>> c-span programs are available at c-span do the coring, on our home page and by searching the video library. secretary of state rex tillerson hosts foreign ministers at the state department to discuss global efforts in combatting isis. a gathering of 68 members who make up the global coalition created in 2014 to work together to reduce the threat of isis. following secretary tillerson's remarks, iraq's prime minister addressed the gathering. this is 40 minutes.

good morning. thank you all for traveling to washington, d.c., to participate in this counter isis-minute steeral conference. it is indeed encouraging to seat attendance when the forces of isis and dash tune into the tvs and computer monitors they will see the strength of a combined 68 nations and organizations. together we share a resol to have deal isis or dash a lasting

defeat. our coalition is united in stopping an ice y stopping an isis resurgence and discrediting the ideological narrative. and we're ready to grow stronger and stay aggressive in this battle. president trump in his recent address to the joint session of congress made clear that it is the policy of the united states to demolish and destroy this barbaric terrorist organization. that is what we're 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 in brussels. the belgium foreign minister is home commemorating this solemn day for his country but we are grateful to have the ambassador from our ally belgium joining us to today. in the same month of the attack in brussels, a child was killed

and 600 iraqis injured in a chemical attack just south of kirkuk. isis is carried out hoyer ifk attacks in the streets of paris and paris and istanbul each planned from its headquarters in raqqah. in which will be a major point of discussion among us today. as we commemorate and mourn for the victims of isis's hatred, let us honor them with dedication to victory. the commonality among we have gathered today as a commitment to bringing down a force of evil. the success of our mission depends on our devotion to defeating this terrorist organization. we identified over $2 billion in

humanitarian, stablization and demining needs for liberated areas in iraq and syria for 2017. i'm pleased to announce we have surpassed that total in dollar pledges. let's fulfill our pledges to we can disperse our funds we need to carry out our operations for the rest of the year. reflecting on the past year we should should be encouraged by the progress we as a coalition are making. in addition to the latest meaningful contributions the 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 boarder. this entire boarder is now inaccessible to isis and we will ensure it stays that way.

deputies are dead, including the master mind behind the attacks in brussels, paris and elsewhere. it is a matter of time before baghdadi meets the same fate. the government of national accord aligned fighters, routed isis depriving isis of its only territory outside of iraq and syria. we are pleased to have representatives of the libyan government 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's

propaganda in its attack on its online efforts. these efforts have yielded a 75% reduction of isis content on the internet in one year and the take down of 475,000 isis linked twitter accounts. in iraq, more than 1.5 million iraqis have returned to their homes in areas that had been under the control of isis. the displacement flow outward has been reversed and this is a trend we must assure continues. in neighboring country have undertaken a 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 in their own nations. we should recognize the republic of iraq. the prime minister has shown

commitment and courage, often visiting the front lines to encourage his troops and ensure people are being cared for after the battles. his desire for stability and inclusive goverance guides his vision. retaking mosul is pushing isis of a key strong hold and liberating more than 1 million civilians. iraqi forces are performing heroically and placing protection of civilians at the forefront of thaeir military campaign. this campaign could not have succeeded without the corporation of the iraqi forces. i'm pleased to see a representative from the government here today with the prime minister. it is this close corporation between the iraqi people and their leaders that hastens

isis's 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've 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 has necessitated a large scale military response and our offensive measures are reclaiming areas in iraq and

syria in which isis has had a large and destructive footprint. our end goal in this phase is the refugeegional elimination o isis. the military power will remain where this caliphate has existed to set the condition for a full recov recovery. under president trump's leadership and the strength of this coalition our common enemy will remain under intense pressure. soon our efforts in iraq and syria will enter a new phase defined by a transition from 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 disputes that helped isis to flourish. the coalition and partners will provide humidity assistance to effected communities as necessary. we appreciate the work of the u.n. managed funding facility for immediate stablization which has helped iraq return home over 500,000 displaced persons. continuing coalition support 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 and rebuild infrastructure and provide essential services. we will use our diplomatic presence on the ground to facilitate dialogue between

leadership and partners. these initiatives are working well in iraq and we are working to tailer a similar approach similar 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 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 our respective nations' precious resources are equipped to defeat isis and returning to stability. a successful stabilization period will improve daily life for millions of people. today in east mosul, stablization 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 corporation with the central government under the leadership of prime minist minister. a successful stage 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 of stability and peace where there was once chaos and suffering. none of this will happen automatically. we all need to support this effort. to date in iraq and syria, 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 military and financial resources. as we stabilize areas encompassing isis's physical caliphates in iraq and syria, we must prevent their seeds of hatred from taking root elsewhere. the loss of territory has forced isis to extend its current branches and build new operations around the world. we are seeing 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 afghanistan. we know military strength will stop isis on a battlefield, but it is the combined strength of our coalition that will be the final plblow to isis. in order to stay ahead of a global outbreak we must all adopt the following countermeasures. first, continue to persist in law enforcement operations. all of us must maintain pressure on isis's 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 change. ent interpoll is the new member of our coalition.

second, we need greater intelligence and information sharing within our own domestic intelligence agencies and among our nations. our information sharing is a coalition has prevented a number of attacks and this must expand and accelerate regardless of departmental or international rival rivalries. one example of this is west african nations who have put aside international differences. let us build on this good example. we 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 imagimajesty king of jor has said, everything they are, everything they do is a blatant violation of my faith, end quote. isis fighters are not all from poor communities. many come from middle class or

even upper class background drawn to a radical and false you toppan vision that purports to be based on the koran. muslim partners and leaders of their faith must combat this message and we are grateful that so many have and are ready to take up this responsibility. lastly, in tandem with our push back on the ground in multiple countries, we must break isis's ability to spread its message and recruit new followers online. a digital caliphate must not flourish in the place of a physical one. as we have seen from attacks in nice, berlin, orlando, and san bernardino, the internet is isis's 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's new call has

become, and i quote, stay where you are and wage war wherever you live. isis's handlers around the world spend their days at the keyboard communicating with a would-be terrorist feeding a recruits desire to develop local networks or carry out attacks in their own countries. we are making progress, but we need to do more to attack this threat. our coalitions 24/7 count countermessaging hubs are having an impact and these types of messages should be replicated. counter messages efforts should be continued online and on the ground in countries where religious leaders have the opportunity to speak out against radicalizati radicalization. our muslim parters, particularly saudi arabia and egypt, have important roles to play in combatting the message of isis

and other radical islamic terrorist groups. we should all deepen corporation with the tech industry to prevent encrypted technologies from serving as tools to enable collaboration. we need the global tech industry to develop new advancements in the fight and we thank those companies which are already spo responding to this challenge. we must capitalize on the advancements and technologies to build tools that discover isis's propaganda and identify implement 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 thatei destination faster. later on we will hear 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 collective security, but as we have seen it is not powerful than we are when we stand together. we must thwart isis as it tries to maintain a presence on the ground and in cyber space. we must enhance corporation and boarder 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 stablize their communities. right now this means continuing to clear explosives, restore water and power, deliver humanitarian and resettlement assistance and forge partnerships with local leaders who reject extremism. our time today is an opportunity for the open and honest exchange of information and encouragement

as allies dedicated to defeating a common enemy we should strive to understand and respect one another's perspectives and adopt 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 courageas ally in this fight. his army has shown bravery and persi persistence against an enemy and we admire his people who are res lut in throwing off tirenny.

please welcome the prime minister of iraq. >> translator: in the name of god most compassionate, most merciful. secretary tillerson, heads of delegations, ladies and gentlemen, peace of god be upon you. since our previous meeting for the 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 fighting of the iraqi on the ground, fighting that went from 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. i visited the front lines and found that the arab fighting

side-by-side with the kurd and the christian with the muslim and the turk man. all of them believe steadfastly in the unity of iraq and in 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 the cities. one response is an indicator of the failure of the efforts of daesh. we are now undertaking all the efforts to make sure that the displaced return to their cities and vilaglages and we are tryin to stabilize the liberated areas and stabilize many of the cities and villages. over 70% of the residents from

the city of fallagu and more than 90% of the city 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 and despite that we were able to return stability to many regions, even mosul, as we fight isis and daesh and terrorism and we are at the same time stable looiliid we have opened 250 schools in the left side of mosul while the ongoing fight on the right side of the city, we also opened many hospitals and medical centers

and we have tried hard to provide services to the citizens who are fight at the same time and fight the enemies while also the enemies try to -- to -- to provide otherwise. this is the iraq that we are trying to build and we are very proud of our diversity in our united fight and we are united within the boundaries of our country. today as we fight isis in the final stages in raqqah and we have given them very harsh blows to this enemy, we thought also the slogan of isis as if they pretend to build an empire and pretend to expand this empire. we prove today that this power that they try to build is today very much under the -- and we are trying to liberate today a

mosul that they attempted to make as their own capital. we also sent a very strong message to the youngs that they -- that daesh tried to appeal to. we see many daesh members being killed and many of those who try to get to get recruited with isis. we are on the decrease. we broke many of their dreams today. for that reason daesh is resorting to many terrorist attacks in afghanistan, pakis n pakistan, iraq and many other places in europe in order to send a message that they are still standing and they want for those young people to go fight in strengths. today our fight on daesh and against daesh is a major victory. today we are in the stage of completely des dismating daesh

and containing daesh is a dangerous matter. we cannot go there. this is a terrorist group. it cannot be trusted. we cannot deal with it. it is organizing and killing and chaos and destruction. very corrupted ideology that has no humanitarian to isis and today is starting to o press the human being and they're trying to sell women and children. this is a hienus crime that they do sell women and children in iraq and syria. this terrorist group must be completely killed and what we have achieved in iraq is that we forever can destroy and des mate this terrorist group by being allies and unifying our efforts and remaining focused on destroying daesh and not to be distracted by regional differences and regional

conflicts. in iraq, as we decentraled and 2 1/2 years after our government has come to place we made many efforts to provide many powers. we have a local council in every gover and we have a governor who is elected and we deal with the local councils and the governors as the local governments. this centralization strengths iraq and we provide more powers and more solutions. we are committed to that and we cannot ever go back on that. just as we launch our major project to stabilize and return major essential services through the liberation and through also having a major committees in each governor that were prove the governors to implement these projects through this great

corporation, we were able to succeed in seeing a lot of displaced return to their homes. today we have a strong economic activity in this liberated cities because the citizens are able today to resume their normal lives and their economic life and support the local economy. over the past 2 1/2 years, despite the terrorism of daesh and isis, iraq was able to increase oil production. today iraq can provide over 5 million barrels a day despite the harsh cost of the world and the destruction of the world we were still able to progress and to provide essential services to the citizens in iraq. for the past 20 years we have daily -- daily demonstrations by the citizens that are calling for the rights and expressing

their views and we respect that. we respect democracy in iraq. democracy in today in iraq respects 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 properties and so forth. this is a great progress in a country that had -- that had seen -- seen sufferings and oppression. if someone express in had his vie views he was killed in the past. today we have made great strides in that field and we provide such freedom to other regions. we will be victorious over isis with our democracy and our freedom and with our diversity. daesh hates diversity. daesh kills those who are

opposed to their views. today we demonstrate to the others that we remain united despite the divergent perspectives in iraq and divergent affiliations. iraq, since its history, has always seen such diversity and lived for centuries with such diversity. i will also say that the structure -- occupations that remain resistant and with daesh was destroyed. that shows the extent of the destruction that these terrorist groups have caused to historic monuments. i hope we will all agree on a common definition this is a terrorist group and other groups

a terrorist groups. we have to be unifieunifiers. the threat to isis is a threat to the entire region. we must destroy this threat and in this scope we must destroy isis if we continuously corporate and i call on everybody in this global coalition to continue to des mate 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 procedural procedures in iraq and also fighting corruption. the citizens have every right to know where the wealth of the people is going, the oil and the

wealth of the iraqi people is for the iraqi, not for other places or regions or countries. this wealth is for all iraqis regardless of their affiliations and believes. we all believe that terrorism is a plague as corruption and corruption is as dangerous as terrorism because it leads to very dangerous consequences. the collapse of some iraqi army and some other forces when daesh came in it was due to corruption. the soldier cannot fight if he sees an officer and his superior is corrupt and cannot work with devotion if he sees that his superior is corrupt. i know this is a very difficult issue and i know there are many

opposing our reforms in that regard. this is an institution of corruption as well and has been festering for a long time, however we are determined to eradicate it to rid iraq of this evil. corruption and terrorism are a common plague and we are cooperating to fight against the goal of the terrorists who try to use corruption to further their goals. we are determined to fight isis. that is an iraqi today force fighting the counterterrorism of the iraqi army and for the first time in iraq fighting side-by-side. today iraqis are fighting side-by-side with the peshmergas against the terrorism of daesh. this is not a matter of interest. it is the relationship between the iraqi army and the

peshmerga. there is a great deal of corporation and understanding. i can see very much and affirm that the iraqi army today has earned the respect of the iraqi citizens. we work for all the iraqs and this is our direction as well for our security internal forces and to our military forces and to all the other units that their goal is to protect the iraqi citizen and not to oppose the citizen providing security for the citizen, protecting the citizen and we hold accountable any violation that we can assert by law that is violating the human rights and the dignity of people. we have demonstrated that we hold people accountable for that. also that our volunteers from the iraqi people who also participated in the fight from the various groups of the iraqi,

sunni and shia fought with us with the iraqi forces under the umbrella of the iraqi forces to fight daesh. also, we had the law on the pmf. the law on the pmf based on the house adopted by the parliament. the pmf according is under the general commander of the armed forces and that is the prime minister. the pmf is within the system of the iraqi government is under the iraqi discipline and the -- it can -- we cannot consider it as a security apparatus, cannot only be involved in security and military scopes because we have the elections coming up. also other political groups who hold weapons must not also enter into the elections.

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 clear on that. no weapon that is outside the umbrella of the government and those who will do so are doing so against law and we consider them outlaw and we will fight them accordingly. the law on the pmf will bring those fighters who came and sacrificed themselves and sacrificed everything to defend iraq and all the citizens under the umbrella of the iraqi leadership and command and under the iraqi and no one can carry weapons outside that system. we are very keen on absorbing all the citizens in order to maintain the dignity of this country and destroy terrorism.

this threatens the entire world and region, just like you said, mr. secretary. terrorism is very dangerous. this is a very dangerous group. we were talking about al qaeda and its terrorism and how the groups are still there. now we have moved to the terrorism of isis. very dangerous terrorism and other terrorist groups. we must combat and dessimate this threat and this terror because it's draining our resources and efforts and economic means and preventing economic progress. we must fight terror and terrorism and that requires us to change our way of doing things and our way of governing terrorism is exploiting the injustice that is happening in

the region and exploiting the regional conflict that is happening in the region when there is regional conflict, there is void and other regions that are suffering from void, terrorism will exploit. therefore, i call on containing the regional differences and the regional conflicts because these are one of the main reasons to seeing these groups rise in syria and libya and other places where these groups are arising because of all that. we welcome all the support that is offered to iraq and thank everyone who supports in the global coalition that supports iraq. this coalition proved that we can fight together terrorism. we all have common interests. iraq is not begging for support and is not asking for support from a position of weakness, but we all are asking for it all

together all in the same boat, all on the same ship facing this terrorism and we fight side-by-side on the ground and we benefit from all the logistical support and all the air support that is being given to us and to our forces as we move forward to the next phase to protect our boarders and rebuild our countries -- our country. we have the mean to deal with that. we are working with the components of iraq. i can't pretend we have resolved our issues, but these problems go back to many years in the past when regime opressed the people and the attacks by the terrorists on iraq who came from around 100 counties from all over the world. we have to corporate to contain

these and destroy these terrorism and these terrorists and prevent them from expanding their efforts and, again, not containing isis, but destroy and dissimate daesh. thank you all. thank you for listening. senate democrats now have the votes to block president trump's to block the supreme court nominee. the senator made the announcement today. majority leader mitch mcconnell that he plans to hold the final confirmation vote on judge neil gorsuch friday. watch it live on cspan 2.

what are the protections you see that consumers have in the wake of that vote? >> already our consumers both yesterday and today have strong privacy protections that ensure that the integrity of their sensitive data. our companies are aligned in ensurining that our sensitive da need not and should not be actually transacted or shared on our networks.

we're all committed to that. there's also very good no, sewst the current chairman of the ftc have joined together in a common voice to say that as we move forward to evolving the frameworks for privacy of the future, trying to make them more consistent, they will be acting together and in partnership to ensure that our consumers are receive the kinds of privacy protections that they require. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on cspan 2. >> three former gymnast testified to being sexually abused while training. they testified on changes in the law to protect athletes. they appeared before the senate judiciary committee for about 1 1/2