we have always viewed let americans -- latin americans as a relatively weak branch of the human species, and we in the united states, as it developed people, have an obligation to help these, as i said earlier, little brown brothers. that's uplifting is at the core of cuba's opposition to the united states. cubans of all political stripes do not want to be uplifted. when we take that attitude -- and of course, people do not say it any longer. you cannot say this.

the last great statement came from the first president bush, when he talked about uplifting, i mentioned before. but basically, what we have to do to uncover this sense of harsh superiority is look at behavior and infer this belief to cuba and inferiority. the behavior of the united states, just go on to the website. the arrogance of the document will convince you that there's no possibility of a healthy relationship with the cuban people so long as we maintain that attitude. host: lars schoultz is a professor of political science at chapel hill, and the author of a book on the cuban

revolution. thank you very much for joining us. that is the end of "washington journal." back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time. thank you for joining us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] . >> the president then heads to camp david this afternoon and will depart for martha's vineyard on sunday where his

family will stay through august 30. in an hour or so, we will give you live coverage of today's white house briefing with press secretary robert gibbs. tonight on tv, author alice walker, winner of the pulitzer prize for her book "the color purple." par-3 our program starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span -- our three-hour program starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> john mccaslin, interviewed by keith stroup, founder of norml, on "after words" on c- span's book tv. >> frank mankiewicz, campaign manager for george mcgovern, on the time when walter cronkite was considered for vice president. sunday at 8:00 on c-span.

>> c-span's healthcare hub is a key resource. follow the latest tweets and the links and keep up-to-date with town hall meetings, house and senate debates, and even up load your opinion on health care with us this and video. c-span.org/healthcare. >> and now from this morning, a discussion on health care legislation and the idea of creating non-profit co-ops to provide health insurance. guest: corporatist have a long history in the united states and they can be in different forms.

the basic idea is that they are owned by the members themselves. they use their strength as a group to purchase goods or services, and cooperatives that would be formed across the united states would act in the very same way as they do today. i am from rural illinois and we are very familiar with cooperatives. as individuals come together as groups -- americans think of themselves as the rugged individualists, but we join groups all the time. the clopper task of the power of groups -- the cooperatives give the power of groups to the individual. it can bring competition to the health-care sector. we need greater competition. we need greater choices of four individuals. that is what i think cooperatives, done correctly,

will do. a cartel, on the other hand, is controlled by suppliers. they are monopolistic, and they don't serve to enhance competition. cartels killed competition. that is why i think we have to be very careful about the real language that is being used. real language that is being used. kecoughtahost: it sounds like ot co-op, a federally run toward, is not something you are in favor of. guest: correct, that is simply relabeling the government. that is going in the wrong direction. that is where the words in all of this health care debate are so important. you cannot simply just relabel something. specifics matter. the cooperatives themselves, again, the very idea is that it

is owned and governmengoverned e members themselves, not some outside group. host: you have a piece at the heritage foundation where you were facing off -- or your a senior fellow -- tell us about mutual insurance companies, how they are different from co-ops and what we are not seeing that in the health care system. guest: cooperatives can't have different versions themselves. you can be a purchasing -- corporate can have different versions themselves. you can be a purchasing cooperative or, for example, mutual of omaha, that is out it was begun. the product itself is also owned by the members versus a purchasing cooperative where

they have come together as purchasers. you think of aarp, people who join local discount stores where they have gotten together, but they are purchasing from someone else. host: conservatives like yourself do not like the co-op plan. or at least among the criticisms. can you elaborate? guest: we have not releasing it, but again, when you hear of a cooperative, meaning only one, jr. of government funding it, working under -- you hear of government funding it, working under a government in from water. -- a government operation, that is of concern to us. cooperatives can get bigger on their own if that is what the members choose. but i think we have a very important distinction to make. all too often in the health-care debate things are starting to be

imposed from -- to look like they're going to be imposed from the top down, whether it is starting out with the single payer and now we have moved to the government plan and now we have moved to a cooperative. those are all things that come from the top down. americans, though, we believe that power comes from the bottom up. it comes from the individuals making their own decisions, making their own choices. we think that is what will bring true competition to the health- care sector as well. now, other things need to be done. tensley saying, yes, let let cooperatives exist -- simply saying, yes, let's let cooperatives exist, we need to make other changes as well. for example, only the federal government can change the tax code. the federal cap -- tax code to discriminate against individuals today. if you buy your health insurance through your employer, you receive a tax break.

but if you're buying it as an individual on the individual market, you do not receive that. but first, let's let people keep their own money, which will make it more affordable to individuals and families. the tax code needs to be changed as well, in addition to allowing the cooperatives exist -- to exist. host: our guest is dennis smith from the heritage foundation. you can give is a call at republicans:(202) 737-0001 democrats:(202) 737-0002 independents: (202) 628-0205 and you can also send us a message by twitter we are at c- span w.j..

guest: exactly, and if government regulation comes into play -- and regulation, actually, often times works to thwart competition rather than stimulate competition. we often see that regulations are the projections of the status quo rather than britney in new competitors. -- are the protections of the status quo rather than renew in new competitors. think of all the different ways that individuals associated and get different choices. maybe the cooperative is offered through your church group. maybe it is through the knights of columbus. maybe it is to the chamber of commerce. it is through your softball league. again, americans join all sorts of things. we are joiners.

let's let the individual join as groups. the cooperatives can get larger overtime if that is what the membership wants to do but i think that we're missing a very important point, that the competition is what will bring down costs for individuals and for families, not some giant conglomerate that the federal government will use to kill competition. when that happens, prices go up. host: our first call this morning is from bill on the democrat line in st. augustine, florida. good morning, bill. caller: good morning, folks. before i talk about cooperatives, let me address the gentleman. he kept using the word "we, we

americans." how about the 10 million americans that voted for barack obama above and beyond john mccain? do we account? ç-- and do we count? let me get to call whaco-ops. the public plan -- everybody says it takes 60 votes to pass it. it does not take 60 votes. it takes 50 votes. what happens in the senate, it takes 60 votes to shut off session. i guarantee the day the public option comes up, you will see the vice president' in the senae chair and you might even see ted

kennedy role in their in a hospital bed with the doctor biocide and an ivy in his arm. -- by his side and then i-v in his arm. the public option is alive and well. it will be in the bill and the president will sign it sometime in october and you will probably have a heart attack, sir. guest: well, if i may, in terms of the dynamics of the senate -- and the senate rules, obviously, our unique and that is why there is discussion about reconciliation. but i am also reminded of central -- senator daniel patrick moynihan, when he was in

the senate used to talk about real reform, authentic reform has to be bipartisan -- bipartisan and has to have overwhelming support in the senate. something that squeaks by by a margin of one or two votes could be passed that way, but it will not endure. that, i think, would be unfortunate to go to is specifically partisan approach -- a specifically partisan approach that might last until the next election, but if we want true authentic reform, and we do, there are a number of things about the current health- care system, the health insurance system that need to be fixed, they can be fixed. but we do not need the federal government during the world upside down for the -- turning the world upside down for the american people to get the kind of reform that we need. host: from brooklyn, new york on the independent line, cheryl is

the next caller. good morning, cheryl. caller: i am trying to figure out his argument sounds different from when they were speaking about back in the '80s going from the regular insurance company -- are remember i have blue cross blue shield and they said, we are now going to go to hmos. it is going to be cheaper, more affordable, better for you. therefore, what they did to my deductible is like $300 -- i remember -- and my deductible with the blue cross blue shield when to let $3,000. i have no choice but to switch to the hmo. as soon as i switched, my services were limited. with blue cross blue shield it was 80/20. i paid 20% and take a 80%. with this co-op, the argument is that it is going to be better, but it is not. you'll still have insurance companies in charge of

insurance. who is regulating them? who is keeping them under control? that is my confusion. guest: i think the idea that is missing is that individuals gave up control to the outside entity. in a cooperative, it is the members themselves that make the decisions and the cooperative is owned by the individuals. let me give you an example. i recently visited the tennessee farm bureau. their cooperative has been in existence for more than 50 years. as a cooperative, their members purchased different types of health plans. their members can purchase dental insurance as a supplemental.

they can also purchase long-term health insurance. they can purchase a high deductible hsh's. members still have choices within the type of coverage that they want. like i said, iç think it is the individual decisions brought together -- you know, if you think about a river is made up of the individual drops of rain. the decisions made by individuals come together and that is what changes the landscape. host: if co-ops get started, there is a concern that they may not have enough involvement to make them effective, which is why some of the democrats are saying we would consider a gah plan if it was large enough. if it were overseen by -- a co- op plan if it was large enough. if it were overseen by the government, large enough in scale. guest: some of these clubs, they

were not giants overnight. they grew over time. the argument that it has to be 500,000 people before it even gets started, that is an actuary's argument. that is not an argument for a businessman or families that are trying to provide for themselves. why would we wait as well? membership will grow rapidly, i believe, if you formed a cooperative spirit but let's get them started and see what they can do on their own. host: our guest dennis smith is now a senior fellow and -- at the heritage foundation. prior to that, he directed the center for medicaid and state operations. our next caller is on the republican line, martin from new jersey. hi, margaremartin. caller: no one talks about how

we can increase competition. there are more than 1400 insurance companies in the united states. but people in one state cannot buy insurance in another state. guest: i agree that bringing greater competition is a large part of the solution. in the rest of our economy that is what we think about bringing down the cost of something is competition. if cooperatives are formed, they can be formed up the local level. they can grow on a statewide basis. they can become regional. i agree with the caller. part of insurance reform should be the ability to buy insurance

across state lines. in today's internet society where we have -- let's use the energy of information technology to be able to compare prices. we see the price every day on the stock market exchange. we can see the price of a commodity, a bushel of corn. why can we see the price of health plans? -- why can't we see the price of health plans? a health plan could come out and this would be the price of 10,000 lives. if we get 20,000 lives, the price goes down by 5%. it is the idea of giving the individual the power of the group and the group together, health plans and will want to compete for their business. host: from winston-salem, n.c.,

johnny joins us on the democrats' line. caller: i do not know why c- span has put the "wall street journal" on there, so why you are there. u.n. rupert murdoch are these right-wing nuts and you keep the right wing nuts on the tv. this guy is a big joke. he is talking about 10,000 lives, like people are commodities. we're out of cattle. -- we are not cattle. if we are human beings and should be provided a service at reasonable cost and it is not happening. he is not offering an option. he is just making of stuff, telling one lie after another. guest: well, if i may respond, forming a group is what

insurance is all about. i mean, fundamentally, that is what insurance does. if you have insurance through your employer, you have joined a group. çthe health plan that your employer has selected, or if they give you a variety of options, the health plans are looking at you as a group, not as an individual. which again, is another advantage in forming cooperatives. when you are buying insurance by yourself, that is where you get the medical underwriting. that is where you get -- where the insurance company does exclusions for pre-existing conditions, etc. what i am saying is as individuals, if we can join together as a group, then we have the advantage of those group dynamics.

then, i believe, health care plans will want to compete for our business as members of that cooperative. host: there are health care cooperative in minneapolis and seattle. do you see those as working and could they work in other parts of the country? guest: i think they are slightly different than what i am talking about because if i think if you look at seattle, it is not owned, if you would, by the members. and what i'm suggesting and what my colleagues have suggested is, being owned and governed by the members is a very key point. host: our next caller is chris on the independent line, from port charlotte, florida, good morning, chris. caller: good morning. i would like to talk to you a bit about the competition that you have been referring to. it has been well established that there are some 1300, 1400

medical insurance companies now. i do not know any other industry that has a that much competition already in existence and yet, they cannot bring the cost down. it seems absolutely ridiculous to think that they now are going to do it by themselves. if you look at the car manufacturers, how many car manufacturers are there in the country? well, if you're out -- allow the import, the foreign manufacturers and distributors now in the country, we only now probably have 10. and they form their own type of competition that keeps the rates down. the other thing i would like to talk about is the public option. i think we do need the public option and that is to reinforce

the competition issue. i do not know that we need 1400 medical insurance companies. that is unreasonable, i think. but the public option, we have a very -- a varied delivery system right now. i have been taking care of my mother for five years and she is on medicare and i think it works remarkably well what does need to be fine-tuned, prounced, -- perhaps, are the payment schedules for the physicians and those types of fees. and i think it needs to have an oversight, a national commissioner much like what most, if not all of the states have. someone who will coordinate and make sure everyone is paving the way they should be being. host: let's get a response from

our guest. guest: you said there are already 1400 health plans and if a government health plan were brought in and there is truly a level -- level playing field, then what is the point in having 1401? the administration and congressional leadership have said, if the government health plan -- there has to be a level playing field. otherwise, the government health plan will eat up the competition, which is what we think will truly happen if it comes interest -- into existence. the government health plan that is backed by the taxpayer, of course, has tremendous advantages over private health plans that are at risk and they must get all of their resources from the people who join it. if there is truly a level playing field, which is why it

congressional leadership has promised, then the point is back to yours -- was the point in simply having 1401? ç-- what is the point in simply having 1401? but the reality is, the competition we need to have because you cannot buy insurance products over state lines. you do not have the tax advantage as an individual that you do if you have got an employer sponsored health insurance. there have to be a few changes, but those changes will have a dramatic impact on the market. host: there is a piece today by michael levitt, former secretary of health and human services during the bush administration, who you served under. this is in the "wall street journal." he writes, the democrats are insisting that their version of a co-op would not be government-

run health care, but i ran medicare and medicaid and i know this is not true. when washington provides money, and pays the bills, government controls health care. do you agree? guest: i certainly do agree. again, you of examples of government-run health care. i ran medicaid for seven years, i ran a state medicaid program before that. when government altman the house a budget, it has to live within that budget. -- when government ultimately has a budget, it has to live within that budget. you often find that kerridge is restricted because -- again, but -- that care is restricted because, again, the previous caller mentioned that medicaid pays 20%-25% less. 30% of all medicaid business are

to an emergency room or an outpatient hospital department. people on medicaid have access to specialists at half the rate of people in the private sector. >> once again, betty on the conversation, calling on the republicans lined from alexandria, virginia. caller: i have had this question for weeks and i want to understand why we do not caller: and if you put because in effect that to not allow them to tonight pre-existing conditions, i do not know why we have to of a co-op or government control of that. guest: again, employer-sponsored health insurance in many

respects is the model of why it works. you have individuals who come together as a group to purchase coverage. that is less expensive than it is going out there and buying it on your own. you have the protection of the group. we know that there are still employers who do not offer health insurance as a benefit to their employees. small businesses, retail business where there is a very high turnover just are not able to offer affordable products to their employees. but the idea that when you form a group to get purchasing power -- that, one, you form a group to get purchasing power, but the health plans realize that they do not carry as much risk as adverse selection drew adverse selection happens when someone who is already sick then tries

to go to market to buy it. again, let's remember what the entire concept of insurance is about. it is about protection from an unforeseen financial catastrophe. you cannot buy homeowner's insurance when your cat -- when your house has caught fire. you cannot call of the agency and to say, would you now give me homeowners insurance? on the other hand, our car insurance -- we do not purchase car insurance to change the oil and rotate the tires. insurance is supposed to be for an unforeseen catastrophic event. it gives you a financial protection and gives you access to health care itself. when we keep in mind what insurance is suppose to be and replicate in many respects the positive things that employer-

sponsored gives, which is protection of the individual for the group and competition from health plans themselves. çhost: democrats, including howard dean, have said that a co-op is just a toothless substitute for a public plan. he said, cobbs would be very weak and many would not have the 500,000 members that insurance companies think are necessary and that insurance companies would be licking their lips. and yet, you see it differently. guest: i think true cooperatives will work because we have seen them work. again, tenn. farm bureau is doing pretty well for its members. they cover about 180,000 lives. not 500,000 lives. as i said previously these were built -- built over time. but we should not be taking this top-down approach saying, we

have got to have this -- they're looking at it as from the top trying to leverage the market. but i think that the true power is giving individuals choices and letting them decide where their dollars go. that is what true competition means and that is what will really bring down the costs. host: let's get one more caller in talking to dennis smith. don is on the line from south carolina. caller: i have to agree with the first caller, there has got to be a public plan. the obama administration has tried to be bipartisan. the republicans have responded with false statements. some of their people are carrying guns to the town meetings. it is kind of a joke. without the public option at

least being offered, reform will not have been and we need reform -- will not happen and we need reform to happen. i take care of my mom. she is on medicaid. it is a good system. i do not really understand what is going on. i will tell you this also -- we do not need the republicans to get this passed. and any democrat who voted against this, i am not going to support. i will support whoever runs in the primary against them to include my own state congressman, which is -- right now, i cannot think of his name -- spratt. if he votes against this, i will vote against two runs in him -- runs against him in the primary. guest: going back to the government plan, i think there is -- there are fundamental and

critical questions that we do not know the answer to. is the government plan going to be fee-for-service? is it going to be a giant hmo? we have no idea at this point. the legislation does not say what is going to be. the legislation gives great power over to the secretary of hhs to decide things like that. i think there is a lot of rhetoric around labels. we need to get to the substance of the matter to understand what we're talking about. again, i think people's views would shift considerably if we are saying, well, the government plan is actually going to be one giant hmo and you are not going to have -- and you're going to have the choice to join the hmo if you want the coverage. i think the bill unnecessarily and unfortunately restricts americans choices as to how they will be able to use their subsidies, for example.

and would deny them access to products like a just a -- blye hsa's, which are one of the fastest growing insurance products because, again, the individual is in control and truly participate in the decision making about who they seek care from, etc. what we ought to be giving them is the transparency, giving them the information about prices. we do not post prices on the internet. we should be, but we got -- but we are not. i think there are still very fundamental question that are still answer -- still very fundamental questions that are still unanswered by the

>> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke as saying today that the u.s. economy is on the verge of a long-awaited recovery after in during a brutal recession and the worst financial crisis since the great depression. those comments were recorded by the associated press from the annual fed conference in jacksonville, wyoming. president obama's meeting this morning with former senate democratic leader tom daschle at the white house before the president heads to camp david and the maryland mountains this afternoon. the obama family will had to martha's vineyard on sunday. the family will stay through sunday, august 30. in about an hour so, we will give you, robert gibbs, the daily press briefing. tonight on what tv prime time, author alice walker, winner of the pulitzer prize for her bark "the color purple." our three-hour program starts at

8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> as the health-care conversation continues, c-span's healthcare hub is a key resource. all the latest tweets video links, and the latest on town hall meetings and senate debates. the c-span health care hub c- span.org/healthcare. >> this fall, enter the home of america's highest court. the supreme court, becoming the first sunday in october on c- span. >> how is c-span funded? >> the u.s. government. >> private benefactors. >> it is not public funding.

>> i'm good to see from me, my tax dollars. >> america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. a private business initiatives. no government mandate, no government money. >> now from this morning's "washington journal," a discussion of the obama administration posture policy agenda and public opinion. ost: thank you for being with us. you have tracked the obama administration, their changeover in power and how things are going, give us a sense of how the public is feeling about president obama right now. >> well, it has been a bad 100 days for the obama administration. pretty upbeat and lots of things happening the first 100 days. really rolling forward with the

stimulus package and so forth, but the second 100 days have been tough. his approval ratings are down. there's bitter, emerging fight over healthcare, obviously. i think that in many ways he's given too much power to the house and the senate. too much hour to nancy pelosi, speaker of of the house, and harry reid, the senate majority leader, to push legislation forward. he hasn't exerted the powers of the presidency really to push this debate forward on a plan that he favors. he's quite equivocal on healthcare from week to week. do we require a government option? do we not? he's flip-flopped on that issue. this is a pretty tough time for him and unless he comes out of the august recess focused again, i think it's going to be a very difficult september through the end of the year. >> recently quoted in a piece in

"the hill," written by sam youngman, analysis has been disaster for obama. you say that capitol has spent a bit at a time on a piece of legislation. light said, eventually it runs out. >> well, you know, lyndon johnson came into office huge congressional majority, just great political capital after lumping barry goldwater in the 1954 election. he had a large number of bills that had already been drafted that he had embraced as his own and he pushed and pushed for that first six months. he was saying all along that everyday you spend your political capital you got to move it or lose it and get it done. and the longer you sit out there

without firm legislation for congress to consider, the more you skwaquander your capital. nancy pelosi and harry reid are great individuals, they are not great legislative movers. we're ready stuck on capitol hill with the obama agenda and president obama has a very limited stock of political capital. he's using it up at high rates. pelosi and reid are using up his political capital. it is giving your checkbook to your neighbor and basically saying, go ahead and get me some home improvements and it is hurting obama right now and it is looking like a pretty tough fall. >> host: in that piece in "the hill" you mentioned one reason obama spent so much political capital is aside from the ambitious agenda, he allowed

congress to set the tone of for example, healthcare reform. >> well, you know, you come in and the senate was the great incubator of policy ideas, they were chunking bills out regularly and the president could come in and like shopping at a department store, could pick and choose a handful of priorities and really press forward. that is what obama did with the "serve america" act, a significant piece of legislation that has been forgotten in this kind of early history of his admin stragsz. he picked it up and it it had been co-sponsored by kennedy and hatch. it was ready to go and he jammed it through. perfect example of how past presidents have extended their political capital. but then he let the house design stimulus package laden with pork. a lot of vulnerability to fraud and abuse. the stories are already starting

to come out and he's let the house and the senate develop the energy package and now healthcare and it's recipe for disaster. the president has to use that bully pulpit for more than exhorting the president to act. the president needs a substantial@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guest: private negotiation, and there is a time for public conversation with the american public. we have got those confused right now. i think the american public is quite confused, and that is why many of these attacks are really ringing true to the american public, because they don't know what president obama really stands for here. host: what is your impression of what we are seeing thaat the ton

halls across the country? guest: are really not useful conversations. i do not know how much is scripted. people are terrified. even president obama is talking about not getting insurance and government bureaucrats in the middle of the decision about health care for americans to not have a lot of confidence in the federal government to deliver services and goods. president obama has yet to rule out an agenda that would reassure the public -- roll out an agenda that would reassure the public that the government can run a health care program, let alone the details of the health care program. americans are looking at this and saying "i don't want to the government involved in my health care." it is the devil they know, their health insurance company. you get down to nitty-gritty they are telling us it is a hassle to deal with their health insurance companies. we have done nothing to reassure

them the federal government will get better at delivering service, so practically any attack will stick. the death panels and so forth and so on, there's a lot of of muddiness in this it debate and it's a bitter debate, much more bitter than you would have is thought and it is not all scripted. a lot of it is is i think genuine and you have the counter attacks and so forth. americans are really quite confused about what is going on and this is becoming a sink hole for attitude on all sorts of issues from immigration to the iraq, afghanistan wars. >> host: mary is calling on the democrat line from washington. good morning, mary. >> hello. >> host: welcome, you are on the air. >> hi. i'd like to say i think obama, you know, is a lot more popular than what is getting out. i think the reason he was put into office was because he supported healthcare. i think it it is our biggest civil liberty we'll ever have because healthcare, if you don't

have healthy workers, you don't have a good economy. if you have people that are putting everything they earn into paying healthcare and the policies being offered in the private sector really are lousy policies that people do not know until they are sick what they really have and at that point it's too late. the gentleman that called in about his wife and the liver transplant, there is a prime example. 500,000 dollars for something that cost $250. the reason it is that skewed is because the healthcare insurance industry has pushed these prices up really high to force people to have healthcare and that's not a fair system. the united states government is paying for a whole sector of of people to have healthcare, so the private health insurance companies don't really want the small business people and i'm somebody who was self-employed person, paid in taxes my whole life, thought i was upper middle

class until i got stage four breast cancer. within eight weeks of that my healthcare went from $369 to $479, a year later $569 and as soon as i went on disability, i was cancelled. now this is unfair to someone who has paid for healthcare for their whole life and stuff when they need it the most there is laws and rules that allow them to be put in this position. fortunately i am in the state of washington where they offer good healthcare for people like myself, you know, when the situation happens. i was able to go on to a basic health program, state run. i tell you, i felt as though i've had a lot less stress in my life because i know it's going to get covered. my bills get covered and stuff. a middle-class person shouldn't be wiped out because of one illness. >> guest: i agree with you.

i'm not an expert on healthcare. you want to talk about death panels, every insurance company has one. they decide what the percentage of possibility from treatment is. they decide whether treatments are coverable. we've got that problem across the healthcare system. we've got high expenses across the healthcare system. i think the problem here is that the debate has shifted entirely to the obama proposal and the obama proposal is not clear to most americans. it is fuzzy. and i think that's because we're dealing with five or six packages that are moving forward on capitol hill and the president hasn't made clear what it is he actually wants so that he can beat nothing with something. i mean, what we basically have is debate between no action, nothing, continuing with our

current system and we don't have a something to really talk about. so what we have are people who are against healthcare constructing a reality around an obama plan that may or may not be true, we just don't know. the president has not seized the initiative. he's working the issue of whether or not we need to act or stay in the current tense. what he needs to do is focus on what he wants and then harness that gigantic engine of support that we saw in the campaign. young americans, middle-aged americans are on the sidelines on this issue. they don't know what they're supposed to do and we need to get the obama admin stragsz, if they want to, from a political standpoint, just from sausage making that congressional phrase for how you put together a legislation. if obama wants to win on the issue, he's got to mobilize

supporters behind a specific plan. that is what johnson did on medicare in 1965. >> host: a recent gallup poll shows that americans disapprove the handling of healthcare. 43% do approve and that number has shifted only slightly from a month ago. and gallup says of four issues tested in the august 6-9 poll, the president fares worse on healthcare. his ratings on the economy are slightly better with americans divided in how he is handling that issue and president gets better ratings for handling foreign affair and reducation. >> guest: presidents astart ou high in the polls and tend to drift away a few percentage points at a time until their approval starts down into the low 40s into the upper 30s.

and 30% range. and what we are seeing right now is a classic pattern. the president is running out of steam. he has a very brief amount of time left to really harness what approval he has and stick it to a bill. the real skill of being president in the legislative process is what i call the focusing skill, the ability to tie your approval. the seats you have in congress to a specific piece of legislation. what we're missing here is clarity regarding what the president wants. he can't one week say he favors the government opgsz before the american medical association say that it's got to be part of the solution and the next week say, well, actually that is not a priority. the american public gets hopelessly confused. the opponents of action are able to paste it with pretty much any

charge they want to invent. they are doing focus groups right now to figure out where the president is weakest and they have seized death panels as one major option and that is what you are seeing in the town hall meetings. >> host: pauline is calling from mississippi. good morning, pauline. >> good morning. >> host: welcome, you are on the air. >> thank you. this is my first time calling. >> host: great g. hate. you are talking to paul light from nyu. >> good morning, mr. light. right now i'm a republican, but what i'm calling about is we're not giving the president a chance. we all need help here. i'm 72 years old and i worked all my life for healthcare. what i'm calling about, we need to give him a chance and he

keeps telling us what his plan is all about. it's a public option, not a government-run program like a lot of people seem confused and talking about. the people are for america. we need to think about that. so what do you think about this? >> guest: well, i think the president should stop talking about the need for healthcare coverage, sit down in a conversation with the public. he might look back to the fireside chats that franklin l roosevelt had with the american public and layout his healthcare plan. tell us exactly what he wants. then he can go to the wall with his public approval, his support in congress and push forward on that plan, make it it clear what's in it and what is not in it and then get into the negotiations with the house and the senate. >> host: is it too late, when has the train left the station?

>> guest: well, you are letting the opponents of healthcare, of of the obama plan if there is one, concrete in form. you are letting the opponents define what it it is and they are very good at it it. just as democrats are very good at painting republicans into a corner, the republicans, conservatives are very good at painting the president into a corner. so what's happening is that they're punching at every possibility, every possible component of the plan and the president has yet to say, this is what i favor and here is the bill that i favor. he's letting these bills move through congress. they got this in them and that in them. you had a caller earlier who said he's read the entire bill. good for him. he can't find anything that says you get to keep your own insurance. which plan was that? which bill was that? there are five or six of them floating around and that is just

the ones that are in committee. i don't think it's too late. i think you have the august recess here where you can reset the agenda and really get the american public to focus, maybe write in early september he sis down and has a candid conversation with the american public and instead of talking about the fact our current system isn't working, talk about how his plan will work better because if there is one thing i've learn friday watching congress it's that you can't beat nothing without something. and he needs to really tell the american public what he has in mind for his agenda. >> host: our guest paul light is professor of public service and founding principle investigator of the organizational performance initiative. he worked at brookings institution where he was a senior fellow and was founding director of its center for public service. our next caller is from

minnesota. good morning, marge. marge, hi, you are on the air. >> good morning. >> host: welcome. >> thank you. thank you to c-span. i guess i'm looking for the truth. i'm looking for some guest: i think we all are. it is nice to hear from minnesota. my father lives there, and he is 95, he is on medicare, and he also has medigap. he is well covered by the federal program by older americans. i am hoping to hear the truth as well. that is partially the president's drop, no matter who it is -- president's job, no matter who it is. the debate is crowded with assertions from both sides about what is going on, how much we

are subsidizing charity care already in our insurance premiums, what is going to be covered by the drug companies, did they pull a fast one with the obama administration? there is just lots of interpretations right now, and it is occurring in a vacuum without a clear answer from the president about what he wants. and that i keep coming back to -- that is the president's responsibility. that is how you get legislation through congress these days. that is how you get the big bills through congress. that is how we got the big bills through during the bush administration. that is how you get the big bills through. we need a plan and then we need to really take a look at it using more thoughtful methods than shout downs at town hall meetings. host: our next call is pam on

the democrats' line from new york. caller: that is a perfect segue. yesterday there was a reporter and c-span2 said she had been that four town halls and she asked dozens of people at those town halls if they had voted for obama, and not a single one had. i wanted to make a point -- you hear a lot of callers saying we need tort reform. we cross state insurance purchasing pools. why isn't that in the bill? well, both of those are states issues. and i'm afraid that if obama came out for tort reform, and across state lines insurance pools, then the same people would be screaming "have you ever read the constitution? we believe in states' rights," blah blah blah. this is a wound up in gang of people who are generating great television and very little serious debate. guest: i think there is some

truth in that argument. i think that a lot of the town hall upset has been rude and promoted from washington and elsewhere. -- brewed and promoted from washington and elsewhere. but when you listen to the town halls and the people who are not shouting, there are good questions about this. . at's going to happen to me? how does this affect me? i think there is desire for inform ag information about that issue. it is in the devil, i know. we don't particularly like the way we're getting healthcare right now, but we're getting healthcare. it is a pain. we have to file form after form, but we don't have a good sense of what is coming. so i agree that a lot of the so i agree that a lot of the town hall shoutdown is generated from outside. it's being promoted from outside, but when you look into the town hall, sometimes you

hear a question that's just so painfully personal about how this will work that you beg for an answer. you beg for the truth that our friend in alexandria, minnesota was calling for. >> host: and sam from central city, kentucky. good morning, sam. >> good morning. how are you today? >> guest: just fine, thanks. >> good. good way the lady from new york just called, i was going to talk about tt reform. i believe this is not healthcare reform. this is healthcare welfare that is being pushed on us and will be passed on us because this is what the liberals want. if it was reform, tort reform would be a big part of it because we know the trial lawyers and ambulance chasers play a big part in the cost of overall healthcare. trial lawyers and democratic party do not want this so it

will not be passed. as far as things in the bill, we are told there are myths out there about healthcare. one of them is taxpayer money for abortion with the public. as of date, there have been nine amendments presented that would expressly prohibit taxpayer money on any public option of going toward paying abortions. it has been defeated. what does that tell you about the agenda on taxpayer money for abortions and public or anything. i'm not one of these town hall crazys, i'm just a person who looks at the whole thing. i believe that we -- the government should serve us, not us serve them and i feel healthcare thing is essentially the thing that is going to enslave a lot of americans to the government. going to be tied to it. a lot of security and welfare and things are going to be tide to healthcare.

it is going to be provided by the government. >> well, i mean, i think there are a number of issues being debated in town halls and elsewhere that would better be debated behind closed doors where you are really working out a package. i don't know what will happen with abortion. for example, i don't know if we end up funding it or not f. this is going to be even a tiny bit bipartisan, you are going to have to deal with some issues. we know where the big cost drivers are toward the reform at least as i read the papers and look at it is is not the big driver. it's technology. it's the testing. it's the multiple, the heavy investments and end of life care and so forth. the big cost of insurance in part big chunk of our insurance

payments that end up in charity care for people who aren't insured. it is a complex debate and we're throwing it all at americans in just a big gulf in a short period of time. and i think that's difficult because we end up saying each one of us ends up saying what does this mean for me? what's going to happen to my family? am i going to get the treatment that i need? am i going to get the choice of doctors that i currently have? we don't have a good sense yet of what it means for each one of us and that has to be communicated in order to get legislation done, especially of this particular size. it's just huge and we just need more information that's perhaps coming from independent sources like congressional budget office

or the government accountability office where we can be told what is in this thing and what is not in this thing. we don't yet have the president articulating a plan and that is essential as i've said before for taking advantage of the president's popularity and it's also the president's responsibility. he's letting congress do too much of the work without really telling the american public what he favors. >> host: from jackssonville, florida, bruce is calling on the independent line. >> yes, good morning. >> host: good morning, welcome. >> how are you this morning? i only had a few things to say. one was concerning the president and as the gentleman was saying, backing up what he said or whatever and being exchanged from healthcare reform to insurance reform and back to healthcare reform and then we're doing the different back and forth public option.

not the public option, it's not. it's just -- he's not, you know, he ran centers when he was running for office and we had the economic stimulus bill and i call it chicken little syndrome. they flew a senator or congressman back from somewhere in the midwest to vote on the bill to pass it through and that was valentine's day weekend and the president went off to chicago with his wife for their favorite dinner and tn he flew to denver to announce signing of the bill. then he went to arizona to do the mortgage recovery act and the economic stimulus is pork. he wasn't going to have any more pork and like the gentleman said, there is a lot of things that he said he was going to do that he hasn't done. then we have the omnibus spending bill that was, you know, that was george bush's bill left over that had 9000

porks in it. >> host: bruce, i want a response from paul light before we have to say goodbye to him. let's hear what he has to say. >> guest: there is traditional politics rolling through this. the stimulus package is loaded. the omnibus was loaded. there have been some coming out of the -- i think americans want to hear from the president specifically on what he proposes on healthcare. he needs to sit down with us, i think really in the form of a fireside chat, not a press conference, to really explain what he wants and let that debate be the one that shapes what is happening out there. don't let the opponents define what you stand for. you define it it and that is what the president's job is. >> host: paul light, thanks for being with us. >> guest: always a pleasure.

>> host: our guest paul light is from new york university. he's author of numerous books, @ klutz federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said the economy is on -- >> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said the economy is on its way to long- term recovery. return to growth in the near term appear good. president obama is meeting with fiformer senate democratic m daschle. the president will later have to camp david and the maryland mountains and then off to martha's vineyard on sunday for vacation with his family to august 30. we will hear from robert giggs in just a few minutes, the daily

briefingj+ coming up at 11:15 a. programming tonight on the tv, but tv prime time on c-span2, alice walker. our three r program starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2 "washington *" columnist on " the week manz." he is interviewed by keith struve'. that is saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2 the tv. >> frank mankiewicz, q&a sunday night on c-span. >> as the health care conversation continues, c-span cozy health care of it is a key resource. go online and follow the latest

week, video links and adds. also keep up with daily events like town hall meetings and house and senate debates. the c-span health care hubç at- span door -- c-span.org /healthcare. >> white house briefing will be live wants to get under way. in the meantime, we will look at your phone calls from today's "washington journal." rest of the are we have a question for you, will the health care passed this year? let's take a look at what president obama had to say about this yesterday. >> i guarantee you, joe, we're going to get health care reform up. i know there are a lot of people out there who have been hammering and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process. passing a big bill like this is

always messi. -- messy. fdr was called a socialist when he passed social security. j.f.k. and lyndon johnson, they were both accused of a government health care when they passed medicare. this is the process we go through, because understandably, the american people have a long tradition of being suspicious of government until the government actually does something that helps them and they do not want anyone messing with it when it gets set up. i am confident we will get it done. host: president obama speaking yesterday about his expectations for a health-care bill passing congress this year. he was taking questions on a radio show of michael small cottage out of philadelphia. but look of this piece in open court usa today" talking about how the president guarantee the it will win approval and it tore

up of the reduced it rising costs, protect insurance uses and provide affordable coverage to the uninsured without adding to the deficit. what you think about its chances and is there a model that you see it taking? do you expect to see the public plans to buy, or view think something like cops, as we are just talking about -- something like coops, as we were just talking about, will take effect? our first call is from maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. first, i do believe we will get a health care bill passed this year. i just wanted to say something about your last guest from the heritage foundation. i mean, this is a right-wing organization, always have been and always will be. and the fight over health care

is a political one because, you know, all the republicans that say no -- please excuse me, i'm a little nervous -- they realize that if this passes republicans will be out on the boondocks for many generations if this passes. the republican party will be reduced to almost a non-factor in this country. it was demonstrated very clearly by the american people in the last election what direction they want america to go. health care is the argument, but the politics of it is the

republicans realize that of any bill is passed of any substance, politically, they are finished. and that is all i wanted to say. çhost: on the democrats' line, sylvia is calling from miami, florida. caller: good morning, i wanted to make a point about your guest on the heritag foundation and the analogy with the house burning';@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether it be fire or health insurance, for all citizens. and the more people in the pool, the more the risk for every

individual. i totally disagree with his analogy, but thank you for taking my call. host: on the independent line, caller: the gentleman from the heritage foundation for about two things. he forgot to tell you that the employer-supplied healthcare' programs have increased in the last two years some 16%. what is going to keep that from continuing? these big programs or these big co-ops that the employers to use -- that the employers' use have not brought down the price of insurance. in fact, it has gone up several times. i think as long as we have people like c-span who bring the heritage foundation and the

"wall street journal" to the foure with a lot of misinformation, you are going to not have health care passed with a good public option and it is too bad because what you have is a fallacy, one that employer -- one, that employer programs are not going to continue rising in price. host: we have a comment on twitter. you can send your comments to us by twitter. you can also e-mail us at journal@c-span.org. will health care passed this year? we want to know what you say on that.

democrats:(202) 737-0002 republicans:(202) 737-0001 independents: (202) 628-0205 in the wall street -- "wall street journal" obama fall's gop in health debate. this is looking and recent conversations about health care and talking about was going on on the republican side as well. and there is, of course, the question of where democrats are going on this. house speaker nancy pelosi waiting on the debate this week as well, stressing the same point thursday as president obama had. she told a news conference in san francisco, there is no way i can pass a bill in the house

without a public option, so she is going a step further than president obama did yesterday. let's go to the republicans line, calling from jackson, florida. good morning, sammy. caller: good morning, and thank you for taking my call. thank goodness these callers do not reflect the majority of the country. i am one of the 85% of people that are satisfied with our insurance and we do not like not likeoption.

it is just another -- we do not like this public plan. it is just another takeover.% obama talking about the republicans blocking it, look, there are 60 democrats controlling the senate. they can pass anything they want. they control the house. they can get it done tomorrow if they wanted to, but the democrats are blocking it. their own party is blocking it. they know it is no good. the majority of the people if they pass it, they will be voted out in the next election. they want -- there will not be a democratic party anymore. if they tried that option, they

better not try it. if they do, they will be history. host: on the democrats' line from fayetteville, ark., we have gone calling in. good morning, don. caller: good morning, i think we will have to pass some sort of public plan. right now, the way i look at it is, say you get a job when you are 20 years old or 16 years old and you work until you are 62, you are paying insurance the whole time. those insurance companies are making big profits. i am 56 and have been working all my life. i have been pretty healthy and i never use my insurance. i had union insurance and i worked for the union and for non-union companies. now i'm starting to worry about being sick. i'm not doing as much physical work anymore. i'm self-employed a lot of the time.

eventually, i am just going to end up on medicaid or medicare, what ever option i have. all those years i paid into insurance companies so they could make millions of dollars, that money could have gone to medicare, medicaid and then medicare and medicaid would not be going bankrupt or be in the red. i think that socialized medicine makes sense for everybody, for everybody. my wife just had a liver transplant and we have insurance that was catastrophic insurance. she goes for a liver transplants and the bill comes out to be $500,000. at that point, the insurance company says, we do not pay for

liver transplants -- you know, in the fine print. we have the $500,000 bill and my wife calls and 3 tons of phone calls -- i mean, she is recovering from a liver transplant. she finds out what medicare and medicaid pay for the operations that she has had and it turns out that they pay half of what we would have to pay personally. an insurance company don't spas, a hospital charges us double -- to dump us, a hospital charges as double. she finally through negotiation got it down to $250,000. they almost got us under. host: thanks for contributing, don. but go to georgia. caller: i think we all want each other to be healthy, democrats

and republicans, but of the same time i have a young man, 23 years old, and this last election was my first time ever paying attention to politics. i used to look at myself as a democrat, but i feel -- and a lot of other people -- we do not necessarily want the government to be in every aspect of our lives. but we all do need to be treated. i'm from massachusetts originally, and i have heard that massachusetts is looking -- being looked at as the model. i guess their plan has been in place for three years and their budget actually has jumped 42% over what was projected. 42% over whatever obama is proposing, you know, on top of what we are already paying for. in the last three years,

massachusetts has paid $500 billion more money than theyç d the three years before they put in their plan. i think we definitely need to figure something out, but how about the government just release all restrictions on all of the insurance companies so that we as individuals, we can pick -- you know, in georgia and i can pick a company in oregon or someone in organ can pick a company in massachusetts so that insurance companies would have no choice but to be flexible and allow more people to buy their policies because now they have thousands of insurance policies and they can pick from all across the country. they would have no choice but to lower their prices because the competition would be too great. if we just allow state by state, to only allow five or six insurance companies, that is one

consider rewriting. host: the local aarp takes heat over a held a stand, from the "wall street journal." it is building a flood of calls from worried seniors and battling rumors about president barack obama as helped push, which it supports. also in the peace, a r p concedes that 60,000 members have resigned over the health care push.

brett is on the republicans line from charleston, west virginia. hi, greta, good morning. caller: i would like to echo the sentiment of the last caller from georgia. he makes an excellent point and kind of stole my thunder. we do not need more government to solve this problem. we need less government. also, the problem before about the democrat callers calling in on the republican line, i wish they would stick with their own line and make this more balance. we need to practice defensive medicine, which is a sizable chunk of the health care costs that we are paying right now. we need to make health insurance affordable and available for purchase state by state, across state lines. we need to make it available my car insurance, home insurance,

life insurance, and we need to keep government out of it. the main reason for this is a principal reason. this country was not founded so that millions of americans could be dependent upon the federal government for their livelihoods. this country was based on principles like individual liberty and self-reliant. -- self-reliance. when you hand over your liberty to be felt -- to the federal government in exchange for at best mediocre health insurance or mediocre income, you are surrendering your individual liberties. and quite frankly, too many people died in wars throughout the years for us to say, ok, take our liberties and take us from cradle to grave we need tickets -- we need to seriously consider the founding principles of this country. host: and in the "new yorkm

>> "washington journal" live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we are leaving this recorded segment and taking for a briefing with robert giggs. -- robert gibbs. >> normally we start with the week ahead, but it is -- is somewhat short given the week ahead. i know we have changed this a couple of times. the president will depart the white house this afternoon at 1:30 p.m. and have a brief discussion on the afghan elections at 1:20 p.m.. sunday, the family will depart camp david and ruth to andrews air force base. -- enroute to andrews air force base. at 9:45 a.m., the first family will depart andrews air force base and the port for martha's vineyard, and writing at bartoli 10:55 a.m. cape cod

coast -- coast guard air station. the president will return to washington sometime in the late afternoon of sunday, august 30. i do not have an exact time for you. as it gets closer, we will have a chance to talk about it. with that, take us away. >> on the meeting with former senator daschle, will you tell us about what that was about, just health care or other topics? >> >> the guys will touch on some of those scenes that are going on. the meeting started a few minutes late, so i do not have a readout on that yet. we will try to have a couple of sentences for you on the meeting. >> [unintelligible] >> i think that former senator daschle along with others have put together ideas for

bipartisanç plans. this is an issue that is the president has been -- that he has been working on for some time. he does not have a formal role at the white house, but the president listens to his advice. >> ben bernanke gave a speech today that was more optimistic than people expected. also, existing home sales were up 7% over the past two years. what do you think about that assessment, that things are getting better? >> not wanting to read too much into one day's statistics, i think if you look over the course of several months, it does appear that the housing market is bottoming out of it, which obviously was one of the

reasons we got into the severity of the economic downturn we are in now. obviously, there is an independent to the fed that i do not want to get tremendously involved in. -- involved in violating on an august friday. but i would simply reiterate what we have said before, which is the economy that the president inherited upon taking office was at the brink, as many said, of sliding into a far deeper recession and possible depression. actions taken to stabilize our financial system, to get our economy moving again, to get a recovery plan to work to make the housing market work more for americans, to address foreclosures, to hold the american economy back from the brink.

obviously, not unlike the housing statistics that we see, sot so good news as the government releases statistics throughout the week. the president is pleased with the fact that it appears we aren stabilizing the economy, as i talked about, but will not be satisfied until we get the economy fully back on track and that we are growing the economy in a way that creates jobs for the millions of americans that continue to look for work and thus far cannot find it. >> tellis how you see things playing out after&k> the presidt returns in the kemper. yesterday, nancy pelosi said she could not pass the bill without the public plan. how you see things unfolding in september?

eventually, does it come down to a conference committee kind of resolving differences within the senate and house? >> obviously, you've got a myriad of opinions on either side. i know last night the six senate finance committee members spent about 90 minutes, i am told, on theul phone working duran making progress on their ideas. the white house has gotten an update on that phone call. >> [inaudible] >> the report from the phone call, or that they were making progress? i think they believe that, as the president strongly believes, that they should continue to work in a bipartisan basis to try to get an agreement and

once -- and get a bill to their committee and out of their committee in a timely fashion when congress returns in september. it is hard to know exactly what is going to happen then. we hope that the senate finance committee will continue work to make progress on that side and we will see what happens in the house. it is hard for me to look too far into the future in terms of conference committees and that sort of thing. >> how about splitting the bill and having reconciliation? with 51 votes you can get some things. >> i have certainly read the reports on that. i have not gotten the wire from in here about that. our focus, as we have talked about in the past several days, is in this room. our focus is working with the democrats and republicans to get somethingç into agreement and

signed. it has been a long month of august -- it has been a long day of already. what has the president learned this month as he heads into vacation in terms of the health care debate? >> i hesitate to call august a make it -- no offense to you guys. i know you spent a lot of money on branding it a the "make or break it month." i do not know which cable network will make the september and even more important than august and as this gets to october, i can imagine that doubt will soon be and more important month. my sense is that -- not to " the president of the dnc -- not to " the president of the dnc, but i think that much has always been made of where things are at a certain point in the process.

the present -- the president's viewpoint is not to worry about the 24 hour cycle too much and to focus more on the overall process and overall policy. i do not know that i would read a tremendous amount into any specific time frame like august. if you look at the nbc poll, there have been -- there has obviously been a lot of heat and light around town, but the nbc poll shows an equal number of people were more favorable about health care at the town halls as were less favorable. and 3/5 of the country, it did not make any difference. i think the president has used august and the town hall meetings and appearances, including the one we had yesterday, and he will do again in september to continue to tell people about why health care

reform is important, why we cannot afford to do nothing. the stakes that are involved and to try to put perspective back on the mysteries and misrepresentations that we know -- the miss truths and are still out there. >> he needs to be no more of a vocal -- more of a face out there in order to keep the message out there? >> again, you know, i am bouncing up against all i read about how theu#r president is overexposed. i think the president is going to continue to be out front in the timber and october trying to get something done. i think he understands and i think we have made progress. if you look at the nbc poll, the president has made some discernible progressá on the untruths.

i think him being out there pushing forward onuzñ that rumos why the american people and seniors based on that poll in do not believe that exist in the piece of legislation that is being considered now. >> [inaudible] before i get to my question [laughter] the polling that you showed shows a significant drop in the support for the health care plan. >> d bag. >> anyway -- >> degette 83 second response. [laughter] -- you get a three second response. [laughter] >> anyway, what they said about the lockerbie bombing, they had

hoped that he would be placed under house arrest and instead he gets a hero's welcome. xzt>> i think -- the images rese in libya yesterday were outrageous and disgusting. we continue to express our condolences to the families that lost a loved one as a result of this terrorist murder. we communicated with the libyan government and we continue to watch what they do in the days going forward. about this individual and understand that the video that you saw yesterday is tremendously offensive to the survivors that lost a loved one in 1988. >> the guy that should -- that shot theç president is in the . >> we are watching the

government to see how they respond. >> [inaudible] with the assassination mercenaries. >> do you mean blackwater? i have asked for an update which i have not yet gotten on where we are in different contracts. as it relates to the cia use of contract in, i would point you specifically to them for responses on that. >> i do not think they would tell you. >> they may tell you, though. if you use that sweet voice on the phone, you never know what you can get. >> i want them to stop killing. >> they're listening. [laughter] >> did you say -- and i knew you

were gonna get a read on this, whether the administration supports the idea of a split bill -- >> yeah, almost all legislative affairs are happily on vacation. most of them have e-mail sitting in the building. ç>> you are tryt getting an answer?> you are tryt >> phil is in a house in a bleak -- beautiful place in new mexico and my number comes up on his collar idallerd id and it goes e mail. i will tell you as i've told you drop the week, our focus is continuing the process that is going on now the focus that democrats and republicans were to get a bill through the senate and the house and over to the president's desk. >> a call last night suggested that they're looking at scaling

back ambitions. is bipartisanship so important to the president that he is willing to scale back some of his plans to accomplish that? >> i think you'll have to look at ultimately -- the president is going to evaluate ultimately any piece of legislation as to whether it meets his goals for health care reform. i'm told it is part of the 90 minute call that there was not a large amount of time spent on this topic that the focus was on continuing negotiations around comprehensive reform. the president's goal is not to print a banner and sign a bill does so someone can say that we have reformed health care. festus the goals and principles, cutting costs, increasing coverage, insuring

that we have the type of insurance reforms that protect consumers against the type of practices that we have seen in the past, those are part of the goals and principles that he has. >> members of congress have talked about something of a change of heart, and they've learned something from attending these town halls and it has changed what they feel they should do about health care. has the president learned anything, taken away anything from the town halls? he seems to be in the same place he was on health care reform. having seen those constituents, has that had no impact on what should be done? >> i think what the president has taken away from his town halls are, one, that we can have a discussion about a very important issue, as he said, not above each other, but with each

other. as is the case on the phone calls that he got from the radio show or the questions he got in new hampshire or montana or colorado. i think he continues to be very resolved in getting something done on this issue. the president continues to believe that the worst possible outcome is doing nothing because we know what happens when we do nothing. we know that premiums are going to continue to skyrocket, 14,000 people a day are going to lose their proper insurance, but small businesses are going to lose their ability to provide coverage. the leader of the drop the idea of covering employees or drop the number of employees that are covered. and we know that insurance companies are going to continue to discriminate based on whether or not they believe someone has a pre-existing condition or make a determination about whether someone is too sick to receive

coverage. that is what doing nothing will do. the president is determined that we will do something to move this process along. >> you are probably aware that a conservative true " -- a conservative group took a shot at the president right as he was leaving for his vacation. i was wonderingpt if you have a response to that, and the larger response to hispç vacatin spot. >> this is the same individual that we have talked about in here who is the recipient of -- just so everyone understands -- of the largest health-care penalty ever issued by federal government for fraud for a company he was the ceo of. leaving that aside, alhart

i think he's looking for to a few days to see and spend time with them. >> are there events during the vacation, conference calls? >> i do not know if i should do that from the podium. it is a phrase i use, but i was going to have bill do that. let's do this in a way that his family friendly. i think it is just when people get all nervous for a particular -- no particular reason. i think there way the president used it was, and i have talked to a few of you guys about this

-- in august of 2007, the rap on the president and the campaign was, first, they are doing poorly in iowa, they cannot possibly win the nomination alone the presidency. i will leave those predictions aside. august of 2008, everybody was nervous about whether the entire presidential campaign was looking out from underneath the hands of the president who they previously did not think would actually be the nominee. this is sort of an aug. hundred pattered -- pundit pattern of people getting nervous over something that still have a long way to go. bedwetting would be probably the more consumer friendly term for in terms of the first thing.

i do not anticipate the president will break his vacation. the radio transmitter today that we will release tomorrow morning is on health care. and i do anticipate, as we have talked about your the last several days, that he will continue to touch base with several members of congress in the house and the senate on the finance committee to check in with them about progress that is being made. >> getting back to bills questions about libya, what is the show that went on on the tarmac there is today going to have with perspective improvement of relations with that country? >> again, we have registered outrage. we have discussed with the libyans we think is appropriate as we did with u.k. and scottish

officials in our opposition to the release to begin with. all i can say going forward is we will continue to watch the reactions of this individual and the libyan government. >> the show that they put on yesterday when he arrived, you fill the reality is that hasselbeck relations? >> i feel comfortable that the administration believes that the images that were broadcast throughout the world were outrageous and incredibly offensive to americans in particular, and to those who lost a loved one on that flight many years ago. >> what was the president's specific reaction? >> again, i think i am conveyingç his sense and the administration's cents of what those images and did. >> the president said his

program was successful beyond anyone's estimation. >> yes, this was a temporary program to assist consumers, manufacturers, car dealers in replacing old, outdated cars that got far less efficient mpg for one that gets far better miles per gallon. the program was designed to be temporary and has been enormously successful, so much so that we are winding it down to insure that all of the applications will be funded with the $3 billion that congress approved in two steps. the program has reached its limit. this was not a program that was originally designed based on a

timeframe with an unending amount of funding. there was, as you know, $1 billion appropriated to the supplemental appropriations. congress then, concerned that the program needed more funding and was doing well approved an additional $2 billion. i will say that thus far, the government has approved and processed 170,000 applications in roughly a three week time frame. -bthe program as it was originay designed was to produce approximately 250,000 applications in a three month time frame. to address any concerns and the backlog and the number of obligations that we have received in at that short time frame, as the president said yesterday, we have tripled the number of people that are processing those applications

and i know there has been a lot of discussion out there about this, but the law states that a dealer should receive reimbursement within 10 days of a completed and approved -- meaning processed and approved -- application for reimbursement of assistance through the program. what we have been experiencing is, we get these applications based on the sale, some are not completed, some lack information or have been filled out wrong. that takes some time. once they are processed and approved, we are meeting the 10 day window of reimbursement. and i would also mention that as of today, all major automakers are now supporting any liquidity

problems the dealers might have in that 10 day period of time by covering some of the money that has been extended for the program. again, i think the president was correct. the program has been enormously successful. >> i may be wrong on this, but congress originally authorized this of 2 $4 billion. >> we originally requested -- our original idea was to correct -- request for billion dollars. congress approved $1 billion. when that $1 billion was nearing its finality, an additional $2 billion. >> imagine $4 billion, why stop at $3 billion? >> it was designed to be a temporary program and there is

no way now to get -- in all honesty, there is no way to get additional money with congress out of town. in order to move that money -- >> i'm just curious, once they do come back will the administration has sought to taking more money, that extra $1 billion? we should not expect anything? >> nou, they should not. i believe it is a p.m. eastern on monday -- 8:00 p.m. eastern on monday based on the flow of applications that we have received, they administration is confident that is an appropriate time to end the program. and be able to processç and fid all of the applications that have been involved. >> tom daschle was with the bipartisan group that you mentioned on june 17. he talked about the public

plan and said that the debate is starting to show signs of fracture on the issue. the bottom line was, even then in mid june when the polling data was done then as it is now and the town halls had not happened across the country, then tom daschle was saying that the public program was an impediment to the final period is this something that you like to evaluate? >> first, let me get a read on what is discussed rather than predicting what might be discussed. but more importantly, i think as the president said yesterday, said last saturday, as others have said, we have to have choice and competition to ensure

quality, drive down cost. and to achieve that, the preference is the public plan, but we are open to discussing other ideas like the one senator daschle, former senator dole, and i think former senator baker -- >> do you agree with that assessment then? or no? >> i think he would use the opportunity to talk about where we are on health care, continuing to make progress and will come up. >> it poll this morning has 49% e6/3i

on the way the entire presidency is viewed and the way the public takes confidence in the president. >> the short answer would be no, based on the fact that one of the numbers that you did not discuss how was the president's overall approval ratings at 57%. if fairly healthy never for a president's approval rating. >> [inaudible] >> i appreciate you give me to fill in what is left. i think the president would be the first to tell you, as he has said throughout this, that this is a complex issue and health care reform has never been easy. this process is one that is messi. -- messy.

if you look and ask people, again, going back to some of these other polls, if you are seeing information that as a result of this bill, 55% of the american people believe that illegal immigrants are going to get health care as a result of this bill despite the fact that the bill prohibits that, i do not doubt that weighs down on people's perception of the bill of the majority think that the something that we know is knowing the untrue and if people continue to hear that, something that is knowingly untrue is repeated. >> i was talking about that as much as the poll numbers on the health care itself, but on the overall view of the presidency and his ability to bring change and retain the confidence of the american people, there is some indication that the numbers have dipped here. during the intensity of this health care. has it had a broader effect on

the white house? what i will continue to evaluate that, but i will tell you, major, whether it is looking at -- i think you could look at any poll before the president made a decision about extending money to the automobile companies said they did not go out of business, not mrs. hurley the most popular thing, increasing hours -- not necessarily the most popular thing. increasing our troops in afghanistan, not mrs. are the most poetic -- popular thing. those are the things -- not necessarily the most popular thing. those are things that the president believed were necessary. it will help our national 21lusecurity and altman in our national interests. national interests. 6.ç:xnno carrierringconnect 1200

the president knows and expects that when he asks senator daschle a question, he is getting his in opinion -- his opinion and not that of anyone

else. i do not know when the last time they talked before this. i think it has been quite some time. >> we get a readout? >> yes. >> i was having a conversation in iowa, and he said the president had told him in a group of other lawmakers that he was willing to be a one-term president if that meant getting health care reform through. is that a message that you have heard him say to other lawmakers, and is that his view? >> i do not know that i have specifically heard it around healthcare, but i have heard the president say that is making tough decisions -- if making tough decisions and getting important things done that washington has failed to deal with in decades means that he only lives in this house and

makes those decisions for four years, he is quite comfortable with that. the way he approaches this issue, the economy, afghanistan, iraq, any of these issues is not in a mode of self-preservation, but in a mode of how best, given all of the information out there, can he make decisions that he thinks are in the best interests of the american people. not what is in the best interest of his personal poll numbers. >> does the president planned any policy announcement next month regarding the closing of a detention facility in guantanamo bay, cuba? >> obviously, we have got several task force is evaluating the detainees that are there and making determinations about what comes next in order to comply with the president's executive

order of january 21 to close guantanamo bay within a year. i do not know of any specific time line for announcements coming next month. obviously, we have had -- the administration had multi- jurisdictional visit to a facility in michigan, and despite the fact that no final decisions have been made and the principles committee on these issues continues to meet as a group and meet with the president, i do not have in front of me any notion of a time line for a decision. >> is my understanding that the president needs to submit some sort of plan to congress before the start of the next fiscal year, october 1. is that your understanding as well? >> i would have to double check. i know there are some requirements -- a task force requirements that relate to information that was passed as

part of the supplemental. i would have to check on that. as we talked about earlier in one of the morning meetings, part of the legislation also requires that congress be notified about any potential detainee transfers. i think i mentioned that on august 7, congress was notified that up to six current guantanamo bay detainees could be transferred within the next few weeks. >> [inaudible] >> right. there is some sort of -- i cannot bring it out here because it is a classified document, but -- >> [inaudible] >> i will check on that. i know there is a deadline that looms. it may be next monday. >> one more question that regards this -- do you rule out the possibility of president

obama traveling to guantanamo bay, cuba? >> i don't see why you would. i do not necessarily see the need for him to go there. >> the ranking republican on the house and tell committee says that if standish is picked as the eventual place to keep the guantanamo bay detainees, then it would be a magnet for terrorists. the senate passed a resolution asking the administration to declassify information so that the governor and legislators can make a decision for themselves about the safety of communities. what is the administration's position? >> let me check on the declassification. obviously, we are working with more local communities. the multi-jurisdictional visits

met with local officials to discuss the possibilities. as i said, though, no final decisions have been made. i think it bears repeating -- i forget the number. i used to have this number in my head, but there are a number of individuals that have been convicted of or are being held because of their involvement in terrorism in prisons throughout this country very safely. there is a super max facility in colorado that holds some particularly gruesome individuals that have yet to -- the conditions are around -- the conditions around that time had

yet to devolve into what the congressman seems to predict will happen in a different part of the country. >> did the president tell rabbis on wednesday that we are all god's partners in matters of life and death? if so, what did he mean by that? are his religious convictions including -- influencing his views on what should be in health care? >> i would have to go back and look at the transcript. the president has talked, and i think the rabbis are a group that invited him to be part of the call because of their moral and ethical beliefs and how they relate to health care. i think the president has talked about -- obviously, we have a very healthy and longstanding separation of church and state, but obviously, ethical and moral matters are part of decisions that the president makes. i would have to get a transcript. >> could we look at the transcript to see what he was talking about?

>> i could certainly try to see whether that is there. >> [inaudible] >> i can hardly hear you. >> [inaudible] these people recently have been terminated for some things. what is the u.s. government going to do about this -- about these companies hiring these people? hiring young lawyers to reduce paid? >> i would have to look the instances you are talking about to have a sense of what involvement the government would have. >> have you spoken to the president about the idea of splitting up the two bills? >> as i said yesterday, only that the focus is on seeking a bipartisan solution.

>> he very much seemed to open the door to reconciliation by saying one way or another -- >> he has said that for months. again, the president is focused on getting something done because we know what happens if nothing gets done. it was reality. >> thanks. two things -- why did the white house not put out a statement [inaudible] >> i'll talk to the press secretary about that. i did not know that. the -- obviously, the -- mr. novak was somebody who wrote for one of the local chicago papers, and i think no matter

how you felt personally about his political leanings, i think the president would agree with many that have said they had respect for his reporting and for his ability in his opinions, even if they did not agree with them, and i think that is probably a good lesson for all of us either in august for town hall meetings or as we move forward on issues like health care and everything else. >> in afghanistan, reports of voting irregularities -- a reaction from the white house on that? >> i'm not going to step on the toes of the president speaking about the afghan elections in a little bit. i reiterate what i suggest that the president has tremendous respect for the courage of

millions of afghans that went to the polls in the face of threats of violence, and to choose their leaders. and we will -- i think it will be quite some time, many days, before we get preliminary results, but we will watch that as we move forward. >> we are hearing that the president might gulf -- golf with tiger woods. what is he going to do with his time off? >> i have no idea if he is going to golf with tiger woods. i think he is going to spend a decent amount of time relaxing with his family. there are no events scheduled over the weekend. i anticipate that he will play golf and number of times. i do not have anything that says he will play with tiger woods in the next few days.

>> did the white house make decisions who they might send to south korea? >> i think there is a release going out, if it has not already, announcing a delegation that will be sent to that. if it has not gone out, it will go out fairly shortly. >> after several reports about the involvement in ca targeting programs and also, during jones with bombs in war on terror, where does the new obama administration draw the line between military force and legitimate outsourcing to private contractors? >> the president talked about,

throughout the campaign, and has instituted and openness in competitive bidding process for contracts as part of the new administration. it was something that he worked on as a member of the senate'. i have asked for some guidance on what contracts we have and where we are in relation to the company formerly known as black water. i would again encourage you to contact individual government departments for specific comment on contracts that obviously had been met during prior administrations as part of that. >> as you know, there is a

hurricane bill. are we better prepared for hurricanes so we do not have another katrina? >> the president has received regular updates throughout the week on the progress of the hurricane across the caribbean and has great confidence in the personnel that he has put in positions, whether it is in charge of the department of homeless security, or particularly in fema, to deal with whether it is a hurricane like katrina that could come ashore, or any other natural disaster that the government and the american people could face. certainly, it is our hope that the storm will avoid reaching

the united states and turn back out into the atlantic. i anticipate there will be a busy hurricane season and that we will continue to monitor throughout that time. thanks, guys. have a good week. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> president obama and the obama family had to camp david before a week at martha's vineyard. we will hear from the president this afternoon. he will talk about afghanistan and the presidential elections there, which were held yesterday. comments from the president expected just over an hour from now live here on c-span. tonight on "book tv" primetime, author alice walker, winner of the pulitzer prize for her book "the color purple."

our program starts at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> the beauty -- "washington times" columnist is interviewed by the founder of the national organization for the reform of marijuana laws. at a saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2's "booktv." >> frank mankiewicz, "q&a," sunday night on c-span. >> as the healthcare conversation continues, c- span's healthcare hub is a key resource. go on-line and all the latest week -- tweaks -- tweets. even up load your opinion about

health care with a citizen video. the c-span video healthcare ohu. >> the top u.s. commander in iraq recently spoke with leaders about sending more u.s. troops to the northern part of the country in response to growing tensions between national security forces and kurdish regional government troops. the middle east institute in washington -- in washington hosted a discussion earlier this week on the situation in northern iraq. it is a little more than an hour. >> good morning. i'm kate seelye with the middle east institute. thank you for coming out on a hot august day when others are in martha's vineyard and greece vacationing. i'm excited to see we have such a great turnout for our guests, joost hiltermann, from the

national crisis group. i have a certain bias. i think joost is one of the best. he has certainly spend more time in the field than most researchers on iraq from his base in jordan where he lived in many years and in iraq proper. when i met him three years ago, he was working to highlight the crisis of the internally displaced in iraq and to put -- you know, to highlight the responsibility that the u.s. government had to deal with this refugee crisis. more recently, he has been looking at the crisis between the iraqi federal government and the kurdish regional government and the growing tensions and conflicts mounting between these two bodies. he has documented these tensions and the possible solutions to what he sees as an impending crisis in a report he opted for icg this past july.

it is called "iraq and the kurds: trouble along the trigger line." most of you got a copy. he is here to discuss with us today. joost is the deputy middle eastern program director for icg, an independent non- governmental organization, dedicated to conflict prevention. in his capacity, he coordinates the organization's research throughout the middle east. prior to joining icg, joost was with human rights watch as an executive director of their arms division. he also worked with a palestinian human rights group in ramallah. he has penned dozens of articles on the middle east but is also the author of two books -- "a poisonous affair: america, iraq, and the gassing of the ledger" as well as labor and women's

movements in occupied territories. before we begin our talk, a little bit of housekeeping. we have some upcoming events i would like to tell you about. tomorrow, the middle east institute's pakistan study center is hosting a talk about developments in pakistan with the former president of the arctic and university. next thursday, august 27, we have the current american ambassador to kuwait, deborah jones, who will be talking to us about kuwait and gulf affairs. i hope you can join us for that as well. please join me in welcoming our guest. joost hiltermann. [applause] >> thank you, kate and colleagues at the middle east institute, and thanks for coming today. timing is awfully good. the issue of the events in northern iraq and what we call

the trigger line, with the u.s. military calls the trigger line, is very much in the news. general odierno yesterday made a statement that he is proposing to deploy american troops in northern iraq along the trigger line and have them partner with both iraqi army troops and the kurdish in order to reduce tensions along that trigger line. what is the trigger line? as i said, it is a term used by the american military, and it denotes something not actually on any map. it is not the green line that existed from 1991 until 2003. i do not know if we can pull up the map that says green line there, but if you look there, that is northern iraq, and you

can see a line there. to the north and east of that line is the kurdistan region as it was between 1991 and 2003, and to the south and west is the rest of iraq. this green line was actually a cease-fire line that came about unilaterally when iraqi troops withdrew from the north in october of 1991. if you remember the gulf war, the invasion of kuwait, the feed iraqi forces, and the uprisings that took place in the north and south. there were crushed by iraqi forces, and they went up and north into the kurdistan region, but then, not really succeeding in pacifying the area, they withdrew to a line that they

drew themselves, and that was the green line. in 2003, kurdish forces crossed that green line into areas that they claimed were always kurdish or majority kurdish and that they claim are part of a historical kurdistan. for this, we need to see the second map that discusses disputed territories now. you will see here the kurdistan region, sort of the light area to the north and east, and iraq, to the south and west, but we have this middle area, a dark area. while we know what the green line is, we do not actually know what that southern land is. it is demarcated, but that is an area that is disputed. it is not just disputed, but also because the iraqi constitution of 2005 calls it disputed. though there are disagreements over exactly what areas they

include and what exactly is disputed. the issue at hand here it is really a conflict between two nations or two people, arabs and kurds in iraq. there are also kurds outside of iraq in turkey, iran, and syria. but there is a deep fault line that has existed since the collapse of the ultimate empire between the arab and kurdish people of iraq, and they have fought off and on for almost a century. they have also live in peace at times, reaching accords that eventually fell apart. there was an autonomy agreement that the kurds signed with the bath regime in 1970, and that

came apart after five years, but after 1991, the kurds were able to reinvigorate their autonomous region and occupy the area that you see on the map. since then, they have started to develop away from the shadow of the regime in a way and to bring some economic growth to the area, but for many years until 2003, the kurds were very much restricted by the fact that their only access was through neighboring states, turkey and iran, and these states had no interest in allowing the kurds to develop too far because these countries opposed the emergence of the kurdish independence states in iraq or even more broadly in the entire region. after 2003, when the kurds were able to cross that green line and also positions of government

in baghdad, they have done much more to increase their chances of eventually turning their non- state into deep into an independent state. for now, this is not a realistic objective because none of the neighboring states nor iraq, nor the international community a large favor the kurdish state. what the kurds are doing is to maximize the future possibility of an independent state by creating the infrastructure for. in economic terms, legal terms, and in political terms, basically by creating a record of sovereignty. by repeating the claim over and again that the kurds are entitled to independence, and this is the evidence for a, and you can create a list of that evidence. the problem is that if there is going to be a kurdish entity,

independent or not, the question is where is its boundary? when it is its southern boundary? this is what is in dispute, and this is when we come to the disputed territory. the dispute in iraq is very much over the boundary, and this is significant not only because the kurds claim areas to be originally part of kurdistan -- and of course, there never was an entity called kurdistan in legal terms with boundaries -- but also because this area, especially the disputed territories, happen to be enormously rich in natural resources, especially oil and gas. the area is also very rich in water. and because of the presence of oil and gas, which for started to be exploited in the 1930's, the issue has become highly

incendiary over who controls these territories. in the last few years, both sides -- the kurdish regional government and the federal government -- have started to take unilateral steps to increase their control over the areas of the disputed territories that they control. because, in fact, what has happened is that the krg controls part of the disputed territories and has its forces deployed there, but the federal government controls other parts of disputed territories and has its troops deployed there in many areas. the line that divides the kurdish and iraqi troops -- that is the trigger line. unfortunately, it is not demarcated, and it is not

necessarily a stable line. it changes, and it is usually visible only if you travel on the roads and you hit a checkpoint and you realize that you, for example, just past the last iraqi checkpoint, and you are passing a kurdish checkpoint, and you have clearly crossed into kurdish controlled territory, but not necessarily the kurdistan region, which is still, according to the iraqi constitution, behind the original green line. there is this arab-kurdish then emmett over the boundaries and resources in the ground, and we have seen these unilateral steps. there are conflicts that will play out. the second conflict is the regional one. i already mentioned that the regional states, the neighboring states -- turkey, iran, syria, especially -- they do not want an independent kurdistan. they want kurdistan to be weak, but they also want it to be stable because they have no

interest, especially turkey does not have an interest in an unstable kurdistan. they fear, in fact, an unstable iraq, and it would rather have an uncivil kurdistan on its border with the rest of iraq is going to be unstable, but they do not want to be that stable or that bribing and blossoming that it might actually start to act on its aspirations and become independent -- they do not want it to be that stable or that driving -- thriving. moreover, what the states also want, especially turkey again, is part of those resources. they want access to the oil and gas that lie in northern iraq inside the kurdistan region but also in the disputed territories. the fact of the matter is that while the kurdistan region does have oil and gas, the more south and west you go into the disputed territories and the closer you get to kirkuk in

particular, the closer you get to oil and a larger quantity of the oil and gas. here, you have a map that shows the kurdistan region in the beige color -- is that the right color? then, you have the rest of iraq in white, and in between, you have a shade of light blue -- maybe that is the way you see it. for me, it is all white. that shows the disputed territories. then, you see oil fields and gas fields lying all through that area. some of them are currently being exploited. others are not. they are being explored or mark for exploration, but there's no doubt that the area is hugely rich in oil and gas. sir turkey, which does not have

its own oil and gas, is quite eager to diversify its sources for hydrocarbons and is quite eager, therefore, to bring oil, therefore, from iraq into turkey and through turkey for export via the mediterranean port to the rest of the world. turkey does not really care where the oil comes from, and it is happy for the oil to come from any part of iraq. there is a pipeline that connects beijing to turkey and then on to the mediterranean coast. there's also a pipeline from kirkuk that connects to that pipeline. and turkey is willing also to take oil from the kurds. so far, the issue is who has control over this oil? is it the federal government in

baghdad, or is it the kurds? this is part of the dispute happening right now, and turkey does not what the lottery take oil from the kurds because it does not want to give the kurds that kind of strength, so it wants baghdad to be part of the deal, and that means that the kurds would have to compromise with baghdad, which is what is not happening at the moment. that is the regional dimension. the third dimension is the intra-kurdish one. the fall line has been there that is sort of air leitmotif of modern kurdish history ever since the defeat of the karzai revolt in the 1970's. there have been two major parties in kurdistan -- the kurdistan democratic party that is now headed by the original founders son, the president of the kurdistan region, but there's also the patriotic union

of kurdistan, which sprang from the kdp in 1976, which is led by jilal talabani, who is also now the president of iraq. these two parties have been at loggerheads at many times but have also cooperated on a number of occasions as they are still doing now. they fought a civil war in the 1990's, but they have made peace since then -- an uneasy peace -- and they have tried to reintegrate the two separate administrations that they had set up. these two are largely integrated at the top level, but underneath, a lot is still stirred. a lot of the members of the parties do not get along at all, and there is a lot of conflict. moreover, because these parties have had a very difficult transition -- and i say that

acknowledging that these transitions are always difficult -- from a guerrilla movement to a government that needs to administer its territory, there have been a lot of complaints from the kurdish people, especially about corruption, the lack of governance, the lack of accountability, the lack of service delivery, and so, in the last elections that just took place three weeks ago, we have seen the emergence of viable opposition in kurdistan in the form of two lists -- one, the change list headed by jalal talabani's erstwhile deputy, which is a secular movement that drew support mostly from the puk, not so much from the kdp. secondly, the islamists, who are in this case, rather moderate.

they ran a list that came in third after the top list, which was the kurdistan list, which is a coalition of the kdp and puk. what is important is that this or original split has never truly been overcome except at the top levels, so we now see this strong alliance, for example, but it is symptomatic of the discontent that lives within kurdistan and only about the lack of governance -- not only about the lack of governance, but also within the puk above the close alliances to kdp. also importantly, the kdp, review in the future with

trepidation, especially the american troop withdrawal, is starting to turn toward turkey for solace, thinking that its economic relationship with turkey may lead to also a relationship of becoming sort of a protectorate of turkey where turkey can replace the united states as the man protector of the kurds, but the people and their political representatives do not see things that way. they are much more distant from turkey. there are closer to iran in many ways, but they also have a much stronger sense that their relationship, their primary relationship -- if there has to be one because everybody wants to be independent down the line -- if there has to be a relationship, and has to be with baghdad. talabani has been based in baghdad for the last few years, as have other puk leaders, but now the ground leader is also very explicit about -- he says

very clearly that there is no room for a major state in northern iraq, and the kurds are part of iraq, and they need to deal with baghdad. he also is a hard-liner when it comes to issues like the disputed territories. he very strongly holds the belief that these territories are part of the kurdistan region and should be incorporated into the kurdistan region, in that sense, he is no different, but the split between the kdp and the political parties is significant as this conflict over disputed territories is going to play itself out over the coming years, especially as we are going to approach a time for -- when the united states is going to withdraw its troops. there are three things going on. what is the u.s. troop withdrawal. maybe just like the announcement of the troop withdrawal was

preceded by a surge, now we see that the withdrawal from the disputed territories and from the areas in northern iraq is preceded by sort of a miniature search -- mini surge that general odierno announced yesterday in order to bring down tensions between the parties, but this is a stop-gap measure, clearly, aimed at reducing tensions, but it is not in itself a solution to the problem of the disputed territories, and worse, it could actually make the parties on the ground dependent on american troops, which is not a good thing when you are actually going to take the american troops out. there is an inherent contradiction between the short term objectives and the medium to long term objectives that needs to be resolved. the solution, of course, lies in the political process.

but just like the surge in 2007, 2008 made remarkable progress in the military domain but failed to reach any progress in the political fields, so it may well happen with the political process on the disputed territories. that is the second issue. what is happening on that front is that there is a united nations-led process. it is led by the united nations assistance mission for iraq, which has a process. it came out with a big report that until now has not been made public, but is starting to circulate in ever wider circles, so sooner or later, you will have a copy on your desk. it is 500 pages. but this report is actually remarkable. for the in-depth research it displays on the social and economic and legal and

jurisdictional and political history of individual districts in these disputed territories, and for suggesting ways of building confidence in these areas that might then lead to a political solution, which could only come from the stakeholders themselves and cannot be reproduced by the united nations, as the un makes very clear. so this report was released in april and has led to the creation of a task force in june, which has just been given a little bit new life. when the prime minister went to the north to meet with other leaders a couple of weeks ago, so this task force is now charged with coming up with solutions to the disputed districts, and this process may

go a long, working on the principle that essentially, those districts that have a majority of population, and where there is a history of control by one party or another, should probably gravitate toward official controlled by either the krg or the federal government, but that is difficult and will take time. more importantly, at the end of the road, there are still capable because we could talk about various districts, but at the end of the day, what is really at heart at the core of the conflict is kirkuk because it is a place, city, and government that the kurds have claimed for a long time, but it is also where most of the oil actually is. so this process is going on, but not at the kind of timetable that people in washington like, meaning it may take years. but that is probably what is

possible and probably what is necessary in order to instill confidence in all the parties. but just as we had an administration before who was impatient about how things were done in iraq, we now have an administration that wants to pull out of iraq at a high speed. again, these are american timetables and not iraqi ones, and they are essentially loggerheads, and the upshot may be chaos. the third element are the iraqi legislative elections planned for january 16, 2010. elections have a way of bringing the worst are the people -- maybe also the best, but usually the worst in areas of conflict and may be understandably so. we saw a head of the provincial elections last january that the rhetoric between the krg and the

baghdad government went sky high, and clearly, this was triggered by baghdad, i would say, and it served the prime minister very well because he did extremely well in the elections, and he may well do so again in the legislative elections, as a way of presenting himself as the iraqi leader because an anti-kurdish message goes over particularly well with an arab audience in iraq. but that said, he also has been very careful. what he has said -- what he has said is he wants to create a sort of post-ethnic coalition of parties, and he needs to do this. he belongs to one of the smaller, weaker parties because he became prime minister by a fall in 2006, not because he was the strongest leader of the strongest party. now, he has to transform his position into the strongest

leader of the strongest party, and that means he has to build a coalition, and that means he has to bring in kurds, and that means he has to reach out, and the only way to do that is not to raise your rhetoric because that would have the effect because there are very few -- that would have the opposite effect because there are very few kurds in iraq that have very much love for nationalism. what is interesting, though, with the intra kurdish to mention starting to play itself out, we may well see attempts by the federal government in baghdad to reach out to dissenting elements within the kurdistan movement -- the kurdish national movement and bring them into a coalition. whether these efforts will succeed is an open question. i certainly do not know what will happen on that score. already, they have said they're going to run separately from the kdp-puk in the national

elections, but it has also said that it will continue to be part of the kurdistan front in baghdad. it does not want to undermine the kurdish unity in baghdad as the kurds confront the federal government. interesting things are going to happen there, but also, interesting things are going to happen in kurdistan itself because the kurdish parliament is going to have to meet, and for the first time, there is going to be opposition that is actually occupying some 38 to 41 seats depending on how well the opposition parties get together and work together. that will push the kdp and puk toward greater openness, hopefully, which is not a bad thing in a place where corruption is rife. but what will happen with the disputed territories? this remains an open question. our sense is that if half the

united states manages to exert sufficient pressure -- if did the united states manages to exert sufficient pressure on both sides, as long as they have sufficient pressure to do so, it could come about, but our sense is also that this timeline is basically a year before significant drawdowns are too short to accomplish this. then, the question is is the u.s. military capable of instilling sufficient confidence between the parties on the grounds to facilitate relatively peaceful relations once american troops pull out of the area? i can assure you that if they fail in that, that the conflict along the trigger line is almost inevitable, but whether that

will in turn lead to all-out conflict between the krg and the baghdad government is an open question, and i certainly do not want to predict that, but we should be very careful because it could happen. then, we go back to the neighboring states. i already mentioned that the kdp are looking toward turkey because they want the access that turkey provides to the outside world, to europe and the united states. they need to occupy turkish airspace, for example. they have, of course, the truck route for the border crossing, and they have turkish investment that is critical to the development of the kurdistan region. construction is booming, and that is mostly due to investments from turkish companies. if turkey were to join the european union, an office that

prospect for the kurds in northern iraq of having some access to the european union -- it offers that prospect for the kurds in northern iraq and having some access to the european union. i think most important of all, as i mentioned before, turkey might provide a measure of protection for the kurds if turkey found is economically useful. why would it find it economically useful? if turkey were to gain access for the to the oil and gas of the north -- i do not want to stay kurdistan regionally, but the north generally, the intricate would act to protect access to the oil and gas. this is with the -- this is what the kdp and krg are thinking. in this scenario, it may well be that once american troops pull out of iraq, that baghdad may not hold, that it will be chaos, it will be civil war south of

this trip airline, and the kurds will gain de facto control over kirkuk and its resources, and it will be able to export these resources, and this is in a mutual interest of turkey and the united states, so there's a political momentum to sustain the, should the rest of iraq descended into chaos. if this happens -- it is a scenario. then, we have to wonder what will happen between the kdp on the one hand and most of the puk on the other hand. will that split again, or will they stay together? it may well be that the parties will seek an alliance with baghdad, and baghdadkdp seeks an alliance with turkey. even though i'm not predicting

this either, but you have to be careful with predictions, you are already on the ground and see some movement in that direction. contracts made with foreign companies that are under kdp tutelage go to kdp areas, and contracts for companies working with the puk go to puk areas, and infrastructure are separate. there's already a push toward separation rather than unification, which is, i would say, rather disturbing. so i want to leave it with that because i'm sure you have many questions. >> thank you very much for that very insightful analysis. i will begin by asking a question about kirkuk. there was going to be a referendum.

it was postponed under pressure from the american government. where do things now stand? is there consensus not to press the issue? can you collaborate? >> the president on a daily basis mentions kirkuk and the need to implement the iraqi constitution, which lays out a process for the status -- resolving the status of disputed territories. that process in editions inenvisions -- the process envisions its senses and a referendum, and all of this was supposed to take place before the end of december 2007. it did not, simply because baghdad was not interested in doing this. so the kurds now only can repeat the line that this is the constitution. 80% of the people voted for a

constitution, so why is it not being implemented? the fact is it is not being implemented, and this is what the united nations stepped in and began its alternative process of adjudicating the states of the disputed districts, but in a report released in april, it made very clear that it stays within the bounds of the iraqi constitution, and it makes very clear that it supports the region. you might ask if it makes sense because they are saying it is not being implemented, and the united nations is saying we are implementing article 140. it is also about the word referendum because the constitution does not specify what kind of referendum is to be held. it just says referendum should be held. it does not say which questions should be asked. they say that the question should be, do you, people of kirkuk, want to belong to the kurdistan region or not? the united nations is saying that is an inherently hostile

referendum that can only lead to conflict and is not a good way to build peace between communities and should instead be a confirmatory referendum. reference ask the question do you, people of kirkuk, a great -- agree with what the stakeholders has just signed, and that agreement is a compromise agreement on the status of kirkuk. it's such an agreement were to come about, once you have such an agreement, people obviously will vote in favor of it because it is a consensus-based agreement. so it is a very smart way of dealing with things, except the slight problem is that you have to come to this agreement, and this is what i already said -- it may take several years. but it is at least a way that could lead to a peaceful solution of the conflict rather than this of the referendum that is a hostile one. at the moment, the referendum is

not off the agenda. it is just not a minute. >> my name is richard mckee. i was a political counselor at the u.s. embassy in ankara and twice was a member of u.s. delegations that would to kirkuk in an attempt to get them to stop shooting at each other. we failed both times. if iraq falls apart, there are still turks in influential positions who think it is not too late to visit what happened in 1923 and that turkey could again have a protectorate role in northern iraq, but my question deals quite specifically with the other great salon in the turkish side in addition to kirkuk, which is the puk presidency. -- the other great born -- the other great thorn in the turkish

side. i just wondered how that plays out in the turkish-iraqi relationship. >> for turkey, the pkk is a critical issue, and they will raise it at any moment. it is partly a serious issue because it is militarily in northern iraq and has directed military efforts inside turkey from there, but it is also partly part of the turkish public debate, so no turkish politician wants to survive politically -- who wants to survive politically can easily compromise on such an issue. what we have seen very recently, steps taken by the ruling party government in turkey towards some kind of accommodation with the kurds of turkey, and there are hopeful signs that something would happen, and the turkey

leader is supposed to come with some kind of road map in the next couple of weeks. that may or may not facilitate such efforts. we will have to see, but i think if there is going to be a deal between turkey and the krg, it will have to include some kind of provision for the pkk that is based inside iraq. the krg has always said that they did not less so we like the -- they do not necessarily like the pkk, but they are kurds, so there is some solidarity. but what they say they cannot do is militarily dislodge the pkk from the mountains, and frankly, these parties themselves used to be based there and whenever dislodged from them by the iraqi state

using chemical weapons and other measures -- were never dislodge from them by the iraqis the using chemical weapons and other measures. that said, there are other ways -- and the krg in turn says they can take steps against the pkk, so why doesn't reduce something for the kurds in turkey. that is also a very powerful argument, so now, turkey is starting to listen to that. there are always groups in turkey that will push back against that rather strongly, so that will also take time, but because the pek is an issue directly related to the status of the kurds in turkey. it's iraqi element is really only part of that. the pkk does not need to be in iraq. so the question is really what happens to them in northern iraq?