accountable. there is exemption to the antitrust law. as i say, these and other needs are still there. .

go forward. but we will go forward. >> the message seems to be that they want to go in a more moderate direction. >> we have a responsibility to find common ground. 1/3 of the congress participated in those hearings in a bipartisan way.

in many cases, some of the republican amendments were adopted. that made it clear that they are not for health care reform. we are. that is the extent that we can find our common ground between those two differences. it remains to be seen. the message from massachusetts is one that we have been hearing for a while about health care reform. it is really important -- and let me say this. as a former chair of the democratic party, i know that elections have an after-action review. there are many factors that contribute to the most votes. many people will be analyzing that for a while. there are times that there are as -- is public unease. let me just say that president obama, one year ago, stood on the steps of the capital and asked for actions to address the problems that our country has been facing. it not only created jobs, but told us back from the brink of

an even deeper recession. the budget that he passed 100 days after his swearing-in, it created jobs, stabilized the economy, and reduces the deficit that is central to everything we do. those were the three central pillars. it create jobs, invest in education, and innovation for the twenty first century, investment in healthcare, and it is a competitiveness issue.

that is important to business. and it will have eight meet energy policy. the major initiative -- to pass a jobs bill. it has always been about jobs and deficit reduction. those are the two messages from massachusetts. perhaps we haven't been clear enough about the purpose and focus of the connection of creation of jobs and reduction of deficit in our initiative. in terms of health care, as i said, it will lower the number, but not lessen the need for health care reform. >> is there widespread unease in your caucus?

>> nothing is discarded, everything is on the table. chinese would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues to were certain provisions of the senate bill. over 80% of those bills are similar. there are important initiatives in the senate bill. there are certain things that members cannot support. for example, the nebraska piece of it. what they would want to see

fixed is more fairness and equity among states. the policy should not be made on the basis of one senator, but on the basis of one country. there is unrest in the caucus about the attacks on so-called cadillac benefits. just to name a few. it in its present form, without any change, i don't think it is possible to pass another senate bill in the house. we recognize health care has to be done. let's take some pieces of that and get it done and move on. everybody recognizes that something needs to be done. >> the senate bill, in its present form, you will not pass it? >> i don't see the votes for it at this time. the members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they did not like it before it had the provision and

some of the others that are unpalatable to them. there is a recognition that there is a foundation that is important. one way or another, they will have to be advanced, whether it is by passing the senate bill to the changes, or just taking pieces of that. what we're doing now is very,. we have to get-- very calm. that is a predicate that we have prescribed to. >> passing a bill and fixing it later is not an option? >> there are issues that make it problematic for our members. some of the concerns that were stressed in massachusetts were about certain provisions of the senate bill. we want, obviously, what was said across the country. what was said in massachusetts was not said everyone.

it is hard to say, well, we don't like the special provisions. that had a lot -- they don't see why something that wasn't even a fundamental part of the bill to begin with that has been rejected by the american people is something they should be called upon to vote for. it does not sound like the message of massachusetts. >> you're ruling out passing the senate bill unchanged. >> i am not ruling it out. we're rolling out -- everything is on the table. every decision we have to make -- and this may be more on the subject you want to know. we have to know what our possibilities are. that means in both houses and the white house. every time you make a decision, you have to make a choice.

i am saying to you right now that the members, every meeting that we have had, it will be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way it is. >> speaking of the white house to co [laughter] -- speaking of the white house -- >> [laughter] >> they should move ahead on the public support? given the uneasy about the senate bill and try to fix that, is that and more likely option? >> i don't think anybody agrees with passing the unpopular part of the bill. the engine that drives the rest of it -- we're not in a big rush.

reflect upon what the possibilities are. seeing the support in the caucus, we have to go where we can build consensus. certainly, the consensus is to take the most popular part of the bill and advance it. that would be positive. we have serious, other structural things that have to be done. systemic changes that have to happen to, again, hold insurance companies accountable. have we not been here this time of day? is it 10:00? [unintelligible] again, however we achieve it, we must arrive at accountability of insurance companies. i talked about that package earlier. the discrimination of pre-

existing conditions, decisions of seizing policies even though people pay their premiums. the list goes on. not to mention the ratio -- repealing the exemption of the anti-trust laws. there is language that talks about the insurance companies that raise rates in the next couple of years before the exchanges are established. they would not be able to participate in the exchange. accountability. affordability is very important. it is one of the main purposes of the bill, to make it affordable to the middle class. and so, to the extent of any one of these initiatives or the decision may be to proceed with the full bill, i don't know.

there is not a market right now for proceeding unless changes are made in the senate. >> he said you're not in a rush, but the president is coming out for the state of the union. the need to work on health care? >> some of your colleagues told me that we are on a 5-second news cycle. i thought it was more real time. we will take the time it needs to consider the option to hold the insurance companies accountable to make it more affordable for the middle class and reduce the deficit. can we get the bills to pass the approach? we just have to find it. >> can you describe for a moment that when you heard that senator elect brown had one,

your emotions on saying that we need to go back and reconsider what our work has been here? operationally, it would be hard to get the existing votes. dodge describe my emotions? -- you want me to describe my demotions? in an election, anything can happen. i don't think it was one of a total surprise to anyone. you never give up. let me say this. perhaps this will explain it to you better. at any given time, the senate will have 60 votes. it is not the most ironclad assumption. what if they don't have 60? on any given day. you're always prepared for a

hotly contested race that will be lost in terms of the 60th vote. what if policy decisions are such that they can't get 60 votes. what are our options? of course we would have preferred to win. but the fact is, in terms of our public policy, the implications of that -- ruling out preparation. >> [unintelligible] >> i have not read the opinion yet. but it is disappointing because

it strengthens the hand of special interests in the elections. i have not read -- my lawyers are working it -- looking it over. we will see if there is a path for legislative language. i think they will have a session on this, perhaps having a more current or detailed information. >> regarding the -- regarding -- [unintelligible] >> good morning, everyone. president obama and democrat leaders in washington face a choice.

they can work with republicans on common-sense policies to create jobs, or they can turn their backs on the american people. thus far, it sounds like the president and the speaker plan to ignore what happened in massachusetts and what happened -- passing the reconciliation process. nobody wants this bill but washington special interests. if they jam it through, they will face a firestorm from the american public. this morning, i cannot help but notice this headline of this article. democrats were to finance their messages. oh, my god.

they may be out of touch with what the american people are saying. what we learned in massachusetts is this. democrats are not listening to the people. republicans are listening. the american people are asking where are the jobs? out of touch washington democrats are responding with their job killing agenda. they are continuing to try to move through the senate, tax hikes on middle-class families and businesses that are trying to save and get the economy going again. and now, the president is trying to put together a back room commission that might someday reduce spending here in washington. but his budget still double the national debt in five years, triple the debt in 10 years.

this commission that he is proposing is going to stack the deck in favor of more tax hikes of american people. it has more commissions and more talk. it will cut spending in to do it now. let's not forget another issue that senator elect brown used effectively in his campaign. that is the issue of national security. events like the attempted airline bombing on christmas day should remind us that we are at war with dangerous extremists that will stop at nothing to kill americans. yesterday, the director of national intelligence told the senate panel that he believes it was a mistake to handle that terrorist like a common criminal. tomorrow is the first anniversary of president obama's

executive order to import deadly terrorist into the united states and give them the rights of american citizens. both of these political decisions affect a pre-9/1110 out -- pre 9/11 thought. >> do you support legislation [inaudible] it can permanently do away with automatic pay increases? >> i am not familiar with the senator's bill or his language. you probably weren't here in the 90's when this was enacted. i filed the suit in federal court to stop the automatic increases in pay.

i believe it violated the twenty seventh amendment to the constitution. if you read the judge's decision, he did not think too kindly of my lawsuit. >> next week, president obama will address your caucus. will that be your opportunity to present proposals later party may have regarding health care? >> we're looking for to the president coming to address all of our members. we'll remind the president to leave offers that we think are better solutions, problems that americans are confronting will continue to work with them. we're putting people back to work. >> [inaudible]

>> when it comes to health care, we have to do this in a two-step process is. -- in two-step processees. -- processes. we can sit down with them to come up with common sense ideas to help insurance. the number one issue when it comes to health insurance is the cost of it. they want us to do something about it. our ideas at healthcare.gop.gov will lower the cost by 10% and expand coverage. >> what about mandates requiring people to have insurance?

>> i am not going to support an individual mandate, because i think it is unconstitutional for the federal government to mandate that every person buy health insurance. >> [inaudible] what would be a way for them to come to you -- maybe it's not something you can vote for -- >> no! our goal is to stop this monstrosity. we want to get this bill passed -- we need to stop, scrap the bill, and start over in a bipartisan way. i know a little bit about bipartisanship. i have put a lot of bills together with members of the house and senate on the

democrats' side. it starts at the beginning of the process, not at the end. >> is it too far gone at this point for bipartisanship? it has been a year and a half. >> there has not been one effort to outreach to republicans on health care at all year. we offered to work with the president. we sent a letter back to the -- to the president back in may. we received a nice reply that said, we'll see you at the end of the day. at the end of the process. this bill is dead. it is, perhaps, not quite as bad as i wanted. until is dead, republicans are not going to work off of this monstrosity. there is not enough common ground. remember, there are over 100

mandates, boards that are created in this health care bill that set up this giant infrastructure to get the government ready for what the locals really want, a single payer national health care system. i am opposed to that, and so are my members. >> republicans not being at the table has turned into a political [inaudible] >> really? >> [inaudible] >> the first thing you have to remember is this rebellion that is going on in america is not just about health care. it is about the national energy tax. it is about their desire to increase taxes on literally every front. it is about importing terrorists.

that is what we have seen in massachusetts, new jersey, and virginia. back to the health-care issue, we have made clear all year that we recognize that there are problems in our current health care system. problems that need to be addressed. we believe the way to address them is a step-by-step approach, a common-sense approach to make the current system work better. if you look at the outlines of the bill, it leads to the whole dismantlement of our current health care delivery system. that is not what the american people want. >> [inaudible] >> the supreme court decisions today are a big win for the first amendment. and is that in the right direction. i have always believed that sunshine was the best disinfectant. if you look at the campaign finance system, we have pushed

hundreds of millions of dollars out of the light and into the dark. it was still being spent, it was just that nobody could see where it was coming from. i still think that what they do in virginia is the most sensible way to have real campaign finance reform. have no limits, but allow every dime spent on behalf of the candidate or an issue to be published so that the american people have an idea of who is supporting what candidate or who is opposing what candidate. let the american people decide what money is enough. >> the chances for house republicans [unintelligible] >> it is way too early to make any predictions on that. >> a quick follow-up on the pay raise question. do you oppose automatic raises for congress? >> i did what i thought was

necessary for me as a member of congress wants the 27 amendment was enacted. the court decided it was not in violation. it becomes a very thorny issue. i will take a look at it. >> [inaudible] >> you will have asked the rnc -- to ask the rnc. >> in the insurance industry has said that they can't fix problems like discrimination on pre-existing conditions without a requirement. >> there are ways to make the current system work better. without having this individual -- thank you.

>> part of today's house session. the republican minority whip and a democratic majority leader steny hoyer debate health care and the economy. this is 45 minutes. country saw a pretty extraordinary election in massachusetts a few nights ago and from all reports it seems that part of the outcome of that election was due to the health care bill and the difficulties with which the gentleman's side has had in passing the bill. we on this side, madam speaker, would say there's been no bipartisan effort to pass a health care bill and so if we are going to see a resolution of the differences that the gentleman refers to, those

differences clearly being on the side of his side of the aisle because, madam speaker, we feel continued to be left out i would ask the gentleman if he has decided on whether he will bring up the senate bill or house bill again. will they be the process? will we see the process start over? will we see his side take the message from a message to shift the election to involve -- massachusetts election to a call the health care bill and have a transparent process the way we believe ought to happen as low as the american people should think happened? >> i think the gentleman for his questions. i do not want my science to be presumed as agreeing to his

premises. i think they are an accurate. having said that, there have been extraordinary exposures of the health care bill both in the house and senate to public discussion. there are an extraordinary number of hearings. as a gentleman well knows, and his party is accounted for president -- they both indicated that health reform was necessary. it received extensive debate by many other candidates as well. the demand is low where and

members on this side talk about it. they are being forced out. they are being confronted with 25% premium increases. the gentleman is well aware of the fact. health funding and health coverage is a challenge for our country and for our citizens. the gentleman mentions the election, the election obviously that occurred in massachusetts. like every election it dealt with many issues. my own view is that americans are most focused, as we need to be, on the creation of jobs, making sure that americans get back to work, have a livelihood that they can support themselves and their families. i think they're very concerned about that.

they're also concerned about the fact that we passed a health care bill. i've just read a poll, an exit poll, that indicates that majority of voters who voted for obama but voted for the new united states senator-elect from massachusetts believed that we ought to pass the health care bill. so obviously their vote for the new senator was based upon something other than that particular issue. so obviously there were a number of issues that impact on this election. but let me say, again, that almost all the candidates running for president last time, when they articulated a focus on national issues, focused on health care and the need to make sure that health care was available to all of our citizens. now, as it relates to the gentleman's bipartisan, the gentleman was quoted apparently just a few days ago about referring to our meeting.

our meeting, of course, dealt with a one-page recitation of three or four proposals, many of which are in the health care bill that we passed this house. in one fashion or another, notwithstanding that, of course, no republicans voted for the bill. i was not surprised at that, frankly, because in february apparently not based upon the specifics of a proposal, but the specifics of a proposal were not on the table until the summer, your campaign chairman, pete sessions, said republicans -- told republicans that they need to get over the idea that we're participating in legislation and ought to start thinking of themselves as an insurgency instead. he was quoted in "politico" at the virginia retreat, february

2, 2009. senator jim inhofe on the "hugh hewitt show" said, we can stall them, and that's going to be a huge gain for those of us that want to turn things over in the 2010 election. senator jim inhofe, as i said, said that. and then senator jim debent said also in july of 2009, if we're able to stop obama on this, referring to health care, it would be his waterloo, it will break him. very frankly, i tell my friend that i'm disgust with him and with mr. blunt, my good trent, who was his predecessor and with whom he worked in the whip organization and asked him to participate with us. i is it that early this year. i did it a little later in the

year. sometime before i met with you as well in trying to discuss, was there a way forward to work in a bipartisan fashion? unfortunately, that did not result in a bipartisan fashion. i will tell my friend on a smaller, more defined matter, the children's health insurance program, i spent about 100 hours trying to work with many on your side of the aisle to try to get in the last congress to try to get bipartisan agreement on moving children's health insurance. and as i'm sure you'll recall, because you weren't with us on that issue, we couldn't get bipartisan fwrement. so the answer to your question is, i'd like to have bipartisan discussions moving forward on this issue. but i have concluded from my

experience over the last year, and not just these -- i quote three but there have been other statements as well that indicate opposition for opposition sake has been adopted at least by some on your side as a strategy and as a tactic. i think the losers are not so much democrats in that context. i think the losers are the american people. they expect us and want us to work together towards resolving the issues that confront them, one of which is health care. they know it's an issue. i read the results in massachusetts, but i will tell you i also read the polls which when asked not so much about a bill but whether or not health care reform is needed in this country, a very significant majority of americans responded, they think it is. they think when they're denied coverage for pre-existing conditions that's a problem. they think when their child

becomes 26 years of age or now becomes 23 years of age and out of college and doesn't have insurance, they think that's a problem. they think when they have a very serious illness costing them thousands and thousands of dollars that an insurance company telling them, sorry, you cost too much, we can no longer insure you, they think that's a problem. so when they go depeeply into debt for health care -- deeply into debt for health care costs that's not covered by their health insurance company and declare bankruptcy and put their home at risk, they think that's a problem. so, yes, i tell my friend, these are issues we'd like to work together on and we hope that can happen. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, and i take the gentleman's comments to heart that he wants to do what's right by his constituents and the people of this country. but the question we have before us, the question that the voters of massachusetts had before them, just like the voters in virginia and new

jersey had a lot to do with the health care bill that this house deliberated upon and passed and the health care bill that the senate deliberated on and passed. madam speaker, i'd say to the gentleman, there's very little disagreement among the pollsters that have tested where the american people are on these health care bills. they are opposed to these health care bills. and you may insinuate that some of the comments that have been made by individuals in this body or the other on our side of the aisle were meant to obstruct, but i can tell you, madam -- i can tell the gentleman, madam speaker, that the american people right now want this health care bill defeated. they want health care rmpled, but not in the way -- reformed, but not in the way that's been constructed under either one of these bills. and if i recall, and i appreciate the gentleman's willingness to meet with me several months ago, and i don't

want to take his comments as being dismissive about a proposal because i handed him a summary, but i can tell the gentleman right here is the house republican bill. and there are elements in this bill we can both agree upon. the plan is still before us. and if we take into consideration that, we've got a plan. the public doesn't like the gentleman's plan. and fast forward to the discussion that the gentleman and i had on the floor, i believe, madam speaker, that the gentleman told me it was not worth his while to engage in conversation with republicans because we would not embrace the public option. i would tell the speaker -- mr. hoyer: will the gentleman yield on that point? mr. cantor: we still don't embrace a public option. we don't embrace it because it is a path toward single payer. so i'd ask the gentleman again, the speaker earlier today,

quote, i don't think it's possible to pass the senate bill in the house. i don't see the votes for it at this time. i'd ask the gentleman, madam speaker, if that is an accurate statement that we can then count on, and i'd yield. mr. hoyer: i don't know about counting on and i don't know what you mean by counting on. i think the speaker's comments this morning, you asked me if it was an accurate statement. i think she believes that's an accurate statement in terms of where the votes are today. i responded, as i told the gentleman, there's substantial differences. we're discussing those differences as we have been for some period of time. mr. cantor: i thank -- mr. hoyer: if i can make another comment. mr. cantor: i yield. mr. hoyer: the gentleman is very happy as i would be with the results of massachusetts, as we were very happy about the results in new york 23 where the health care bill was also

at issue, as the gentleman knows, if a district that we haven't won for 150 years a couple months ago and as the gentleman knows we won that district. in a district, as i said, unlike massachusetts that we haven't won in 150 years. but let me say something, your candidate who did win supported the massachusetts plan which has great similarity to the plan that he now opposes. so it's somewhat eye roonic that we would take -- ironic that we would take that as a bell weather. he voted -- bellweather. he voted on a plan much like our plan to try to reach the objective of covering all people. so he's already voted for a plan like that. he's indicated he's not going to vote for this plan. i understand that. it's not like he hasn't got a record of wanting to achieve the objectives that the bills that are under discussion are

trying to achieve. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. i'll respond simply by saying most indicators are the voters of that commonwealth voted for mr. brown because of his stances and one of those stances was that he would vote against the senate or the house health care bill as they were constructed. and i agree with the gentleman, we need to do something about health care. i'd remind him that it is the c.b.o. who has pointed out that our republican plan is the plan that actually does reduce health care premiums. that's where we started this whole discussion was to reduce health care costs for the american people and continue to reform the system so we can maintain the quality we have. and, madam speaker, i just say that it is time i think for this body to finally listen to the american people and what they're asking us to do.

run this body in an open and transparent way, stop the back room deals, the corn husband consider kickbacks, -- cornhusker kickbacks, the louisiana purchases so we can all deliberate out in the open, agree where we can agree to produce the positive reforms that the people expect. with that, madam speaker, i'd ask the gentleman what his intentions are or what he thinks we can see in this house as far as an attempt to address the issue that the majority leader said was the number one issue in the minds of the voters in massachusetts as well as the country and that is the economy. before we left for the winter break, we had a bill that came up that was dubbed a jobs bill. there was a lot of difficulty, i know on his side, in mustering the needed votes to get it passed. and i was wondering, is there

legislation he has in mind that would be offered to address the situation that americans confront which is double-digit unemployment, and i yield? mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his question. in answer to his question, we passed a jobs bill through this house in december. it's pending in the senate now. it's pending in the senate now. we believe that that we believe that a move forward done jobs. we think that is one of the answers. the focus is on him for structure. we think that is an important initiative to get people working immediately. we think that is very important. it also tries to help stage -- states said they are not laying off fire and police. the me say something.

i get a little confused. a cut i would remind you of these facts. we pursued an economic program that your party could forward from 2001 for eight years. well people gave us the majority in the house and senate in 2006, president obama threatened to or did veto any changes that we made. -- made in economic policy. that economic policies, which your party was a strong supporter of, you continued to mention jobs. i want to make sure you know the statistics. in the last three months of the bush administration, under the

economic policies and not only did to pursue now that you still want to pursue, the proposals that you have made essentially mirror the proposals that were made in 2001 and 2003. there were tallied by you and others. i am not one to go through all these quotes. quotes -- going to grow the economy, create jobs and have a robust growth in our economy. in november and december and january, that policy which you pursued lost 2,000,000,019 jobs in three months and we confronted the worst recession, the great recession, if you will, worse than at anytime in three quarters of a century. and it's somewhat confounds me

that it's still -- your party -- not necessarily you personally -- presents an economic policy which was the poorest job creating administration eight years since herbert hoover. an average of approximately 4,000 jobs per month. you needed 100,000 just to stay even. now, i'll tell the gentleman, since the recovery act, which you nor your party voted for, since the recovery act, let me tell you what the last quarter was. perhaps you know. we still have not succeeded in growing jobs. so we haven't had success. but we've had great progress. let me tell you how much progress. you lost in the last three months of your economic program 2,000,000,019 jobs. the last quarter we lost 208,000 jobs. a quarter, three months. that's way too many jobs. we want to be creating.

as the clinton administration did on average 220,000-plus jobs per month. 22 million in total over eight years. so i tell my friend that when the gentleman says we haven't had progress on this, those figures in my view belie that assertion. in fact, we've made progress. not only that, the stock market is up 60%. had a couple of bad days, it's up 60% since we adopted the recovery and reinvestment act. it had a minus growth under your economic policies during the eight years of the bush administration, minus to the extent it decreased in value so that the investment i had in 2001 was about 26% less valuable in december of 2008.

contrast that to the clinton administration in its eight years, the value of your stock portfolio or investments went up 226%. that's a 250% difference. so i tell my friend that we have taken very substantial action. we're going to take more action because until we get americans back on the job, until we get america growing so that it creates the kind of jobs our people need and must have to support themselves and their family, we're not going to be satisfied. so, yes, we passed a bill last month which you and your party voted against. we think that's unfortunate. and if you have ideas, i'd love to sit down with you again and discuss your ideas. very frankly, however, some of the ideas we discussed to date are some of the same ideas that in my opinion led to not such a robust job-creating economy. in fact, as i said, the worst

economy we've seen in 75 years. i yield back. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, madam speaker, and first of all i know that it is tempting for the gentleman to delve into the past, comparing the bush policies to the clinton policies. but i know the gentleman realizes we are in the year 2010, we have new challenges before us and i would say that the piece of information left out by the gentleman is the fact that it was his party that controlled congress during some of the period in which you cite the job loss. and in fact there have been 3.6 million jobs lost just since january of 2009. i would then say to the gentleman, as far as the stimulus bill that you speak of -- mr. hoyer: would the gentleman yield just on your assertion that we were -- does the gentleman -- mr. cantor: i will yield at the end of my statement. and what my point is, that the

stimulus bill that passed almost a year ago, there is growing consensus here that it is it was not -- that it was not sufficiently targeted toward job growth and in fact even the portion of infrastructure spending that the gentleman and hits pea -- and his party and this white house decided upon, the see -- the design of that spending, the associated press has come out with a study indicating it did not grow employment at the local level and the communities which we represent. so if we understand and know that that is not the way to grow jobs, that is the design of the stimulus bill, why would we vote for stimulus two? and in fact i would remind the gentleman as i know he remembers, the bipartisanship around the stimulus two vote in december doo -- deast was against the bill -- december was

against the bill. members on her side of the aisle voted against the bill because again i believe it is trying to get it right this time. so instead of the gentleman continuing to report to -- revert to years ago, i would remind him that we have presented to him as well as to the president a republican no-cost jobs plan. and the gentleman has dismissed that document and that plan saying that there is nothing for free. that we shouldn't be talking about things that we could do together that don't cost anything. i would say to the gentleman, the president himself has said that within the passage of three trade bills sitting in this body we could see the creation of 250,000 jobs. we have had discussions on this floor about whether those trade bills are coming forward. 250,000 jobs at no cost, seems

to me we really should go about doing that. as well as the other items that we listed in our no-cost jobs plan that the house republicans have put forward and i yield to the gentleman. mr. hoyer: -- mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. first let me observe that the gentleman, i don't blame you at all for not wanting to look back in history. i wouldn't want to stand on that record either. but it's important to look at history so that we don't repeat the same mistakes that the assertions that were made for the policies that you pursued of great growth and economic expansion, which did not occur, that's why i pointed out, because frankly your proposals mirror those that have been made in the past. and the premises that you have pursued are the same you're pursuing now. it's instructive, i think, for the american people and for us who represent them to look at what worked and what didn't work. your party unanimously opposed

the clinton economic policies. mr. army, an economist who was your majority leader, said that they would fail miserably. in fact, they succeeded mightily. they created those 22 million jobs that i said. in fact, in the last year when there was a slowdown, it created 1.8 million jobs as opposed to losing 3.8 million jobs under the last year of the bush administration. i think it's instructive to see what worked and what didn't. so that is why i refer to it. not because i think that will solve our problems going forward. i agree with the gentleman. what is important is, what are we going to do now? but we would be fools, as the writer said, to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. so i say that -- to my friend, when he asserts that we were in charge in 2007 and 2008, he and

i both know that economic policy was not changed. why? because the president of the united states who had the veto pen and the votes to sustain a veto, even when we tried to give four million children health insurance in america, that veto was sustained. they were not given that insurance until president obama signed the bill which was one of our first bills. so i say to my friend, looking back is useful only to the extent that you ensure that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past. the clinton economic program worked and the bush program did not and i want to tell my friend on his points for recovery, this so-called free recovery, supply side and recovery, if will you, one of the first things you want to do is stop the deluge of rules and regulations. quite frankly i tell my friend, one of the reasons we face

suched -- we faced such a crisis was the last administration took the referee off the field. as a result the referee being off the field, the players on the field went wild and they did irresponsible things and unfortunately the taxpayer of this country, in order to prevent a great depression as opposed to a great recession, had to respond. the good news, hopefully, is that we're going to get paid back. the president's made efforts to make sure that happens and i hope, you hope, i'm sure, that we do get paid back. you want to block tax increases in cutting taxes. we cut taxes for 95% of americans as i'm sure you know in the recovery and reinvestment act. you want to freeze investment in items like job training, infrastructure and education, to iranian in deficits and debt. you want to -- rein in deficits and debt. we don't think that's good policy. your program says you want to reform the unemployment system

by requiring people to participate in job training. we agree with that. but you have to make sure that the job training is available to them. approving the free trade agreements as the gentleman knows, i'm a supporter of the free trade agreements. i don't think it would create those 250,000 jobs tomorrow or the next month or the month after, but i agree with the gentleman that that's good policy. it's controversial policy, i say to my friend, as he well knows, on both sides of the aisle. you want to reduce taxpayers that inhibit domestic job creation, the recovery act, as you know, had tax cuts for small businesses to do exactly that. your side didn't support that. we also addressed the housing crisis by giving, you say, addressed the housing crisis by giving regulators incentives to deal responsibly with banks and their borrowers. however, as i pointed out earlier, in fact, and history

shows that, regulation and oversight and the referee being on the field was a policy that the previous administration thought got in the way. well, i think that referees that get in the way of the game are not useful but referees that make sure that people play by the rules are essential. i yield back. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. and i would simply respond that the republican no-cost jobs plan is a plan that was fashioned around the principle that we got to remove the uncertainty gripping the small businesses and job creators in this country. so, contrary to the suggestion that the gentleman made about the fact that we just want to get rid of regulation, what the plan actually said, madam speaker, was, to halt any proposed regulation expected to

have an economic cost or result in job loss or have a dispar at impact on small -- disparity impact on small bills. in the same way we call for lowering the deficit now, without raising taxes, because as we all know, people don't know where washington's next move is going. and so we said, let's every small business owner, every family is having to go through that exercise their having to cut a, not just freeze. in the same way, the suggestion that the house republicans would not some port transparency and regulations that will control them out of wall street. that is silly. of course to support efforts like that. the majority in congress has been very slow at getting the

message out to auditors, regulators in the fields that they should be reflecting the sentiment that the secretary treasury and chairman has said, which is we need to return back to some sense of normalcy. some sense of normalcy in the assessment of risk. we all know this country has been built on entrepreneurialism and opportunity it is not the we have seen our prosperity come from this government. that is where the differences lie. we do not believe that the way back to economic revival is through more change in economic policy. the gentleman can go ahead and suggest that the bush policies failed. i visit, i disagree. he lived probably defend the carter policy. i would disagree with that and say they were an utter failure.

he would say ronald reagan was a the year. i would disagree on that. what is really the problem here is that this government, under the majority's rule has continued to expand. we haven't been into the bailout culture. tarp program end there's another use that has come up for that money, which is an emergency program. every time we expect to say to business observers and the working families, let's stop sending signals that we're going to impose costs on you, so if it's a cap and trade bill, it's a card check bill or if it's a tax increase, why can't we just say stop, let the american people regain their sense of economic security and let the ingenuity in the private sector take hold again? i yield. hire mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i've heard that rhetoric for 24

years ere and i've certainly heard it for the last eight years. the gentleman likes to put words in my mouth about previous administrations that -- what i might say or did say. we're talking about policies that you want to replicate that have been pursue. that was my point -- pursued. that has been my point, it remains my point. did your policies work? you can argue all you want that you will say the bush administration policies worked, you have not in any way said the figures i have said on this floor, not only today but i've had many opportunities to look to see whether i'm accurate on those figures, are wrong. and point of fact, they did not produce what you said they were going to produce. we need to adopt policies that did produce. the reason i compare the clinton administration and the bush administration is because under the clinton administration you said the policies wouldn't work, i don't mean you personal -- personally, but your party said the policies wouldn't work.

in fact, the only administration, not the reagan administration, not the first bush administration, certainly not the second bush administration, that produced surpluses. after eight years they had a net surplus. no administration in your lifetime has had a net surplus after eight years other than the clinton administration under the economic policies we pursued then. not one. so from that perspective, not a question of failure, again, these statistics, you don't like. you prefer i simply look at the problems we're confronting why. no are we confronting these problems? because your economic program did not work and plunged us into the deepest recession we had in 75 years. now, i raise my voice only because you simply ignore that. you say that's just carpet. you say, oh, we don't want to look at what happened. we don't want to look at what our policies produced for eight years. we want to look in the eight. we do too. and what we wanted to do and

what we have been doing, as i pointed out to you, is trying to bring this economy out of the ditch in which we found it, in which the american people feel very stressed, properly so. so we have to get them back to jobs, and the first thing we had to do is stop losing so many jobs. again, i point, the last three months of the bush administration we lost two million jobs. the last quarter, last three months we've lost 200,000. way too many, but 1/10 of what your policies produced or did not produce in the last three months of the bush administration. that's so what, you say. let's not repeat those mistakes. let's invest in our future which is what we did in the recovery and reinvestment act. and mark zandy said we saved over a million jobs, 1.6 million, i believe he says, we would have lost had we not

passed that bill. so did it work perfectly? it worked better than the policies we were pursuing, frankly, that we inherited. that's my point. i think it's a valid point. if the gentleman disagrees with inside figures, i'd be glad to be corrected. i think they're accurate. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, madam speaker. mr. hoyer: let me say one additional thing. mr. cantor: i didn't yield, madam speaker. mr. hoyer: you took back the time. i didn't yield. mr. cantor: i yield. mr. hoyer: thank you. i agree with the gentleman, we need certainty. we tried to give certainty in the estate tax. your side voted against that. we tried to give certainty in tax extenders. we tried to extend the tax extenders. and your side didn't vote for that. i don't think you did either but i agree with your premise and wanted to make that clear. that's one of the reasons we

tried to pass -- making sure that doctors treating medicare patients knew what they'd be getting years out so that medicare would have a stability that it needs. i yield back. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, madam speaker. and i would say again, somehow in the gentleman's memory of these past years there is something that's left out and that is the -- this body and congress. because during the clinton years, the clinton years that saw prosperity, there was a republican control of congress. and they yielded tax policies that we believe could once again get us back on track. in the same way all the job losses that the gentleman continues to recite and point fingers and blame on the prior administration, if we're going to play that game, i would say that since his party has taken control of this body we've lost in this country 6.1 million

jobs. as he says, none of the job losses are acceptable. there are many ways to look at these figures and who was responsible for what and could claim credit for such. but at the end of the day what we're facing right now is a situation where the american people and the small businesses and the working families of this country need to regain some confidence. and so i would ask the gentleman directly if we're about removing uncertainty, is he willing to say to the small business owners out there and the people of this country, no card check bill this session, no cap and trade this session, no death tax this session and no hiking taxes in the time of unemployment that we are in? those are the things that we could send the message to the entrepreneurs and small businesses to lift this veil of

uncertainty. and i'd yield. mr. hoyer: mr. cantor, this is a scheduling colloquy. it's gone on a long time. and it is a very political colloquy. more political than even involved in with mr. delay, i think. that's good rhetoric. none of those are scheduled. the gentleman knows none of them are scheduled. the gentleman doesn't like the figures, and he harks back to the, we were in charge in 2007 and 2008. he knows well. what we're not talking about is blame. we're talking about what policies were enforced. if he says we changed the economic policies in 2007 and 2008, i'm glad to know what policies we were able to change and that president bush signed on to.

that's the issue. the gentleman wants to avoid that issue. the question is not blame. the question is, what policies worked and which policies did not? i suggest to the gentleman that all of the issues to which you referred in your question about the so-called death tax, the estate tax which affects approximately half of the percent of the american estates, as the gentleman knows, and which we wanted to frankly increase by $2.5 million permanently from what it would be under your policies of $1 million and 55% on january, 2011. it's now at zero. that was not intended to be the permanent policy. and you simply said you'd revert under the bill that you passed. not you personally.

so we want to make that certainty. so the answer is yes, we want to make that certain. we think that $3.5 million per person is a reasonable amount and will cover all but 1/10 of 1%. all the other items which you refer which animates your party and some in my party as well are not scheduled as the gentleman knows. i am not going to make assertions on what we will or will not schedule at this point in time, but i can tell you we don't have them scheduled. mr. cantor: well, i think the gentleman. i thank him for this indulgence in this lengthly colloquy. if the scheduling piece of this colloquy has now yielded, the fact that there is an uncertainty as to whether we'll see card check or whether we'll see cap and trade or whether we're going to see tax hikes,

then i think that's the message that's going to be delivered to the small businesses that we're going to count on to create jobs. but in closing, madam speaker, i'd note that from virginia to new jersey to massachusetts, the people of those states and i believe the people of america have spoken. and what the people want is a congress that will work in a bipartisan fashion to get the american people back to work. republicans on our part will continue to offer solutions just as we have done for the last year. and we hope -- mr. hoyer: will the gentleman yield on that issue? mr. cantor: i yield. mr. hoyer: did the gentleman believe that america spoke in november of 2008, not just a state, not just virginia, not just new jersey, not just massachusetts, does the gentleman believe that america spoke in 2008? in voting overwhelmly for the policies that this president put before to respond to the crisis that confronted our country and frankly none of us,

even at that point in time, perceived how deep the crisis was? we understand about votes. all of america voted handedly for this president who's put policies before this congress to try to address the issues of bringing our economy back, giving americans health care they could count on, making sure that we were energy independent. you talk about votes, this president was elected just approximately a little over a year ago. and to carry out the policies that he's been presenting. and notwithstanding that election, as i recall, your party has not supported his policies at all. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman for that and would say, madam speaker, in closing, yes. america voted 2008 for barack obama to become president of the united states. it is this november that the people had the opportunity in the two states with the

gubernatorial election and just this week the people of massachusetts had the opportunity to vote for their senate -- senator. based on the policies that have come out of this new administration and the majority in congress. it is those policies that were voted on this time, and it is those policies that i believe do not reflect the mainstream of america. and where the republicans stand ready to work with the gentleman and his party in trying to bring the debate and these policy solutions back towards where most americans feel we ought to be heading in

>> good morning, everybody. the committee meets this morning to consider the findings of the independent panel appointed by the secretary of defense following the tragedy at fort hood. the primary objective of the panel was to quote, determine whether there are programs, policies, or procedural weaknesses witness the department of defense that hurts the safety of the employees and families, closed quote. today's hearing is on the unrestricted report. a restricted annex entitled

oversight of the alleged perpetrator. it focuses on information which in the judge of the department of defense would prejudice a criminal prosecution. so our committee will have a closed session after this -- we'll have a closed session after this open hearing is concluded. our witness this is morning are togo west and vernon clark. we have reviewed their unrestricted report. members have had an opportunity to review the restricted annex. we welcome you both. we thank you for returning to government service for this very important task. it's a continuation of their great patriotism and loyalty. on the afternoon of november 5, 2009, the army field grade

officer opened fire on fellow soldiers in the soldier readiness center at fort hood texas killing 12 soldiers, and wounding or injurying 34 others. there's information in the public domain indicating that this tragic and violent incident was preceded by a number of indicatorred that would seemingly raise questions about major hasan's ability to serve. some of those indicators with e-mail contract with a radical muslim cleric in yemen, concerned about his expressed belief that religious law took press sent over the constitution. and some of the witnesses implicated sympathy for violence and concerned by superiors and

fears about his duty performance and his ratings. so there's a connect-the-dots issue here. there are a number of other investigations that will examine the failure to connect those dots. that is not part of today's open hearing. the department of defense's inquiry is one of several inquiry that is are or will be examining the incident. the president has directed a review of intelligence matters relating to this shooting. the fbi is connecting a review. and the military justice investigation is ongoing. the review that we will consider today was a first assessment of the department's policies and procedures. to identify gaps that warrant further investigation and action. clearly, there is no much that needs to be done. the secretary of defense is committed to tasking each service and pert than d.o.d.

agencies to conduct an in-depth follow on review based on the findings of this report. the secretary of defense gave this independent panel less than 60 days to conduct a quick-look review, quote the, to identify and address possible gaps and or deficiencies in the department of defense's programs, processes, and procedures, related to identifying d.o.d. employees who could potentially pose credible threats to themselves or others. the deficiency of the department of defense protections program, the deficiencies of the department of defense's emergency response to mass casualties situation at d.o.d. facilities and the responsibility to careful victims and families in the aftermath of a mass casualty situation and finally the execution and adequacy of army

programs, policies, and procedures as a applied to the alleged perpetrator. the panel completed it's work and delivered it's report to the secretary of defense on time. and that is remarkable. given the sort period of time over the holidays that the panel was given for this task. this could only be done under the strong leadership of our witnesses, who co-chaired the independent panel. a copy of the report of the department of defense independent review, entitled protecting the forest, lessons from forthood. he will be included in the record of this hearing. the independent panel made a total of 42 findings. with the associated recommendation in the basic report. where an additional 12 findings, excuse me in the restricted annex. the panel gives fort hood high marks for a quick and effective

response to this incident. while recognizing the defense department can and should do more to prepare for multiple simultaneous incident in the future. the panel found that some programs, policies, processes, and procedures, were adequate but were not complied with. and other policies are in need of revision to give commanders the tool that is they need to counterinternal threats as well as new threat that is may manifest themselves in the future. the report produced by the independent panel gives the department of defense a blueprint for additional reviews and resulting policy changes. for instance, the department will need to evaluate and update policies and procedures for identification of indicators of violence, clarify policy regarding religious accommodation, review and improve military personnel

records, and refocus the force protection programs on internal threats. this committee has a continuing interest in the findings, recommendation, and changes made based on these reviews. :

the tragic events last year at fort hood, i agree with the statement in your report that the events of november 5th, 2009 are first and foremost a tragedy for all involved, families colleagues in the nation. our thoughts and prayers continue for the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy. i appreciate the department defense initiated this review to scrutinize itself with regards to organizational shortcomings that led to the horrific killing subtwelve service members, one army civilian and the blending of 43 others. however, most of your report is devoted to personnel policies and emergency shooting response procedures. report concentrates on actions and effects rather than motivations. but it was motives that led to

the ft. hood killings and that should have been examined. whether-- whatever the political correctness implications. the panel supper to assist the department defense and the american people to understand the threat to national security and to our military personnel was undermined as a result. we have a profound responsibility to try to prevent harm to all americans, especially those who volunteer for service in the armed forces and have as a result become high-value targets for our enemies. i find insufficient information in this report to advance their identification and elimination of this threat. the omission in your report of adequately recognizing and addressing the specific threats posed by violent extremism to our military service members is troubling. we owe it to our service members and their families to be very candid in addressing the threat of violence driven by violent

islamic extremism. i believe general jack keene the former vice chief of staff of the army made the point clearly in his testimony on november 19th, when he said that we need to provide a service to all muslims serving in the armed forces by clearly describing the threats, explaining the indicators of potential problems and obliging all military personnel to report individuals to display these beliefs and actions. i believe the information compiled in the restricted evidence restricted antics to this report regarding failures in the performance of officers who supervised major hasan during his medical education will help to ensure accountability and corrective measures. much of this information not surprisingly has been leaked to the media and portrays a system badly in need of re-evaluation and reform. i expect the secretary of the army to move quickly to ensure

accountability for the shortcomings you identify. and to demand more from our officers and organizations. they should have the courage and integrity to identify substandard officers to represent potential threats to those around me. i also believe your findings and recommendations will add value in providing the department of defense and the services to take on the challenge of identifying the legal and regulatory barriers to information sharing called for in the report. there are in the reyes concerns that must be addressed in this regard. concerns about individual privacy, the threat of litigation, equal opportunity violations, the first amendment rights, a medical privacy including stigma from seeking treatment and abuse of authority are just a few. they represent a gordian knot that has to be cut. what happened at fort hood was something more than an isolated

incident, more than a random act of violence by an alleged perpetrator. it was a terrorist act struck against us as part of a broader war in which we are now engaged. without focusing on the threat posed today by violent islamic extremism to our military and family, we can't address those vulnerabilities and correct them. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much senator mccain and now we colin you, secretary west. >> thank you mr. chairman, senator mccain and distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity to testify before you on this important matter. i wonder if i might do one of two quick housekeeping things. you have i think in that ribboning opening statement the joint statement by both admiral clark and by me and we would ask you to include that in the record. and with that we will give a few

comments that bit of the road map to what is in the report although we are aware that you have had a chance to look through it. i will do the first group and then if you will permit i will take it from there. >> that would be fine, thank you. >> as you pointed out senator in mr. chairman and you also senator mccain, that day, november 5th was the day of tragedy. we all will remember it as such. out of that tragedy there are some instructive lessons for us. and those are what we address in our report. as you pointed out, secretary gates was specific in what he asked us to do, contained both in a memorandum to west and his terms of reference and in his statement at his press conference. that is important to us because it bounds are undertaking as to the time we were, within which we were asked to complete their work and also as to the fact that he the had already indicated his intention to have

a lengthier come tomorrow in depth follow-on review of both the report and the issues that we raise by the services. he has rtp gutknecht process of referring the report out for the follow-on activities. as you pointed out we were asked to look at personnel policies, specifically those that make identifications of those who are at risk of danger to their fellows in the service. to look at how those policies and practices and procedures allow us to deal with as a jury have identified those threats and to look at the ways in which there are gaps or deficiencies, his language, that we need to improve upon going for it. he also asked us to let get force protection measures. with the same idea of. not just in the army, but across

the board in the department of defense and the osd procedures and regulations, at the level of every service. thirdly, to look at our preparations and the policies concerning preparations for mass casualty events for responding to them, for our emergency procedures if you will. and finally, in that group of four to look at how we provide for the support of those who provide needed medical care to those who serve. the fifth assignment that he gave us was a very specifically stated one and they think it is one of the annexes to our, one of the annexes to our report and that is this, to examine the army's application of its procedures and policies to the alleged perpetrator prego i make that distinction because he did not ask us to go and explain what happened, although it is

certainly i think would appear to all of us, you and me as well that without an understanding of what happened we certainly could understand how the army applied the policy but on purpose and direction was to understand the are misapplication of its policies and procedures to the perpetrator. that is what is contained in our annex five. i should say to you as part of an understanding of how we organize and prepared for this that was the nephew going to be simply chapter 5 of the report. a report that we would submit to you today for recoup. after review, the department of lawyers concluded and i think they concluded properly that there was a great risk of interfering with the military justice, the criminal proceeding and that is why it was submitted to you as a restricted annex. with that in mind, we were told not to interfere with the

intelligence investigation that it proceeded more with the military justice investigation nor with the ongoing parallel fdi ricci you and we have made an attempt not to do so. what we did do was to organize ourselves into fivemsese teams s specific areas that we have described in the report submitted to their activities to less than than a week, et mcclerkan diane those who work directly with us to take responsibility for reviewing and stating our conclusions and their views with respect to that. our personal views are found throughout the report but they are specifically called out in the executive summary which you note we took the step of signing ourselves so that you would know that the summary came from us including those five or six recommendations for specific early action by the secretary of defense. let me report he has already taken some of those actions as we have talked.

we had also a board of advisers drawn from the senior ranks of the department, the military ranks whose purpose was not to lead the team of the two of them were team leaders but merely to review as we went and provide an overall perspective of what we were looking at and how we were stating its and hallet would affect real progress for the departments in terms of responding to what had happened. their help to us was invaluable, because when you think about it, otherwise the admiral had himself and me to bounce these things back and forth to, to discuss. the board of advisers gave us an additional group with the same broad range. a word or two at this point from both that mcclerkan me about the actual landscape of the report. what you have before you is five

chapters with an executive summary at the front and with some annexes. the first chapter is a very brief, one-page synopsis that we thought we could stay in a public report that is much more dealt with in detail in the annex and that is about the alleged perpetrator. the chapters to come the three, four and five are about the bulk of what the secretary asked this to look at. aye your attention to chapter 2 which is about personnel policies which is divided into three sections, one having to do with how we identify the kinds of things that can lead a person to become a danger to his or her colleagues. a second part of it has to do with sharing that information, getting it to the right place, and i point out to you that in our finding, 2.2 in that report, we acknowledged a specific

difficulty and that is of the fact that information that is obtained in one place does not always go forward with a service member to success of assignments. that is making it difficult for commanders to know exactly what they are dealing with. a third section in that chapter to has to do with the areas to action. three cummins, three observations before i ask your permission to have admiral clark take on the description to you of the other parts of the report. the first is this. there can never be too much preparation. in some ways we often could say that no matter how much preparation you have done there is more that could be done. at fort hood, the leaders had anticipated massive bense, m.a.s.h. casualty events in their emergency response plans

and it showed in their response. you have knowledge mr. chairman and has also did senator mccain, the response was prompt. within two minutes and 40 seconds of the first 9/11 call, first responders were on the scene of the shooting and by first responders i mean elements of the fort hood security forces. within a minute and a half after that, the assailant had been taken dumb. and come within two minutes in 50 seconds after that, to ambulances and an incident command vehicle from oppose hospital of arrived to begin to dispensed needed medical care. lives were saved, and yet as you have pointed out, 13 people died and scores of others, 43 were wounded.

we must prepare better, plan more intensively and take the hard effort to look around the corners of our future to try and anticipate the next potential incident. secondly, we must be attentive to today's hazards. today, the requirement that is imposed puts us in the defense department is to understand the forces that cause an individual to radicalize, to commit violent acts and thereby to make us vulnerable from within. and finally, the threat through all of this is violence. how do we detect the indicators of violence, how do we share the information about those indicators, and then whether we have the foresight to act.

thank you mr. chairman and with their permission and admiral clark will take it from here. >> thank you so much, admiral. >> good morning mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to talk about the work of secretary west and myself and the group of people who work with us in this effort. let me make a few comments and get right to questions. i know that you will have questions for us so first let me just talk about force protection for a moment. the principle message of our review with regard to force protection is simply this. there are lots of policies on force protection in side the department of defense. since 9/11, we have built many barriers. however, existing policies simply are not optimized to deal with the insider threat. the evolving threat that we see

today and when people talk about the new threats, we are talking about the insider threat. now, complicating the entire force protection challenge is the diverse nature of the way the department of defense has evolved since 9/11. and so, one of our recommendations to the secretary was that we have to look at the organization itself. on page 25 of the base report, kia find a description of the dairies under secretaries and assistant secretaries of defense that are charged with the responsibilities for working the force protection challenge. synchronization is difficult, and simply stated, no senior d.o.t. official is assigned overall responsibility for synchronizing this policy. notice senate sing one person should have all of the

responsibility. neither is secretary west. we were careful not to define the specific organization from the secretary of defense. our observation is synchronization is pretty difficult the way it is set up the way it is today and we recommend that it be looked at. the key point too is there has to be a mechanism in place to do this integration and that is our recommendation. secondly, the task of viding employees who potentially could threaten the workforce, and i'd ask us to remember the secretary asked us to look at files and so the question is, how do we identify individuals who have the potential for violent behavior? and certainly in our research we found that detecting a trusted insiders intention to commit a violent act requires observation skills that may not be in place.

this is the evolving threat, and so there is a requirement to understand behavioral cues and anomalies that would alert commanders in supervisors to know that such a threat exists. and while the department focuses very effectively on many things, there is insufficient knowledge and guidance concerning who this insider threat is. who are these people? there is insufficient guidance on workplace violence, and most importantly how to identify the person who has the potential to self radicalize. in our view it is simply insufficient. the key word here is violence. now, since the report does come out some have criticized us for not suggesting and talking enough about violent islamic

extremism. but, when we talk about self-radicalization and the term appears numerous times in our report, we are talking about the behavior's that create and lead to violence. that is what we are talking about. the lack of clarity for comprehensive vindicator slimness the commanders and supervisors ability to recognize potential threats. fixing this issue will be critical to solving this problem in the future. dod policy on prohibited activities, and i have the instruction here with me that talk specifically about what prohibitive activities are inside the department, this instruction in our deal is too limited and it only addresses active and very visible participation in groups that may pose threats to good order and discipline inside the ranks. so, we found that this lack of

clarity for comprehensive indicators which limit commanders in supervise its ability to recognize the potential threats and so we are talking about whether, we are talking about people who could hurt themselves. the secretary of defense cited specifically people's been hurt themselves. for example the issue of suicide. criminal in gang behavior, people advocating supremist doctrine, family violence evolving threats like self-radicalization, identifying these key indicators is criminal to focusing the force on the threat. let's talk about information sharing. secretary west addressed it also and let me just make a couple of points. the policies governing information exchange inside the department and in the interagency, intergovernmental system itself also, in our view

the policies for-- word addition. they do not support detection and mitigation of the int maintd transferring her old and information fr one duty station to the other. now, remember we are doing phase one of this as you talked about mr. chairman. we did this with you in a hurrys the services can go fix in a hurry and it is our view that this internal information exchange has got to be examined. in other words, how can a commander connect the dots that they don't have the, some information maintained at the local level and has since transferred from one commands to another and i will tell you that automated systems inside the services did not allow them to share information on for example registered users in persons who routinely come and go from a base and may become a threat, said the issue of maintaining in

transferring all of the relevant information, information that could lead to the ads in the vacation of contributing factors, that is the issue. last friday the secretary of defense and his press conference stood and address his observations about our report and one of the things that i was happy to see him address was his comment that secretary west and i are of the view that we have to become more adaptable and certainly we this environment, bringing a wide and continuously evolving range of tools and techniques and programs into place. i just want to emphasize that there is no single point solution for this evolving threat. we have to keep working at it. no, what the other point about information sharing. certainly, robust information sharing is an essential. and in glove with that information is the

required command and control apparatus, be it systems, policy, doctrine, a tactic techniques and procedures to convert this information in a timely decisions and actions. the bottom line mr. chairman, members of the committee, we have got to remove the barriers. all of the barriers. we have to equip and enable the commanders and the people in decision-making positions to take their ability. mr. chairman you use the phrase, to connect the dots. we have got to get the information and thus the indicators to the appropriate e. secretary west address this mr. chairman. dew also certainly did justice to the brilliance of the people's fort hood in their actions. lots of good news related to the emergency response.

mr. chairman and members i just want to try to put this in perspective, and so you know i committed my life in service for 37 years. i created in those 37 years a number of lessons learned myself that i heard dozens of lessons learned. on the second day that our team was in existence, secretary west and i got on a plane with 50 members of our team and we went to fort hood. and, we walked the ground that they showed as the space for all this happened and we looked at the terrain. and then we sat down with general colin and his command team and they gave us this presentation that had been turned in a matter of a few days and their lessons learned and i want to tell you that i was real impressed, so i heard a lot of them in my 37 years and i want you to know that i'd never ever heard a better one than i heard it fort hood that day. the base personnel were ready to

respond. they have trained at this, they had worked at it. secretary west talk about the timeline response, the response to the active shooter. it was brilliant. and all of that said, it still could have been better and in our ricky we found areas where it could be better and in their own lessons learned they identified the areas where it could be better. i have spoken on the last subject about the command-and-control system. they need a better system. general cohon had to deal with misinformation and should anybody be surprised? i don't think so. there's never been a crisis ever that there wasn't misinformation. being able to do with it in a rapid way in being able to deal with a potential multiply dent mr. chairman as you indicated, is critical. and so, fundamentally we believe that we can improve by providing aid well integrated means to

gather and evaluate the and disseminate the wide range of information that will make it possible for commanders to perform to the maximum. and so, this report is about focusing on better tools for commanders. this report is about focusing on violence prevention and whatever form that violence manifest itself. this report is about adapting, adapting an evolving through rapid change, sharing information, connecting the dots and exercising against the most stressing and pressing some areas that we know how to present so that we satisfy ourselves that we are able to perform to the standards we have identified for ourselves. and then i want to close by just acknowledging my alignment with all the comments that then made about the people at fort hood, the families that have suffered loss and just say that the

thrust of our work has been to do everything we know how to do, to identify policies and procedures and practices and programs that can be made better, said that the united states armed forces continued to beat the outstanding force that it is today. thank you very much mr. chairman and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you admiral. thank you both very much. let's try the first round. the panel found that the quote department of defense policy regarding religious accommodation lacks a clear the necessary to help commanders distinguished appropriator religious practices from those that might indicate a potential for violence or self-radicalization, closed quote. i think what you are saying is that obviously this country believe sin religious tolerance,

tolerance of the other religions, but it can never be tolerance of violence, radical views that are dressed up in religious garb. i think that is, that point reworded, i couldn't agree with you more. sometimes the views that are clearly either inherently violent promote violence are dressed up in religious clothing, and that automatically means that people who are sensitive to others' religious views then are kind of put on the defense of right away or reluctant right away to point out what is underneath the claim of religion. in so, the line has got to be there obviously. we want to continue our

tolerance, but we have got to be much more and tolerant of these that are radical that promote violence, or encourage violence. and so, my first question i guess to you is that the policy of the department, which is limited to and addresses only active participation in groups that pose threats to good order and discipline is far too narrow a policy, because of the self-radicalization point. you don't have to participate in a group that opposes that kind of a threat to be a threat to yourself. and so, i guess my first question is, how would you-- i know if you are not here to provide remedies. that was not your job but i assume that you agree that it was just not that that policy

should be examined but in your judgment at least it is just simply too limited a policy. and i am wondering whether not for instance you would agree that communication with a radical clerics who promotes violence is the kind of contact that should raise real questions. would you agree with that even though it is not active participation at that point? it is just simply communication, asking someone for their recommendations and use. would you agree that that ought to be raising a great suspicion, without getting into this particular case? >> mr. chairman i would certainly agree, i think we both would and i think your larger point that this is an example of we would agree with as well, and that is yes, in the past perhaps

membership alone in a group may have been less looked upon the actual act of doing things, but in this environment, we have to look at the group. we have to understand its purposes and it is already considered by some that there is a tool that enables the commander to declare certain kinds of action, including that come a threats to his immediate areas of good order and discipline that we think the department defense can simply strengthen the ability of commanders to look at and examine exactly what kind of activity they are permitting and whether or not we can better define it. group membership in a group of that sort has a record of active advocation of violence and as well as your point, communication, especially repeated communication. again referring to no particular case. with those who advocate violence, those are all signals

that we need to be able to indicate in their publications and in the regulations commanders that authorized to look at and react to. >> and even if there were active communication-- excuse me, active participation our communication with radical persons who are promoting violence, even if there is simply the expression of views which promotes violence, without any information about participation in a group or a communication with radical extremists. if somebody gets up and says, i believe that's the constitution comes in second, and that my religious views of come in first, would that not be that kind of a signal which ought to indicate some real genuine concern? would you agree with that? >> i certainly do agree with

that, and it goes without saying that where we draw our red lines this week very important point, but you know if you look at our history, we as people, as americans have always been very careful working about where we draw those lines. i so appreciate your introduction to this question and your comments about, that we are a tolerant people. when i look of the dod instruction here talks about what people can do when they are at work, and things that they can't do at work but they can do in their private time. and what we are suggesting is that we have to better understand how people go through this process. from being a non-radicalized person to radicalization and what does it mean, and so, i aligned with your comments

completely. i want to make one other observation mr. chairman. in our report, we talk about active-duty members of the military, but you know the department of defense is much broader than just reacted to the people in uniform and we also understand that when americans raise their right hand to take a pledge to serve in the armed forces that there are some freedoms that they set on the shelf. the challenge that we are facing here in security applies to everybody in the department and that includes civilians as well and contractors and the whole nother body of people and then you could look of this and say, you know this is not just the department of defense. this is the whole of our nation and the whole of government. this is a real challenge that we face. and it is clear, so you made the comment on the shipmate, here was the comment that was being made approaching a defined

red-lined are crossing a defined red line. we must make sure our people understand where those red lines are in that means we must have a very effective education program, and our reach program that people understand. this is about our own security and their right to self-defense is absolutely not a question we have the right to do that. >> people should not be afraid of reporting information that they believe in good judgment represents the potential threat to good order of discipline and to the safety of the country or of their own group out of fear that there might be, that might be viewed by some as being intolerant of religious views. we have got to simply allow people the freedom to report something which they believe is a threat to their group, their country or to the individual

himself and not be dissuaded by the fact that the views are dressed in some religious garb. >> good order and discipline is the fabric upon which the greatness of the united states military is built and we have to ensure that we do everything we know how to do to protect it. >> secretary west, did you want to add anything to that? >> no, i think the admiral, the .-made which is we essentially, to the effect that we are talking about expressions and expressions in many cases expressions in many cases pertain to religion,@@@@d@ @ @

certain timetable or is there somebody else in the department that is on the remedies side of what you have outlined here? >> the answer tear question is twofold. will take the second first which is yes on this follow-on review he is ordering two sets of things. he is in the process. one he is going to ask a senior member of his staff, we believe but we don't want to commit him.

it is his priority, not ours. perhaps the assistant secretary for homeland defense or security, not authorized to make that statement, don't know but i believe to conduct a follow-on refute but each of the services also, and part of their job is to take this report, referred to them and provide their recommendations as how to implement. that is the first-- second answer. the first answer is in some ways to give admiral clark and me to much of the by. the fact was to come up with actionable recommendations as well. >> alright, that case i withdraw that comment. your recommendations then, to be acted upon in a certain period of time? >> i am not clear. >> whatever is referring to is this. you say there's an adequate clarity on the issue we have been discussing.

the recommendation is a general one, provide clarity but it is not specific clarity. you should provide clarity mr. secretary and i couldn't agree with you more but it is not what the new regulations should be. that is fine to be left up to the secretary. that is what i meant when i said he was not provided a specific new language that should be in place, replacing the hon clear language. that is what i meant by that. nellis there a timetable? >> there is a timetable. he pronounced it friday. >> what is it? >> he wants first impressions back in march and he wants to wrap this up by june. if you read the language, weaver very careful with their recommendations. first of all, you confirmed the secretary of defense and that allows him to be the person who makes policy and we were very aware of the fact that at one

point in our lives we were those people, but we are not those people today. serwer we suggested on numerous occasions he review policy, because we thought there were holes or weaknesses or gaps, there were some places that the language is slightly stronger. it is absolutely clear to us that policy and we say sometimes it is an adequate, but we tee'd it up and away so that they cannot put the spotlight on it and he is given them a timetable. >> thank you. senator inhofe. >> thank you mr. chairman and i want to pick up on two things he mentioned in the first one i will be criticized for. it is not clinically correct, but i will make this statement. when you are round washington and in these hearings is one thing but when you go back to oklahoma as they do every week, that is another thing and i am always hit up with this idea because we are talking about the

fort hood they now but i can talk to you about abdulmutallab, the christmas bomber, the extremist views were evident from the university college london and goes on and on. 19 november the father reports and we all know about that report. lathe november he was added to the u.s. 550 name terrorist identified as the day the market all of this stuff. all this stuff that we knew but that is not your pretty, i understand that but nonetheless it is the same. a terrorist is a terrorist and that is what they do for a living. they kill people and i for one, notice not politically correct to say i believe in ethnic and racial profiling. if you are looking at people getting on an airplane and you have x amount of resources come again need to get at the targets. i just think it is something that should be looked into. the statement that has been made is probably 90% truth, with some

exceptions to the federal office building in my state of oklahoma. they were not middle easterners but when you hear that not all middle easterners or muslims between ages of 20 and 35 r terrorist alterius are muslims or middle easterners between the ages of 20 and 35 that is by and large true and i think that sometime we are going to have to really come at least i'm going to have to have a better answer when people aboard planes and get into environments such as the environment we are dealing with with this report. i guess nothing more needs to be said from you guys on this. let me first of all say, which i said it said that first there are no to other people better qualified to do the job than the two of you and have been good friends of mine for a long period of time. now, so that we can talk about

it i think a little more easier, your purview is really a domestic. most of what you were talking about was making the recommendations coming from what happened with the incident at fort hood. did you look into outside the united states, where thousands and thousands of troops all over the world and to me, the threat is probably a little bit greater there than it would be here. what futzed you have on that or maybe recommendations he would have on that to expand what you are doing to include that? >> we certainly did. senator, the first thing that comes to my mind is every base where we exist overseas, we have not americans working with us on the base. what are the processes and procedures for setting these people? so, we challenge it and we have a section in the report that

talks about security clearances and how people gain access. so when we are trying to come of the second thing i talked about, identifying people who could become a threat, one of the things we have to look at is how we have that people in the conas environment. i would suggest to you and frankly this would probably be better, the details we might talk about in closed session but i would suggest to you that it was our conviction and we would not have put it in the report if we didn't think that this was certainly a potential weakness. >> yeah. >> maya at senator dis? if we take the lesson of fort hood and admittedly we will talk more specifically when you have your closed session, we have to be reminded that the thesis on which we are dealing here is essentially for this whole report is the threat within.

the member of the military family who then turned against his or her fellow soldier, airmen, sailors, marine, coast guard person, and the difficulty there, whether it is conas comeau with the universal access card, their id, they can enter what should be the safest place either here or there, the base, the post, freely with their automated systems now. we don't stop them for routine checks. and so, we can't, we can-- certainly one of the lessons learned at fort hood was some roving checks, even those who have the credentials, but the place to stop them, the insider who is a threat is not at the gate. it is to identify him or her

before they can get onto the poston to that act. and that is why all those signs that we talk about, all the queues and behavioral indications, even the ones that the chairman mentioned, are important for us to reemphasize, to expand it to focus on to make sure command has that information and that applies both here and overseas. >> you know, one of the things that came out that was discussed here by the chairman was whether we can move this along faster. i think you want to do that and we want to do that. we have still some of the recommendations of the 9/11 recommendation that are not fully implemented then understood so i assume that you share those feelings. i was down at fort hood about three weeks before this incident, and that was when we had two of our oklahoma units deployed overseas and i was down

there for that defense. and then i went down afterwards for the event that took place after the tragedy. you had said, and i asked my staff to hand it to me so i could read it again, this is pretty remarkable mr. secretary when you said to minutes in 40 seconds after the initial 91 one-call insulation first responders arrived on the scene, one and a half minutes later the assailant was incapacitated. to ambulances and incident command vehicles from defense for their two minutes and 50 seconds later. that is really moving. i would recommend it may be you have party done this but that you find out not always looking at what is wrong but learn from what was done, what was right and in this case i think it would serve as well to see how they did that remarkable job. i want to see it in writing at you say because i think that is remarkable and i recommend you do that. >> it was remarkable and we did

think one of our jobs was to find out if that was the result of that planning, courageous and fast action, was there an element of luck and if it is what we believe in what we have said, excellent planning and well executed, is there a lesson to pass across the force? one other thing i would add. i don't want to overdo but, let me add it any way. we tried as best we could to figure out what that meant from the passage of time from the first shot by the assailant to his last. that is, the holy center, because the uncertainty part was how quickly they 91 one-call got in after the first shot was fired. the best we can make is that the whole shooting incident was ending by our security forces between seven and eight minutes after it started. >> were you surprised that too? >> i certainly was, so one of

our strategies frankly senator-- this kind of a panel is supposed to find things that are wrong. that is what we are supposed to do but if you notice we leave with some strong statements about what we thought was right because we wanted it up front that the people at fort hood did a fabulous job. you know i testified yesterday in the staff reminded me that i said that the lists are excellent or outstanding 19 times yesterday, but i want to drive the point home. i said this was the best lessons learned i had ever seen and the performance of the people were brilliant. were there things that could have been better? yes. one of the reasons was it was brilliant because of the brilliance of our people. they are so good. and of course, nobody had a stop what's going on inside the room where he was shooting so that is why we don't know the exact time as the secretary indicated between the first shot and the 91 one-call here is what we do

know. there were a lot more browns available. and they took that shooter down, and the sea ideate ginned was handcuffed to him in a matter of moments and was with him from that point on. >> let me commend all of them for the fine work they did. >> it was incredible. >> thank you. i would just take two seconds just to say i disagree with your comments about middle easterners and muslims and the implications of those comments. i would want to say that, except what you are here. >> i understand that. i expected that. >> senator reid. >> thank you mr. chairman. admiral clark, you mentioned in terms of the threats of generic self-radicalization that would lead to violence and there are several different issues, as you suggest categories.

that is not simply islamic radicals but a host of others. is there a strategy and the department defense to identify these potential categories into an essentially work explicitly against them or to at least be aware of them? >> first point, the people in the public domain say we did not use the magic term, radical islamists, and so we didn't do it on@@@@ki@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

the group that focuses on this full time, across this-- i have this whole series of kinds of behaviors that we are talking about, criminal, drug, domestic abuse, gang activity come supremist ideology, sex crimes, sabotaged, arson, domestic violence. peart talking about all of these. and so, i chose that is the

response to your question. >> mr. secretary to melbany comments? >> there is an annex to our report that discusses the sources of violence in some detail. it is an example of the pieces that our research is consulted and i think it is very informative. i agree with the admiral's response. while sojourner executive summary of the five or six key things that we recommended to the secretary that we pull out from this report is the suggestion of a body that will collect the indicators of violence, update them in light of current circumstances, of the then cqynar world, and then make them available on an updated basis to the commander sent supervisors who need to use them to make their judgments. >> let me again turn to admiral.

did you believe or conclude that there was adequate information coming from walter reed to fort hood with respect to the major-- i mean was there a problem there in terms of you know, letters of reprimand that might have been issued in a formal reprimand that we never fully communicated to the commanders at fort hood, really weren't able to gauge the seriousness of this individual? >> senator, i wonder if you would let us discuss that in a restricted session? >> i appreciate that. there is another issue and this might come of this i thank can be, i will let you decide, discussed in public. there were many indicators about mr. hasan's professional skills, is far removed from his religious beliefs and his

discussions. just his simple confidence, his ability to work with others, those things that are fundamental for being an officer in the military. and yet he was sort of moved along and i know this question has come up and in these critical areas, where there are not a surplus of individuals such as mental health professionals, psychiatrists, etc., is there a double standard in terms of had he been a line officer or an infantry officer or artillery office. his radicalization but a simple performance with that have been-- gotten him kicked out? >> we are prepared to discuss that with the but we would ask you to do that in a restricted session. >> i appreciate that. >> certainly the part of what we have to say is an annex. we used the word officership in

the open report. officership was intended to mean more than just leadership and it was our view that there were officers ship deficiencies, and in the closed session we can talk in great detail about the specifics of that. >> just one final question. >> senator i would just add also come in our one page summary discussion in chapter 1 that is in the open report, we did mention the findings and recommendations which had to do with the army application of its policies to the perpetrator. but also in the fact that there were signs that were missed and some that as far as we could tell were ignored. that is in the open part of the state and. >> thank you mr. secretary. again, part of this response is going to be training, not just

commanders but individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. we have something that when it comes to traditional subversion and espionage and the old world war ii loose lips sink ships and that emphasis is persistent. do you envision something like that in terms of sort of the training elements going forward? >> i mentioned just briefly but probably did not emphasize it well enough. there clearly has to be in our reach program here. >> at reach program, i'm not talking about an hour rege program outside the department. i am talking about inside the department and notice, the secretary of defense said on friday and we suggested that communication, effective communication is the order of the day here in secretary started that process on friday.

when he said to commanders, this isn't just a ho-hum daily, and i am paraphrasing now, ho-hum regular day-to-day stuff. commanders have to look past the day to day. there is no doubt that a very effective training in outreach program is part of an effective solution. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you senator reach. senator chambliss. >> thank you chairman and gentlemen you previously have served their country well in your respective capacities and we appreciate you coming back once again to help the steel with an issue that obviously is extremely important. at the same time extremely sensitive, so thank you for your continuing service. ..

to identify a soldier who may be becoming self radicalized as we think happened here and appropriately address the threat they represent. >> i'm going to let mr. clarke have a good swing at that because it is expensive experience with oer satellite. so let me tell you what we are

responding to here. the fact that there is a very good argument that there are tools out there commanders can use to make the assessments they need to make. the question for us though is are there ways to strengthen what they can do? and have we learned anything about the incident we faced and will discuss with you in a closed session from this instance about how we can sort not up? and one thing is, that frankly, things like officer efficiency boys in the services is all of them. mr. clarke and speak more than i can. but doesn't always find and report the kinds of things that would be better to report. for one reason, it may be the cause of the information of some offensive previous uses that have been a real ballot tatian efforts or of some other type of sign me up and left to the discussion of the commander to whether he could keep silbury

curd could be in the oer. it never gets to that in command or supervisor. and suddenly earlier science are lost in the mix as they move forward. we need to shore that up. we said to the secretary and our executive summary and her five or six big recommendations, you need to say to the officer corps of the nation and all the service if that which he reports on these oer's and things like service school academic evaluation reports that takes the place of the oer bonaire and service call. you need to say that that matters and that it has to be accurate and most of all complete so that we can make the judgments we need to make. now that's the thrust of what we're doing here. so yes, reports exist, but they're not being made use of in a way that fits what we need in

these new and trying times. >> city think it's a further education of those supervisors that are making or asking the questions and making a report back >> i have an answer to that. but i want to get admiral clark embossed by saying yes, but also making sure that the standards and maybe that is education are implying. >> admiral clark? >> i don't know the firstborn that you reference. i have the second forms here in front of me so i can talk specifically. >> afford a 56 is the army and development so counseling form which i understand is completed one figure as a quarterly report for the enlisted and officer personnel. >> i don't have that in front of me that i would say that for minotaurs e-echo affect the width it would be great if the

person knows what the indicators are. and our reviews suggest that in the area of self radicalization that can be very fuzzy. and so -- and the reason we suggested the fbi as they vardy started doing some work here, so we're saying to the secretary, don't start from scratch, but also the recommendation to use every expert that we know how to get because we're looking for behavioral fuse. and these are subtleties. and once those unknown, i have every confidence that our leadership, our supervisors will now have to deal with that. my interpretation of that was we were talking about an education and that's why we've got to have an outreach program that gives the right training to the right people so they understanding of these issues. >> if i'm hearing you right, with regard to which both of you

setting your statement in your answers to your questions by far, we did a great job responding at turn six, our men and women were courageous and heroic intimated job. but with the events leading up to the incident, we got some major deficiencies. in fact, admiral, you alluded to this i think you call it an evolving threat for your exact words that you said earlier. are there any protection or preventative measures that are in place to detect for example an individual who is one of those folks that i would categorize as an evolving threats, who might simply join in a branch of military with the intention of duplicating what happened at fort hood? what if we got in place now or what do we need to do to ensure that we don't have somebody who spent the last six months and yemen were four years ago spent six months in yemen with the

idea of ultimately coming back and having been framed to go when and if the cape event? >> or even who spent a bunch of years or months out in the wilds of her country becoming radicalized in a different way under different impressions. the question is the same. you're right, senator, there was no feeling by those at fort hood and a response. if there were gaps, and within us as we try to prepare ourselves to identify those factors that would say this person is going to be a problem. we need to act. but i think your question was for the admiral. >> i agree completely with what secretary west has said. and now we're talking with the thrust of your question gets us to this issue of the identification question that i raised this point too. and that identification question

basis things about the manner in which we do checks and what's involved there. and i think it would be smart not to inform an enemy in a public way about my particular impression if it's all right with you that we talk about that in closed session. but affirming your comments, this is part of the challenge. and by the way, should we not expect that they are going use every technique and scheme of every technique and scheme of maneuver that they could figure

the reason we have members in record on the representation of people of various relations and our forces is because they self identify. they say, this is my religion or i'm an episcopalian or what have you. what about those who formulate a reason to hide their purposes? i don't disclose their religion. don't disclose anything that would cause less to try to -- this is not your term, to try to profile. it's the indicators, the behavioral cues that we have to

rely on. they are our only way of getting at this in any organized and aggressive and effective way. >> and one more comment and so that you know, the alleged perpetrator was initially in the army as an enlisted person and he went off and went to school. when he came in the army the first time, he professed to be a member of the islamic faith. and when he came in as an officer, he did not declare. so all of the indicators are right in front of our nose, but i've got all the statistics here to talk about every brand of religion that we know about. the reality is that the way over half of our people never, ever declare what they choose not to declare. so it's not always immediately apparent and that's why this is a challenge. but really focusing on the behaviors and that's what we wanted to put the spotlight on. the department in its guidance

and instruction to the commanders and all the people in the field are going to go by this document. and this document doesn't have to associate guidance about self radicalization. >> thank you, senator nelson. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for your dedication and time and putting together very well organized and i think insightful reports. i appreciate it very much. so far we haven't really talked about, let's say, patient or the evaluation process. and of course, connecting the dots requires that kind of an evaluation capability for it to be able to tell us anything in determining behavior if you don't have all the background, perhaps you can't establish that. violence in the workplace is not unique now to the military. it's part of everyday life, unfortunately. and that kind of violence isn't

necessarily a result of self radicalization in the workforce. so i'm wondering, and connecting the dots as he looks forward not only self radicalization, do you look for other indicators in your report and shouldn't the military look for others such as marital difficulties and other areas that admiral clark, you identify a condition. because self radicalization is a subset of an overall problem when we talk about workforce violence. it may be that the military is more unique -- is unique in that respect because it's not just about domestic. we also have to face it on our military posts around the world. so when connecting the dots, you think we understand that not all radicals will be engaging in violence and not everyone with a different idea will engage in violent. so what are the things that can

be looked at in performance evaluations that would help us detect potential violence coming not just from self radicalization, but from others as well? >> is a really great question and it drives us back to, as i review the guidance that's there today, we find that there are good indicators in a lot of areas. and i've mentioned a number of these that include the two that you talk about. although, our view as the whole workplace side is we tend to focus on the kind of violence that takes place away from the workplace, not in the worst place. but let's just talk about the domestic peace corps example. earlier we talked about the requirement for balance. we have been dealing with this for years. so we learned a long time ago that if the balance was

incorrect, we were going to have difficulty because a domestic violence situation always has a she says he says scenario i'm going. and so, we know how to do these things when we identify the behaviors. now the reason -- and so, you are correct. we have -- we've got them -- >> we have the tools right now. >> does is why we're suggesting that perhaps we went to consider the establishment of an organization, a piece of the structure that does this for a living. because this isn't -- you can't, you or i cannot define a solution set today and everything be perfect for the next three years. it's going to change. our suggestion is we need to understand the evolving world

that we're facing. let us not get sidetracked on a little piece of this. the secretary's goal was to make the workplace a safe environment. and imagine, and secretary west really alluded to this. when the alleged perpetrator, he was an officer in the military. he was a field grade officer. this implies trust. he's a medical doctor, implies more dressed. he's somebody that a person would confide in. we can't have these kinds of people turning from the inside on our people and destroying the fabric of the institution and what we're all about. and so, we are convinced that this plan calls for the kind of investment that will ensure that we are staying up with the adoption problem, that this is a challenge to be adaptive. i'm so pleased that the

secretary of defense addresses straight up on friday and said we've got to create more deputy force. >> just as an add-on, in terms of your question, what are some of the things that should be indicators? we have a whole list of recommendations and incidentally in our appendix c. for purposes of being helpful to you, we list all the recommendation, the findings of recommendations and something about them so it's easier for you to find them without having to go all through. so at about 2.6 or so and all the way through that to 2.10 or so, there's a list of things that address which you said for example. you said, what about medical? well, so did we. we know that the medical indication and medical records are protected and they should be. but we raised the question of whether we should review whether there are ways to make some of

that history, especially when it pertains to something i've said before, abuse and the like available on a more regular basis to those who need to have these indicators. >> and you don't have all the dots, you can't connect them. >> exactly. >> thank you come on mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator nelson. senator thune. >> thank you and i want to express my appreciation to the admiral for all of your service to this country and obviously being called back in the service your extraordinary work in regard to this tragic incident. i also want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to those who lost in my members and loved ones during this terrible event. it was a horrific event in our nations history. the fact it happened at fort hood, a place where more people have deployed to fight against terrorism than any other place is really heartbreaking and our heartfelt appreciation goes to those first responders who once

informed of the situations you will have noted. they showed tremendous professionalism and duty and in doing so saved a lot of lives. i want to ask you about a couple of findings in your report. one is finding 3.8 february view, which states and i quote, the department of defense does not have a policy governing privately owned weapons, and quotes. your recommendation states that dod needs to repeal the need for such a policy. and i guess my question is, can you explain what you mean by a privately owned weapons policy? >> there exists, for example, at fort hood, which among other things is a popular place for hunting. and so a lot of folks come on to hunt. the effort to have some sort of control over guns has to be carefully balanced against the need to come and use it, but

also the security of the post. we've got works and it works at a number of installations as this, if you live, first of all, a weapon issued by the united states military to its personnel are locked in the armory if you're listed, they are secured. so on the day of the event, the only armed person on the scene until those were part of the security force was the perpetrator. the policy works this way then. if you live in the barracks, then your privately owned weapon must of course be owned and publicly registered according to the state and federal law and the like, but also needs to be registered so they know what's there. and if you live in the barracks, it is also secured the army.

if you live in personal quarters on the barracks, probably registered with the commander, but you keep them in your home. if you live off the pace, the only requirement is that they be registered in the courts of state and federal law because you don't have it on the base. if you bring them onto the base, previously there was no way to know when that happened if you were a card-carrying member of the armed forces, if you had your credentials. now there's going to be a requirement and i guess there always was, you are subject to the same role as anyone bringing privately on records on the base. let us know that you're bringing them on breaking at the gates. what doesn't exist is any way in which bringing them on and concealing them, if you worry credentialed member of the armed forces could have been detect it. we really don't have the answer

in how to deal with that. but if we do know that it is a gap in the protection that was accorded to those that day. we know one other thing. the policies vary from post to post. so the question we raise is simply this, give some thought, dod, see which to have a dod policy with respect to the bringing and the use of private west end weapons by the post of members of the u.s. military. fairly straightforward. >> and where you just described is the policy at or fort hood. and the suggestion is simply that dod adopted the uniform -- the >> consider. >> all rights, without getting into the details of all that. and it brings me to another question because you have described the timing of the incident, the report, news reports have said it lasted by

ten minutes and 40 seconds after the initial 9/11 call, installation and first responders arrived, 1.5 minutes later the assailant was incapacitated which accounts for about four minutes into account that the timeline, which as you said, his almost superhuman in terms of response time. it really is remarkable and great credit to those who responded. can we assumed then that there was a time. before they got there if in fact, you said seven or eight minutes? the >> that was our best and estimate. we just give the best estimate. >> which is still a significant amount of time. and i guess the question has to be promised a follow-up to the previous questions. but at the soldiers would've been armed at the time, in other words, let you carry small firearms, in your opinion, could more lives have been saved?

>> may as well give an answer. >> well, they are soldiers. if they had been carrying their weapons around on them, it would've been different. how different? how can i tell you. but with the timeline of been? of course, it would have been different. >> what i was hesitating about as i thought this is a natural lead into the act shooter program as well, which admiral clark spent some time talking about. about. well, maybe we didn't go@@@@@@@

shooter program, which is more and more becoming a response, which is train your people, your security people well with firearms and then go when and as their first priority take on the shooter before he or she can do more damage to those who are there. the risks are obvious and that's why the emphasis is on training and the fbi have cautioned that we really need a carefully selected and well-trained force to do that. it was done at fort hood. >> and they performed extremely well. >> may add one other point? my response was brief, almost to the point of being brusque. let me just add, it would've made a difference, but if i was

a commander, would that be the first thing i did is to arm all the people on the base? that's not what i would do. would it make a difference in some portion of them were armed? of course it would. but the reason i wouldn't arm everybody is because of the fact it was so change the environments that we live in and i don't think that's the immediate solution in good order of discipline. >> well, i guess in response to that, if in fact there is going to be some consideration given to a policy or departmentwide policy with regard to firearms, i would hope it would not be more restrict the. ecocide you think these are soldiers. these are people who are trained. and clearly if anybody would be prepared, probably not trained exactly an emergency response, but people who would be trained and prepared and equipped to effectively use a firearm to save other lives, it would be

someone in the united states military and that's my observation. so i had some other questions that amount of time. so thank you all very much. >> thank you mr. thune. >> can i go on record as object into the comments that was made by the distinguished senator from oklahoma and reference to profiling? i also want to commend the two distinguished public servants here, one of whom i have known since he was a freshman at howard university and to see him move through the ranks and commit all this service to america is what i anticipated when i saw him as a freshman when i was in law school at howard and of course seen him graduate also from howard law school. so secretary west, tremendous job from the people of america. >> thank you, senator. you're a lifeline

public-service. >> admiral, i appreciate your service as well. i just didn't attend school with you, so. i am really seeking to see how we cannot the major problem that do well are tasked to do. and i had other questions, but the hearing has just provoked some other thoughts. in mr. secretary, you mentioned the fact that when you take an oath of office in the military, i'm just wondering whether or not there's a different standard on the constitutional right that you have after you've taken the oath of office or if it's something -- something never been in the military and i just want to know whether or not a person who has taken enough,

there are different standards that they are held to, for example, the free-speech article or the right to bear arms article which was brought up by senator thune. could you comment on that, please? the >> i will and i think you'll be interested to hear the views of someone who has commanded at every level and decide to give these instructions to his officers and those serving under him. but years ago as the dod council and we tried to remain coverts with us. i was a jack officer as well. and the basic world is fascinated here it services data, whether they are officers or enlisted to come into the service says are still citizens of the united states. they do not give up the basic constitutional rights and protections. they get to speak, especially when they're on their own time and not in uniform, freely. they get to associate on the same circumstances.

they are entitled if they are accused of criminal activity while i'm not a duty to make trial with a number, a number of the constitutional protections. not all because as i think admiral clark observed, they do agree when they take the oath of office to put some things, as he sat on the shelf. for example, when they're in uniform, they can't just say anything they darn well please. i may have set it to boldly, there are lots of things you can add in, qualifications, it's just a fact of life. and frankly, when they're on active duty in uniform, they can't just go anywhere at anytime to do whatever they please. they are under orders. they're an in obligations either as officers or is enlisted or as ncos to respond as they are directed to carry out their orders fully. they represent this country as well as serving. i've said that we too broadly

unsure but i think it gives an overlay that says yes they don't ever stop being citizens to you don't lose their constitutional protections, but there are some limits that can be imposed on them under lawful military authority. >> secretary west said all that like a true veteran ideas. it was absolutely perfect. and i would just add that so let's say we are having, it's the political season and people are running for office. a member of the armed forces is not allowed to show up there in uniform. now if they choose to do so and values my words very carefully, they will be counseled to be sure, i would say, they would probably be part of a short but exciting conversation is the way i might put it. and there are other areas when we are overseas, the first thing

we tell our sailors as they do are ambassadors of the united states of america. and we put limits on the kind of things that we expected them to do when things that we clearly expect them not to do. so those are the things that we are speaking to. and certainly as secretary west said so correctly, basic constitutional rights are never in question. >> thank you, admiral. and other general question running through my mind. now in your work in this short period have time, did, did you all seek to assess other violent acts that may have taken place on military bases on american soil or military bases, say the incident in iraq were soldiers supposedly snapped and killed fellow service members. did you well look into that? the

>> absolutely. team one went into great detail of policies across the board. they're the group that is reviewed over 30,000 pages of instructions and policies and it was incredible. we called this the ominous team. it was an unbelievable task that they had. and they use, as a frame of reference, to look into the special cases and say, now are they are weakness is here because secretary of defense asked us to look for weaknesses in policies and programs and procedures and caps. and so we looked at those and basically we found that this instruction that i hold in front of me, by the way, has extensive detail about the questions you raised about the things that you can and cannot do. in other words, they're prohibited activities are outlined here. but our team used those particular cases like you saw as a springboard inside, are the

policies adequate bikes and fundamentally, what we're reporting is that -- and let me inject this thought. we know that you can't legislate perfect behavior. that's not possible. so the question is, are the policies fundamentally sound? the areas that we have been putting focus on in the report for specifically this internal threat is where we seek the greatest need. >> i just wonder, gentlemen, whether or not in your assessment and in your report we're trying to get at something the procedure says almost impossible to prevent. it's similar to a suicide bomber as i would see a person who is willing to commit to his own death. in all of the policies and procedures we would put in

place, all of the corrections. for example, mr. secretary, if you were to have some type of procedure to go one based whether or not to bring her private arms on base or not, what happens if the commanding officer was to have a problem? do you think the mp is going to stop the commanding officer at the gate and search them for his own private weapon and determine whether or not he is bringing a weapon on base as he is determined to make some type of violent act or statement. and just bring that up as a result of our attempt to try and get procedures that are going to be in the place that would seek to prevent someone from doing such a violent act. >> that's a very pertinent observation, senator. and it exactly on point. it is why we have emphasized in our report that we can't rely solely on stopping someone at the boundary.

we have to have looked for the signs, for the hundred yard stare, for the examples of tensions or difficulties even in a personal life, for the -- and we can do this, if they use government facilities for the communications with extremist persons or organizations on a repeated basis. we can look for all the signs. we come up for the signs of drug abuse because, and imagine that so often because there is some literature that our teams found, team one incident when has this report in chapter two as one of those things. we looked for those signs that say that the pastor of the abuse, even when correct date, is often linked later onto plates of violence. so we have to look for white admiral clark discussed in his opening statement. and we must do this over the

course of the surveys, to find them early enough so that it doesn't get to the point that he brings his weapon onto the base and some crazed effort. now, that is expressed frankly at the entire report. in thank you for getting right to the heart of it. >> mr. secretary, the question is can this and will this happen again? and god knows we don't want it to. but think about it. thank you, mr. chairman. my time is up. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you for the work that you've done and for your past service. thank you for the service. and they also want to extend my condolences to the families of the four hasan soldiers who were killed here in iowa to first of all gestate that i think we all agree and your report certainly

says that this was a failure on the front end. we commend the first responders for their fantastic work, but this was a failure. and i don't want to belabor that's because i think it's been talked about, mr. chairman. but there's a houston chronicle of yesterday, richard lardner and calvin woodward of isp submitted for the record, which i think details a lot of the failures in monitoring the major along the way and something should have been done along the way. thank you, sir. what i want to talk about his three things and there are questions for you. and the first one is to follow-up on what senator sat through was talking about and that the soldiers on the base carried weapons. this struck me as well because i recently this past week or two for military in florida from naval air station in pensacola to kendall, to a grand to

hurlburt air force. and the thing that you notice and different from going to a military airbase in a theater for by going to bogra air force base is that the soldiers and airmen and the soldiers aren't carrying weapons. but when you're at bogra, you see half of the men and women carrying their weapons. and i do think this would've happened potentially at bogra and air force base for two reasons. one is there w if it would have happened to, follow up on his point, that four minutes of time or whatever the period was when there was no first responder there, one of our service members, i'm sure would have picked up their weapon and fired back. and i hope that you will in your continuing work stress this to the secretary of defense. because while i understand the admiral's point about order on the base, there is probably a sweet spot here where some of the folks on a base, even in the united states of america should

be carrying weapons, maybe where there is going to be large groups gathered like in this processing center. i don't know if you have any other comments on that but i want to make that point, mr. secretary. >> i have a comment and that is this. it has happened overseas where people have been carrying weapons. thune's question. >> it has happened overseas where day have been carried weapons. it didn't stop there. secondly, let's assume that everyone is able to carry weapons, say at fort hood. well, then for a committed or seen it would have been necessary to smuggle them into use them. and thirdly, i guess well -- no, i think first answer to me is enough. if the admiral wants to read a third, i will attend.

>> i don't argue with your fundamental point. i would just say that as the commander, i realize that i was responsible for the creation of the environment. and so, the environment, the deployed environment is always different than the environment at home. and so, i think there are a lot of things that i could figure out how to do before i decided to arm every single human being on the base. i don't discount adult your point about the degree of difficulty for a shooter. but i believe secretary west has accurately responded. we have cases to be sure. and we have been very careful not to define specific single point.solutions for these cases

because for starters, we did this and extraordinarily short time. if we were going to then look at all the possible courses of alternative, solutions for every one of the recommendations we made, we would have needed at least six months and not the sure week. >> i understand that. i used the term sweet spot for a reason. not that she would put a gun on every servicemen and women inside, but that there be some thoughts about this point because i do think that knowing that someone is bearing arms is a deterrent and maybe it always hasn't been a deterrent but it can be. and they may have saved 13. we don't know but it may have saved some of them. the second thing is in terms of an senator collins is going to speak in a moment in her homeland security along with senator lieberman has talked about training for all service members and islamic stream is them. i wonder if we don't only need

to encourage our servicemembers to look for the science report them, but we need to do more that under the mat and require it. i think something that universities do. i didn't understand the university of virginia but they have a very strong honor code. in the honor code can be broken into is, one by violating and feeling that someone failed to violate. i wonder for your consideration is whether or not we should make a suggestion like that, that you have an obligation of the member of the united states military that if you see something that is out of line to much reported. and then if i feel like in my service record i'm going to be reprimanded for not reporting something, none of us like to tell on our colleagues. it's human nature. but i also commend that to you. enough you'd consider want to comment on that. i'd appreciate that as well. >> i think this is the kind of questions and all of the pursuit of potential solutions but the

secretary would be think is going on without suggesting one of the resolution or not. phase two is to do the drill down. and they couldn't do the drill down and the whole breadth of things we look back on the 30 plus thousand pages of directions and policies in all of that. but our job was to look at the spotlight on key things they could go to in a hurry. and it's my understanding that this expectation for phase two. >> the third and final point i have is we heard this phrase, connect the dots. and i heard it yesterday when we have a commerce committee hearing the secretary napolitano and director laettner about the christmas day bombing attempt. and that's obviously the great struggle is connecting the dots. and you mentioned, admiral, perhaps having some other unit that would try to do that. and that seems to be smart to me that you have someone is going to look, you know, through all

the information, not because what they be other jobs but the cast was trying to, i don't know that an internal affairs function, or just a function to make sure that one is out out there looking of these reports that are filled out on different servicemen. i know there's a lot of people in the united states military. though we have really good technology in this country, technology that's being used by the private sector. you know, i don't know if these reports are scanned. i don't know if they are entered on a computer. i don't know someone can use of computing and some of these new techniques to do searches. we failed again on the almost herbal tragedy and christmas day because of a misspelling of a name another things that failed in the way we process, gather and evaluate intelligence. and one thing i want to commend to you when you're further discussions with the secretary is if you do establish one of these units is talking to the people in the private sector who developed this wonderful technology and see if it might

be innate for helping keep our servicemen and women safe. >> may i comment? so we say in the report that we've been having arguments about who owns what pieces of information. we've been having those discussions long enough you it's time to move on. and so, without defining what that solution is, i don't know how a commander could possibly connect the dots if we doesn't have all of the dots in his.kit. but all so i bring attention to this point. we told the secretary, this isn't just in their agency. this is inside the department as well. challenge the assumptions on who has all of the pieces of information. the commanders will be better

equipped and we know how brilliant they are when they are given the tools. >> actually, i think the organization that you are thinking about that we recommended was one that's designed to collect all the indicators, keep them catalogs, update them regularly and make them available to commanders and those who have to make decisions. your idea has a thing to do with connecting dots on specific individuals, where those things come up. and that's a interesting concept. and it's not one that we necessarily focused on. thank you for that. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lemieux. >> thanks very much do secretary west and admiral clark for the service that you've given. obviously into industry port and

for the attack on november 5 was a tragedy and we are very grateful for the efforts that you've made to the department of defense and working with you and this review to assure such a tragedy doesn't happen again. the homeland security committee, senator collins and i are here, has been investigating the fort hood shootings to assess the information the government had prior to the shootings and the actions it took in response to that information. i can tell you that even at this early stage of investigation is become apparent to the department of defense dweeby approach to the servicemembers who adopt a violent islamist extremist ideology needs to be revised. senator collins and i sent a letter last week along those lines to secretary gates. i know their sensitivity on this about the other muslim americans

who are serving honorably in our military. but i honestly think a more focused approach in an open approach on islamist extremism will protect the great majority, overwhelming majority of muslims serving in the army and will maintain the bonds of trust that are so necessary in a military context among servicemembers of all religions. it seems to me in the fortunate case that there were many indicators that the dow sub six needed to commit these murders in furtherance of his own violence extremist ideology. but i must say respectfully that your report only trend generally mentions that particular thread in contrast, your review recommends generally the department identify common indicators leading up to a wide range of destructive events,

regardless of the individual's identity. i understand again the department of defense's need to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of all its servicemembers and employees, but i think it's also critically important and i don't see it in your report as much as i neier so many of the recommendations you've made that we recognize the specific threads posed by violent islamist extremism to our military. so i wanted to ask you first how you think the department in the services should address the specific threat of violent islamist extremism and if you want to respond to my concern generally about this matter. i will add that i remember being disappointed, troubled after the fort hood murders when general casey first response described the incident as a force protection failure, which i suppose in one sense it was.

but it was also a terrorist attack in my opinion. into a certain extent, the title is your report that continues this emphasis as opposed to a focused emphasis on the problem were facing, just as we focus earlier after fort bragg on the very real problems come expressively of rights to the extremism. i welcome your response, generally and particularly. >> i was the secretary of the army at the time of the fort bragg incident, senator, and because i was given a little more leeway i ordered the review that occurred. and we operated under the same constraints than, the folks appointed operated numbers the same constraints we do now and that is they had an ongoing military justice investigation. and in fact, because the victims were civilians and the acts

occurred off post in fayette will, still to this day one is struck. i mean, the servicemembers required civilians to kneel and shot them execution style. and so, there were several multiple criminal investigations. and so that task force that was appointed could not get into what might have been criminal aspects or anything that would have impaired the trials. we operate on that same constraints. >> okay, so that's the reason you felt you couldn't be more explicit about islamist extremism? >> well, what we had to say, a lot of it is in the restricted amex. but no, i think the second two your point, second point we had is respectfully, yes it was and yes it is a force protection issue. that is the way in which it was

handed to us and that is the way in which we have to approach it. in that case, it is every kind of extremism, every kind of opportunity for violence that we were going to have this one-shot, admiral clark and i too made recommendations to the department of defense has to be sure to cover. and so does come a win for indicators, for cues on the lake, but we did not exclude any source of violence and we specifically did not include the source that comes from radical islamic beliefs associated with the actions that go with it. admiral clark has some thoughts he wants to add. i know we talked about it more than once. and so i'm going to stop here. but that's my brief oversight of how we approached it. >> before we go to admiral clark, let me just follow up while i'm thinking about it. goes after those heinous murders at fort bragg and 95, general

king testified issued this pamphlet that are quite directed towards other racial extremism and specifically detail some of the key indicators to look for in white supremacy, which i thought was exactly the right thing to do. of course. and the question now is do you think they should issue a similar type of pamphlet with the same kinds of of course the -- do you want to respond to that? >> only that i think you make a good point. >> ok. admiral, please. >> good to see you again, senator. in my opening statement, i talked about violence. and i made the point that some have indicated that we did not address the kind of violence that you're speaking to.

radical islamic fundamentalism. the behavior that goes with that. i made the point, yes we did. because secretary gates wrote us a set, a terms of reference that talked about violence if the workplace and the people, including people hurting themselves, we decided to go after it in that way. the people, including people hurting themselves, we decided to go after it in that way. but we used the term radicalization and self radicalization dozens of times in the report. which we intended to make there. we are talking about every kind of violent behavior, including this. and then we go 12 then specify in our recommendations. and i made the point about tears the department of defense and

direct days that talks about prohibited act dvds. and our point is this document is inadequate to the task when dealing with self radicalized individuals. so that's what we're talking about. i could not agree with you more completely that we need the outreach program, outreach i mean we've got to reach out and let people know what positions are and where the red lines are and behaviors. and then with that goes all the training that you talk to. so i've made that a matter of my prior testimony. i'm in complete alignment with that view. >> okay, i appreciate that clarification. in my opinion, of course this is a concern about force protection generally. but because this is a unique new threat we're facing, i think the more explicit we are about it, the clearer it's going to be and the better off are going to be

because as some of the regulations earlier had to go with almost cold war scenarios. many of his response to a the supremists killings. and all porcelli reified two cases in a portion of the way things were going were going to have some more. so the protection of the force we need force weetabix was about what the threat is. i time is up. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator lieberman. senator collins. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for your continued public service. senator lieberman, the chairman of our homeland security has asked exactly the question that i planned to ask, which is not a surprise because we've been working together on the whole issue of homegrown terrorism and the threat of islamist

extremism. i do want to follow up a bit on the point that senator lieberman just made because i was struck when i read the public part of your report by the decision to omit the term islamist extremism from the public report. and it troubled me. it troubled me because it appeared to contrast sharply with the approach that dod has taken in the past. your report recommends that the army focus on a broad range of motivations for violence rather than focusing on specific causes. but that's not what the department and the army did after the racially motivated murders associated with fort bragg back in 1995.

the 1996 guidance is striking because it squarely faces the problem. and i believe that's why i was so affected. it is clear message that white supremacist had no place among our troops. and i believe we need to send a similarly clear message. and indeed, in 1996 in response to the fort wright incident and obviously mr. secretary, you're more familiar with it denice and seo were involved in correct and the problem at the time. but in response, commanders were specifically advised to be aware of quote, indicators of possible extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. they were told to look for

specific signs, such as reading materials or the use of a personal computer to visit extremist sites. these signs were geared towards identifying what the white supremacy. but senator lieberman has suggested in our letter to secretary gates is that same kind of focus, squarely admitting what the problem is. so my worry is that the perception of your report for those wanted you to read the public part will be that we're not facing the problem squarely, the way we did in the mid-1990's. and it worked. the guidance was excellent. it involved training here at our commanders, are enlisted troops. it appears to have been very

successful. so without presuming to speak for my chairman, senator lieberman, that's what we're suggesting,, that we squarely face this threat to our troops. so i went and what i realized that and more of a comment than a question by urging you to more explicitly address this specific threat. it doesn't ignore the fact that there were other sources of violence. but in fact, family violence, suicide prevention, assault, all extremely important priorities for us. but they are different in their nature and the threat from islamic extremist. so i'd ask you to comment particularly on whether we should have specific training to recognize the signs of

radicalization. mr. secretary and admiral clark. well, it's almost impossible to have a comment senator. i was a powerful statement along with senator lieberman's statement. and you put me ligaments under the gun by pointing out that's what we did in the army when that occurred here and i won't spend time on the distinctions. i mean, he is a white supremacist carries no overtones of constitutional protections or any sort where religion is always -- i know i'm going to be accused of being pc here. so what. it's always an area where we have to go carefully. for example, religious extremism, violent aggressive extremism is a source of threat to our soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coast guard

personnel, whatever the religious source. and we need to be careful and we try to be careful when we did this to make sure do we turn the military's attention to the person i was quoted earlier as having talked about the cold war. that was secretary gates. and what he was pointing out was something we said witches we have been focused on external threats. well now we have to look on the internal threat from within for one of our own. and as i said before, this is our one shot at it, admiral clark and i am and we want to make sure that we look at the indicators and religious extremism, whatever its source is an indicator. and are a whole bunch of things to look at. i think that prescription is right. the fact that as you both make it that it is the islamic religious extremism. i think that is a point worth making. i think the secretary everyone will hear it and they will react accordingly. but that becomes part of the history of this discussion.

.. i response to senator lieberman. i'm just going to give you

verne's view here. we talked about this a lot. how do we shape this. if we shape this and the report was full of reference to radical islamic fundamental isk activity and behavior, some people would have read it, one, that it was -- going to be all about that. the secretary of defense clearly gave us another task. he gave us the task to deal with violence in the workplace across the board and because he did, we made the decision that we were going to handle it the way we have presented it but when questioned about it, we frankly, senator, didn't know how people were going to be able to misread the references to self radicalizeation. we thought that was going to be pretty clear but maybe it was not clear enough. oing to be pretty clear. maybe it wasn't clear enough.

our focus then, and one of our primary recommendation is the guidance on these behaviors is inadequate. and the way you make it adequate is you decide what the red lines are going to be. you reform your people. you do everything that you know how to do. that's called training. to ensure that our people know how to respond. that's what those of us are the privilege to command are charged to do. we talk officership in the report and so forth. that's what leaders do. that is what is required. >> thank you. >> thank you, very much, senator collins. i was listening to senator lieberman and senator collins with the suggestion that there be, we address a specific threat since it obviously is a specific threat the. it is appropriate that our

leaders be directs as to how to address that threat. just the way they were i guess in the '90s with the white supremacy. to make it clear and certain that it's not radical islamic extremism would be very essential, it seems to me, and wise that people who are involved in preparing that kind of instruction and include muslims. because obviously that would be important in terms of knowledge of the threat, but also important in terms of making it clear that this is not anti-muslim. 99% of muslims are not people who are engaging in these kind of activities.

and to make it's clear it's not this kind of aftereffort. which i think is legitimate effort that senator lieberman and collins talk about. that is a legitimate effort to make it clear that it is not aimed at muslims, but aimed at violent islamic radical extremism. it's important that muslims be significantly involved in that direction. and i was wondering if senator lieberman or collins might want to comment on that suggestion. >> mr. chairman, i think that's an excellent suggestion. it would be a real omission as i here you talk if it wasn't talk if muslims weren't involved. one of the things that troubled me in this situation, and i suppose why we feel like we have to talk explicitly to one

another about this threat, including muslim, to have in the conference muslim-americans. 99% plus are not extremist or terrorist. i worry as i look at this fact situation in hasan's case that part of the reason that commanders and other after the this signs, they look back and say he showed he was really turning in an extremist, anti-american direction, people didn't voice them or record them because of political correctness. even more than political correctness, the sensitivity that we all have about religious discussions but the truth is the best thing that could happen here and it is a great place for it to begin in the military is to have a real open discussion about this and of course, for it to be a real discussion, it has got to include muslims,

muslim-americans so i think your suggestion -- in other words, i think that muslim-americans have been seeing -- i don't know what the facts were about that, seeing some of the things that hasan was saying at walter reid, for instance, i think they would have been alarmed because this doesn't reflect what they think and therefore mr. chairman, i think your suggestion is an excellent one. >> thank you. >> if i could just respond as well, i too, think that your suggestion is an excellent one and it is very consistent with the approach that senator lieberman and i have on the homeland security committee. a have advocated on the homeland security committee. in fact, in our letter to the two secretary gates where we suggest more training, we point out that updating the approach

would help to protect from suspicion the thousands of muslim-americans who are serving honorly in the u.s. military and help to maintain the bonds of trust among service members of all religions. and enhance understanding. so the steps that we have recommended would clearly benefit from the inclusion and active involvement of muslim-americans. that's what we intended. but i also think it has with thed for muslim-americans serving so that other service members have a better understanding of islam. and so i'm in complete accord with what you suggest. and i think that is along the lines of what we were proposing

as well. i would ask that we share with our two distinguished witnesses today the recommendations that senator lieberman and i have made in our january 13 letter to secretary gates. because as you go forward with your work, it may be a value of to you as well. thank you. >> thank you, one the things that seemed to me to be appropriate. i don't know if you address it, but it's sort of along this line. our policies also should be very clear about why it is a -- unacceptable and unallowed and profited to have taunting and harassment of people because of their religious views. as according to the public record occurred in the hasan case.

i don't know if that's true. and i don't know -- i can't comment on your annex. but it seems to me this is part in partial religious tolerance does not mean tolerance for violence and extremism. is doesn't mean that as i pointed out a few -- maybe an hour ago. that's not what we are tolerant of. what we are tolerant of is other people's religious views. as part of that, it has got to be importantly pointed out in the military that means we do not accept taunts, graffiti of rag heads or what have you about anyone's religious views. i don't know if that is part of your recommendation here that be clear as well in terms of guidance. it seems to me it's an important part. >> let me address it, it's very

well covered in the profited behaviors and activities. >> you mean currently? >> currently. it's very well spelled out. i've spoken only to what is not in this document. what's in this document is 100% right. and it is the -- what we have said that document does not have to be regarding self-radicalizing behavior. mr. chairman, i want to appreciate the fact that you have collectively recognized the very effective and loyal service of thousands of muslims. somebody accuse me of being politically correct. the way you said it is exactly right. i appreciate it. >> one thing to make this even more complex. we talk about connecting the dots. we have to be a far better job of connect thing the dots. i believe this is the greatest failure that we have been discussing in various

committees. there are counterdots that complicated work. including with major hasan. it's not just those dots which in my view would have made folks what his potential was. there's dot thes that go in the other direction. what his patients thought of him. which was very high. you got to throw those dots into the mix too for people who are going to be judging him. you have a record here of a number of his assessments. they were not just negative that should have been included in the record by the way. i happen to degree with you to -- totally. there's also some highly positive, not politically correct, positive assessment of his capability.

i think it's important since we're trying to take a jr. -- general view of this while it's politically important to connect the dots that we also recognize in terms of the task in front of us that there are some dots that are going to be in the mix which make it very unclear as to what you do with the dots that seem to point in one direction. because there's dots that point in the other direction. even with him, they are not being focused on, obviously. but there are some counterindicators here which are fairly clear as well. finally, admiral, you talk about reducing -- eliminating i think is your word, the barriers. get rid of the barriers to information flow. i think generally you are right. there's barriers here which clearly should not be there. so i agree with your premise. are there any barriers that you'd want to maintain, either

privacy barriers or barriers -- i think you talked about prior drug problem or adistribution problem. which have been over come. some of that has not passed along now. and if it's been over come, i think there's some instinct in commanders that we should let certain things not be passed along which would unfairly perhaps hurt somebody's career path if they've over come a problem. are there any barriers that you might want to keep? >> there may be. and if i was responsible for the policy review, i would then look at all of the potential courses of action, and i'll make that kind of determination. let me give you an example in which the manner that i might decide to handle the case that you've just suggested. as you correctly pointed out, by regulation there is some documentation that is not

allowed to proceed from command to command. we could figure out how to get information. we do it in the intelligence world all the time. only certain people get to see that information. it'd be very possible to have information that might be vital to connecting the dots that are currently not passed. passed in a way the component if so the select group of people had access to the information. i believe that's inherit in achieving the correct balance. and not -- secretary wes and i would not want anything that's said here to imply in any way the balance between these issues isn't so. it is very, very important. you have addressed it

correctly. this is a challenge. one the hallmarks of the united states military is we grow and develop people. i mean i've had dozens of these interviews with people, okay, you're getting a few job. this is turning over a new leaf. this is a time to go get it. we've seen people turn their lives around. this is one of the great things about our institution. so clearly these are issues that the policymakers have to come to grips with. our task was put the spotlight on policies, weaknesses, gaps, that's what we have tried to do. i do believe there may be places where barriers should be retained in some way. >> and maybe for some. >> for some purpose. >> maybe promotions or -- >> exactly. >> whether it's a security issue. >> exactly. but what i'm suggesting is that people who are responsible for these policy decisions know what

the vital dots look like. they know where they come from. as i -- the report said and in my earlier testimony, the time has passed for us to be having the turf wars on who owns the information. >> i couldn't agree with you more. this is a major challenge for all of us in the senate and house and committee and being more importantly probably for the executive branch. senator lieberman, do you want to add anything? we thank you for all of the work you are doing not just here but on the homeland security. that committee is doing critically important work. we are now going to move to a closed session of the committee. we'll meet in room 222 in russell. our committee room. in accordance with restrictions placed on the access to the restricted annex, dance to be limited to senator and professional staff. we thank our witnesses not just for their work in this regard but for their life-long work at

behalf of our nation. we will stand here. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, joe. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] "washington journal" live with your phone calls and later, the house financial services committee holds a hearing on executive pay in the financial industry. >> this weekend on "the communicators" former senator and now head over the national association of broadcasters, gordon smith on the f.c.c. plan and what it might mean for

broadcasters. each year the washington center brings thousands of students to washington, d.c. to experience the workings of our government first hand. this weekend they will discuss government and their futures. >> the supreme court yesterday handed down a landmark ruling on campaign finance laws in a 5-4 degrees in the case of citizens united versus federal election commission, the court ruled against regulations that limit corporate spending on political activities. you can listen to the oral arguments and read the opinions on our website, c-span.org. >> joining us is aaron blake. >> i don't think there is any other way to read this right now. the initial reaction is it was a split decision but really what

this does is opens the floodgates for corporations to spend money like individuals can in politics right now so that was the big takeaway from this. waiting to see what the finaler details of it are but now it looks like lots more money in politics. departments on where you're standing that is a good or bad thing. >> what about the mccain-feingold law? >> disclosure on their campaign ads and things like that but the main thing was it took athe way limbs on how much these corporations can spend and allowed them to spend the money not just from their political action committees but also from their general treasuries which takes down a barrier between the corporate side and the political action side.

>> you're right about the court striking down the distunks between individual and corporate expenses from a constitutional standpoint. why is that significant? >> well, the court said basically once somebody becomes a corporation, they don't leave their -- their political speech freedom behind. they said that the difference was that individuals were allowed to spend whatever they wanted but corporations were not. of course that was created that way because the congress didn't want the appearance of corruption or actual corruption to take place. the court ruled in this decision that unlimited spending by corporations didn't necessarily lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption. >> you use the term floodgate. what do you think this means in terms of spending for this year, the 2010 election and in 2012?

>> well, i think 2012 is going to be the big one here because there is going to be a lot of legislating and legal battles over this decision now. we're not going to know exactly what it means. this is a framework under which we can work. you can bet a lot of people are working very hard on this but we don't know exactly where it is going to lead except in increasing the amount of corporate and union money in these elections and i think that is pretty much what we can expect to increase as this goes along. >> aaron blake of "the hill" newspaper. >> attorney who is argued both sides of the citizens united case reacted to the court's decision. this is 20 minutes.

the court has ruled that corporations, unions and all the rest of us may participate freely and openly and spend money on electoral and political matters. this decision a long time coming and the opinion as justice kennedy makes clear reverses two prior opinions one involving senator mcconnell a few years before. the core of it all is that the right to participate in to, speak out about, to be heard about matters political, social and the like is one which the public at large has an interest in. there is a listener, a viewer, a reader interest in political

views, orientation and the like which the first amendment protects. and that plies to corporations as well as to individuals as justice kennedy poirntsed out in his statement in court today and his opinion points out this is a significant protection for media corporations as well as all over corporations. because there is no way that the court is going to treat media any different than anyone else. corporations either have rights or don't have rights, whoever happens to own them and the decision today says firmly and un quivebly that corporations and unions as well have the right to participate in the political process so this is a triumphant day in terms of the

first amendment and we are very, very pleased. you know, we really have no idea on an on-the-ground level how big a change this will be. 26 states now allow unlimited corporate expenditures and indeed, contributions and there has been no broad, sweeping change in the politics in those states as a result. so it is possible that this may be more of an i'd logically significant day than a practical one but maybe not. we may have significantly more corporate involvement and union involvement than in the political process. either way, at least from my perspective and senator mcconnell's perspective, that is a good thing. that is what the first amendment is all about. if you really believe that

speech is a good thing and the the public ought to be able to hear all views and make up their own mind, there is no reason to limit the class or category or people or institutions who may be heard. thank you all very much. >> i'm president of citizens united. i'm extremely grateful and humbled by today's ruling at the supreme court. this has been a long, long road for us. it has been a long time coming. this is a monumental day for citizens united, for our board of directors who had the courage to support me, for our members who supported us over the years. we have been working on the theory of this case and this

case since 2004. and i know it has been -- the last year here at the supreme court but its took a lot to get to this point. it is -- it is a monumental day -- it is a monumental victory for citizens united and more importantly for the first amendment and the fundamental rights of people to participate in the political process and the marketplace of ideas whether you're an individual, a corporation or a union, it doesn't matter. you can now participate fully and freely in the election process and that's an important thing. we worked really hard over the years to try to talk directly to the american people. and i think the american people are smarter than politicians give them credit for. and so when they -- when politicians and the incumbent

class tries to protect themselves by passing laws that make it more difficult for people and for organizations to participate in the process and for folks around the country to stand up and speak, it is an amazing thing and so i think just the election on tuesday shows that the -- the voters are smarter than politicians give them credit for. so i'm really excited about today. i want to take an opportunity to thank a few people. ted olson, matt mcgill, ed gibson are not here today and i'm heartbroken that they are not and not able to share in this victory. they are in a trial now and couldn't make it here and i'm heartbroken that they are not here. they mean more to me than they know. for them to have put this case

at the forefront of everything they are doing and pour their hearts and souls into this case is incredibly humbling for me. ted olson has been a dear friend. we have known each other a long time. and so for ted to argue this case, not once but twice, for citizens united, means a lot. michael bose, who is our vice president and general counsel at citizens united held this case's hand for the last, well, many years, all the way up through its inception when i walked into his office one day and gave him this kind of idea and concept of the case and believed in it and believed in what we were trying to do and now today, it is the culmination of that.

mitch mcconnell, sometimes we don't know what is good for us and having floyd be part of the team and floyd arguing the case at oral arguments last time was a tremendous honor for us and brought a lot to the table and i think having senator mcconnell be part of this case was a terrific asset to us and we're grateful to both of them. my co-producers, co-executive producer of the film, lawrence, are tremendous supporters of citizens united over the many, many years that we have been friends and i just can't thank him enough for standing by me through this case, through this film. jim baugh, our first lawyer who helped us get to the supreme

court. he is one of our best first amendment lawyers in the country and then again, most importantly the members of our organization, the members of citizens united across the country, the over half a million members that we have who support us day in and day out, and our board of directors, it is an incredible honor to have their support and then of course my family, my wife susan, my dad is here today. it is a great victory for us. i know it has been agonizing for the past few days or few months waiting for this decision, waiting and waiting and waiting but a it is an amazing thing to have lived through it for years and be told by the bureaucrats at the federal election commission you can't do that. you have no first amendment rights and i think today is a wonderful day to tell the folks over at the federal election

commission that they work for the people. and the people don't work for them. so i'm really honored with this outcome. it is a tremendous victory for the first amendment and for our organization and thank you very much. i'm happy to take any questions. >> first amendment rights for the corporations and labor unions -- >> you know, we're going to have a chance to read the opinion. i'm sorry. i don't know exactly what the opinion says just yet. but it is a great day for every person in america whether you own stock in a company, whether you run a mom and pop grocery store, and by the way, when we took in those only several thousand dollars in corporate contributions that this case ended up hinging on, they were just like that.

they were from individual, small restaurants, liquor stores, dry cliners. people who incorporate for the -- dry cleaners. people who incorporate. what we try to do is speak for them as well. they have no lesser voice than an individual because a lot of corporations in this country are individuals. any others and otherwise? thank you very much. >> good morning. i'm bob edgar, president of common cause and i'm here with some colleagues who think this is not a triumphant day other than for wall street and for business interests. i'm president of common cause working with public campaign and public citizen and a whole group of people who are outraged by this decision. it is the super bowl of bad

decision. corporations are not individuals. some of them are larger than countries. we need to recognize that money has influenced the debate here in washington for too long. all you to do is look at the housing crisis, the investment crisis, the banking crisis, even this health care debate was already tainted with how much money has flooded into the system. corporations and unions already have the opportunity to put money into campaigns through political action committees. they have already spent a ton of money. what this decision today does is it simply doubles, quadruples the opportunity for more money to flow in and my guess is what you're going to discover over the next several years is that the elected officials in the house and senate are going to end up serving special interests even more than they do today and not the public's interest.

we need citizen-owned elections. we need average ordinary citizens to arp. we need voluntary opportunity opportunities for people to contribute. our founding fathers never intended that money was going to be included in the speech amendment. remember the split decision was 5-4. we believe that the supreme court has shown their political activism at a time when they ought to be thinking about what's important for the public and the public's interest. my colleagues here will also have a comment to make. >> i'm nick nyhart, the president of the campaign. the court has taken the side of wall street and other deep pocket interests and the billions of dollars that drown out the ordinary people in the

political process. we have seen from tuesday's election in massachusetts that americans are tired of business as usual in politics but this is a decision at the supreme court for business as usual. if you don't like washington gridlock. if you don't like the voices of ordinary people being drowned out then you could be against this decision. the real question now is what congress does. will they take steps to increase the impact of ordinary people