i don't think wea i don't think we've been through this at this scale and it's survived and thrived and in fact, i would argue in a lot of ways it improved itself as we go into an industrial society and we're at that same inflexion point today between an industrial economy or information economy or however you want to phrase it. that creates an amazing opportunity to not just survive as a democracy, but to create a more perfect union. >> i believe that the cybersecurity agenda in general, this is super, super important agenda that need to be pushed. and the reason is cybersecurity is want a problem that was hyped, and then it will be gone. cybersecurity is a problem that is here to stay. >> watch "the communicators" at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. now secretary of state rex

tillerson hosts a foreign ministers meeting at the state department. he is joined by the iraqi prime minister talking about global efforts to combat isis. this is 40 minutes. good morning, and thank you all for traveling to washington, d.c., to participate in this

counter isis-insterrial conference. it is encouraging to see the attendance when the forces of isis and daesh tune into their tvs and their computer monitors they will see the strength of a combined 68 nations and organizations. together, we share a resolve to deal isis or daesh a lasting defeat. our coalition is united in stopping an isis resurgence, halting its global ambitions and discrediting its ideological narrative and we're ready to grow stronger and stay aggressive in this battle. president trump in his recent address to his joint session of congress made clear that it is the policy of the united states to demolish and destroy this barbaric terrorist organization and that is what we are going to do. many of us here today represent countries who know isis' carnage first hand. in fact, today marks one year

since 32 innocent people were killed and 300 wounded in attacks and brussels. the belgian foreign minister is home commemorating this day for his country and we are happy to have him here today. a child was killed and 600 iraqis were injured in an isis chemical weapons attack in gaza just south of kirkuk. isis has carried out horrific attacks in the streets of paris and istanbul each planned from its headquarters in raqqa. the united states has also experienced attacks inspired by isil on social media, a phenomenon which we are working to combat together which will be a point of discussion today. as we commemorate and mourn for the victims of isis' hatred, let us honor them with unwavering ded situation to victory.

the great commonality among we who have gathered today is a commitment to bringing down a global force of evil, and i emphasize the word commitment. the success of the mission is the effort to defeat this terrorist organization. in the run up to this meeting we have $2 billion in humanitarian, stabilization and demining needs for liberated areas in iraq and syria for 2017. i am pleased to announceded that we have surpassed that total in dollar pledges. let's fulfill our pledges so we can quickly disperse the funds we need to carry out operations for the rest of the year. reflecting on the past year or so, we should be encouraged by the significant progress we as a coalition are making. in addition to the latest meaningful financial contributions, the flow of foreign terrorist fighters into syria and iraq is down 90% over

the past year. it is harder for terrorists to get in and more importantly, harder for them to get out to threaten our homelands. turkey has pushed isis off the turkey-syria border through operation euphrates shield. this is inaccessible to isis and we will ensure that it stays that way. near all of abu bakr al baghdadi's deputies are now dead including the mastermind behind the attacks in brussels, paris and elsewhere. it is only a matter of time before baghdadi himself meets this same fate. the government of national accord aligned fighters from misrata routed isis outside of iraq and syria. we are proud to have representatives of the libyan govern chlt with us here today. in iraq and syria, our partners on the ground have liberated

50,000 square kilometers of territory from isis freeing nearly 2.5 million people in cities, villages and towns. most importantly, the liberation of all of this territory has held. isis has recovered none of it. 17 coalition members are producing content in five languages to counteract isis' propaganda and its attack on its online presence. these efforts have yielded a 75% reduction of isis content on the internet in one year and the takedown of 475,000 isis-linked twitter accounts. in iraq, more than 1.5 million iraqis have returned to their home that had been under control of isis. the displacement flow outward has been reversed and this is a trend we must ensure continues. in neighboring countries closest to the conflict like jordan,

turkey and lebanon have undertaken a widespread humanitarian response to the regional refugee crisis including the acceptance of millions of refugees, many of whom they are working to reintegrate into normal life and their own nations. we especially should recognize the republic of iraq. prime minister abadi who is with me on stage has shown commitment and courage often visiting the front lines to encourage his troops and ensure that people are being cared for after the battles. his desire for stability and inclusive governance drives his vision for the future of iraq. the ongoing iraqi-led retaking of mosul is pushing isis out of a key strong hold and liberating more than a million civilians. iraqi forces, many trained by our coalition are performing heroically and placing protection of civilians at the forefront of their military plan. this mosul campaign could not

have succeeded without the cooperation between the iraqi security forces and the kurdish peshmerga. i am pleased to see a representativive from kurdistan regional government with prime minister abadi. it is this close cooperation between the iraqi people and their leaders that hastens isis' ultimate defeat and ensures it can never return to iraq. hard-fought victories in iraq and syria have swung the momentum in our coalition's favor, but we must increase the intensity of our efforts and solidify our gains in the next phase of the counter isis fight. degradation of isis is not the end goal. we must defeat isis. i recognize there are many pressing challenges in the middle east, but defeating isis is the united states' number one goal in the region. as we said before, when

everything is a priority nothing is a priority. we must continue to keep our focus on the most urgent matter at hand. at this moment we are still in a phase characterized by major military operations, the expansion of isis hasses necessitated a large-scale military response and our measures are reclaiming iraq and syria in which isis has had a large and destructive footprint. our end goal in this phase is the regional elimination of isis through military force. the military power of the coalition will remain where this fraudulent caliphate has existed in order to set the conditions for a full recovery from the tyranny of isis. under president trump's leadership and with the strength of this historic coalition, our common enemy will remain under intense pressure. soon, our efforts in iraq and syria will enter a new phase

defined by transition for major military operations to stabilization. in this transition to the stabilization phase, our coalition will continue to clear land mines and return water and electricity, the basic elements that permit people to return to their homes. we will pursue regional diplomatic solutions for the underlying political and sectarian disputes that helped ice toys flourish. the coalition and future partners will continue to provide assistance to affected communities as necessary. we appreciate the work of the u.n.-managed funding facility for immediate stabilization which has helped iraq return home over half a million displaced persons in anbar province alone. continuing coalition of sport for police training will be essential as will be coalition support for demining and clearing hazardous materials. we will continue to facilitate

the return of people to their homes and work with local political leadership. they will provide stable and fair governance, rebuild infrastructure and provide the essential services. we will use our diplomatic presence on the ground to facilitate channels of dialogue between local leadership and coalition partners. these initiatives are working well in iraq and we are working to taylor a similar approach specific to the challenges in syria. while a more defined course of action in syria is still coming together, i can say the united states will increase our pressure on isis and al qaeda and we'll work to establish interim zones of stability through cease-fires to allow refugees to go home. as a coalition, we are not in the business of nation building or reconstruction we must ensure that the respective nations precious and limited resources

are preventing the resurgence of isis and equipping the war-torn communities to take the lead and returning to stability. a successful stabilization period will improve daily life for millions of people. today, in east mosul, stabilization projects are clearing rubble, clearing land mines, restoring water services and electricity and nearly 30,000 boys and girls are now back in school. these efforts are being led by iraqis locally in cooperation with the central government under the leadership of prime minister abadi. a successful stabilization phase will set the stage for a successful normalization phase. in the normalization phase, local leaders and local governments will take on the process of restoring their communities in the wake of isis with our support. the development of a rejuvenated civil society in these places

will lead to a disenfranchisement of isis and the emergence of stability and peace where there was once chaos and suffering. but none of this will happen automatically. we all need to support this effort. to date, in iraq and siria, the united states provides 75% of the military resources supporting our local partners in their fight against isis for humanitarian and stabilization support the ratio is reversed. with the united states providing 25% and the rest of the coalition providing 75%, the united states will do its part, but the circumstances on the ground require more from all of you. i ask each country to examine how it can best support these vital stabilization efforts especially in regard to contribution to military and financial resources. as we stabilize areas encompassing isis' physical

caliphates in iraq and syria, we must must prevent their seeds of hate r hatred from taking root elsewhere. already we are seeing isis-linked cells from the pacific rim to central asia to south america. just this month dozens of people were killed and wounded when members of isis disguised as doctors attacked a hospital in kabul, afghanistan. we know military strength will stop isis on the battlefield, but it is the combined strength of our coalition that will be the final blow to isis. in order to stay ahead of a global outbreak we must all adopt the following countermeasures. first, continue to persist within counter terrorism and law enforcement operations. all of us must maintain pressure

on isis' networks within our own countries and take decisive law enforcement action to stop its growth. isis is connected across every continent and we must work to break every link in its chain. interpol is the newest member of the coalition and is critical to closing all routes through which isis terrorists seek to travel and threaten our homelands. second, we need greater intelience and information sharing within our own domestic intel sdwrens agencies and among our nations. our information sharing has prevented a number of attacks and this must expand and accelerate regardless of departmental or international rivalries. one example of this is west african nations who have put aside national differences to combat boko haram. let us build on this good example. we also must look this enemy's ideology in the eyes for what it is, a warped interpretation of

islam that threatens all of our people. as his majesty king abdullah ii of jordan has recently said, and i quote, everything they are, everything they do is a blatant violation of my faith, end quote. isis fighters are not all from poor or impoverished communities. many come from middle class or even upper-class background drawn to a utopian vision that is proposed to be based on the koran. muslim partners and leaders of their faith must combat this perverse ideological message and we are grateful that so many have and are ready to take up this responsibility. lastly, in tandem with our aggressive pushback on the ground in multiple countries, we must break isis' ability to break its message and recruit new followers online, a digital

caliphate must not flourish in the place of a physical one. as we have seen in attacks in nice, berlin, san bernardino, the internet is isis' best weapon for turning a recruit into a self-radicalized attacker. as traveling to iraq and syria as a fighter has become more difficult, isis' new call has become, and i quote, stay where you are, wage war in daesh's name wherever you live. isis' handlers around the world spend their days at keyboard communicating with a would-be terrorist methodically reaching a desire to carry out attacks in their own countries. we are making progress, but we need to do more to attack this threat. our coalition's 24/7 counter messaging hubs in the uae, and malaysia are having an impact

and these types of efforts should be replicated and expanded elsewhere. counter messaging efforts should continue both in the online arena or on the ground where religious leaders have opportunities to speak out against radicalization. our muslim partners, particularly saudi arabia and egypt have important roles to play in combatting the message of isis and other radical islamic terrorist groups. we should deepen with the tech industry. we need the global tech industry to develop new advancements in the fight and we thank those companies which are already responding to this challenge. we must capitalize on the extraordinary advancements in data analytics and algorithmic technologies to discover isis' propaganda and identify imminent attacks. researchers in the united states are already developing tools for

sweeping the dark corners of the internet for isis material, but they need help to get to their destination even faster. later on we will hear at lunch from ali jabbar who will speak in great detail on how to achieve victory in this arena, but let me be clear, we must fight isis online as aggressively as we would on the ground. in closing, isis presents an ongoing challenge to our security, but as we have seen it is not more powerful than we are when we stand together. we must thwart isis as it tries to maintain a presence on the ground and in cyberspace. we must enhance cooperation and border security, aviation security, law enforcement, financial sanctions, counter messaging and intelligence sharing. and we must keep making the investment in liberated areas in iraq and syria to help innocent

people rebuild and stabilize their communities. right now this means continuing to clear explosives, restore water and power and deliver humanitarian and resettlement assistance and for its partnerships when reject extremism. our time today is an opportunity for the open and honest exchange of information and encouragement, as allies dedicated to defighting a common enemy, we should respect the ideas that will achieve our mission. most of all, now is the time to strengthen our shared commitment to security and invest in a fight in which we all have a stake. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> as i mentioned in my remarks our next speaker is a leader who has been a courageous ally in

this fight. his army has shown bravery and persistence against a fierce enemy, and we admire his people although they have suffered are resolute in the commitment to throw off tyranny. please join me in welcoming prime minister abadi of iraq. [ applause ] >> translator: in the name of god most compassionate and most merciful, secretary tillerson, your excellencies, heads of delegations, ladies and gentlemen, peace of god be upon you. since our previous meeting for the global coalition in this coalition against daesh, we have achieved many great victories. we were able to achieve all these victories by cooperating together and the brave fighting

of the iraqis on the ground, fighting that went from the south of baghdad to its western part and today we're fighting with bravery in mosul. before coming to this meeting in washington i was in mosul and visited the front lines and found the arab fighting side by side with the kurd and the christian with the muslim and with the yazidi and the turks. all of them believe steadfastly in the unity of iraq and the common determination and destiny for all against an enemy that wanted to break us apart and kill the minorities among us and to exclude a large part of the iraqi society and communities and drive them out of their cities. our common and one-front response is an indicator of the failure of the efforts of daesh.

we are now undertaking all of the efforts to make sure they returned to their cities and the villages and we are trying to stabilize the liberated areas and stabilize many of the villages. over 70% of the residents of fallujah and the city of fallujah and ramadi and more than 90% of the city of tikrit have returned to their homes thanks to the efforts of stabilization and the return of all the necessary and essential services. ladies and gentlemen, you know the impact of the economic situation and the drop down of oil prices while we also fight this very ferocious fight that cost us very much, as well, despite all of that and thank to god we were able to return stability to many regions even

in mosul as we fight against isis and daesh and terrorism. we are at the same time simultaneously . . . . while also the enemies try to provide otherwise. this is the iraq vet that is we are trying to do and we are very proud of our diversity in our unified country. today, as we fight isis in the final stages, we have given them

very harsh blows. we fought the slogan of isis as they pretend to build an empire and expand an empire. we prove thad this empire they tried to build is today very much under and we are trying to liberate muslims. we sent a very strong message that they appeal to p. we see many daesh members we killed and many of those who try to get with isis. we broke many of their dreams today. for that reason, daesh is reporting to many terrorist attacks in pakistan and iraq and

many other places in order to send a message that they are still standing and they want for those young people to go. today, our fight on and against daesh is a major victory. we are in a stage of completely decimating daesh. we are not containing it. it is a very dangerous matter. we can not go there. they cannot be trusted. chaos and destruction has corrupted the ideology. today, they are trying to suppress the human beings. this is a very heinous crime

this must be completely killed. what we have achieved in iraq is that we forever can destroy and d decimate this terrorist group by unifying our efforts. in iraq, as we decentralize and since 2 1/2 years after our government has come to a close, we have made many efforts to provide many powers to the very stubborn. we have a governor who was elected. we deal with the local governments. the centralization strengthens iraq.

we are committed to that. we can not ever go back on that. just as we launched our major project to stabilize services through the liberation and each governor that works with the government to integrate the projects, through this we were able to succeed in seeing a lot of displaced and transient homes have the today, we have a strong economic activity in this liberated cities, because the citizens are able to resume the normal economic life and support the local economy. over the past 2 1/2 years, despite the federalism of daesh and isis, iraq was able to increase oil production.

today, iraq will still progress and provide essential services to the citizens. in iraq, for the past 20 years, we have daily, daily, demonstrations by the citizens that are expressing their views. we respect democrats in iraq and the will of the people and our security forces provide protection to these citizens who are expressing their views freely as long as they are doing it within the boundaries of the law and not attacking people's property and so forth. this in a country that has seen sufferings and has included op

pregs. if someone expressed his views, he was killed in the past. today, we have great strides in fear. we provide such freedom to other regions. we will be victorious over isis with our democracy and freedom and diversity. daesh hates diversity and kills those opposed to their views. today, we demonstrate to others that we remain united despite the difficult ver ge the divergent perspectives. iraq has always seen such diversity and lived for centuries with such diversity. i will also say that the sfr structure and the tower can be

made resistant and with daesh was destroyed. that shows the extent of the destruction that these terrorists produce. this is a terrorist group and other similar groups are terrorist groups. it does not sound incorrect that we call daesh a terrorist group when it is working against me and then i don't choose how it is going to conduct its terrorist activities in other countries. the threat of isis is a threat to the entire region. we must destroy this threat. in this scope, we must destroy isis. if we continuously go, to continue the cooperation to des made daesh. we are able to kill daesh and

destroy it in this final stage. also, as we fight this war, we started a program of reform in iraq to simplify all procedures in iraq. also, fighting corruption. the citizens have every right to know where the will of the people is going. the people is for the iraqis, not for other places, not for other regions or other countries. this is for all iraqis for their affiliations and their beliefs. we all believe that terrorism is a plague, dangerous as corruption and corruption is as dangerous as terrorism. very dangerous consequences. the collapse of some iraqi army

units and some other forces when daesh comes in is due to corruption. a soldier cannot fight if he sees his superior is corrupt and cannot work with devotion if he sees his superior is corrupt. i know this is a very difficult issue. there are many opposing our reforms. this is an institution of corruption as well and festering for a long time. we are determined to rid iraq of this evil, corruption and crism are a common plague. we are incorporating to fight against the goal of the terrorist who try to use corruption to further their goals. we are determined to fight isis. that is an iraqi force fighting the conflict of the iraqi army

and they are with us for the first time in the history of the iraqi fighting. fighting side by side. today, iraqis are fighting side by side with them. this is the relationship between the iraqi army and the peshmerga. great understanding and affirm the iraqi army today has earned the respect of the iraqi citizens. this is our direction for our security and general forces and to our militia forces and all the other units to protect the citizens and not to oppress the citizens. providing security for the citizens, protecting the sut zen and we have accountable any validation that we can assert

that is violating the human rights and dignity of people. we have also that we hope that. our volunteers that participated in the fight from the various groups of the iraqis, christians, and others, all the others fought with us with the iraqi forces to fight and decimate isis. also, we had the law on the pmf based on how it was adopted by the parliament. the pmf, accordingly, is under the general command of the armed forces. that is the prime minister. the pmf is within the system of the iraqi government, is under the iraqi discipline and we can

not consider it as a security apparatus, cannot only be involved in security because we have the elections coming up. we must separate the weapon from the political effort and the political track and no weapon must be outside the scope of the government. the constitution of the iraq state is very good on that. no weapon outside the umbrella of the government. great fighters who came and sacrificed themselves and fought bravely. sacrificed everything to defend iraq and to defend all the

citizens are under the umbrella of the iraqis. p under the iraqis and no one can carry weapons outside that system. we are very keen on absorb be all the citizens to maintain the dignity of this country and destroy terrorism. this threat threatens the entire world like you said, mr. secretary. this heinous terrorism is very dangerous. this is a very dangerous group. we are talking with al qaeda and its terrorism. now, we have moved to the terrorism of isis, very dangerous terrorism and other terrorist groups, we must combat and decimate this threat and terror. it is draining our resources,

draining our efforts and draining our economic means and preventing economic progress. we must fight terror and terrorism and change our way of doing things. terrorism is exploding injustice in the region and exploding the regional conflict that is happening. terrorism will exploit. therefore, i call containing the regional differences and the regional conflicts. these are one of the main reasons to see these groups rise in libya and other places where these groups are arising because of all of that. we welcome all the support that is offered to iraq and thank

everyone who supports the global coalition that supports iraq. this coalition proved that we can fight together terrorism. we all have common interests. iraq is not asking for support from a position of weakness. we all are asking for it all together all in the same boat or on the same ship facing this terrorism. we fight side by side on the ground and we benefit from all the lodgistical support as we move forward to protect our borders and protect our countries. we have the means to deal with that. we are working with all the

components. these problems go back to many years in the past the regime oppressed the iraqi people and disturbed the means of the iraqi people and the heinous terrorist attacks who came from countries from all over the world. we have to cooperate to contain and destroy the terrorism and terrorists and prevent them from expanding their efforts and not containing isis but destroy and decimate daesh. thank you all for listening.