america's cable companies. president obama comments on june unemployment figures and then a form looks at the first months of the obama emission. following that, a discussion on u.s. foreign policy. . ]. we want to talk about growth and

progress. it is a big piece of our future. as our economy adapts to the challenges of a new century, new ways of producing and saving and of distributing energy offer a unique opportunity to create millions of jobs for the american people. there is a -- this is a timely discussion on a day so brain is. the job figures released show that we lost 460,000 jobs last month. while the average loss is about 4000 jobs per month of this quarter, it is less devastating than the 700,000 jobs per month that we lost in the previous quarter. while there are continuing fines of the recession is slowing, this is little comfort to the americans that have lost their jobs. we have taken measures to blunt the hard edges and to offer

assistance to those who have borne the brunt of this economic storm. as i said from the moment i walked the door, it took years for us to get into this mess and it will take more than a few months to turn it around. that is why the discussion that we had today is so important. it is men and women like these who will help lead us out of this recession and into a better future. my job and our job is a government is to do what ever we can to unleash the great powers of the american economy by encouraging their efforts. i am confident we can prove once again what this nation can achieve when challenge. i am confident that we will recover and prosper in the long term. to do that, we have to act now. we need to build a new foundation. energy is one of the pillars of these foundations.

it is essential to our recovery and long-term prosperity. i am pleased to say we have achieved more the last few months to create a new clean energy economy than we have achieved in many decades before. the recovery plan will double our countri supplyes every noble energy. thanks to a remarkable partnership, we also set in motion a new national policy to increase gas mileage and decrease carbon pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in this country which will save as 1.8 billion barrels of oil. last friday, the house of a percentage passed an extraordinary piece of legislation that will make renewable energy the popular type of oil -- energy. it holds the promise of millions of new jobs, jobs by the way,

that cannot be outsourced. r!4!'zdh]&p hf companies. these are folks whose companies are helping to lead the transformation toward a clean energy future. even as we face tough economic times, and we lose jobs, the ceo's here told me they are looking to hire people to either double or triple in size over the next few years. they are making money and they are helping their customers save money on the energy front. these companies are examples of the kind of future we can create. it is now up to the senate to continue the work that was begun in the house to afford it is more prosperous future. we will need to set aside the politics. when we set aside the ideology of the old debates, then our choice is clear. it is a choice between slow decline and renewed prosperity.

it is the choice between the past and the future. the american people want us to make the right choice. i am confident that the senate will. during every juncture in our history, we have chosen to seize the opportunities . we chose a responsibility and honor the sacrifices of those that came before us. that is what we are going to do this time as well. thank you very much everybody. >> do you have a message for the small businesses? >> many of these businesses started small businesses and they are now getting to be big businesses because of the charter of opportunities that are out there. another message is that they should probably contact some of

the ceos because they can save small businesses and large businesses up to 20% or 30% on their energy usage. when you hear the innovations that have taken place, everything from led lighting that can save a huge amount of energy costs to a new concrete materials that last longer and our waterproofed -- and that our water proved. if that means of bridges and roads the last 20 years longer than using the mitchell concrete and when you look at what is being done with solar energy right now of places like houston and florida. and the fact that many of these companies are exporting their goods and their services, but unfortunately, their biggest

marketer now are europe and japan, because we have not done enough. they get too excited about the future. one thing i have consistently talked about since i took office, and on a day where we see that our economy is still having a tough time getting moving is that we are going to have to shoot for the future and not look backward. so much of the debate about healthcare and energy has been based on somehow we stand still and we do not do anything that we are going to be better off. that is just not how this world works. it is not how the modern economy works. we know we are going to have to change how we use energy. we know we are going to have to

change how we operate our health-care system. we know that we are going to have to change how we train our young people to compete in this new global economy. to make the argument that somehow we should just lock in on the status quo or perpetuate the same policies that got into this mess in the first place and that that will solve our problem, it does just -- it just does not make any sense. these folks are about the future. that is what america has always been about. we are not folks who are scared of the future or look backward. we always me to the challenges by moving forward. that is what i think will happen this time as well. thank you. >> [unintelligible] expos just talking to secretary to about you is going to talk about how we can improve energy in this and see.

-- how we can improve energy efficiency. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this weekend, discussions with presidential advisers. friday night it adequate easton, relations with the chief executive. getting public support for presidential agendas. lessons learned from serving the president at sunday. that is all on c-span. the first five months of the obama presidency was a subject of this panel discussion at the aspen ideas that will. charles oakley -- ogilvy joined.

this last an hour. i am the political director. i'm the co-sponsor of this event. we have a great and multitude in thof a panel tonight. we've wound up in the brady bunch range. at one time today look like we are heading more to the area of jon and kate plus 8. we manage to stop at a more manageable number. i want to introduce everybody real quick. then we will plunge right in. on my far right, the longtime

president. beside him, a professor of law at harvard law school whose students have included one of barack obama who we have heard more of since. margaret is the editor for bloomberg news. linda, a senior national correspondent at npr. david brooks, is a columnist for the "new york times." what we are going to do tonight is we are going to talk. i'm going to try to work through this panel some of the different aspects of the early stages of the obama presidency in what we have learned about him and water may be some of the successes that we of had so far.

we will then turn it over to you for questions for a while. we will bring it back here at the end. we will try to hold you to one word answers during a lightning round. let me start with a broad question. this has been a very eventful first few months of a presidency. probably not since reagan's first few months or lyndon johnson or franklin roosevelt, have we seen so much activity on so many fronts, domestic and foreign. out of all but the decisions and activities of the obama administration, when you look across the board, those policy choices and the broader decisions and some of the governing strategy is. out of all these decisions, which to do you think of been the most consequential. what has obama done so far and is most likely to shape the rest of the presidency and the

way americans judge him? >> it is difficult to evaluate it because nothing has been done. if i were going to single out one thing that he has done, that is very impressive, it to be the piracy. i am out of my turf on the. i spend a lot of my time on domestic and policy. listening to him talk about the cultural heritage of the muslim people talking about the tremendous library and his constant references to the holy koran, i do not think i heard an american politician repeatedly called the holy book of muslims.

he even talked about the first muslim member of congress of being sworn in by placing his hand on the holy koran that was in thomas of jefferson's personal collection. i think that is reaching out, combined with who he is and what he is, that he is a black man with a heritage that touches on muslims. that is one of the most extraordinary moments of the administration. who knows whether it will end of the civilian. nobody would of been quite able to see this. >> to me, beyond all the national security and terrorism response, the most important thing that happened was the appointment of hillary clinton as secretary of state.

it took a lot of courage and confidence. it made it clear that he was very serious about terrorism and global issues. i see that appointment as an extraordinary vote of confidence. i thought that was a decision that will go down as we look at the conversation about iran and north korea and palestinian issues. >> i think in terms of the big change that the president committed to, the single most important thing he has done in the first six months is go after everything at once early on. i think that decision may well shape the extent to which she is

able to bring about the kind of structural social changes that he really promised during his campaign and during his early days. the president is at his height of strength in his first year. it can continue, but it tends to dissipate. he is at the ultimate point of his power and his public support. he has an absolutely unique situation in congress. that 60 of the vote he got today is a magic vote. it is not simply an abstract 50 votes break a filibuster. this is the first time in 30 years that either party has had 60 votes in the senate. the senate has been absolutely tied up in knots for years now. this is because of filibusters, the threat of filibusters, and

the use of the threat of filibusters, to require 60 votes to pass the bills. it has been impossible to function there. the president now has an opportunity to enact his change. the 60 votes is the money needs to pass legislation. you will see the battles go on between the moderate democrats and the liberal democrats. senator mcconnell who is the master of stopping things has really lost his power. when you combine that with a substantial majority in the house of representatives led by a speaker who i believe is the most effective, skilled, and top speaker i have seen in 40 years of working in washington and a very strong leadership and enough votes to carry

legislation, you absolutely have a unique opportunity for big time change that i do not think we have seen in quite some time. i think it going for it now, that your decision, could be the biggest decision they make. >> some of the things i would have chosen are gone. that was hillary. i would put hillary clinton into a characteristic that i have seen no drama obama. it is an ability to change course, the change of mind, without a lot of drama to it. he does go on to another day without a lot of fuss. for hillary clinton, it looked huge. then it just works and the criticism died down. he got off tom-so very quickly without seeming to be disloyal -- tom dachelle with

testing to be disloyal. he changed on the torture photos. that pass by without a lot of fuss. he may drop the public auctioning -- option health care, which i think is a terrible idea. his personality, he does not about the character very much. he seems to be an integrated personality. he seems to be seamlessly in the same way without creating these firestorms that bill clinton would have. in the clinton administration, you would see the number of people boxes for people who have the last war.

obama is very curious. it does not go on forever. it is making them fast and furious. some of them might be wrong to ban on their point of view. there is an approach that he has that he showed during the campaign. he never got mad for instance. we all wanted him to get mad. many of us did. not davis. [laughter] that is a good segue. david, who is well sourced in the white house, he refers to the president as a senior administration official. [laughter] >> i think it is self confidence. a world leader came three big country and all the journalists.

they said what is obama like. they said they'd never seen a leader so self assured. i come to think that obama -- the word obama will denote self- confidence. someone has so many obama's, etc those have a good size and that said. they think -- good sides and bad sides. after you criticize them, they call you the next morning after the budget measures. the obama people call and say we like you, we admire you. if we are attacked by terrorists during the harvard/she'll game,

we are screwed. they will all be in new haven. they do have at this intellectual superpower. the people who have arrived in this administration have dominated the tables. this is like larry summers, peter orszag. those people really dominate. the negative side of self- confidence is the decision to do everything at once with a people. they have to do it by hand of a lot of power to capitol hill, which i think led to a lot of mishmash of media policies. second, it is just the money. the money is just out of control. it started under bush. i completely admit to that. in 2019, the national debt will have doubled. the interest on the debt will be $819 billion a year under obama is a budget. there is just no way that is ok.

he talks agreed game about control, but my fear if you control 60 votes, you control the house. you are insane if you try to cut people off or make tough choices. the 60 votes is a paradoxical measure. i care most about health care costs. >> there have been -- we are seeing certain characteristic elements in government strategy at home and those abroad. one has alluded to that he has showed a willingness across the board to show that congress is handling the details. and a panel last week that was talking up the climate change bill. i asked, did the minister is a we must have this or that. they said, no, they let us define what to be a majority

position in the house. i asked harry reid this a few weeks earlier. he said barack obama has never said of an " i must have this or that." is it shrewder to passive? >> i think it is a necessity. that institution is an impossible place to navigate. the democrats take the republicans. the republicans hate the democrats. the senate takes the house. the house aides the senate. we learned a powerful lesson. as a matter of reality, you do have to let the people with expertise up their do their thing. it does get messy. you do get the opportunity at the end of the process when you are in a conference to go to the things that really matter.

i think they have enormous expertise. they are doing that record of i agree with david on the financing. at some point, obama will have to strongly pipit and focus on the deficit question and on a spending question. he has to try to get the other stuff done first if he is going to get it done and did the does not deal, he is not one to end of successful the long term. >> what is the cause that you see? >> i believe in a strong executive. people in the executive branch of any party to make coherent policies based on things, which i think is a coherent way to make policies. you need compromise. if the handover to quickly to congress, yet five and a defect people with their own interests and all they do -- you have 535

people with their own interests and all they do is just try to get across the passing line. you get things which can pass which were not coherent. if you are trying to create systems, it is a complicated issue. you need pieces that will actually fit together. and do not think it is the way to go. >> if you send the completed bill to congress, you are looking at six weeks of headlines of obama loses a key portion -- it is chopped apart on the hill, anyway. the way the congress works lately is that the house and in the senate are totally at odds, democrats and republicans.

when you get the document into congress -- that is what the president has it. it may not be the best way to do it. until we get many picture -- mini-of the thin air, it is not filled with people who have safe seats. there is no way that you can handle them. that is one way. we watched bill clinton do it another way. he is channeling ronald reagan to me. ronald reagan calls everybody and says, let it that top down. let simplify. barack obama cause everybody in and says, we care about covering

everybody. he has a few things he cares about. they know what they are. the congress knows. >> has he gone too far? >> he insists on getting said the in october on health care, he is likely to end up with half a load. if he had his way about it, he would have a single payer system. the. option plan was already -- the public option plan was there and now he is talking about the co- op plan. interning so much over to congress -- in turning so much over to congress, i think he is going to end up with a lot of compromises and want to get something through and it will happen, because congress -- more

than half of it was the insurance companies. this is the absolute worst you can have. >> we will come back to health care. you look at him and look at the way he is approaching this. is this characteristic of the way you see that he approaches the world? when harry reid says that he is never said i must have this, does that surprise you? >> not at all. when the ball being the first african american presidents, that is an ambitious chalice. students do not think they are the stars of harvard, they think they are the smartest in the universe. his are the dealt with that to a different point of view.

he is going to be very patient about these things and ultimately not do what we saw with any administration. it is not be perfect. it cannot be universal. but it'll pass. he has accomplished a lot in his first year. he is not even been here six months. he has a vision of what it is going to look like. as you think about the inauguration in 2013 -- we are watching north korea. he goes to venezuela.

he went to cairo and he talked about supporting israel and the right for help in the state. that has not been done. he is both the benefits and burden of eight years of a bush. -- of a bush. people expect him to change the world over night. >> let me go back to something that people have touched on. one of the aspects of this strategy is a willingness to move away from positions that he took in the campaign has not inconsiderable ones. he wants to reduce carbon emissions. he accepted a house approach that gives away 85%. he opposed an individual mandate, and is now accepting it as the cornerstone of a deal.

he opposed the idea of eliminating the pollution that prevents the taxation of health and play -- employer provided health care. now he said he may do some of the. is this sensible flexibility or is he going to far and too casually renouncing conditions? >> welcome to american politics. this is not unusual. i think there is some danger in it. he seems quite self assured in the notion that he can do this and then explain it to people. some of these things you have to do. it is just a reality. so far, the public is still very strongly with them. sooner or later, you start to

really anger advocacy groups that are part of your constituency. it is a balancing act. he seems to be pretty skillful at balancing, but there is a risk involved here. >> the can we all get along the works better at the harvard law review than it does with congress. he gives up to much brown in the beginning by the ground in the beginning by turning over how a bill will look and by signaling ahead of time there should be "i must have th's." he got zero votes. i would rather international be

the moderator then our congress. >> we just become totally unused to the idea of compromise in congress. congress is that total war. the previous president's attitude were so on come from -- uncompromising that you cannot necessarily take that at the highest good. we had back in the republican party, back when the great plains liberals with the boat with the republican sometimes into the democrats other times, those people a gun from congress. we are seeing something we have not seen in a long time. it is a look right.

>> here is another aspect. democrats are euphoric. they have never had the power in a long time to change. the senators to know what to give it to the president. the house on what to give it to the president. they have been sitting around for a bought -- for a lot of the clinton administration not being able to pass a single piece of legislation. >> democrats are working better with obama than they did with clinton. >> clinton was saying, i wanted this way. >> sometimes they get caught in the crossfire. you had members on the left voting against and members of the right of voting against. these are the kind of thing they might have lost under clinton. >> this was told to me by

somebody now. he also worked in the clinton administration. he made 60 calls to chairman in an afternoon. his position on call 16 was 180 degrees from the others. he said bush never made the calls. they never had conversations. that is why they rolled him on the spending issues. obama does have good relationships with capitol hill. i would say it is because he lets them do it. >> this may be characteristic -- you went into it earlier in a negative light, but there is been a lot of effort by the president at reaching out and trying to splinter the business community. i was at the rose garden a few

weeks ago where he was surrounded by the presidents of 10 major auto companies, including eight that he does not own. they agreed to waive the economy standards. this is in a 20 year war in washington. there is enough support from the utility industry that the main trade association was neutral. there were several major utilities that supported it. on health care, the health insurance co. to this point have been more supportive than not. the question is -- there are plenty of opponents. the ama is very skeptical of health care. they are peeling off a significant slice of the community. is this shrewd or is he giving

away too much in substance to earn his political support? >> i think that on some bills, he is looking at a confluence of events which give him an opportunity. i think that it is not so much that he seeks to splinter as that he sees possibilities. he sees vulnerabilities and openings. he big businesses that are having a hard time supporting health care, it opens the possibility that they may not be totally opposed to health care a different way. the extraordinary way the economy is sinking has meant that all kinds of american people are not willing to pay the prices for energy that they have been paying. there is the economy that created a situation that has given him some opportunity. he is looking at them. i do not see why he would not do

that. >> one thing is chicago. i covered chicago. i was there when he was there. a cover the washington ways. chicago politics has two geographic sections. one is the lakefront, liberal, educated, and obama is of that. then there is the the blues and old said track. -- old side track that is very un ideological. there are a bunch of interests and if you are a leader, where is mind? you helped everybody m helpedine. i think he -- you help everybody get mine. the question is, what do they need?

that is the principal side of obama which was lost in the campaign. it is the key to why this administration is so efficient. >> it may be signaled by a b appointing a rahm emanuel of staff. you would not do that if you are not planning to govern in that way. several things that he is conceding too much. >> he is respecting and reaching out to businesses. unlike congress, business seems to think that he means business. they want to compromise with him. that is good. they are only going to go so far, but you get what you have so far and you are headed the game. >> he will face a choice on something like the public funding. there are many degrees you can go and they are more supportive than not.

on cap and trade, they had to make a lot of concessions to keep utility on board. some of the oil companies as well. do you think he can see -- can it conceded too much on these grounds? >> and some time, you have to have time pass on sending as important health care. somebody is going to suffer here. you have yours and you have yours. i'm going to have mine. mine is that cannot do this without the essence of this. the insurance companies are going to suffer. are they going to can see it? are they going to go down? are they going to cooperate? that is where you have to have a core principle and what you believe in. >> one theory that helps is the

inverse of what you are describing. everybody is going to take a nick to get it done. nobody will have an artery/. >> except for future generations. >> maybe not. the big question that we will not of the answer is the one you raised. are they going to take on entitlements and medicare? if they do not, they are not going to be able to deal with the finances of the country. if they do, they have the capacity to do it. it is the thing that has the representatives hating most. it they run every two years. i do not write off the possibility that he will take it on once they get there. finances are the allocated. >> they are talking about six

and a billion dollars in medicare savings over the next decade. that is now not allocated toward reducing the deficit but reallocated to paying for a new entitlement under health care. it makes you wonder if medicare is the long term solution. an awful lot of this is going to be channeled to paying for something else. where you go to do with the deficit numbers that you read? >> i am such a single issue fanatic on this. the things that they are talking about, you know more about health care than i did, they are talking out this med pack. that is an existing organization. it is an impressive organization.

maybe they would grant them a fair bit of power to potentially dry line. it would not be the most democratic organization, but it might be effective. >> can make one point about bipartisanship? i work for a liberal republican in the 1960's. i spent my career working for non-partisan organizations on the organizing principle of putting together a bipartisan coalitions through legislative battles. i would say that the bipartisanship, if you are talking about significant numbers of republicans, is a false title today. it is not possible. the republican party has over the years become increasingly conservative. there are no liberal republicans. there are a handful of moderate

republicans left compared with 15 years ago. you cannot do this. what you can do and what has been done, they picked up three republican votes on the stimulus package and that won it for them. on the global warming battle, and they picked up eight republican votes and if they have lost eight of them or four of them, they would have lost it. >> i am the most liberal republican on earth. [laughter] i hate to the stimulus package. when you look at congress, you have a gang of 14, of 10. it is possible if you pass a legislation in the right way. i agree with you in the house. there are like eight moderates. >> clearly, there have been few

republicans crossing over on this vote. is that more a function and who is left? the members of both the house and senate are concentrated. is it a function of what obama is trying to do and the way he is doing it? >> i think that in 1974, when every democrat who could lose -- every republican who could lose lost, yet a very concentrated essence of republicans. that was all you have. that is what you have now. it is not that small. it is from people who do not care or are bothered by opposition. and they are not bothered by constituents to be there. it is a structural question. i have no idea how you could go

to the states and say, let's consider iowa, which does not draw a business based on how they vote, but simply on not dividing towns and how many are in each one. that is all they do. i asked one guy what do you do, demographic maps? he said, no. he uses grand mcnally. >> but meeting is out of domestic policy and talked about national security. we have not been on senger initial comment. one -- since your initial comment. he has renounced the policy. he is a closer than people anticipated. when you look overall at the

approach that he is taking, how do you -- what seems to be the unifying theme and where he is trying to take this? >> he is relentlessly optimistic in addressing the issue of terrorism. i like that. i take it is a bold statement about closing guantanamo was important. saying we would not torture is significant. the problem with guantanamo now exemplifies that we make a promise you cannot keep, you need to rethink whether guantanamo needs to be closed. i say that because you cannot have this present of all people who is a libertarian -- he people detained without charging them. that cannot happen.

that is wrong. i say that with great pain to think that we need to have to address that issue with this administration. at the same time, there is a plausible solution to guantanamo. one of the things that we are missing is to think about the fact that they send a group of federal judges, republicans and democrats, down to guantanamo and try them there. forget about moving the will to iowa or kansas. go to guantanamo. the judges are going to make sure the people who are guilty or convicted, for innocents are released. all the politics are out of it. that is one of the untested ideas. that has been out to the box. i hope to see the attorney general and white house support this. we have to find a plan. what he has done -- now we are talking about a strategy without

the details. that is very problematic. >> this is an area which has a fortune on the left and a certain amount of praise from conservatives. is he finding a middle ground on this? >> he said several times that when he looks of the idea foreign-policy he looks at george h. a w. bush. it is a foreign policy that a lot of democrats and republicans can now embrace. he is a big position with afghanistan. that was a called a divided people with in the it ministration quite seriously. i happen to be over there. the thing that kept hearing from people on the ground, from the military, who a lot of which had surged in iraq, and their general view was we like the afghans better than the rockies and we are more hopeful about

afghanistan. they said it will take a long time, but if we are here, we can really make this work. that was not an easy call to make. joe biden opposed it. he made that call. it was basically the situation of the bush strategy that was left on the table. it was the right call. i have lost track of who belongs to what, but that was an impressive decision. it goes along with the cairo speech. >> on not succumbing to pressure, to do what anybody wanted to do -- thanks to the twister, we were all i iranians that we. -- thanks to the twitter, we were all iranians that week.

when obama was a candid, he said that he was able to switch on and change. what he didn't do that with was guantanamo. you are so bright. somebody who has obama's inner lawyer and his philosophy cannot hold people indefinitely the matter how horrible they are. he is going to have to find his way out of that one. on iraq, he would truffe fewer troops or slowly. now we will see how it works. -- he withdrew fewer troops more slowly. now we will see how it works. >> part of the difficulty for the president on iran seems to be that he was reluctant to do

were say anything that would preempt or foreclose the possibility of going back later and having the engagement and negotiations and that he clearly has the cornerstone of this politics. some conservative critics were putting him in a no-win situation. if he did not speak out, he would be pushed into saying things that would make it unlikely that to go back and negotiate with them, which they opposed sending in the first place. when you look at the way the iranian government has handled the situation, do you believe it will be possible for him to seriously pursue the strategy of engagement and negotiation that is been hoping to undertake or is that one to be very difficult now after everything that happened? >> it to be very difficult. it was going to be difficult anyway to have a conversation of any sort with ahmadinejad. this is going to be a long ride, this one. i think that he is going to

simply have to wait to see if ahmadinejad secures his power. at that time, the only choice will be to try to go in and talk to him. it does not seem to me that iraq is subtle. it is still boiling. i'm sorry, iran, is still boiling. we might as well wait. i do not see there is a thing to be gained by doing anything else. >> the uprising would have undercut did paraguay. >> he would of been painting target on the backs of all of the opponent. >> i think he was fine. i have been in a couple of riot situations. when you are on the ground, the

u.s. is very far away and does not matter. the people focus very much on the near term matters. i do not know -- the one thing i would say, the obama administration is learning, as many are learning, that we go into government, the one thing you learn is that the military people are much more impressive than you thought they were unintelligible know a lot less than you thought. -- and the intelligence people know a lot less than you thought. [laughter] >> the one thing i think we have learned, we saw ahmadinejad with his black job a puppet out here. there is not much -- with his whack job puppet out here. there is not much different. >> i do not know how publicly it will be. i think we are going to have to make some decisions about iran

in the long term. i think we will pursue it. we will figure out a way to do it that does not look bad and that is not publicly undermine. i do not know that we will go back and say we will never talk to them again. >> will this empower those were critical of that approach? would narrow the space on which obama can operate it? you can imagine the arguments of talking to to run -- pteron -- tehran. >> the illusion of power is power in washington. the illusion of non-power is non-power. while obama is widely respected and supported in the country, i think he is going to have a

flexibility and leeway. i think when it starts to turn, then those kind of paths start to make you believe. >> does anyone actually think the talks will lead anywhere? >> israel is in the center of this. you have to try to negotiate with iran. it is of strategic importance with israel. there sears a worried about what iran will do, even the threat. -- they are seriously worried about what iran will do, even just the threat. the same thing happened at tiananmen square. what we see on television is not a sign of real change. it is completely different in a week. no demonstrations, in illinois. if it done something else and had people murdered and tortured, imagine what that

would have done. talking about foreign policy. the president with the most important decision with the powers of somalia. but today with the pirates of somalia. he asked what they should do. military leaders to take them out and return our captured americans. they did that. people applauded that, but rush limbaugh said that of barack obama killed these black men. >> of the workforce. >> he never said a mission accomplished. the military takes credit. >> i would like to soon bring in the audience for questions. there is a great program -- they pulled 19,000 people and

several dozen countries today. cumulatively 61% of those polled said they trusted obama to do the right thing and foreign affairs, these are in many countries. you were talking about friends and family. it raises the question if you have a president who right now has this kind of credibility and has exacted hope around the world, what does that tangibly translate into, if anything, and turns of advancing america's placement in view world? >> first of all, and this trip to europe, it was important that he said that i'm not the world leader but a world partner. it is going to use the number, he has to say he is a partner. he is not one to tell the rest of the world what to do.

you cannot use this as a championship thing. and bush, we said, well, we are behind you. his ratings were off the charts. that was until we saw how we implement the idea of protecting us in fighting terrorism. the poll was important, but i would not give much credence to a. there is the can do about it until the dollar is stronger, and the economy is better. this until we can keep career from nuclear bombs and iran from attacking israel. those are all the things the need to happen that the foreign- policy has to be. he needs to have patience to make sure he does not move too quickly. >> any other thoughts to that before we go to the audience? >> it is a diverse assortment all across europe and middle east. >> sarah palin?

[laughter] >> the country she could see from our house she did well with. [laughter] >> we have a microphone there. we have a question over here. . . when the administration brought

its power to bear, those two thoughts at least suggest to me that the president, or at least the administration, is perhaps more significantly involved and more significantly influencing legislation than the panel gave the impression. >> after you. >> i would just say that when you're looking at the house of representatives and you're leaving the details to the house of representatives, you're leaving them ultimately to the speaker who is, if anything, to the left of obama and who is going to be much more tough-minded on -- from a liberal standpoint on these policies. so i don't think in terms of the house you're on health issues like health care or global warming, you're really ceding a lot oftry.

>> let me tell my rahm stories. he is a great man. he is central to everything. we knew him, us who covered him as a political animal, he has quite substantive moves. and the joke that obama tells about him is rahm lost his middle finger in a deli accident and obama jokes when rahm lost his middle finger, he was rendered mute. the other joke is that he cares a lot about american education and he is afraid american high school students are cursing at a fourth grade level. [laughter] so he is central. and the final thing i say on the influence and the strategy of settling everything in conference is an intelligent strategy if they can pull it off. i would say how much influence they had, if you interview people on capitol hill and you ask how much -- first of all, the white house doesn't come up that much when they're describing how policies are

evolving. if you ask them how much the white house has influenced them, they say not all that much. >> i would add one point. rahm has been quoted as saying, "the unnegotiable principal in all of these debates is success. that isn't a cynical argument. it's a larger view of how you governor. it reflects how you stay in power in the country is you say over crofere over the instruments of governance. you move as far as you can in the direction you want to go while maintaining as broad a coalition as possible. if you govern in a way that creates a backlash and allows the other guys to come back in power in two or four years and undo what you have done, you haven't done very much. the bush national security policies would be a reflection of that. i think they are very conscious of what the market will bear in

a broad sense. their fundamental gamble is the country will accept more government activism than in your clinton. they are trying to move forward on a lot of fronts. in a way that does appeal to the business community or some republican governors or a few in the house. obama had this very unusual moment at a press conference earlier this year where he gave a closing statement which i had never seen in a press conference. it was about the importance of persistence and i think that is very much their view of governance. the key so changing the country is maintaining country of the rudder and everything is calibrated with that in mind. yes. >> i would like to pick up on a couple of the themes that the panel was discussing. one of them a little implicit and that is you began to discuss the congress is that you shifted sometimes in the dynamics of the congress to the dynamics of the business commute and implicitly the

lobbies. in that there is the notion to which mr. obama addressed himself in the election that, in fact, our congress is a combination of the people who are elected by the people they select to elect them and influenced to an extraordinary and unfortunate degree by lobbying and the force of money and politics. and the second point was the analogy to ronald reagan who in my view struck me as just having turned the tables on liberalism by describing welfare and working people who, teachers, as the enemies of the government. here obama came along in the election and really went after lobbyists and the force of pressure of money in congress. now we see him struggling with some of the policies. health care has been the primary subject other than foyer policy in your discussion in which the lobbies all over

npr did a wonderful thing the other day and turned the camera around and instead of taking pictures of the members of the panel, took pictures of the audience and an association of which i'm associated has asked to identify all the lobbies and who hired them and paid how much to influence that debate. is the president as part of his get-a long, go along practical giving up on the opportunity to do what reagan did and turning the tables on and targeting the influencers in the congress and asking the american people what they really want, the insurance companies and the a.m.a. and the -- >> i think i compared the congress unfavorably to hugo chavez earlier. i want to take that back. but linda was talking about the congress with nostalgia for the ronald reagan congress that you bring up. at least that house doesn't exist.

it's gone. and so to that extent, that's why i seem much more of a hard-liner than i actually am because i just don't know how much you can work with these people given the way they are elected and how extreme they are and seven for a moderate, you can't find one. you can find shifting alliances in the senate. now you have 60 democrats, you don't necessarily have 60 votes. you got to reach over sometimes and find the three senators or the gang of 14 or whomever you can to put some things together. in the how's it is hopeful. >> >> in the back there. as someone who gets a lot of news from the internet and from cable television -- >> my condolences. [laughter] >> it seems as though we're seeing a lot more what i would

generically call hate speech or at least a lack of civility and a lot of edgy type of vocabulary and behavior and we see these food fights all the time on the various cable networks. i was wondering if, from your perspective as insiders that actually deal with the political process and the people behind it on a day-to-day basis, if this filters down to the places where decisions are actually being made on capitol hill and into the white house or is this predominantly a media phenomenon that is produced because of the desire for circuses and a lot of action? >> good question. >> i would say it started -- i don't know if it's where it started, but it certainly is prevalent on capitol hill. i used to go to these things where a foundation used to take members of the house to the greenbrier hotel in west virginia. the idea was to get them together with their families.

they can share four days together and actually get to know one another. it was like junior high, all the republicans were over here and all the democrats would sit over here. the highlight was my son sang at care okay night, with 149 members of congress seeing "new york, new york" drunk wearing fallic plan hats. that moment of the session is going down the hallway one afternoon, there was a woman weeping in the hallway. at one of the breakout sessions, she was so viciously assaulted, she left in tears. that was called an civility summit. there is team spirit and harshness. the manners of the place. i'm sure we all find that when you go to lunch or interview him, you walk away thinking reasonable in private. >> throw out a couple thoughts. one as david was suggesting,

the level of partyline voting, republicans voting with republicans, democrats voting with democrats against the other side is at the highest since the levels of the 20th century. we're the most partisan era measured that way since the 1890's and the 1900's. second, the phenomenon you're describing, i think the part of it is that is worry some in the political world is the idea of this information ghettos where more and more of the electorate certainly is hearing thing that reinforces their point of view. conservatives watching fox, liberals putting on msnbc or whatever. they do worry about that. having said that, the white house view is that most of this cable food fight is just sheer circuses. it's about ratings. there is still a kind of a persuadeable middle in america that you can reach. the reality is that each part -- we have gone through in a book i call "the great sorting

out," each party coalition is more ho emergency news. there are more that are liberals and moderates and called themselves republicans and few conservatives that call themselves democrats. each party is coherent. it's reflected on capitol hill. having said that, there is still a piece that is out there, and the white house believes you can reach that and that you largely reach it through the mass media or he wouldn't spent so much time having brian williams following him around or charles gibson having him answers questioning. karl rove said there was no middle in american flicks and it was about activating your base. obama doesn't believe that. they believe that you have to do both things at once. enthousands your base but reach out to voters beyond that. one of the ways that you do that is through a broad mass media that goes beyond the food fight. >> thinking partisanship and getting along is that the

civility seminar, they live in a civility seminar. obama instructs people never to insult anybody and never to slam the door and never to put the phone down. i don't know that rahm abides by that completely, but there is that effort. it comes through to reporters and everyone else. >> i just wonder about -- there is a few people under 50 that think they were in the good old days when all democrats and republicans got along and we had a great society. i don't think that happened. in fact, president johnson in the 1960's said when he passed all this civil rights legislation, "we have lost the south." and the democrat party did lose the south in the 1960's and with a little bit from clinton here and there, little bit from carter, but they really didn't change it. i say that because i think there is another phenomenon going on here in terms of politics. i don't buy that the went party as a party is more conservative other than rhetoric. i think it's the same party.

i think that the independents have moved away from the democratic party and the republican party and they are the party that decides who is going to become elected. and the war became the divisivive in 2006. obama had the benefit that the house changed. john says i'm going to call you a lot now, i had the power to convene a hearing. i didn't think about that. he never had the power for decades to convene a hearing. the republicans are right if they're republicans to resist everything obama does. why? they lost florida. they lost north carolina. they lost virginia. and the worry has to be if we don't fight this guy every single step in 2012, we might lose louisiana, we might lose georgia or south carolina. the whole idea is that the red state-blue state issue is interesting, but i also think that even our country would not want a 70% party. i think you're going to see a

turn in the 2010 elections. we'll lose illinois, you heard that first here, right? you'll see a turn because people like a balanced government and we can't tie too much to one party being too much to the left, one party too far to the right. i think the public is just independent and they're trying to figure out who can lead that. >> the dangerous thing is they never gave us an exit time here, so we have been pressing your indulgence and keeping you for quite a while. we'll take one more question from the audience right up here in the middle and then we'll do the lightning round with the panel and then i'll let you go on for the night. >> are there prizes? >> only depending on how you do. >> i hate to switch it to economics, but let's talk about general motors. are the taxpayers ever going to get their money back? is obama ever going to let go? is the company going to succeed or fail? >> would you like that one. >> i wrote a column about it.

>> i guess the people i interviewed who were there said the problem with general motors was the culture, the culture of general motors, which involves the executives, it involves the unions and everything else. and their fear was the administration changed one guy at the top, but essentially the culture is intact. and these are patterns, unconscious patterns of behavior that have been involved in that organization for a long, long time, and their fear was the government was sort of stuck in the middle paying for the future of general motors, but not really either intervening or getting out. sort of just stuck in the middle, being halfway in but not all the way to change the culture or just not getting out and letting it go. so i think they were extremely mystic about general motors changing -- pessimistic about general motors changing.

>> i'm going to answer a series of quick questions to get you out the door and i'll hold you to one-word answers. >> can i cheat. >> it's possible. i'll start with frarninge and david. >> my answer is 30%. >> question one -- will president obama sign legislation that moves the nation substantially in the direction of universal health care by 2010? >> yes. >> no. >> he'll find legislation, it might not necessarily move us there. >> thank you, charles. >> will he sign, by 2010, will he sign legislation that imposes mandatory reductions in carbon emissions. >> no. >> i don't know. no. >> no. >> yes. >> maybe. [laughter] >> maybe is one word. will he follow through on his promise to close guantanamo by next january? >> by next january? >> by next january.

that's what he said. >> no. >> no. >> no. >> no. >> no. >> wow, uniform. will democrats gain or lose seats in the house in the election of 2010? >> lose. >> gain. >> lose. >> gain. >> lose. [laughter] >> that was a clear message. >> will they gain or lose seats in the senate in the election of 2010? >> gain. >> lose. >> lose. >> gain. >> gain. >> gain. >> one year from today will barack obama's approval rating sill exceed 55%? >> yes. >> i think so, yes. >> yes. but policies, no, way down. >> policies, no. >> yes, yes. >> yes. >> one year from now who will be considered the republican frontrunner for 2012 presidential election? >> mark sanford.

[laughter] >> it could be mrs. sanford, actually. >> romney. >> romney. >> crist. >> well, they're dropping like flies. >> how about it will not be sarah palin. >> romney. >> romney. >> finally, what single issue will be the biggest hurdle or challenge to barack obama's re-election? >> money. >> deficits. >> he has that horrible reagan choice. where he is going to get the money. spending. >> spending. >> money. >> the economy. >> all right. there we have it. we have you all on the record. maybe we can bring them all back next year. thank you all for sticking it out with us. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> up next a discussion on u.s. foreign policy with abc news correspondent march that raddatz. and a preview of president obama's trip next week which includes the summit in russia. then the president comments on june unemployment numbers. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," associated press

white house correspondent jennifer loven talks about her discussion with president obama. jason motlagh of the "washington times" pens the latest on the situation in afghanistan and jonah goldberg of the national review online talks about the future of the republican party and the conservative movement plus other political news of the day. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> over the july 4th weekend, notable americans on c-span. stories from inside the white house, domestic policy advisors on their presidents, from richard nixon to george w. bush. honoring president ronald reagan, ken burns on his career, an upcoming series on america's national parks, a tribute to john updike, two-time winner of the pulitzer

prize, a reunion of the apollo 8 astronauts. on book tv including in-depth sunday with historian and author john furling. find out what's on anytime on c-span.org. >> now a discussion on u.s. foreign affairs with abc news correspondent martha rat dads. she was a guest on today's "washington journal" for about 40 minutes. us from abc studios in washington, d.c. you have posted on your blog on "abc news" an update on colonel karcher. can you tell our viewers how he's doing? guest: he's expected to arrive back in the united states either tomorrow or saturday. his condition is stable but he was in very bad shape for a couple of days. they had a very difficult time stabilizing him. i learned after we filed that report that he could not be airlifted away from the scene.

they had to drive him to the combat support hospital because there was a terrible dust storm that day. and some very brave soldiers who drove him there and then when they were leaving they actually hit a roadside bomb, an e.f.p., those very, very powerful, powerful bombs that can penetrate metal. and there was a sergeant killed. so they delivered their commander to the combat support hospital and then when they were on their way back they were struck by a bomb as well. and it shows you this war as the commander told me, this war depuzz continue. host: well, on that note, in addition to the personal tragedy in these soldiers' lives, what should people understand about the violence that is taking place this week as american troops begin their pullback? guest: clearly there's been a big uptick in violence. there have been about 250 people, mostly iraqi civilians, killed this month. but it does appear there are

focusing on american soldiers again. now, one of the things i worry about a little bit as u.s. soldiers and marines full out of bases in the cities in iraq is that it is more difficult for them to get to their bases. they're further away. and those soldiers who remain, the trainers and advisors, have that force protection further away. but they have gotten out about 100 bases. they are pulling back. i think people misunderstand. they think somehow everything is closed there. the bases like camp victory, which is the major military base in baghdad, is still open. there's still a base in mosul open. er in scattered throughout the country. they have not reduced any troops in the last month or so. we're still about 130,000, a little more than 130,000. i think it will only go down to about 12r5,000 by the end of

the year. -- 125,000 by the end of the year. you have a huge american presence. they just won't patrol by themselves in the cities. but they are certainly out there, and they are certainly in the fight. i think i said on abc the other night that it will feel an awful lot like combat whether we have combat troops there or not. they're all combat trained, and if they get in a firefight it will feel an awful lot like combat. host: "the financial times" fee furred a common fare piece who is an assistant professor of history at stanford university. with the headline on it, "iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an invisible occupation." it is a follow on to what the plan is for the redeployment of american troops there. he writes, we are at the

beginning of the end. on tuesday u.s. troops left iraq's cities and in two years they will leave the country. or so the official story goes. in reality, most of the troops are going to forward operating bases which they will be hunkering down. and expensive built to last facilities. later on he writes, iraqis are too shrewd to fall for invisible occupations as me did in the 1930's with the british. the piece closes this way. in 1932 as now rhetoric about withdrawal was aimed at global as much as iraqi opinion. instead of attending only to appearances, stroking the fears of the people familiar with nominal independence, the u.s. and iraqi governments should deliver the reality iraqis and americans want. yes for independence, the troops basically out. that's my addition on the end there. guest: well, i've been calling it a bit of a stealth force

now. but we do have a status forces agreement with the iraqis that calls for complete withdrawal at the end of 2011. now the iraqis can ask the american forces to stay. they can renegotiate that agreement with the americans. i think you'll probably see forces there longer than 2011. the iraqis right now don't really have much of an air force. i'm not sure i've ever seen an iraqi helicopter in the sky. they don't have air support really. they don't have a navy. they don't have the sophisticated intelligence equipment that the u.s. does. and they do not have the ability to evacuate their own forces in a medical emergency. so there is a lot that the iraqi forces depend on the u.s. for. so i think what you might see is a renegotiation at the end of 2011. do american forces want to occupy iraq indefinitely? no, i don't think so.

when you think of bosnia and how long u.s. forces was there and when they came in the combat was gone. there were no u.s. soldiers who were killed in that conflict. so it seems pretty improbable that u.s. forces will be completely out by 2011. but that is what that agreement says. right now that all forces are out by the end of 2011. and in fact by 2010, by the end of august, ray odierno, the general in iraq, says he'll have them down to about 50,000. i think you would have to have a terrible, terrible turn in iraq, and i mean the uptick in violence would be enormous for any of those numbers to change. you have a president who wants to get out of iraq. he made a campaign promise that he would get troops out of iraq. so i think that is the path they are on. host: we are going to take some

telephone calls and come back from a break of calls to talk about afghanistan because there's clearly a major troop action there and i'd like to learn more about you. let's hear from c-span viewers. first being from halifax, massachusetts. this is chris on the republican line. go ahead, chris. caller: hi. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i was just curious to hear sort of what mar that's view on this, the difference in coverage between sort of presurge, you know, when we were fighting in iraq and taking a lot of casualties and, you know, the media was very critical of the bush administration, critical of the war's efforts. you know, there were a lot of calls for withdrawal at that time. and now i see the coverage and it just sort of seems to be everything is rosey and fine and there's very little critical coverage, you know, of the war. and also the fact nat surge worked and -- that the surge worked and bush's stay the

course ended up working. i'll take the answer right ther guest: i think it's a little more complicated than that. i think the critical media coverage, and frankly, i'm proud of the media because the bush administration at the time was saying things were going well. president bush in an interview with me before he left office, i asked him about the fact that he said we were winning before the surge and he said he knew we were not, but he kept saying that. so when i say i'm proud of the media coverage building up to the surge, i think that really helped the american people understand and the bush administration that they needed to change course. indeed they stayed the course. indeed they stayed in there and president bush was committed to turning this around and that's why the surge happened. that's why they changed strategy, because they really realized things weren't working. so inthe critical coverage leading up to that was important. i think the coverage when the

surge happened certainly gave the president correct in saying that the surge had turned it around and general david petraeus and all of the soldiers and marines who were over there worked very hard to turn that situation around. much coverage now, and i think that is in fact because the security situation changed so dramatically because of the surge. and you're not getting as much coverage. and you're also in many ways the same way the army has to get soldiers out of iraq to go into afghanistan i think you're seeing a lot of news organizations switching their focus from iraq to afghanistan. but i would hardly say it is a kumbayah coverage. if you saw my coverage of colonel karcher, it is still dangerous for u.s. troops. i want to show the sacrifice

they are making over there. host: martha raddatz is an author of a book called "a long way home" which made "the new york times" and "washington post" bestsellers trip. since the war began, how many trips have you made to iraq? guest: i've made 20. that's a lot of trips over there. it meant a lot to me to continue to go back. covering the last term of president bush i still wanted to go back to iraq because that was such an important story. and i could see from the ground changes that were made. i could see the difference between 2004 and 2006 when things were really, really terrible. and the difference since i was there a few months ago with lieutenant colonel karcher of the optimism that many of those soldiers had about the situation there. so to me it's always been important to go back. i tell you the book that i wrote about is the 2-5 and that

battalion and that's the battalion that lieutenant karcher took over. . seeing these same soldiers over year and year and the changes they made, it's a very important story for me to cover and of course, many of those soldiers and marines are in afghanistan. host: the next call is from moss, this is jerry, democrats line. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. i heard recently on a website, i was wondering if i can put it out.

larchepack.com. they had an article about the treaty on the eve of world war i, are you familiar with that at all? guest: i can't help you there. caller: it's when they carved up the middle east. they lied about w.m.d. and saddam was a threat. he was a threat to maybe his own people but i don't think anyone was really afraid of him except for the british and the americans which is a lot of b.s. the point is we have ruined our military following the british line. we shouldn't be screwing around with this country like we have been doing since world war ii. host: thank you for your call. guest: it has been debated time and time again about saddam hussein. there was an article this morning. host: it was in the "washington

post" and the "washington times" but they have written it from a different perspective of the interview. guest: it is a story of what saddam hussein said in his last interview saying before he was executed saying that he was only afraid of the iranians and that's why he kept saying he had weapons of mass destruction, that, in fact, he wanted the iranians to believe that because he was fearful of the iranians. again, it's been debated again and again, they never found weapons of mass destruction. that was the principal reason the bush administration said they were going in to iraq. host: let me read one paragraph from this. it was obtained under the freedom of information act from the national security archive. if you want to read more detail, you can find it there.

the director of the archives says that there is no reason to keep the conversations secret. he said that he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a security agreement with the united states to protect iraq from threats from the region. this is on our independent line. go ahead, please. caller: thank you for c-span. you had an interview with vice president cheney. i thought he treated you terribly. was it not the time -- you ask him a very pointed question. his reply was, "so?" in hindsight, it is probably a lot easier to understand what he

meant now than he did then. guest: it was about a year ago. was traveling with vice- president dick cheney. we had gone to iraq and then we had an interview set up. i asked him about a poll, saying that 2/3 of americans did not believe the iraq war was worth the sacrifice. and he looked at me and said, "so?" that interview got a lot of attention. i think, particularly coming at the end of the bush administration, having the vice president say that was quite stunning. host: let me move on to afghanistan. "the washington post" have a major story. thousands of fan out in afghanistan. the south in crucial test for revised u.s. strategy. this is an area of the helmand region.

there is a band of fertile land that produces some of the largest poppy crops in afghanistan. can you tell us more about the strategy? guest: we have four thousand marines going in there. this is a really big operation. the taliban has clearly taken over the opium trade. that finances a lot of the fighting. i think i heard an earlier caller talking about an interview they heard. it was probably with gretchen peters. she used to work for abc news. she has looked into the opium trade as financing these militant groups in the taliban in that region. that is what u.s. forces are going after. this is a huge area that a taliban controls. this is the first major offensive since the obama administration has come in. i think what you're seeing now, when you see this -- i was struck when president obama

talked about the new strategy in afghanistan. this is now his war. certainly, the iraq war is his as well, but the strategy -- there is a new strategy. it is his idea what failures or what successes happen are on his store -- are on his shoulders now. sending in marines in this area is a big step. i was also reading today and struck by this, the pakistani army is putting soldiers along its border with afghanistan. some of those taliban do not fully from the fighting there, which has been a huge problem in the past this is the first sign i have seen. the obama administration has said they want to look at these two countries together. you cannot solve one without the other. there is clearly some coordination here that is going on. they have launched this operation. the pakistanis are preparing to

keep those taliban militants there. it is good to hear that they are making the effort. host: this is a sidebar story with this headline, "no limit in place for pending request for troops in afghanistan." the nation's top military officer said yesterday that no limits have been placed on the number or types of troops the new u.s. commander in afghanistan can request as he seeks to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy there. let's go to another call. good morning, rick. caller: good morning. how are you? thank you for your fantastic reporting. guest: thank you for saying that. caller: you are fair and balanced. i'm just joking. the iraq war, like it or not -- thomas friedman wrote a couple

of weeks ago in a very important article. there is a globalization of this war, obviously this story was fantastic about the gentlemen you followed. i am getting ready to go to work here. you are just fantastic. both you and c-span are fantastic. the war is not perfect. there are curious things going on. all that yellowcake that was taken to canada. we have the right people in place. i voted for mr. obama. i did becau i thought he had a

better look at the whole approach of it. democracy and peace is not perfect everywhere, not even in our country. look at lebanon recently. look at serious starting to open up look at iran. i told my girlfriend seven years ago that peace will come when the power of the feminine starts getting on the streets. was i right or wrong? that is the most powerful thing. was it in intervention? what do you think? was it in intervention, like an alcoholic? the power of women in that area of the world, giving them a voice is so important to me. guest: we did a piece of on that recently on the power of women

out protesting. i was in iran in september. it is remarkable to see, particularly these young woman commeen, so frustrated. you can see them on the streets, pushing them to the limits. to have a real powerful voice. i think that really has caught the world's attention. host: we want to play a piece of video for you. we're talking about all of these different countries in that region of the world. the chief of naval operations had what he described as an unusual event. they have a consultancy that is encouraging the navy to get out and tell its story margaret we covered the resulting speech. here are some of his comments about how the military overall

and the navy in particular restructuring itself to meet what they say are the threats of the future. >> the aircraft carrier abraham lincoln was quietly in port in hong kong. by saturday, she was providing 50,000 pounds of food and water a day to the tsunami-affected area in indonesia. that event also led us to adjust our strategy, i think, in a very significant way. as i said we had been responding to disasters throughout our history, but we said, well, let's see what we can do proactively and we began a series of humanitarian missions that to date in the four years in which we have been conducting them have touched 409,000 patients from our ships. that's in south america, the pacific, and in africa.

and if you consider the 409,000 patients, that's like going to the virus zone center, pack -- vire rise zone center, packing the house and treating each one of the people in the center 20 times. that is not an insignificant contribution that our people are making. >> the admiral went on, martha raddatz to explain that the approach, the old impression, jaw, jaw, jaw as opposed to war, war, war that military is moving more into humanitarian efforts to help prevent future conflicts and that's an example of it. would you comment on what you learned from the pentagon about this approach. guest: i think because they have seen this work just exactly as he describes in the tsunami and the earthquake in pakistan. when people see the soldiers or

officers or airmen trying to help, that changes their attitude towards americans. ir attitude toward americans. you can go to some of these countries -- have been traveling to pakistan four years as well. for a long time, they blame americans for their problems, for the war in afghanistan, sending foreign fighters over the other side of the border. when they see americans trying to help in an earthquake, when they see them delivering humanitarian aid, it makes a real difference. it obviously will not go away overnight. they have drone a tax they do not like. -- attacks they do not like. it works strategically to reach out to those nations. host: americans get a good value to applying the military in this fashion.

guest: i have talked to some many sailors about the tsunami relief and the connection they made with people and the world seeing what americans did for those people in those countries in trying to help. you can just see -- if you are in those countries and you just see americans at war or you feel threatened -- threatened by americans or not help, it just makes a huge difference. host: good morning to you. caller: i just wanted to make a few comments about the reporter here who is talking. you make everything sound quite rosy to a certain extent. how about some real investigative journalism to find out about when we are going to get out, what we are going to do with the bases, why it cost

$800,000 to support one soldier over there, and what are 5000 people going to do in the embassies? guest: i would not say that i have painted a rosy picture over there. we have more than 130,000 troops over there. what are we going to do with the bases? i think some of those bases will remain. we have a status of forces agreement that says that we're out of there by the end of 2011. i think there will probably be some sort of residual force. that will be up to the iraqis. we're in an agreement with the iraqis. iraq is a sovereign nation. if they want us to stay longer, we will. the embassy is the end -- is enormous. it might be the biggest in the world. it is enormous. it is a compound. you also have camp victory, which is an enormous u.s. military base on the outskirts of baghdad. i think eventually, they would like to turn that back to the

iraqis. for now, they are still working out of there. this war is not over. you are correct. it is not over. it is still a long way to go. there could be some big fights ahead of us. we just do not know. host: this morning, "the new york times" has a report on the shifting american footprint in iraq. 59 battalions. september, 2007, the height of the surge moved up to 75 battalions. october, 2008, back to 55 battalions. in june, 2009, with growing and changing roles down to 45 battalions. they moved to bases on the outskirts of neighborhoods in baghdad and other cities.

american troops are moving to an advisory role. we're talking about american involvement in this region of the world. our next call is from irvine, ky. caller: i have to organize -- helped to organize the first gulf war. i think people realize now that was planned extmely well, extremely effective it did not cost of -- cost us hundreds of billions of dollars or leave the country into a major economic downturn. that being said, hindsight is 20/20. let's look at what went wrong superfast. at that time, i had great intelligence contacts that

provided information and that went on for several years where i could quickly contact the cia and the state department and directly, the white house, quickly. i think that was instrumental in keeping the clinton administration out of the middle east when they were ramping up wanting to go i saw saddam hussein has basically no more than the mayor of baghdad. i believe the weapons inspectors [unintelligible] however, i was an outsider during the bush and administration. they and their agenda to be a little bit tougher i think i got intelligence to condoleezza rice prior to her taking the

position. however, i still had difficulty getting information. i have extensive research on it. i no longer had my contacts at the cia. i did not have a working member of the white house. my senators gave me some really nice form letters, but they toed the line with the administration. host: may i interrupt you? what is your bottom line here? caller: the bottom line is, i would like to be a peacemaker between those who thought it was a good idea who went to war and those who did not. there were some intelligence flaws in how to get that

information. everybody was moving quickly. host: we have a lot of callers waiting. anything for that caller? guest: all i will say on the difference between the first and second wars is that -- it has been well documented and acknowledged that there were not enough troops to keep the peace after the initial invasion. host: there is another aspect to iraq that is happening now. that is the oilfields. bp-led group to be a test case. the real work for its british giant is just beginning. the project will be a test case for how western oil companies will be received in iraq. we have a viewer by twitter who is very suspicious of all of this. coincidence?

u.s. withdrawal from cities, first auction of oil, oil companies demand 10 more -- 10 times more than our record priest to. guest: i think this is a test case. i do not want to get into the timing of all of that, but it is certainly a test case. security will be part of that test data and how they get on with the iraqis because the oil is certainly something they have been looking at for years and years. host: when is your next reporting trip to the region? guest: i duties at the last minute or was something is happening. i imagine sometime in the fall. host: we have eight minutes left in our conversation -- in our conversation with martha raddatz. caller: thank you for c-span. i have a few comments to make.

actually, our precipitous withdrawal from somalia actually started this chain of events that led up to 9/11. they perceive us as weak. also, our casualties in the iraqi war actually amounted to about two days at omaha beach. one final point is, in afghanistan, why don't we just cut the mountain passes between afghanistan and pakistan, thereby getting rid of the taliban's ability to operate on that alliance?

guest: it would be very difficult to cut those passes. i cannot tell you how remote and hard to get to it is and how many ways out of their. if you try to do that, it is like sealing the border when everybody says we conceal the border. it is awfully hard to do. we certainly could not do it here, i do not think. in afghanistan and pakistan, it is tremendously difficult. they did not do it in iraq in the early days of the war. they said they thought they had the border sealed with syria. that did not happen. there are just too many ways across those borders. it is a very difficult tiger -- a very difficult problem. there is debate about pulling out of somalia so quickly at looking weak. i think that has been well debated as well. that came after the horrible

engagement there were many soldiers were killed. we were not prepared for that fight and we lost many soldiers that day. host: martha raddatz comes from a journalism family. we have about five minutes left with her. go ahead, please. caller: good morning. thank you for your objectivity and your voice. sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq.

they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united

nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. even to me that day, it did not seem like particularly hard evidence. a lot o there were questions asked about a lot of that evidence. but you are exactly right. they talked about mushroom clouds. they talked about nuclear programs and i think that intelligence has been gone over again and again. i know mr. woodward did a lot of reporting on that as well. host: does abc have anyone on the ground with the marines in afghanistan? guest: yes, we have mike becher, you know as well that today a soldier has gone missing from a province and the

taliban says they're holding him and the u.s. military says that as well. a reporter on "good morning america" this morning that it's very unusual that a soldier would ever be by himself in an area like that. so i think there are a lot of questions about this, but the u.s. military has confirmed they're holding a soldier. that has nothing to do with the offensive with the marines but also something to add to the reporting here. . host: bid morning, dan and on our line for independents. caller: i have one question how many mercenaries are going to stay in iraq and afghanistan after the pullout? guest: by that, i suppose you mean independent contractors. that is a really good question. i will tell you honestly, i do not know the answer to that question. i do not know the number of

contractors. i do not know how they can do security without some of those contractors, particularly for embassy personnel, the ambassador -- that is usually contracted out. others are contracted out in terms of that. i think that is a really good question. i cannot have an answer for you. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," societied prer press white house correspondent talks about her 25-minute interview with president obama. nico pitney talks about covering the unrest in iran following the election. jason motlagh has the latest in the situation in afghanistan and the national review online talks about the future of the republican party and the conservative moment -- movement.

plus other political news of the day. "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> coming up next, a preview of the president obama's trip next week. which includes a u.s.-russia summit in moscow. after that, the president comments on june unemployment figures and then a forum looks at the obama administration's first months in office. >> this weekend, discussions with presidential advisors from richard nixon to george w. bush. friday night at 8:00 eastern, relations with the chief executives. saturday morning at 10:00, getting congressional and public support for presidential agendas and then lessons learned from serving the president. that's sunday at 4:25 p.m. eastern, all on c-span.

>> these places remind me of modern cathedrals that donors will build wings on hoping they'd go to heaven. >> princeton class of 1983 would like to see a few changes to the higher education system. >> i think, for example, princeton philosophy, lectures should be on the web. i think that these wonderfulfully concentrated islands of talent and wealth and addition should be opened up to the larger society, not kept separate which they still are and i can't understand why. >> walter kirn,. on q&a d sunday night at 8:00 on c-span. you can also listen on xm satellite radio or download the c-span podcast. >> a discussion now on president obama's up coming trip to russia, the g-8 summit and ghana.

nuclear disarmament will be the issue in talks with russian president. the president will reportedly address the situation in iran during the g-8 meeting and he's expected to praise ghana's recent peaceful presidential election during his visit to that country. the center for a strategic and international studies is the host of this event. it's just over an hour. >> good morning. today we're going to do this a little bit differently because we've got a big trip with a lot of issues and so we're going to do it in waves. we're going to start out with the moscow summit and i have here our two senior russia scholars. and you have their bios in front of you but i will tell you, they're the business in the -- best in the business. with that i'll let it go to sara or andy. >> good morning.

well, i think as long as we keep our expectations low about this summit meeting then we're less likely to be disappointed about what's about to transpire. i have to say that while i've been a very enthusiastic advocate of the so-called reset button in attempts to improve the russia-u.s. relationship, there's a little bit of a flaw in our logic. and it's in resetting and part of it is that we have a new leader who is -- president obama, who is ready to adjust some policies from the previous administration. in moscow we don't have a new leader. we essentially have the same leadership that we had before and i think it's very dubious what extent there's interest on the russian side in resetting the relationship. to take that a little bit further i don't think we should have any illusions about where ultimate decision authority relies -- lies in russia today. i think the tandem is a fiction or in russian words, it's a

village. mr. obama has to operate under the assumption that on any issue of importance to him, from nuclear reductions, negotiations to afghanistan, to iran, the ultimate ar bitter of russian policy is vladimir putin. that doesn't mean that it's a waste of time. but i think that mr. obama's going to have to assume that there's virtually no space between both. that any position taken by him has essentially been blessed by his mentor-master, you choose the word. i also think and we may disagree about this, that president obama probably should harbor no illusions that the united states or any particular can take measures in moscow to empower any west-leaning officials in the government. now, if what i'm suggesting is true, i think it creates several problems. the first and i think frankly less important challenges

presented by the de facto unconstitutional decision making arrangement in moscow has to do with the optics of the meeting. we can probably manage this i think by having both preside over the likely summit deliverables which hopefully will be the agreement on the framework agreement on the start one replacement treaty. deep in cooperation in afghanistan, presumption of military to military ties. but, look, the most important part about his trip to moscow is going to be his discussions with vladimir putin, in my view. for the simple reason that mr. putin is by far and away the most important and powerful figure in russia. it's a pretty simple logic. and i see that he has scheduled -- on his schedule for right now, i think a one-hour meeting over at putin's house followed by he's leaving them to go meet with mr. gorbachev. in all honesty, i would blow off the meeting with mr. gorbachev. i would spend more time with mr. putin. i know that doesn't really look good in some ways and it's not

so diplomatic but we have to face reality i think as to what the reality is in moscow and how to deal with it. now the core problem mr. obama's going to have in dealing with mr. putin is i think that he has developed a sense that he will do virtually whatever he wants to do with nearly absolute impunity. there's a long list of events that have bolstered this sense over the years. i think it's also clear that mr. putin has a chip on his shoulder about the size of the rocket jibralter about the humiliations that russia has been intellectual flibblingted upon it by the west and finally mr. putin believes that for now russia has the upperhand vis-a-vis the united states and washington needs to make all the fundamental concessions or in other words do all of the resetting. i think this combination of feeling all powerful, aggrieved and overconfident is not going to make for a very easy interlocutor in mogs cao. there are three things i would start with in what mr. obama needs to convey to mr. putin in very clear terms. i'd start with georgia.

once again we hear rumors of the possibility of russian preparations for war, to finish the unfinished business. this absolutely cannot happen. last year's conflict was a massive blow to the credibility of the u.s. security commitments not only in the region but in the world and obama must on the one hand assure putin that the georgean president has been told there's no justification for responding to any president bushian provocations with military force and also to be clear about what are the consequences in the event that russia were to invade georgia again. iran, i think mr. obama needs to be very clear in briefing putin specifically only the plan to engage iran and the measures the united states is prepared to take in the likely event that tehran proves intransigent on its nuclear weapons program. the come to jesus moment, so to speak, is likely to be upon us sometime in the next year and the most likely scenario is going to have us coming back to the u.n. security council members to impose harsh economic sanctions.

this is going to be the decision point where moscow would have to play both sided against the middle and decide whether they are in fact with us or against us. finally, afghanistan. obviously a very, very high priority for the obama administration. while the russians have been cooperative in opening the quarter where the northern distribution network as the military refers to it, there's likely to be an agreement announced in moscow on the transfer of lethal material through russian territory. the russian position on our use of the military base in kyrgyzstan raises serious questions about how moscow sees its interests. officially the kremlin approved last week of the access but their behavior going back to the beginning of the year suggests that really they don't want to see us there. and i think that moscow may very well prefer to maintain their hedge mondayic position in central asia rather than see our success in afghanistan.

afghanistan is a vital national security interest where lives of u.s. soldiers are at stake and obama's got to make it clear that any ambiguity about moscow's support on this is not going to be taken likely -- lightly. finally there are a lot of questions about moscow's reliability as a partner. i was in st. petersburg for the economic forum and two days later putin's decision to blow off russia's negotiations for a session at the w.t.o. i think raises these questions in very high relief for all parties, including his own government, which in my view was caught completely offguard by this decision to enter into customs union arrangement with kazakhstan and pursue the w.t.o. that way. all right. thanks very much. >> thank you. well, in the fine tradition of a think tank, i may indeed disagree with my colleague a little bit. i want to focus my comments on the second day.

maybe after the hour that president obama meets with prime minister putin. i've been for the last several weeks involved in organizing what is a parallel civil society summit that's going to happen on the second day. it will begin on the first day but we're hoping that we get senior representatives of both governments coming to us on the second day. this is a different kind of meetingings, we have about 75 american and russian experts coming together. these are americans primarily who have worked on the u.s., coming together with russians who've worked on russia. so we have cheegs from the affordable housing field, from the human rights field, who have worked with me on helping or trying to close guantanamo and torture and indefinite detention in this country. we have noninfectious disease specialists. we have working journalists coming together with russian working journalists to talk about new media.

and it's a different model because typically over the last 20 years the united states civil society was supported from the u.s. government has really approached russia as almost a problem to be fixed. so you've had -- we started with humanitarian assistance and then we went to economic assistance and we've had democracy assistance and over time this assistance has been increasingly infective, unwelcome and frankly it hasn't created the kind of space that we hope our colleagues would enjoy and it hasn't increased their capacity, whether that's working journalists or in the human rights field or in environmental fields. so this is a different kind of model. now why are we doing this? we're doing it in part because we didn't want to see this summit in fact be only about arms control this relationship is more than just arms control. and i think that in some of the statements that you've seen coming from the obama administration before they travel that they are very aware of this and that that is their

hope as well. on the second day we're expecting president obama is going meet with a series of different parts of civil society. we hope that that includes our civil society summit. but it's also in response to some small incremental changes that we've seen in russia over the last several weeks. what are these? the president did his first interview with a newspaper where four of their journalists have been killed over the last couple of years, including anna. the interview itself is not remarkable but the fact of the interview was. the president reconstituted his presidential council on human rights which is populated by genuine human rights activists and they've met and convened a couple of times. this is extremely welcome from the human rights community.

and engaging colleagues in moscow and in the region, people who experience tremendous amount of pressure from the authorities over the last couple of yeeks of the -- years. their view is to act as if there is in fact some change, that if there isn't change we're going to find out soon enough and so they're extremely glad to have american colleagues coming to meet with them in the civil society summit. i think everybody really hopes that president obama and the russian president show up. and the idea is to move essentially from assistance to a more pure-to-pure kind of engagement and we're going to see if that's possible. rhetoric in russia matters in the sense that if you think back 10 years ago in fact, 10 years ago this month, prime minister putin was then the head of the f.s.b. he gave an interview to a newspaper in which he talked about the problem with foreign

assistance is not going to environmental movement n.g.o.'s, it's that it means if they're in the employ of foreign intelligence. and after that statement, a whole series of environmental organizations were investigated. and senior kremlin officials have made similar statements over the years that have resulted in lights going on all over russia and investigations occurring. so a change in rhetoric matters in the russian context. it's not everything. but we will be looking to see if there's action that follows. and, you know, we'll see what this big experiment brings. so i think with that i'm -- i'll open it up. >> we're going to take questions on the moscow summit now. we're going to bring in our other colleagues to talk about the g-8 and africa. i also want to mention there's some materials that have been passed out to you including a book about what's going to

happen with policy following the bush years in africa. if you're in front of a microphone and you could identify yourself for the question, it would be helpful. >> hi, francine kiefer from the christian signs monitor. so, obama's going to be giving a speech at this economics university. and i wanted to ask you what you thought -- how that would be -- how much of it would be allowed to be broadcast? i don't have a sense of what's going to reach russians. and what you think it can do in terms of changing russian public opinion which is pretty negative itself about the united states right now? >> they've asked that it be televised. i haven't heard whether or not that request has been -- is it? >> well, from what i heard is that it's going to be televised on -- it's going to be televised on rtv-1. it's not going to be televised on the major national russian

tv networks. so very modest concession and sort of reminiscent, i think, of the way the chinese are treating speeches by bill clinton. >> i think, you know, this is a very important speech and he's got to do a lot of different things at the same time. you're right. the opinion of the u.s. is quite negative but i'll tell you that in surveys that we've done there has been a difference between how people view americans and how they view bush administration policies. and i think the kind of message that president obama delivered to the united states as well as to international audiences, where, you know, it's not only been a reset with russia, but he's been in the business of repairing the damage that's been done over the last eight years on how people view the united states.

you know, that this is a government and administration that's going to be much more interested in engaging, in talking to critics as well as friends and allies. and that they're working specifically on a series of changing policies that the bush administration adopted. but the trick is that, you know, the kind of message that is very appealing in europe, i just don't know how it's going play in russia. when you are admitting, if the president does this, and i don't know whether or not, i mean, my sense is the speech is being written now, it's not finished, if you're speaking about who we are in our journey, you know, we're not perfect. and the last couple of years haven't been very good. and generally the tendency for russians is not to admit any kind of weakness. so i don't know whether or not that's going to be seen as welcome or not. i think he's got to do it and he'll be able to deliver that

message. i don't think there's some disagreement among colleagues but i don't think russians know very much about him to be honest and i think even just talking about his personal journey is going to be important because it challenges a lot of the stereotypes that russians have about who we are and our history. >> add a couple of words. first, i think it's great that he's givesing the speech, particularly at the new economic school. personally, given the grants to working with the mcarthur foundation and we're working very closely in the next phase of the russia balance sheet here. but, you know, you guys have seen the polling numbers out of the university of maryland study recently and unfortunately it appears that according to these numbers, that the russians are amongst the least receptive and most skeptical about positive change coming out of the obama administration. so i think he's going to be

facing a pretty difficult challenge and considerably more difficult than what he faced in cairo. >> hi, i'm john thanwiseman from the "wall street journal." i just want to ask about the issue of missile defense installations in eastern europe and nato enlargement. i was somewhat surprised by the tone that michael mcfall took yesterday on thinks conference call on which he said, you know, we're not going to be offering any kind of reassurance, we're not going to be use the word reassurance, we're not in the business of negotiating away anything and we have been hearing that the obama administration might be willing to offer some kind of backroom reashirnses on both issues. so i was curious what you thought of the tone that he took and what the russians might be expecting on those two

issues. >> let me take a crack at that one first. the russians are plenty aware that the obama administration is less enthusiastic about missile defense in general, democratic administrations are less enthusiastic about missile defense in general going back 25, 30 years to the reagan administration. and they've clearly understood the tone that was on the campaign trail subsequently. so they are bargaining hard and it's still not -- it's still a possibility that the agreement to agree on the start one framework agreement could be torpedoed by a failure of us to do absolutery assurances that we've changed our policy on the east central european deployments. i think where the problem is going come is down the road in december when there needs to be a signing of an agreement.

there's not going to be any signed agreement about the treaty next week in moscow. and if the russians, i think, don't see, they will hold out signing that agreement later on in the year if they don't see some satisfaction on the missile defense issue. i think the administration finds self kind of painted a little bit into a corner on missile defense as it's simply not very poll teak right now to be viewed as making any concessions to the russians who don't seem to be particularly interested in making concessions themselves. >> i saw his comments and i'm looking at them right now, slightly differently. i think a lot of people thought because the summit was going to focus on arms control in the first day that, oh, ok, so that means that it's basically, it's a reset but it's a reset back to the days when we mainly talked about arms control. and for any of you who know mike mcfall, the idea that, you know, civil society and democracy and human rights

wouldn't be on the agenda is crazy. but to the point is that the obama administration is trying to set a policy that can walk and talk at the same time. you can do arms control but you can also address these other issue. it's not going to be done in the kind of tradeoff, we're not going to agree to this in order to be able to do that. you know this isn't about needing and i think that that was the point he was trying to make. >> any other questions on russia? ok. we're going to pull in our other scholars. we're going to do the switch now. thanks to ar sa -- sara andy. if do you have questions on russia coming up, please contact me and we will put you in touch with these two. thanks.

>> good morning. i'm the chair of international business here at csis and we're joined by a very esteemed panel here to discuss the g-8 and the trip to africa by president obama. on my left i have heather connolly who is our new director of csis' europe program. on my right, jennifer cook, and on the far right, rubin jeffrey who is our new senior advisor and covers a range of different issues. we're also hopefully going to be joined shortly by steve morrison who is our senior vice president. there's steve right there. so, welcome, steve. and i want to turn quickly to the panel. i just want to raise three quick broad points before doing so. and first, to many of the press here and the public, this really probably seems like deja vu. just a couple of weeks ago in april we were talking about president obama going to a major summit in europe to discuss the global economy at the g-20. and i think this shows the challenges to the g-8 in

general and the great flux of the world system when there's not even agreement that there will be a g-20 summit in 2010. so the appropriate title for next week might be the better along the line, g-? it might rapidly accelerate into a contrashen dough of different nations, going up to 39 nations that will span much of the globe. this has raised questions about whether the g-8 is suffering from an identity crisis. as today we look at the world, we may need institutions that have pull the approximately personality disorder in the fact that the world is not only multipolar but multiteared and multidimensional with different groups, different indispensable nations like russia and china. the europeans refer to this as variable geometry. and i think the italians deserve credit for tackling this head on though i know back when those were a priority, it can be essential to add other nations but it makes it more

difficult to get concrete action which kind of raises the second point which is, whether it's a g-2, g-8, g-20, g-39, is it going to result in real concrete action? and i think even the most generous commentaters on the g-8 have often noted there's not much follow-up in areas like development or aid, you know, many of the agenda items are targeting the far distant future for action, long after the current leaders will be long in retirement. this raises questions on current issues like the financial crisis, whether it will move beyond broad statements toward a consensus on things like stimulus trade. statements like no new protectionism, constantly saying we need to revive the doha round but we saw 17 of the 20 enact new protectionist measures before the london meeting. we've seen by chinese actions and these efforts to shake and pump new life into the doha round haven't produced vital signs of life. obama's statements may provide more hope on that. in afghanistan we have a new

strategy but will there be fundsing to match the billions in opium revenue and new troops going forward? but before we get too pessimistic, a lot of times these summits are very useful, particularly in addressing emerging issues. the example on this summit is probably iran where you look at weeks ago they were talking about it being an invited guest and starting a new dialogue and now that invitation has been rescinded in somewhat of a 180 and now sanctions are on the table. it helps coordinate in a rapidly changing world. and then finally i think this turmoil in the g-8, g-20 is indicative of a larger systemic issue as we look at president obama and others looking to -- looking to hold 20th century institutions to address 21st century problems. and while people thought the financial crisis may kind of reboot some of these institutions, we're seeing attentions turned more inward.

a recent u.s. poll had the top priority of americans, foreign policy, defense, terrorism were all 1%. iraq was 2%. environmental was less than 1%. the economy was 38%. when you add jobs, it's up to 57%. so i think it raises the question of whether these broad statements on these actions by leaders are going to be backed by real concrete efforts, once cuts into the economy are called for sacrifices. so with that i'd like to turn to heather and our other colleagues for their specific comments. >> thank you, steve. i guess i'm going provide the color commentary of the panel. and as i looked at the next week's g-8 summit, i always, my frame of reference is i go back to the to last years 'family photo to see who's standing and who's still there and who's in potential trouble. and i think looking at our european leaders, we have a real interesting sort of set of agendas and priorities and

under certain elements of political duress. i think beginning with prime minister gordon brown. he has had a couple of very difficult weeks which were obviously brought on by the scandal of the misuse of government funds and were really solidified after the european parliament elections where he really took a drumming. his popularity right now stands at 25% and that's certainly the lowest of the european leaders who will converge to the g-8 summit. the question now is sort of, when will he depart from the scene, how will it happen and the timing of that? so i think certainly prime minister brown comes to this in a much weakened state. french president sarkozy also has had a two-year midcourse correction. he's reshuffled his cabinet. i think, again, you're seeing european leaders are making political and domestic

adjustments to the global economic crisis. he remains popular, 43%, but he has suffered obviously some setbacks on his agenda. the conversation after president obama's visit there in june was that the president didn't spend sufficient quality time with president sarkozy. i think you're also hearing that refrain a little bit after president obama's visit to dresden that again you're starting to see a lot of conversation about the personal dynamics between president obama and some of these select european leaders. and that's starting to dominate the conversation over the substance. chancellor merkel was just here on friday, had a very long and substantive meeting with president obama. she's facing national elections on september 27, but yet remains very popular, 60%. in fact, she's the second most popular global figure after

president obama. so she actually comes into this interestingly three months away from elections, but she remains very popular in germany. sher visit here in washington, i think you'll hear a lot of the similar refrains around the table at the g-8. it is climate change all day all the time and she's wanting to push as vigorously as possible for some very strong public commitments by president obama and i'll touch on that in just a moment. in that family photo from japan last year you had the european commission president about a rosa. he's still looking to do his job interview. he's not sure when he's going to do it and with whom and this is again in part due to the uncertainties over the evolving european institutional structures prelisbon and then he will be there in the margins and finally i saved the best

for last. prime minister berlusconi. it just makes you smile of the you don't have to say anything else. he has been in the news at of late. i found it very interesting that the italian president recently called for a truce amongst italian press because they want the summit to go smoothly and they don't want the word call girls flittering into the headlines. i think the prime minister would welcome a slow news cycle coming out of the g-8. again, they're trying to put to rest, if you'll recall in 2001 when they last hosted the g-8 summit, there were violent protests, a protester was shot and killed. there were a lot of internal dynamics following that, following that death. and i think they want to see, obviously, a very smooth performance here. and again looking to popularity, prime minister berlusconi has fallen. he's now at 49%.

i think italian politics and domestic, they have an absorbtive capacity for scandal to perhaps other countries don't. but now i think you're starting to see where it's affecting his popularity and his maneuverability. finally on italy, again, just picking up on a comment that steven said, you know, the italians as hosts have to be mindful that they are sort of a poster child, if will you, for unfulfilled g-8 commitments and that's particularly true on development aid. will you see some public tritkism kill drble criticism, particularly from the humanitarian assistance community. they just have not, you know, talk is pretty cheap and they haven't fulfilled their commitments. again, very brief with both things that i would look for, what europe leaders are going to be looking for, climate change and the big comment now is whether president obama will make a public commitment to the so-called two-degree goal and that is ensuring that we will

limit the rise of global temperatures by two degrees celsius. again i think european leaders and this is reflective of the merkel visit on friday, i think you'll see they'll publicly praise the obama administration for great leadership and obviously a very robust approach after eight years of inaction on climate change. and they want to seize this moment and i think they want to ensure that president obama makes some really firm commitments, but they're also aware of the legislative and domestic agenda we have here and merkel's visit coincided with the passing of the waxman-marky bill. they know this is dell and -- delicate and i don't think they'll push too much on the public side but i think they will privately push president obama to make really strong commitments and finally look to the g-8 statement on iran. you're starting to see some real shaking die namics on europe on how to address iran. you have the british being forward leaning, shaken when

nine of their embassy staff in tehran were taken, eight have been returned, one's still in question, one is still held and you start hearing sanctions, you start hearing where, you know, a temporary recall of e.u. ambassadors. but then on the other hand, you're hearing german and italians issuing caution and so we're wanting to see if there will be a strong unified position coming out of the g-8 from the europeans on how to proceed vis-a-vis iran. so with that i will hands it over, is it going to rubin? >> in so far as the g-8 meetings are concerned, there will obviously be a lot of discussion about the global financial crisis. and international world economic conditions. there's going to be major discussions on food, security, the environment, etc.

the elephant in the room remains very much the state of the world economy. think of this g-8 meeting and the participants, the participants, the g 5 and the other countries, international organizations, who are going to be part of the series of meetings that will take place at the end of next week. think of it as a bridge when it comes to the global financial crisis between london's g-20 meeting and the up coming pittsburgh g-20 meeting. accordingly, the challenge for prime minister bell sconey is host and -- berlusconi is host and to make that bridge meaningful, to endorse the work that's been done to date, to support it, to give it new momentum and where appropriate, to encourage new initiatives and continued focus on important ongoing work streams. in particular, watch for the following four things. what the leaders say about the

current state of world financial markets and the global economy, think one can expect some guarded assurances as to the current state of affairs. some degree of stability, returning, has returned, to global financial markets and there's certainly data out there that would suggest the economic crisis at least in the developed world has bottomed out and maybe some signs of restored, albeit, modest growth. but no victory laps. certainly -- secondly, one can expect renewed and redoubled commitment to take the measures necessary to assure that the world economy stays on a path of positive economic growth which is to say commitments to do additional fiscal stimulative measures, if necessary, if there's a turn for the worst in the global economy and also to continue to work at the ongoing problem of stabilizing the banking system and addressing the challenges

of legacy assets and some of the major banking institutions around the world. parallel to that series of discussions, we'll also be some reference to, there certainly was in the communique, that the finance ministers issued two weeks ago, about the need for some forward-looking thinking on exit strategies from some of the many extraordinary measures that have been taken, which all of you are familiar with. third, there will be strong endorsement one would hope and expect of the ongoing work commissioned by the g-20 but undertaken by various bodies including the oecd, the i.m.f., the financial stability board, in the areas of financial market architecture, regulatory reform, the treatment of tax havens, efforts by thought of other bodies to address the challenges of money laundering

and terrorist finance. fourth and probably the signature piece at least in this area of financial market development and economic growth will be publication of the so-called leche framework agreement. it's a document that was mooted at the finance minister's meeting and it see essentially is a document rumored to be some 60 pages but it provided an intellectual and philosophical and conceptual chateaux to a lot of the work that's being taken in more specific microareas of financial sector reform, corporate governance, transparency of national accounts, tax havens, etc. the theory here of the case is to step back and establish some common principles of behavior related to proprietary,

priority, integrity and transparency in business and commercial and government al conduct with a view that assuming people adhere to such standards and such principles, it will be a lot less difficult to regulate and guide financial market participant behavior going forward in ways that precludes or prevents a return to the kind of excesses that we've all seen and experienced and are living through over the past several years. currently. but the idea that conceptual document is to provide guidance, specific guidance, for the various work streams in, you know, corporate governance, market integrity, financial regulation, tax compliance and data provision by various national governments, again, to facilitate greater fluidity, greater transparency and

overarching theme, to rebuild confidence of all of you and us and other market participants in the financial markets, in their integrity, structure and method of operation. this framework then would go to the work of the g-20 to help guide the ongoing work of the various sub sidary bodies of the g-20 and set the stage for an even higher level of discussion on principles but also specific implementation issues in pittsburgh come september. >> i'm going to talk a little bit about the president's trip to ghana which will be his first to africa as president. immediately following the g-8. this trip, i think, is an opportunity for the president to lay out the broad parameter of his africa policy which to

date he has not yet done. i think aside from the immediate crises in sudan, zimbabwe, somalia and so forth on which he has spoken. the central emphasis of this trip is going to be on governance, democracies, the need for strong, capable, accountable institutions and i think very importantly civic responsibility, civic engagement by civil society, youth engagement and so forth and he will likely speak to his own campaign and history in community organizing and so forth. there's a strong concern by this administration that the rollback in democracy that we've seen over the last decade, countries that we thought were on a fairly good democratic trajectory, kenya, madagascar, mauritania and others, have seen serious setbacks in the last couple of years. around that's very concerning. and then obviously the cases of continued egregious governance,

zimbabwe, nigeria, sudan and somalia. but i think there may be a focus in this administration on those countries that are making progress but like kenya, like madagascar, even like ghana, are still fragile and need attention and support. parred the voice -- pardon the voice. at the g-8, all these founding countries, new economic partnerships for african development, will be present as well as the leadership of the african union. this new economic partnership founded in the 2000's, the early 2000's, was moved by african leaders to take responsibility for governance, peer review and so forth and i think he'll use that opportunity to try to reinvigorate african leadership on the questions of governance which have been neglected over the last eight years or so. he'll have a strong emphasis on food security, i think steve morrison is going to talk about

that. a major initiative that will probably be a large focus within the g-8 and a refocus on agriculture. despite the expansion of u.s. engagement in africa over the last eight years, agriculture and sustainable food security has been missing from u.s. policy, really since the late 1970's when we did do much more on that front. the food crisis last year woke a lot of people up to this issue. i think we're going to see a shift in food security and -- from kind of emergency measures to hopefully longer term, sustained engagement in building african capacities in agricultural growth. surely there will be a strong emphasis on health, education and social services generally. building on the strong focus on h.i.v. within the bush administration, this

administration has agreed to $63 million now, more than a doubling of the commitments under the bush administration, to health and broadening the scope in that to malaria, t.b., and importantly, maternal child health and family planning services. again, areas which in the expansion under the bush years got kind of pushed aside and shunted aside. so i think a broader conceptualization of health issues and challenges and how do you build health capacity overall to lift all votes and not simply the h.i.v. aspect. finally i think a strong emphasis on partnership with african countries and strong stable, capable african countries on the security, on the security challenges, whether the many conflicts in after carks the counterterrorism issues in the horn. and kind of the looming and the new emerging challenges, west

africa's become a major focus on the narcotics transfer route and that's front and center in assistant secretary johnny carson's mind. climate change, obviously, africa's one of the smallest contributors to global warming, but will be among the most vulnerable there. why ghana on this trip? i think this is an opportunity to highlight a country that has made significant and fairly steady progress along the democratic track. it's a country that in the 1980's and 1990's and 1970's suffered a whole slough of coops and instability and just kind of your typical west african state, but has kind of really pulled out of that and had now five successful elections that have been deemed free and fair. the most recent one was very closely contested, very tens in

instances, came to a runoff between both lead contenders and the opposition party eventually won which was a major turning point, i think. came in at the same time as obama did to office and so it's a chance again to kind of highlight a success rather than the perpetual, understandable, but unfortunately focus -- unfortunate focus on crises. i think the president, too, will highlight, you know, america's long standing history with ghana. ghana, obviously, was a key hub in the slave trade. he'll make a visit to the coast castle which i think will be, you know, very moving experience. cape coast castle was a key hub in the british slave trade. ghana was the first country to declare its independence from the colonial powers and the president drew a lot of his inspiration from african-american civil rights activists, particularly marcus

garvey. on the governance issue again and health issues, ghana has demonstrated that it's investing in its people. it's one of the few countryings in africa which has met the pledge which all african countries made to invest 15% of its budget, of its g.d.p., into health. and it is doing so. although there are still major challenges, particularly in maternal child health and rural health access. ghana is also a millennium challenge corporation compact country. it's received $547 million compact over a five-year period and it's chosen to use that money and craft its capacity -- compact, focused on agriculture, rural development, infrastructure and training, all of which fit with the food security theme. it has discovered oil and it is likely to produce -- begin producing oil, not on the scale of nigeria or angola, but

significant for ghana. in 2012. that's going to be a major challenge to its institutions and its mechanisms and oversight consultations with communities and so forth so that will be something to highlight. finally, ghana's been an important partner on the security front. in a regular contributor to peace keeping operations in africa, under the previous president, led a number of regional mediation efforts. he flew to ghana, to kenya, during the crisis there. and in those kind of large continental issues, ghana has definitely punched above its weight. the questions of sudan and somalia will surely come up. i think sudan, there's some confusion, i think there are conflicting messages coming out of the administration on what the president -- what the administration's sudan policy will be. i think there's still a debate

going on within the administration on how best to move forward. does cartoon bust respond to pressures and stix or do we try to craft a policy of engagement and incentives and so forth? i don't think that debate is resolved and you've heard different elements of the administration kind of emphasizing different aspects there. and then somalia likely which is looking extremely bleak. the u.s. has just committed, not significant, but committed to helping arm the transitional, very weak transitional, federal government there. to what end it's not entirely certain that government is hanging by a thread right now. and i think it's going to be a major and pending challenge for the administration. i'll stop there and answer any questions. >> return to steve morrison before we open up for

questions. >> thank you and good morning. i'm just going offer some comments on the food security dimension of what's going to happen at the g-8 summit. this will be a very prominent piece of what the obama administration will be pushing on the depofmente side of the equation. there will be a considerable amount of discussion around the global health initiative but the food security peace has been -- piece has been pushed quite hard within the g-8 and the pressuretory steps leading up to the summit. i'll say more of what that means and why this has surfaced as such an important issue. i see you have the reauto view that jennifer and i completed with an aide of a number -- with the aid of a number of other authors. you might like in there because in the course of that year-long effort of reviewing what had happened in the bush years and what was likely to happen looking forward in the obama administration, we flagged that the time the notion that there

was an argument in favor of renewing -- of the u.s. renewing its commitments and making a priority of rural development and food security as a central feature of u.s. foreign policy engagement with africa and beyond. and in fact that has turned out to be true. and there's several reasons for that. one is simply the logic that we disengaged in the early 1980's and donors, u.s. and others, disengaged and walked out of this sector and is now intensively reengaging. the obama administration announced at the g-20 summit that the billion-dollar, so-year initiative, secretary clinton is expected to roll out an implementing strategy around that prior to or around the summit. it's going to be the central

subject of discussion, food security, long-term reinvestment in agriculture as a solution for that. it's going to be the central dimension of the g-8 meeting with the african leadership, which will include nigeria, senegal, egypt, south africa, libya and -- so there's a sense that's driving the u.s. policy calculation, that there was a disengagement, there's chronic hunger, we've seen all of this exposed very dramatically last spring, as food prices spiked and food and fuel prices spiked, and you had food riots across the continent and elsewhere and it was becoming clear that there needed to be a strategy both for changing the way we go about doing our emergency food relief towards more reliance on local purchase, but beyond that, to reengage in terms of ag

productivity, infrastructure, research and education, renewing university exchanges and public-private partnerships. those are going to be the big themes that are put forward, along with trying to make sure you can find worthy africa country partners that are going to pick this issue up and push on it. there's a sense that this is an area that's been neglected, that's essential for stability, for getting us out of the food relief forever mentality that we set thed into. today we put about $1.2 billion a year in emergency food relief into africa. until very recently we were putting about $60 million a year into long-term rural development investments. we're now moving to $100 billion -- million to $200 million a year that will about be going toward. that you'll hear more detail. as another important factor is that the obama administration's building off of a surge of interest that has been building over the last couple of years

here in the united states. you have senators lugar and casey leading be a effort on the senate side, matched on the house side by representatives mcgovern and emerson and others. you had a major effort undertaken by the chicago council of global affairs in partnership with the bill and melinda gates foundation. that foundation on its long-term development side. this is a top priority. they're putting $1 billion a year into development. this is one of their top priorities. chicago council pushed this, there was a chaired elite high level effort. they delivered their preliminary report during the transition to the obama administration, they followed up with the full report, shortly therefore, earlier this year, it's been embraced, it's been taken up. there's been a large mobilization of nongovernment al and activist entities. the one campaign, the bread for the world. there's been a lot of related efforts. this has gotten strong support

from the world food program and others. so we've had this unusual mobilization here and it's been embraced and moved forward by the obama administration as a priority and we're going see it front and center at the g-8. and it will be a sort of side-by-side with the global health initiative and the like. it will also be used as an instrument for reinventing usaid. within the obama administration there's an acknowledgment that the u.s. agency for international development has been hollowed out, has been neglected, needs to be reconstructed in a deliberate fashion and this turn back toward rural development, long-term investments, is going to be one of the avenues -- avenues for doing. that i'll just stop there. i'm happy to answer further questions. >> thank you, steve. we'd like to open up to

questions right now. >> george. i just want to follow up on two things. you mentioned the climate change thing. do the other g-8 leaders like what the president is doing on -- and congress is doing on climate change or do they just like it because it's more than bush? and secondly, on protectionism and free trade, do the other leaders view president obama as the protectionist he was in the campaign or the free trader he says he is now? >> thank you. i think i'll adjust to climate change and you can talk about the protectionism. .