happened. i flew in to go see and read the documents downstairs. and i tell you, we're going to move in a rapid pace no matter the political calendar. and we would be derelict in our duty if we didn't do it. that's what we do in the oversight committee. it was founded in 1814. that's what we do. we oversee what happens in the executive branch. i do appreciate the four people that are here today. they have served this country and served it honorably. we appreciate their service to their country. they have been left a mess.

we're trying to untangle it. all we ask that you do is share with us the truth and perspective as you see it. and that's what we're seeking. no matter what it, we just want to get to the truth. so let's recognize the ranking member, mr. cummings for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to make sure mr. kennedy and witnesses that as we address this mess and as we address this disaster as the chairman has described it, and as we enter this hearing entitled "examining foia compliance at the department of state" that we make sure that we look at the entire problem.

i want to know how far back it goes. and we are about the integrity of this committee. and truly addressing foia compliance will take a look and see what happened even before hillary clinton and what happened afterwards. integrity of the committee. integrity of what we are supposed to be about. integrity of using the taxpayers' dollars wisely. so we might be effective and efficient in what we do. i wish i could say that i support today's hearing. but i think everyone in this room knows what is really going on here. this hearing is not about an

effort to improve foia or federal record-keeping. this is an attack. an attack on hillary clinton's candidacy for president of the united states of america. and just the latest in a series of attacks. the republicans started with their discredit of benghazi investigation accusing secretary clinton of all kinds of unsubstantiated conspiracies. when they turned up nothing, they just made up new accusations against hillary clinton. then when fbi director mr. comey sat in that very seat, in that witness chair and debunked those allegations, the republicans

responded by attacking the fbi director and then making up more accusations against secretary clinton. when mr. comey came before us, i told him that unfortunately while at within time he was the darling of the republican party, now he was being placed on trial. chairman sent a perjury referral to the justice department that is ludicrous on its face. then he sent another referral accusing secretary clinton of obstructing justice. these actions had their desired effect. they kept repeating the headline

that hillary clinton is under investigation. over the next five days, this committee will hold three hearings, focused directly on hillary clinton. one today, one monday, and one tuesday. this frantic preelection fervor is an egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars for political purposes. today this hearing is supposed to be, supposed to be focused on a report issued by the state department inspector general that highlighted long-standing challenges, long-standing. challenges. with foia across five different

secretaries of state. yet the republicans splashed only one picture across the advisory they sent to the press. a picture of secretary clinton. the ig identified four of the challenges under secretaries albright, powell, rice, clinton, and kerry. but republican memo for today focused only on one. you guessed it. secretary clinton. last night we obtained an e-mail in which secretary powell back in 2009 provided advice to secretary clinton on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records.

although secretary clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice, in this e-mail, secretary powell appears to admit that he did it, did this himself. he also said he disregarded security warnings and used his personal mobile device inside the state department's secure space. now let me make it very clear. secretary powell is the man i admire greatly. and i have tremendous respect for secretary powell and his decades of service to our nation, despite the poor judgment shown in this e-mail. however, rather than responding like republicans have done by

making a series of frivolous criminal referrals just to generate headlines to help donald trump, our goal as a committee should be to ensure that historical record is complete. not limited to secretary clinton, but the other secretaries -- albright, powell, kerry. sent nongovernmental service at aol and did not preserve these records. yet the republican memo focused only on the period between 2009 and 2013 when hillary clinton was secretary. this memo says the department, and i quote, lost an untold number of federal records due to

inappropriate recordkeeping practices by secretary hillary clinton and her senior staff, end of quote. yet secretary clinton produced some 55,000 pages of e-mails while secretary powell has produced none. if we truly are concerned with preserving the entire historical record, why hasn't a committee sent a letter asking aol to see if any secretary powell's e-mails are recoverable? the ig also reported that secretary powell sent classified information from his aol account. yet the committee has never asked aol to scan its systems, sequester national security information, or identify employees who may have had access to that information.

on this final issue, classification i do believe our committee can play a constructive, a very constructive role. i want you to shed light on this, mr. kennedy. but only if we do it in a bipartisan way. this whole idea of classification. as part of our review so far, we have seen all kinds of ridiculous outcomes. we've seen agency as disagree on classification decisions. we've seen one agency say a document is classified, and another agency say a document is not classified. we've seen unclassified documents suddenly become retroactively classified. we've seen documents with classification markings that were completely wrong. and we've seen documents that are explicitly marked

unclassified become classified after the fact. i do not know how anyone can decipher this broken system. and there is no independent airporter within the executive branch to handle these kinds of issues. this is exactly the type across agency issue that our committee was intended to address. and i hope we can do so together in a bipartisan way, or we're going to find ourselves in these predicaments again and again and again where one agency says it's classified. another one says it's not. retroactive today, wasn't before. and some kind of way, we need to address that, mr. kennedy. you've been around it long enough. and hopefully you and the others here can shed some light as to how we as a government oversight committee after all, we oversee

state and intelligence and others trying to figure out how we can make sure that we avoid those clashes in the future. with that, mr. chairman, i thank you and i yield back. >> thank you the gentleman. hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement, will now witness our witnesses. we're pleased to welcome the honorable patrick f. kennedy under secretary for management of the united states department of state. it is proper to address him i believe as ambassador. and my apologies that your name plate doesn't say that. but it should. the honorable janice jacobs is the transparency coordinator at the united states department of state. ambassador, we thank you for being here as well. mr. karin lang is the director of the executive secretariat at the united states department of state. and mr. clarence finney jr., deputy director for correspondence, records and staffing division at secretariat at the united states department

of state. we welcome you here as well. and thank you. i believe you've been in this role since 2006, correct? we welcome you all and thank you for being here. pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before you testify. if you'll please rise and raise your right hands. thank you. do you solemnly swear or afrontal system that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. it's my understanding that you're all representatives from the department of state, that rather than giving individual statements that ambassador kennedy will give one statement. we're very generous with our time here, ambassador, please feel free. the time is yours. >> thank you very much. chairman chaffetz, ranking member cummings, committee member, good morning. thank you for your invitation and your interest in foia.

i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the state department's ongoing efforts to improve our foia process. i am joined today by my colleagues ambassador janice jacobs, director jacobs, director lang, and ambassador jacobs return the to the state department in 2015 to be the transparency coordinator. lang is the director of the executive secretary of staff, and among many speedometers, she is responsible for coordinating the executive secretary's response to foia requests, and clarence is one of ms. lang's deputies responsible for matters. the state department is committed to openness and encouraging openness in u.s. foreign policy. two important efforts underscore commitment to openness. first, preserve a complete record of u.s. foreign policy under the federal records act, and secondly, our efforts to ensure that the american public can gain access to that record using the freedom of information

act. it is clear to the committee, to us, and to anyone reading the news that the state department struggles with the volume of foia material. since 2008, our new foia requests rose 300% from 6,000 to over 24,000 requests per year. we face a backlog of approximately 30,000 requests, 17 direct requests to the state department, and 13,000 referrals from other agencies to the state department that need our response or contribution as well. i want to make clear that this backlog is not acceptable, and we're working to reduce it. the rate of incoming cases is increasing, and many of these cases are increasingly complex. it is our experience that questioners come first to the state department to request information on any and all national security issues. these requests are a mixture of complex subject matters

including terrorism, armed conflict, foreign government relations, security, and diplomacy. these complex requests require multiple searches throughout the state department and throughout often any of our 275 embassies, missions, and consulates around the globe, often due nto review as well as in-depth coordination with other federal agencies. the most common complaint received from the public is delays in receiving timely responses. our goal is toot everything we can to complete each request as quickly as possible with as much response and information as we can and the foia staff works dim gently to make this happen. to address these challenges, the department undertook steps recently to improve records management, including our response to foia requests. we are working closely with the

national archives and records administration, secretary keri focused attention on foia, and asked the inspector general to review issues, and we've dire directed more resources towards foia processing. working with nara, we ensured we are capturing records appropriately. in 2014, the state department adopted the approved capstone approach to preserving e-mails, which captures all senior e-mails, and we started that in 2015. this program has been expanded to over 688 senior state department officials including secretary keri, and we'll deploy a tool to capture these materials by the end of the calendar year. increased use of e-mail, however, strains our decades old records management systems, but we're on schedule with the additional resources we've deployed through the assistance of all the work ambassador jacob's has done to meet the

deadline to manage our e-mail records electronically. efforts by secretary keri. earlier this year, the department wide notice reminded employees about the foia responsibilities and need for transparency. we're training in ways on record preservation to have a high level review on the issues, last september, the secretary appointed jacobs as the transparency coordinator, focusing on records management improvements including processing by moving from a 20th century paper-based system to a modern electronics system. we can answer any questions, describe efforts to identify procedure bureaucratic and technological solutions. the inspector general's review. last year, secretary kerry asked to review the issues. the i.g. issued four reports with recommendations for

improved records managements including foia and all the oig's recommendations resolved and implemented the majority of them. the others are still in process because of time and resources constraints. in january 2016, the oig found weaknesses in the foia processing by the executive secretary, which the executive secretary acknowledged. improvements have been made so far including establishing written procedures for foia, searches in e-mails, increased training, better oversight by staff. the may 2016 report concerned e-mail practices of five secretaries of stapt, in shortcomings in oh e-mails were p preserved in the past. it is clear they should have done a better job as secretary of state and senior staff going back several administrations. the didn't is much better situationed today than during the historical periods reviewed

by the oig. by 2015, we took a number of important steps. for instance, as noted, they both agree past preservation problems of secretary clinton and immediate staff were mitigated by the production of e-mails to the department. we then worked dill gently from may 2015 to february 2016 to release more than a 52,000 pages of secretary clinton's e-mails. the e-mails are now a part of the department's permanent records available on the foia website for the public to see. we recently received additional clinton e-mails from the federal bureau of investigation which we have begun processing. it's noted, state is automatically archiving secretary kerry's e-mails through the capstone program along with 687 other senior officials. increased resources for the foia office, the department has

reallocated and reprogrammed from 18 million in 2014 to $26.2 million in 2015, and 32.5 million this year. over the past year, foia office added 25 additional full-time positions and converted another 25 positions from part-time to full-time. this comes at a time when the department's operational funding has increased 25% in constant dollar terms over the last five years. we're taking it out of high. while there was a request service team to answer questions about specific status requests, a new foia officer joined the state department in may to enhance responsibilities to be responsive to the american public. have these steps made a difference? yes. we are beginning to see results. in fiscal 2014, we achieved a

23% reduction in our appeals backlog by streamlining our case processing. in fiscal year 2015, the department closed nine of the ten of its oldest foia requests. later this year, we plan to start posting nearly all documents released through foia no matter who the requests were through the public website resulting in more material on broader ranges of topics, potentially reducing the need for anyone to file a new request for information that is, in fact, already been reviewed. the department is committed to finding more ways to streamline the foia process and review the back lock. we look forward to exploring the issue today. mr. chairman, that concludes my statement. i have a written statement to be included in the record. >> absolutely. >> and i and my colleagues are open to your and the committee's questions. thank you, sir. >> i now recognize myself. i have to address the secretary

powell issue. important differences. first of all, the inspector general, who we rely on heavily, went back to speak with the former secretaries of state except hillary clinton, who refused to be engaged with the inspector general. in secretary clinton's case, it's the only case i'm aware of where there's an accusation of destruction of documents that were under subpeana. the fbi director testified before the committee that they didn't look at the comments secretary clinton gave under oath, and i point back to the january letter of this year, looking back 15 years, not just picking on one, but 15 years, which is a long, i think, exceptionally long time, but looking back, e maims changed, and, finally, i would just suggest that i think there are legitimate concerns about retroactive classifications,

over redactions, those types of thinks, and pleased to report to the committee because mr. cummings has legitimate concerns to question the people on monday. that's why we have the hearing. it is an embarrassment that the unclassified, unclassified documents residing in the gif, unclassified, are only reviewed by members of this committee, and the appropriations and judicial committee. if you reside in another committee and are a member of congress, you're prohillary clintoned by this administration from looking at unclassified documents. i don't know how to explain that. i think it's absolutely wrong. you are on the front lines. i know the management team at the state department didn't want you here because we issued you to be here, and i don't make you

in your personal capacity to make the decision. nevertheless, we're glad you're here. you didn't ask for this. i'm sympathetic. you have not testified before congress. i just ask you to be truthful, say how you saw it, what happened, and we will do everything we can to make sure that you get your story and version of what happened out there. when did you first know there was a problem? go ahead and move the microphone up close. there you go. >> sir, i want to thank you for giving giving me the opportunity. i always wanted to speak the truth at this particular situation and the comfort zone. >> sure. go ahead. when did you first notice a problem. >> notice a problem as far as records? >> yes. with secretary clinclinton, and records. >> first time i noetsticed a problem is when we noted that we received documents. there was initially a letter

that went out, and once we started receiving documents from secretary clinton, that's when we realized -- >> when was that? >> i can't tell you a specific date. >> i don't expect the day of the week, but roughly, when was that? >> i can't tell you the time. i just know when we had actually started receiving the actual documents -- >> after she had left? >> yes. >> did you raise any concerns prior to that? any questions about, did she have a dot-gov account? ms. lang said in a deposition she did. you raise concerns -- >> yes, sir. the concern was, basically, when she came on board, we asked the question, will she have a state-dot-gov account, and said she would not. that was not uncommon because the secretary prior to her did not have an account, and the previous secretary did not have one. >> the fact you didn't have

records from hillary clinton did you raise that question, that concern. were you told -- what did they tell you to say or not say about that? >> no one told me anything to say or not say. again, because she did not have a state dot-gov account, that was not abnormal because previous secretaries did not have a state dot gov account. the records received were placed into our repository, which is a track in the system. >> you got the secretary clinton dump of 55,000 pages, almost two years after she left. correct? >> i don't know the exact time frame, sir, but, yes, we received it. >> i believe it was december 5th of 2014 when mrs. secretary clinton returned 55,000 pages of e-mails. has the state department after december 5th, 2014, had the

department received any additional hillary clinton work e-mails that were federal records? >>. >> after the 55,000? >> yes. >> recently, my office was involved in records that just recently receive, but in that particular case, the only purpose i was involved with was just looking at the records, seeing if they were personal or work-let related, and that's why we were involved in the process because the department received so many records and the staffing was lacking. >> so, how many records did the state department receive after december 5th, 2014? >> i'm sorry, be more specific, talking about from secretary clinton, from other former employees? >> talking specifically about hillary clinton work e-mails that were federal records. how many did you get after december 5th? >> the federal bureau of

investigation has transferred a number of documents to the state department -- >> what is that number? do you know the number? >> those are still undergoing records review. >> was it 17,448? >> my office in the executive secretary of staff is not leading that effort. i would -- >> so who is? who knows this number? ambassador kennedy? >> chairman, to the -- we received a number of disks from the fbi. we are in the process of inputting them into our classified analysis system and counting them, and we know of 14,900 odd documents, and the fbi mentioned there could be tens of thousands of others in the string of disks we're processing now. >> all came after december 5th, 2014. >> all of those, mr. chairman, received in the last month.

>> ambassador kennedy, may 22nd, 2015, you asked as representative of the state department, you asked secretary clinton's attorney for an electronic copy of the 55,000 pages of e-mails. when did secretary clinton provide the electronic copy to you? >> intervening in that thing, mr. chairman, the fbi then took possession of all the electronic material that mr. kendal had, to the best of my knowledge. >> so did secretary clinton fulfill your request to return the federal records via electronic format? >> the secretary clinton's attorney to the best of my knowledge provided that electronic material to the fbi. >> or service seized, one of the two. it's embarrassing that you had to ask them to return in

electronic format. they wouldn't print it for hard copy, so did they ever give you an electronic copy for your request? >> to the best my understanding, mr. foreman, they no longer have electronic copies because it was in the possession of the fbi. it was seized, right? yeah. so you have since asked the fbi to turn over that? we asked the fbi to provide any material they have in their possession that's federal records. as i mentioned, mr. chairman, they provided us with a number of disks. we are loading those disks into our system so we can disaggregate the time periods because there's potentially records there prior to being secretary of state and after being secretary of sate, and

secondly, this is recoveries from her service; there could be material in there which are federal records and material which are not federal records, so we have to disaggregate those and process all federal records as we do for any. >> what number are you up to now, do you know? >> as i said, we are up to 14,900 documents we're reviewing in both the two stages of disag gags first. >> last question. i exceeded my time, but how do i get hillary clinton's calendars? why does that take long? the request came in 2010. you argue in court you still can't get it done by the end of the year. the judges had to intervene to force you to produce calendars. how difficult is a calendar? who is in charge of that, by the way? >> mr. chairman, when we have

30,000 requests pending, we have requirements under schutd to do what is historical declassification, which we moved 24 million pages in the last five years -- >> wait, i'm trying to talk about hillary clinton's e-mails. hillary clinton's calendars. i would like to see, as chairman of the oversight committee, i'd like to see hillary clinton's calendars. when can you provide that to me? >> i will find a time and get -- i'll find when it is and get back to you. >> when will you get back to me by? >> by tuesday, i can give you an idea when that information might be available. if i might, sir, the ab request was part of a larger swath of six foia requests that were engaged in. >> okay. if i might, another thing, what's relevant here and addresses the point that the

ranking member may, the way the law is constructed now, we are required to produce responses within 20 days. given the volume and complexity, given the classified material and begin other document requests for the foreign relations series, historical declassification, there's no way, mr. chairman, i can deal with every government agency and 275 posts in 20 days. that is simply a physical impossibility. that's why we're sued because i cannot, literally, unless i turn the entire state department off of every mission it had and put it on foia. eventually, i'd produce no new documents, and there's no problem, but there is a true resource time and other issues that have to be dealt with here, sir. >> to be clear, i would like to know how many different versions

of calendars hillary clinton has, and i'd like to know when you could provide to this committee her calendars while serving as secretary of state, and you'll get back to me roughly a week, is that fair? >> i can get back to you with a report on how the processing is coming, yes, sir. what we did for all the requests, we treated -- >> my request is not a foia request. i don't understand the foia part, but asking -- >> i understand fully. i think this becomes the 24th request that this committee has made of us in the last year. we produced 185,000 pages of documents and will continue to work to provide more. >> thank you. i now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to point out that you went over on your time, and i just pray for equal time, thank

you. mr. kennedy, i thank the witnesses for cooperating with the committee and helping us with our work i want to ask about powell's e-mails from the aol account and point out he served between 2001 and 2005 as secretary of state, and during his tenure, there were 92 million data breaches at aol. so as secretary powell laid out in his own book here, and, look, i have enormous respect and admiration for secretary powell and remain as a country thankful for the service, but what i want to point out is the desperate nature of the inquiry and how we ignore what secretary rice did and secretary powell did, and, instead, the committee with nine separate investigations and

counting has targeted hillary clinton for her conduct under similar circumstances. so secretary powell on page 109 of the book, might as well plugged it. it worked for me, "life and leadership: colin powell," to compliment the state computer in the office, i installed a laptop computer on a private line, it was an aol account, my personal e-mail account on the laptop allowed me direct access to anyone online shooting e e-mails to my principal assistants, individual ambassador, and increasingly to my foreign minister colleagues, like me, trying to bring ministries into the 180,000 miles per hour second world. so a lot of communications, ambassadors, foreign ministers. arguably, some classified information in there, but it's being done on a completely

private line. the program is that unlike secretary clinton, secretary powell apparently did not stave or print out any e-mails. i have a letter you sent on november 12th, 2014, asking unanimous consent to submit in the record. i'll -- in your letter, you asked secretary powell's representative to provide all of secretary powell's records that were not in the state department's recordkeeping system, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> okay. that would have included e-mails from his aol account work related, right? >> yes, sir. >> did secretary powell -- let me ask, how many e-mails did he produce pursuant your request? >> secretary powell responded that he did not have access anymore to any of those records, sir. >> didn't have access to them?

>> yes, sir. >> the number would be zero. >> yes, sir. >> okay. i have another letter from you dated october 21st, 2015. in this letter you asked secretary powell's representative to contact aol to determine whether any e-mails were still on their system, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> okay. to the best of your knowledge, did secretary powell do this? >> we never received a response to the request, sir. >> okay. i got another letter. from you. ambassador kennedy. dated november 6, 2015. this letter, you inform eed the national archives that secretary powell never contacted aol, isn't that right? >> that is correct, sir. >> okay. again, ambassador kennedy, july 2015, the chief records office rt national archives asked the state department to contact aol directly to determine, and i quote, whether it's still possible to retrieve e-mail

records that may still be present, close quote. mr. kennedy, did you ever contact aol? >> our lawyers advised, sir, that we are not a party to -- >> would that answer be a no? did you contact aol? >> no, sir, we did not contact aol. >> we have the chief records officer asking you to contact aol, and you're saying no, and your attorneys say no. >> saying we cannot make a request for someone else's records from their provider. the request has to be made by them, sir. >> at some point, the secretary informed you secretary powell sent classified information from his personal account. did you contact aol then? >> same answer, sir. we asked -- >> we -- >> we asked secretary powell contact aol. >> that answer would be no. you had a responsibility here, though. you admit that, virtue of position. >> yes. we contacted secretary powell. >> how many documents have you

given to the committee pursuant to investigation of secretary clinton? what's the number there? >> i -- i know that it's somewhere probably in the neighborhood of the 50,000. >> just 50,000? >> so far. >> given to this committee, pursuant to investigation of secretary clinton? i thought we said earlier there were 168,000? >> that's not -- those -- we have 23 different requests from this committee -- >> okay. let me ask you, how many documents have you provided this committee pursuant to our investigation of colin powell? >> i believe -- we provided this committee the three documents that -- >> great. >> that the fbi -- >> 50,000. that's a lopsided focus here. to your knowledge, have they picked up the phone to ask aol about the requests? >> as i said, in response to your earlier question, sir, it is -- we cannot get records of

another individual from their provider. they have to do it. >> i don't get this. this is ridiculous. this is the national archives asking you to contact aol, but you didn't do that. you asked secretary powell to contact aol. he didn't do that. we have -- here's now -- served at a critical time, dubious information provided about weapons of mass destruction in iraq that led the country to war. e nor consequences. ? committee is to pursue the

truth. your cooperation, advice of counsel, i think is putting the country at a particular point of vulnerability with respect to the investigation. and i just think -- if we're going to do this, if we're going to put our secretaries of state and our national leaders under the microscope, it shouldn't be just, you know, half -- shouldn't be just the democrats under investigation. that's what i feel is going on right here. that's what i feel is going on right here. that we got tens of thousands of documents produced as a result of our investigation of secretary clinton, and we got -- zero, well, three, three documents that you say you provided with respect to secretary powell.

this is a shame. i think the comments of the republican leaders earlier indicated this whole account was to rip down hillary clinton and ruin her reputation. that's what this is about. we're spending, look, i didn't have to spend any taxpayer money to get powell's admission to say he used a private e-mail, unclassified system, on aol, hacked 92 million times during his tenure. i didn't have to spend tax mayer money to see what he did. just read his book, his own words. here we are, like i said, the ninth investigation, another one i expect, just to rip down hillary clinton, and the only reason we're.cc it because she's running for president of the united states. that's the plain and god awful truth. that's what it's about. it's a shame. it's a shame. i yield back balance of my time. >> i thank the gentleman. the letter sent in january of

this year asked the state department for the current and past four secretaries of state, and i'd ask unanimous consent to submit this record into the record. >> 16 or 15? >> chairman yields. >> sure. >> document, and wondering, what was the follow-up from these folks? >> it's incomplete. we don't have all the information. we have some -- >> on powell and rice? >> asked for the current and past four secretaries of state. >> i just want to know what we've got. >> i'll get it from the staff. it's an appropriate question. we'll follow-up. we asked for it, not just of the current one or past one, but the past four.

so -- >> what about aol? can we ask them to get us that information? i mean, the fervor of which we go after hillary clinton seems like we have so much pour over, seems like we want to get the recor records. >> first order of business, i ask to enter it intoed record, without objection, so ordered. i will work to get the records -- >> all of them. >> all of them. >> all of them. >> all of them. we use the power of the committee to extract them -- >> hear that, we'll work with you to get it done. >> yes, sir, one thing? >> sure. >> in consultations with representatives of the four prior secretaries of state, neither secretary albright or rice used e-mail. not -- they have certified that

to us. >> yes. and that -- that's my understanding. i would also know we rely hvm on inspectors general, and there's not an inspector general report on this, which is frustrating. they are partial to do their job. the only person that refuses to interact is hillary clinton. that's just the fact. that's not political. it's just a fact. she won't cooperate with the inspector general. even the state department asks for an electronic copy that was not provided. there is but one investigation. one investigation that we are conducting relating to what's happening here and these federal records as potential obstruction. we have other inquiries of the state department, embassy security, things we are doing in very much a bipartisan way. be careful how we represent. there is one investigation. we were quiet until the fbi

testified they didn't ask these questions. begs to e question we have a job to do. >> mr. chairman? >> yes. >> i know we want to move on, but looking forward to working with you to get all the records. i think the american people deserve that. >> yeah, i agree. >> i don't want it to be any one-sided single investigation of hillary clinton because i do think it goes against the integrity of the committee. >> i hear you. >> mr. chairman? >> yes. >> just in terms of investing in the last comments that he reached out to secretaryalbright, secretary rice served from 2005 and 2009, well into the era of e-mail. have you checked, did she have a personal account? they certified they didn't use e-mail, i find that hard to believe. >> i -- i have spoken personally with secretary rice's attorney and that was his response, sir.

>> okay. >> i believe he was asking about ambright. >> both. >> i recognize the regime from florida. ? again for the record, you did see they did not use the two previous did not use e-mail, is that correct? >> that is what -- we have -- we have no records and talked to their representatives to confirm that. >> so, again, the way we got into this folks, and we have an investigation about benghazi, and it was discovered by accident. the fact is, how long have you been in your position with state over a correspondence of records? >> yes, sir. i came to the state -- >> i can't hear you. real loud. >> real close. >> yes, sir. >> what year? >> came to the state department in july of 2006.

>> the fact is in 2011, actually, you were first alerted to the use of the secretary. here's a picture of the secretary. this is an article from a publication that says you nighed in 2011 or raised questions about how the secretary was operating, and i guess, did you go to lang? lang made you aware that she was using a private server? how did you find out she was using a private server? you asked the question, was she using a government account? the response came back no. who told you that? >> that was told to me by within the rm, specific person, i can't remember. >> that goes back some time ago. you have an important responsibility. you have to keep the records and correspondence when they leave office and you meet with folks. these are members of congress.

we have the same obligation. we are custodians and trustees of information, and some of that e we can want take with us. you're not supposed to. in fact, i think it's against the law. isn't there a statute prohibiting taking that with you? i'm not an attorney. >> yes, sir. >> okay. yes. you met with secretary clinton's staff, did you not? did you meet with the secretary, or just her staff? >> with her staff, sir. >> is that dean, she there, and you told them that the obligations of what they had to turn over, did you provide them with that information? >> you told them what were the requirements were, returning information? >> yes, sir, myself, and the records office. >> at the time, did you mention anything about this?

>> anything dealing with public information part 6 state department documents? >> briefed them about responsibilities are. >> how long did it take? we heard request went in, and is that correct, ambassador kennedy? how long before -- when did you get the first dump of information from clintons. >> december, sir. >> of last year? >> of '14. >> two years after they left. >> i had two and a half years. >> i had all the information,

all the information they had. >> talking about the delivery? >> yes. 455,000 -- >> is there transmittal documents? >> they -- >> saying this is all we have or everything we found. >> i believe it's something it's with the fbi, data to you all, records that they found, that they did not provide, right? >> what the fbi essentially did to the best of my understanding, sir, is use forensics to go -- >> department under law to turn over the document, and this gentleman is responsible, he told them what to do and the

terms of the law are the regulations, and they were to comply. they did not. i want to know about the destruction of the hammering of the blackberries. those were personal blackberries that the secretary owned? is that what i'm told? that was not federal property? do you know? you're the custodian of the properties or the data. >> the records of the individuals who are -- >> they also have to give over property. you don't know anything about the hammering of the blackberries or whether they're -- i'd like to know for the record, too, the staff blackberries turned over, if any of those were not turned over, if they were destroyed too, mr. chairman? >> i requested that information.

i yield back. >> i now recognize ranking member. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> the, mr. kennedy, ambassador kennedy. i'm extremely concerned as i've said before about this issue of classificati classification. people are accused of crimes, and a lot of it, it's becoming very significant. what's classified and what's not. i think -- would you agree with that? it is significant. >> classification is always significant. >> yes, sir, mr. ranking member. >> yeah. i want to ask you about instances when experts from different agencies, disagree whether information is classified. i have an e-mail here dated april 10th, 2011.

it was dated based on a phone call from christophkris stevens envoy to libya. it's on the screen. first line of the e-mail says, and i quote, svu, special envoy stevens, end quote. what does svu mean? >> it means sensitive, but unclassified, sir. unclassified. >> e e-mail was explicitly mark ed unclassified, is that right? >> yes, sir. >> appears the envoy considered the information unclassified, is that correct? >> that is correct, stir. >> anyone reading this e-mail would assume that it was not classified, is that correct? >> that is correct, sir. >> the problem is that at some point after the e-mail was sent, they came in and claimed it was classified, on september 15, 2015, the state department has a letter to senator corker,

explaining that the intelligence community was wrong. the letter stated, and i quote, someone with intelligence community later subsequent to the posting claimed should have been redacted as secret. the letter from the state department goes on to say that the suggestion that the e-mails should have been treated as classified was, i quote, surprising and in the department's judgment, incorrect. end of quote. ambassador, why was it surprising to someone in the intelligence community who claimed this e-mail was classify ed we did not classify it.

as this is going on, the intelligence community through human intelligence or national technical means in effect steals the same information. or something close to, and they classified it, and they classify it because of the sources and methods in obtaining it. we often see parallel reporting. state department in classified

reporting, and intelligence community reporting talking to the same manner, and, therefore, you can have a document that is very close. we looked at it carefully and surprised, which is why we use that term in the letter, is because a number of the data points in this letter -- excuse me in the e-mail reporting ambassador steven's conversation are different, and, therefore, these are separate. the problem, ranking member of parallel reporting is something we see all the time, but it's actually a good thing because no government wants to operate on a single thread. >> it's a bad thing, though, when the fbi could possibly bring charges against somebody charges for disclosing documents that they claim to be classified when, in fact, they were not classified, so, i mean, you call

it healthy all you want -- >> mr. ranking member, what i'm saying is we did not classify information in the e-mail you are referencing, mr. ranking member, but information that parallels public press briefings from the nato press officer in brus sells. if the fbi came to us and said we want to take if as a court action, it's unclassified, we would certify it as we have. >> just the last question, this gets more confusing because when the fbi issued the report to congress, they told us that this e-mail was classified at the time that it was sent. did the fbi ask the state department whether you consider this e-mail to be classified. >> i can't give a particular information. we provided information to the

fbi, and this was one of the documents certified. >> do you have any suggestions as to how we go forward, with regards to trying to clear up these kinds -- there's arbiter, is that right? is there an arbiter? in other words, if you get intelligence saying it's unclassified -- it's classified, you got state saying it's unclassified, who arbitrates this? how is there a conclusion? >> as i understand the rules, mr. ranking member, that each agency is the authority over the documents that it produced. the state department produced this document. the state department said it's unclassified, and, therefore, de facto de jure, it is unclassified. could i ask, since you made reference to letter to senator corker, i ask that letter be entered into the record. >> i meant to do that. i ask the letter dated november 24th, 2015 senator corker be a

part of the record. >> without objection, so ordered. >> thank you very much. >> recognize the gentleman from ohio. >> how long have you worked in the state department? >>. >> a little over years, sir. >> you're responsible for maintaining records and complying with reference and archives laws, right? >> i am senior agency official. i have a number of people assisting me. >> you sent a letter to four former secretary of states, about records and getting information about the previous secretary of states, accurate? >> yes, sir. >> lawyers there? >> attorneys there or senior staff representatives. >> when did you send the letter? >> i believe it was sent in

2014. >> that's what i thought. why did you sent that letter? what prompted you to decide to send that letter to previous secretary of states? >> basically, we had been reviewing thousands of pages of documents in response to a number of requests including requests from there committee. regarding the benghazi temporary special mission attacks, and as we worked through all the documents, all the volume of material involved in the process, we noticed there was the use of a nonstate e-mail address that apparently may have come from secretary clinton. >> that's not what you said in february, but did it because of nara concerns. >> yes. >> is that the same difference?

>> same difference. >> all right. >> we saw a potential federal record, and therefore -- >> what prompted you was the benghazi request and foia request, and that you were not complying with the law, right? >> no. we were -- we were looking through documents in response to a committee request. >> okay. >> we saw evidence that there might be a federal record from a n nonfederal source which trips our requirement -- >> by the time you knew, when this prompted you, requests, law, everything else, when this prompted you, between the time you knew you had to do something different and when you actually sent the letter, did you talk to any of the former secretaries of state, any of the four, or any of their four december knsignat? >> not to my recollection. >> did you meet or talk about any subject? >> i regularly am in

communication with former -- one of the responsibilities of the position of the undersecretary for management is to be in contact with former secretaries of state on manage, ad min straitive support issues, so the answer so that is yes. >> let me get specific. did you talk to cheryl mills between the time you knew you had to do something different with record retention and when you sent the letter? >> i don't remember. >> not at all? >> i don't remember talking to her about the records. >> meet with her at all in that time frame? >> cheryl mills was and remained beyond the departure secretary clinton as the fesspecial representative for haiti, because of the -- >> you told us in february, you had lunch with her in this time frame meeting with her on numerous occasions? >> is that accurate? >> that's what i'm saying, sir. >> you asked, when we asked you, i said, between the time you

learn eed you needed something different with record retention, and you acceptability the letter, had conversations with mills, but none dealt with this issue. >> that is correct. >> because -- >> you anxioused s eanswered sa tipped her off. is that accurate? i'm quoting what you said in the depositi deposition. >> i'm not changing my deposition one ida, but two things, sir. one is i was not brought up to date immediately on the fact that my colleagues and staff had come across this one e-mail thing, and then were researching through the material. that was not brought to my attention. much later. >> here's what i want to get to. fbi released a report friday. they say on page 15, during the summer of 2014, state indicated, state department indicated to mills a request for clinton's work-related e-mails would be

forthcoming. in october of 2014, the state department followed up by sending an official request to clinton asking for work-related e-mails. now you just said in february when you were under oath and deposed in front of the benghazi committee you never tipped her off. somebody tipped her off. during the summer of 2014, she got the heads up that this letter was coming. you know who tipped her off? >> no, sir, i do not. >> it was not you, ambassador kennedy? >> to the to the best of any knowledge, no, sir. >> were you interviewed by the fbi? >> yes, sir. >> ambassador jacobs did you tip hillary clinton off? >> no, sir, i did not. >> interviewed by the fbi. >> >> no, i was not. >> ms. lang, did you tip her off in the summer of 2014? >> no, i did not, sir. >> interviewed by the fbi? >> no, i was not, sir. >> did you tip mills off? >> no, sir. >> did you tip hillary clinton off? >> no, sir. >> were you interviewed by the fbi? >> no, sir. >> so somebody who was interviewed by the fbi told the

fbi we tip her off. have you done an investigation, ambassador kennedy, who tipped off? this is what it gets to. once again, hillary clinton gets treated different than anybody else. she got tipped off. i don't think ambassador powell was tipped off. have you started an investigation, ambassador, who tipped her off before getting the letter requesting documents? >> i have not. >> any idea who did? >> no, sir. >> okay. i yield. >> i thank the gentleman. i recognize the gentleman from pengz for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador, i want to ask questions about the three e-mails out of the 30,000 that fbi director referenced.

s classifiy eied douchlts to be marked, and identify the original classifier, correct, ambassador kennedy? >> that is correct, sir. there is, in effect, a four-line marking. >> must identify the agency was office of origin? correct? >> yes, sir. >> must identify the reason for classification? correct? >> yes, sir. >> it must identify the date for declassification right? >> yes, sir. >> and classified documents typically have to have a banner or a header at the top and bottom that say classified along with the level of classification, correct in that? >> yes, sir. >> so five requirements in the

manuals, and testified about had none of these indicators, correct in that? >> that is correct, sir. >> not one of the five require ed marking requirements? >> correct, sir. >> okay. the e-mails had none of them, as a result, the director, sitting where you are right now, testified that it would be reasonable for somebody looking at a document with none of these required markings, immediately to infer they were not classified. are you aware of that testimony? >> i am aware of it, sir. >> do you agree with the director that someone familiar with properly marking classified documents would reasonably consider such a document without any five requirements not classified? >> i fully agree with the director. >> state department spokesman

said that the parenthesis markings, ones referred to confident rl, lowest level of classification, on three e-mails, he said those mashings themselves were in error, not, quote, necessary or appropriate at the time they were sent for an e-mail, that your understanding as well? >> yes, sir. >> i want to show you one of the e-mailings dated august 2, 2012. the markings, it's on the screen as well. have that, ambassador? >> i do, sir. >> all right. it was in the beginning of the e-mail, marking of the state department, said it was a mistake, you see that? >> yes, sir. >> and then four paragraphs followed, do you see them? >> yes, sir. >> each of the paragraphs says

sbu, which we covered, sensitive, but unclassified, right? >> that means, yes, sir, and it means it does not have to be moved in classified channels. >> so every one of these are unclassified, right? >> yes, sir. >> so this e-mail is, in fact, unclassified, and it always has been. >> yes, sir. >> and did the fbi consult with you about the classification status of this e-mail? >> they did not consult with me, personally. i know the state department provided some input to the fbi, but their decisions are their decisions. their writings are their writings. >> when you say "their," who do you mean? >> the fbi, sir. >> all right. >> do you know why the fbi did not consult with you about the classification status of the e-mail? >> i would have to check

congressman to see if they consulted with someone else in the state department. i know they did not consult with me. but as you correctly point out, the subject line there is not having classify material in it nor does the text of that. even redactions there, redaction for deliberative process, not for classification. this document is unclassified. >> i thank you. i yield back. >> we'll recognize the gentleman from michigan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, panel, for being here. when did you first become aware of the extent to which secretary clinton relied on private server, e-mails, to address her conduct, her responsibilities, and state department business?

>> sir, i couldn't give you a date and time frame, but i do know that when we started receiving the actual documents, at the state department, that's when i realized she was using another device.

>> no, sir, we did not have e-mails, did not have a state gov account, so we just searched records we had, sir. >> so you -- so then you -- because i understand it, did not realize extent to which secretary used her private e mate server? on the basis of that, you're saying you couldn't do anything about it? >> did not know about the server or other e-mail account she was using until received in the department. >> how was, if this request was made in 2009, how was the department able to close request for correspondence covering secretary clinton when the department did not have access to all of the e-mail correspondence from secretary? >> again, sir, i would have to see the specific requests, to see when they were asking, and see if they --

>> but they asked. there's a lot of that. >> again, sir, i have to see if the executive secretary received it because when foia comes in, they do not come directly to the sec fairs, and prior to closure she used a private server, private e-mails for conducting official business? >> not even going to answer the question, because i'm only responsible for the dpektive secretary. >> who is responsible for that? mr. kennedy, now that you know it? >> that is why congressman we posted all of the 52,000 e-mails we received on the state department's public website so that if there was an e-mail that we now have what we did not have then, and, therefore, since we did not have it, we were telling the truth in response at that moment, if anyone thinks that

one of their inquiries did not get a full response, we posted all the of that material, all 52,000 documents to public foia website in a searchable form. so that can't be, in effect, retroactive any earlier inquiries, did not have records of that. >> wow. so anyone who made a request that can know go -- >> so we got the request. >> par top? >> we have the request? that's what you're saying pb? >> if we did not respond before because we did not have records then, and we have the record now, the 52,000, all 52,000 is

accessible. >> again, mr. chairman, that's the republican for the hearing. the sloppiness, messiness, and difficulty for a secretary of state to do something that shouldn't have been done. do you recall a request from august 27, 2010, a request e hail sent to higt? >> not offhand, sir. >> it was marked pending given that this request was asked to about e-mails sent not secretary. your processing should have, as i understand, a review of the inbox. did that process take place? >> again, sir, i have to see if, in fact, executive secretary received the request. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. >> before, just yield for a second. there was a choice.

secretary had a choice. she chose to not abide by the rules of the state department, and she went off for her own and created her own server and own mess. >> federal records. >> federal records. there was a choice. it's not a mistake, a mistake is putting the letter e at the end of potato. this is a conscious decision. use the dot gov account. that's why it's there. safe ape secure. there's two systems at the state department. you can't just take classified information you didn't forward. it doesn't work like that. we got to get into the depths of this. that's part why we have the hearings next week, but there's a conscious choice, and she chose not to use the safety and security and expertise of the state department. she put the country and federal

records in jeopardy and has to clean this mess up for years to come. recognize mr. lou from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> ambassador kennedy, it's true, isn't it, the freedom of information act does not apply to members of congress? >> to the best of my knowledge, syr sir, it is true. >> i have to let that sink in for a moment. we, in congress, passed this law asking other federal agencies to meet these standards that we ourselves are unwilling to meet. it is pure hypocrisy. it is a double standard. it's worse in this case. did you know, ambassador, that all members of congress get security clearances? >> i believe so, yes, sir. >> we get it not because we go through a background check, but because we have to win the most number of votes in our district.

and as members with security clearances, we get to have private e-mail servers. we can have one private e-mail serves, five, 27. we can have private e-mail accounts and conduct official business on the private e-mail server on the private e-mail account. so i'm not going to participate in the hypocrisy of today's hearing, but i want to use my time to talk about an issue that actually matters. that is the slaughter of children and civilians in the country of yemen being enabled by the u.s. department of state. as under secretary, i'm sure that you know last year the state department provided material assistance to saudi arabia led coalition in the country of yemen. are you aware of rights watch and reporters on the ground

reported numerous war crimes committed by the saudi arabia led coalition? >> congressman, i've seen references to that in the press, but if i might, not in attempt to avoid the question because i would be glad to arrange for someone to -- there are six under secretaries at the state department. i'm the undersecretary for managements. my writ is rather large, but it does not encompass political military activities or foreign military assistance. >> i understand. >> i'll be glad to work with you, though. >> i understand. as a member in a minority party, i do not set the agenda, and i'll ask these questions. are you aware that there was a report documenting at least 33 cases with the saudi arabia coalition with the system of the united states targeting and killing civilians, many of them not military targets. answer yes or no. >> i have not seen the report, sir.

>> are you aware just last month the saudi arabia led coalition targeted and killed a chern at school, 28 kids, 18 injured, 10 killed, young as 7 and 8 years old. aware of that. >> no, sir, i'm not. >> aware that the coalition struck a fourth hospital facility last month, this time a doctors without borders hospital, killing numerous doctors and staff. >> i think i saw that, sir. >> it's a war crime to kill civils nowhere near military targets? >> i'm not a lawyer, sir, but, obviously, the direct targeting of civilians without any other justification is certainly not

acceptable. >> thank you. >> you're aware that the united states providing refuelling saudi arabia jets, missile support, intelligence, and other assistance, correct? >> i'm aware that we are assisting the saudi arabia to combat terrorist activity, yes. >> the state department proposed another sale of billions of dollars of arms, safety department notice when congress was in recess, little time to act on it, is that correct? >> i'm not aware of that congressional notification, sir.