effort to quell truth, be it on c-span, abc. i want you to think about the dictates you have been given -- i know it has been suggested that any taboo subjects, and i am specifically talking about 9/11, not being discussed. go to alt websites and look at what really happened that day and then ask yourself, while you are being told to quell the discussion on 9/11. that is what i would like you to do. host: okay, nobody is quelling session with me, i can tell you that. thank you for being part of it this morning. we will take you now to capitol hill for the senate foreign relations committee. this hearing has been underway for half an hour. this is a hearing about haiti

rescuers and reconstruction efforts. among those testifying is the special envoy to haiti, a representative from the rand corp., and incoming director of public health for the state of georgia. we take you to that live now. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] .

were already inadequate. construction from scrap might be considered. inventory of other reserves through groundwater hydrology. another thing is to tap into the port-au-prince's saltwater through a desalination process. decentralization away from port-au-prince must be a primary goal of future efforts. the earthquake already triggered an exit of population investments must be made in agriculture, foot security, local jobs, tourism infrastructure, security, roads and airports.

access to rudimentary medical care must also be decentralized with a network of community health centers across the country. public health must become the foundation of this new health system and health promoters or agents of health. improvements in lit rass is i should remain central to any development efforts. i'd like to share with the committee the recommendations created by executive order on july 14, 2004, by former governor jeb bush. the advisory had 10 haitian americans. it formulated a set of 25 set of recommendations to the governor in the state of florida. these prophetic recommendations, which are velarde vant today, included a wide range of problematic issues that fell into security recommendations, disaster

preparedness, revitalization. although florida was the main partner of the projects, i ask that these be adopted by the united nations. examples include creation of a dedicated professional exchange and training program with the governor of haiti. this would allow volunteers utilizing their vast experience and skills to travel to haiti to provide incountry technical assistance and training. the training program would be to provide haitian participants with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to work more effectively in their respective fields and build greater capacity within haiti institutions. haiti complete their studies?

will studies abroad be available? a sharp decrease in doctors creates a formula for an disaster. the international community should utilize its great expertise in law enforcement collections and public safety to assist the growth and professionalization of the haitian national police. the united nations could sponsor haiti trade mission and matchmaker fair in each representatives of haitian businesses can travel abroad to meet their counterparts. promotion of investments in haiti as well as identification of export opportunity for haitian products would be primary goals. the united nations should begin now to assist haiti's ministry of commerce, industry and tourism in its plan to create a targeted tourism, marketed campaign to track haitian americans and other visitors to their country as tourists in order to rediscover their natural beauty and haiti's infrastructure is now more vulnerable to mudslides and flooding. hurricane season begins june 1,

and immediate action must be taken to mitigate potential risks. employ its well developed expertise and experience with natural disasters to provide technical assistance fought republic of haiti's director of civil protection in order to -- in order for this agency to develop appropriate disaster management and infrastructure and training. in closing, i extend federal reservent prayers to all of those -- i extend fervant prayers to all of those affected by the earthquake as well as the first responders who came from near and far. i also want to exknowledge the mag in an muss generosity of those who contributed to the relief efforts in haiti. as we move forward, the united states and the international community must assure that investments made in rebuilding haiti are actually carried out through community based organization, faith-based

entities, nongovernmental entities and nonprofit organizations. my personal hope is that a new generation of leaders will selflessly lead haiti onto a new path of prosperity, through integrity, hard work, transparency, perseverance and true democracy. thank you. >> thank you, very much, dr. francois. thank you, all of you, for helping lay out the magnitude of the challenge here and put a lot of ideas on the table about things we need to think about. we in the time frame that we have i think if we do seven-minute rounds, then every senator ought to have an opportunity to be able to ask questions. and if we could ask you to sort of keep the answers tight. obviously encompass everything that you want to but we want to here, if we can.

on a personal note, let me just say, dr. farmer, speaking as a dad, i want to thank you for the example and the opportunity that you have shown my daughter who i know just values enormously the relation shipp which she has learned working with you. i want to thank you for that. let me begin by asking -- i want to come back to the framework that you raised, dr. farmer, about the sort of rules of the road. i think it's very important to look at that. let me just ask you very quickly any view -- an immediate challenge. there's a lot of concern about the access to food in haiti and whether or not there are adequate levels being appropriately distributed. w.f.p. has requested emergency funds to feed two million people in the next several days. can you just speak very quickly to the question of adequacy of food and the current distribution efforts, dr.

farmer? >> thank you, senator. in the short term it's difficult to think of an alternative to w.f.p., which has the procurement capacity. it's hard to find other groups that might have that procurement compass its other than my colleagues testifying today which is cash transfers to households. that will also work to allow people to buy their own food. at the same time the rules of the road i would go back to those even for a group as agust as w.f.p. for example, how can we focus on local procurement of foodstuff so that food insecurity in haiti is not heightened by the huge but necessary influx of food from abroad right now? i just give one small example from our own work in central haiti which i shared with my folks at w.f.p. we had proper treatment for malnutrition for children is something called food and we

grow peanuts, mostly, but it can be other grains, peanuts locally and make essentially peanut butter which is ready to use right there in local food processing plants in central haiti. and we've gotten -- the w.f.p. to support that and so if we ramp up production of an endeavor like that in a moment like this if we get the right kind of peanuts, multivitamins, other things that are needed to enrich this paste we'll have done several things at once. one is respond to the acute need which is extreme. it's very upsetting, to put it frankly, how hungry people are right now. number two, we will have bought local produce from local farmers. number three, we've created jobs in processing plants. you know, it's not unthinkable

that a processing plant like that could be scaled up to respond to needs elsewhere and other parts of the country, certainly, and other parts of the world. i think the rules of the road should include, what's your plan for local job creation? how can we link our very needed short-term interventions to long-term interventions that will not leave haitians dependent? >> so that raises the question is, how do you get from here to there? it would be great to ramp up production. it would be great to engage the local community. who's going to do this? one of the things that's struck me as i talked to various groups on the ground and we've been dealing with various, sort coordinating this overall effort? who's going to call the shots and say, you got to get the debris out of here and there and here's where the degree is going to go and here's the rebuild? you begin to organize all of that. there are a lot of free actors going around. can you speak to the question

of who's going to both direct and enforce these rules of the road? and how do we get the kind of coordination necessary to make sure that we are shifting to a haitian solution as fast as possible? >> i'm sure that my colleagues have thoughts on this as well, but i would say the way that we do this is actually writed into the rules of the road as a condition for some of our aid. not a condition on the recipients, rather a condition on the donors. some of the problem if you go from say the marshall plan which you talked about many times over the last few years, if you go from the marshall plan to the -- some of the legislation written by the senate in 1961 to now you'll see the rise of a class of contractors, again, who can provide useful services that

are difficult to obtain in settings like haiti, a place where mr. dobbins' mentioned. i think if we shift the rules formally and say this aid is dependent on our reforming ourselves in a way. so i think part of it is really in your hands. it's very possible, and i've been writing a little bit about this from haiti to bemoan the lack of coordination, but what i'm seeing is going from chaos, just chaos, as you might imagine, the first night afterwards to a little bit more coordination,est. so the u.n. is trying to -- coordination, etc. so the u.n. is trying to help. that is emerging right now and i think that's probably the necessary structure. and then finally on the district level -- i mean, most port-au-prince, as you know. there are 10 districts in haiti, 10 departments, they're called. there needs to be a really locally driven process there.

this may not be the most popular thing to say but in 1995 when rwanda laid down the law saying if you as an n.g.o. wants to work here you have to follow the following rules. it's estimated by some that half of the n.g.o.'s left rwanda in a huff. i any in retrospect many would argue they really were right to push a tough line on this. in summary, and part of it will be in your hands and part of it will be in the habbeds of the u.n. and part of it's going to be in the hands of the local government. >> mr. dobbins, you've been on the institutional side of this. what do you think? >> i think it's important to make a distinction between the relief phase. if there's one thing that the international community and the u.s. does well is disaster relief in these kinds of situations. it looks messy when 1,000 different autonomous

organizations, n.g.o.'s, governments and international institutions all show up but it works and it works remarkably well. and it is working in haiti. that doesn't really require fixing in my view. it requires resources. people are generous and it is the best resource thing the international community does. you then have the question of moving beyond relief to recovery and driving that recovery toward institutional reforms that will make further -- future relief operations less necessary. that does require more hierarchycal structure. i think the united states needs needs to help drive such an effort but shouldn't itself be the flag on which that effort is put. >> fair enough. >> i guess that the u.n. needs to coordinate and become the flag under which political reform and reform of the

security sector takes place and i think the world bank is the logical focus for planning and conditioning assistance across the economic and social spectrum. >> thank you, sir. senator lieberman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to ask your comments following up the chairman's thought about who is in charge and how government is to proceed by citing a very interesting poll that appears in "the miami herald" this morning. and the headline, "haitian americans dissatisfied with the u.s.'s response to disaster." 63% of 400 haitian americans in a poll conducted in creole and in english, 63% disapproved of how preval's government has responded. the unhappiness runs so deep that the majority of haitian americans support the united nations and the international community taking over haiti's

day-to-day operations, at least until haiti recovers from the catastrophe. an overwhelming majority of the respondents are happy with the united states government. 96%, in fact, approved what we've been depog. 88% of the united nations -- what we've been doing. 88% of the united nations. 2/3 of the haitian americans polled are so concerned they would be willing to move back to haiti temporarily in order to assist reconstruction. i just mention this as sort of basis for first of all it's unprecedented that haitian americans have been happy with the united states responses in the past. and secondly, like-wise of the united nations and it's not immaterial that takes charge but one of the better -- other better. and president preval has not

addressed the nation. this may not be his sport, but the fact remains that he is their leader and the haitian government has to be constructed in some form even if the united nations and the united states take control and provide at least these services. this is all preface for asking your judgments politically, what is going to occur? because the common thought is that this has been a disaster, but it will remain a disaster, it will continue to be a disaster because of the lack of political sophistication or abilities or repour with the haitian people. and here is a case in which the american haitians in essence are saying, we're so concerned we're prepared to even move back in fairly large numbers for a while to try to bring some relief to the process. do any of you have any knotts about the government?

yes, doctor. >> senator lugar, essentially my thought is again is about the analogy of how we respond to a tragedy or a hurricane here in the united states. what happens is that whether it's florida or louisiana we may ask the federal government for help. and like-wise, haiti is now in depire needs of an international response. what's different is that the sfrass and the plans that are in place in almost -- in probably every state is that you have an infrastructure where the federal government can come in and insert itself to support that response. that sort of framework is totally absent.

in 2006 the secretary of health for florida, we made a public health mission trip to engage the leadership about preparedness. and you can tell from the lack of the response that we were not taken up on that offer. so essentially i think that because of that lack of existing infrastructure you really need a coordination of, for example, from the united nations to sort of lead that response because it's certainly nonexistent on the ground. that makes it more difficult because the folks coming in doesn't really know the terrain because again that knowledge could have been facilitated by existing plans on the ground which again are nonexistent. [inaudible]

>> i don't think probably the rest of our -- your constituency is going to support that. i don't think we have any option but to try to rebuild a haitian state structure, one that's more resilient, more capable than what we have today or had a year ago. and, therefore, i do believe that state building is the core mission of the postrelief phase. >> thank you, senator. you quoted "the miami herald" today, but in "the washington post" today there's something of equal note. it says haiti government gets minimal aid, less than a penny of u.s. dollar is sent to leadership and that's certainly true. none of this money pouring into haiti is going to the government. i just want to say if that is

an effective way or not i don't know. that's not my area of expertise. just a few examples from the last two weeks in haiti. i mean, before the hurricane looking at the budgets of money going to, for example, the u.n. presence there, the budget for i.t., information technology, was larger than the combined budget i believe of the ministries of health and ministry of education together. during the hurricane when we were told that the roads were blocked and the city was unaccessible and nobody was there, that was not true. the roads were not blocked and the director of public health was at his post but did not have any tools to do anything. i was with right after the recent earthquake with the minister of communication, she did not have a phone.

you know, i gave her my phone. these kind of absurd its go on and on -- absurdities go on and on. the general hospital, when we got there late at night we found the director of the hospital and the director of nursing who had herself just had a grandchild the day before and had lost their family and home, they were there at work but they have to have the tools of the trade. as it's true in medicine, so it must be in all other arenas' engagements. i would say in addition to appropriate skepticism about the capacity of the now devastated government to implement some of these necessary interventions we also need a healthy dose of skepticism regarding, as i said earlier, the way our aid is being funneled. exclusively to the nongovernmental sector. >> so the recommendation is really more aid to these government officials to give them a chance in addition to the n.g.o.'s and the rest that

are working. >> senator >> i am going to ask unanimous consent that some opening comments made be -- may be made available. >> thank you. >> dr. farmer, i've enjoyed our relation shipp. jim dobbins, we've worked together for years. and dr. francois as well. i want to pick up on this sense, prior to two weeks ago and having grabbled and worked in haiti, going back to my peace corps there, in a sense haiti is not a failed state. it's on countless occasions those of us who are on this committee or elsewhere have worked in various times to try and provide sflans. and we have had the obstacles of refusing to provide assistance to even governments that were questionable in their effectiveness or the levels of corruption that existed and the

like in haiti. i think the point of one dealing obviously with the immediate problems of seeing to it that we go ahead resources to get people through this period of time. and while to suggest the idea given the magnitude of this tragedy, this offers an opportunity, frankly, to do some things that people have talked about for decades in haiti. and yet for various reasons have been unable or unwilling to grabble with and that's talking about the long-term ability for this country to become self-sufficient, to be able to feed and house itself as well as govern itself. that's the opportunity i think we've been offered, not just to our country, obviously, but the community at large. and the question is, how do we do this? i think there's some wonderful suggestions that we are here that we ought not get into the debate that we need to continue to provide for the immediate needs. but we need to get into this discussion very quickly as to how we're going to merge from this tragedy with the opportunity to do some things that we've never for various

reasons been able to achieve before. so it suggests -- if you ask me the question, who should i call in haiti if i wanted to talk to someone about this? my impression is there really isn't anyone to talk to at this point. we're down there basically wandering around trying to provide assistance where we can to people who have existing organizations. senator lugar and i are introducing legislation today the issues of pushing back the time obviously talking about in terms of trade, debt issues. these may not be much but this is something that paul farmer is talking about, getting to the question of how we can start to provide work. i don't know why we're not suggesting people cleaning up the rubble. just to create the artries so that assistance can get to people at this particular point. i mean, things can be depon immediately to provide some longer term economic hope. and i wonder if you might flex

this out. is it too wild a suggestion to be talking about at least temporarily some sort of seaver shipp -- receivership? to the extension then we can talk to some sort of speefership to not only provide the immediate relief but start to provide the snabs to them to -- i'm fearful what will have happen. it will go back to the way before. a small group of families run the country, we all know that, at the end of the day. i'm fearful we will roll back in that situation again only the conditions will be worse. so what about the idea of some sort of international receivership for haiti so we can do the immediate needs, provide the immediate needs, but secondly, start to provide that kind of support and assistance that will build or construct a set of institutions that will allow them to provide

for their own self sufficient i? -- own self-sufficiency? >> well, we set up provisional international administration in kosovo, in one or two other we've done that in cases where there was no local government or where we overthrew the local government. i don't know of any in which we displaced an existing government that was universally recognized. simply impose an international administration in haiti. unless there was a pretty clear kind of -- >> the poll conducted this

morning. that's i think a little different than a clear demand in haiti. so i guess i'd be -- there are precedence. it has been done. frankly, we don't do this all proventialal authority in haiti, the u.n. missions in kosovo and in east emore. they have been successful but they've had difficulties. i do tend to think a supportive providing most public services in haiti. but whether you would want to formalize that i would be skeptical, senator. >> paul, have you talked on

this? >> i think given the extremity of the circumstances i wouldn't be surprised if you'd hear support in haiti on the streets, as they say, in the same way that you did among haitian americans. that said, i think there must be another way to do this companyment of an extremely fragile civil service in government. the problem, as and i have discussed a number of occasions, the see sawing of politics and it las taken a toll. -- it has taken a toll. if the policy, ok, we are going to bypass the public infrastructure and only support the aid with the n.g.o.'s, then we're harvesting some of that now. there is -- that's why things were -- the government was weak before january 12.

so i think -- i'm not really qualified to comment on receivership. i just don't know enough about it. i know there are other people here that do. i think there will be resistance to that. i think that we can find a means of accompanyment. just back to the example of gainful employ for the hundreds of thousands of people or millions, really, who need employment now. i mentioned -- again, i'm troubled by the title "cash for work," because it's so absurd. but if we put significant amounts of my smor around watershed protection, agriculture endeavors and made sure there was gender equity or focus on women, especially, in these efforts, we could have substantial transfer of resources to the poor and the needy. and if we do that as in rwanda towards strengthening the local government structure, i think that would be a better receipt.

of course, people are at the end of their rope, as you are guessing. >> do you have any quick comment on that at all? quickly. >> my only comment would be to refer to haiti advisory group that was put together. again, as i mentioned in my testimony, there's recommendations that are very much alive and could be very useful as we move forward. >> senator. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i want to thank our witnesses. my sense is that haiti is a place where we have an opportunity. there's universal support of the people of haiti. i think all of us in some form of fashion have been touched by haiti. i would not be in the united states senate today without having been to haiti in 1982. i know that there are americans all across this country that

have been involved there and certainly are touched and saddened by what has occurred. it does seem like we have an opportunity to get this right. and i appreciate the analysis that has been given, and also appreciate the comments by my friend from connecticut. i have to tell you that there's no question in my mind we need to do whatever's necessary right now as far as pouring resources in. we just need to be in charge and that's what's happening. the international community is in charge. let's face it, every volunteer group, every n.g.o. does what it does in haiti in spite of the government. we work around the government. that's what everyone does. and i think the notion of building the government up in

some form or fashion, that's an important concept. i think your reference to rwanda, which i would say would dramatically different leadership, let's face it, is a great example of what can happen. i guess when i hear your analysis, mr. dobbins, of what can occur, i think it's difficult of how to transition what we need to do, what it takes now, to causing haiti to actually take the lead. maybe receivership is not the right word to use, i have to tell you for a period of time i think something far more draconian than just us working behind the scenes to prod reforms and those kind of things are going to be necessary. and so i think we're saying the right things, concepts-wise, but i find it very difficult to

believe that with the type of leadership that haiti has -- we see people here in haiti flourish under good government. we know that government has been an absolute disaster for generations in haiti. unfortunately, it's held wonderful people back from reaching their potential. and i sense that we're going to have to do far more draconian things to cause the country to function. i wish you would expand a little bit more. i think the concepts you laid out is great but how do you go from a to b without taking a much, much stronger role than you significant any find as it refers to rebuilding. there's tremendous opportunity in how we lay out infrastructure and change cities like other kinds of places that can never flourish in those kinds of form. there are things we can do now that i don't think the government of haiti ever will

have the ability to do in the short term. >> i think it's important to understand that in haiti we're now superimposing a relief and recovery operation on top of an existing postconflict stabilization and reconstruction operation. in other words, there has been an international operation in haiti with 10,000 troops and about $1 billion a year of insistence since 2004 which was actually beginning to make a difference when it was set back first by a series of hurricanes and then by this latest and largest disaster. so there are in fact reform programs that are agreed internationally, in many cases agreed with the haitian government that are in place and were beginning to have effect. we now need to redouble our effort to complete knows prmples. we need to -- those reforms. we need to evaluate if there are more ambitious reforms that can be put in place as a result

of the greater flexibility of the haitian system created by this disaster and the additional resources. we need to evaluate the new ideas that are coming forward. what we need to make sure that the new operation -- operates centerly with the old operation and the old structures that were set up. i do believe that as i suggested, somebody in the u.s. government and the administration needs to be made responsible for the overall american policy fward haiti, toward integrating that policy to other governments, representing it with the haitians and working with the congress. i think the congress needs to provide that individual with the resources necessary and the flexibility so that they can choose carefully those targets of the sort. i do think, for example, in the case of infrastructure, actually bricks and mortar stuff, are our experience in

iraq suggests that building things for people is a little enduring value if they haven't invested and if you don't have a contractual plan in which there is a funding stream for maintaining that infrastructure once you built it. we built a whole bunch of electric plants in iraq. iraqis weren't charging for electricity. there was no resource stream that was going to maintain those electric plants once it was built. when the world bank builds an electric plant they require a plan that has that kind of built-in resource stream that will sustain the project. we need people who know how to do these things who have done them before is set the cry tear -- to set the criteria, set the conditionality and use our political influence and our money to make sure those conditions are met. >> well, thank you for your

testimony. mr. chairman, i thank you for having the hearing. i hope that we very seldom candidly can have a way to make a lot of difference. i hate to say it, on this committee. rough done ar good job with karzai. this an opportunity for us i think to put pressure to make sure that more draconian steps are taken instead of willy-nilly kind of things. i thank you for the hearing and for your testimony. >> i couldn't agree with you more, senator. to come to that point after senator shaheen, i don't disagree with you at all. i think this will take a tough hand of leadership.

i know the vote has not gone on. we can go on a little bit. >> i share my colleagues' gratification at the outpouring from not only the united states but from the rest of the world to try and respond to this tragedy. i guess my first question before i ask more about the long term is if each of you are satisfied that everything is currently being done that can be done with the short-term relief efforts, dr. farmer, you talked about how slow the relief efforts are and to a great extent that's because of the lack of infrastructure. but is there more that should be done right now to address those relief efforts?

>> thank you very much, senator. i think there is a mismatch between the degree of interest and resources that we, including we as a nation, are putting in and the ability to absorb it which is the fruit of failed policies in the past. now, in the middle of an emergency like this you're not going to spend a lot of time on diagnosising that problem -- diagnosing that problem but i say there are more things we can do. you bring insurgents but you need to bring in supplies and long-term nursing, etc. if i could bring this back to our previous discussion, and i use the word accompanyment, the relief work is not going to be over in the next weeks. if we have the patience to accompany properly the various actors on the ground which include, of course, lots of

n.g.o.'s and church groups, etc., but also the remnants of the haitian public sector, i think we'll have reward. back to senator corker's question, you know, if you say, for example, have a division between the n.g.o.'s in haiti, the division of labor and the international financial institutions like the world bank and you said to the n.g.o.'s, look, part of your job now is to find a way to help accompany this shattered public infrastructure back, whether that be schools, and 85% of schooling in haiti is private. to me if you look back and say that's the reason why haitians are not literate. they call them lottery schools because you take your chances when you go there. we need to have a ministry of education that can assist in proper, not just building codes but curriculum and that's going to take a patient kind of repleef accompanyment. same for america. i'd like to again sound a note

of great optimism. when where he -- i've been in haiti for 25 years. for the first 15 years of my engagement and our engagement we did not do this the right way. we had a lot of good will. we built a hospital. we're very proud of it. i was there sunday morning. it was spotless. there were people lying on the floor who had been tended to and had casts and were boston op. all the beds were full. i was very proud and all of us are but what we really needed to do over the last decade, how can we do the same thing in the public health sector with the ministry of health and we did. and we created thousands of jobs and strengthened and rebuilt these public hospitals. that's an m.o. that i endorse not because we did it but because it's an effective way of addressing this lack of capacity in the public sector. i think the same can be said -- and it's more difficult with agriculture, of course, because knows are privately held fields in many of them. n.g.o.'s have to do this.

meaning what? support the weak public sector. one of my colleagues just passed me a note saying the haitian government is looking for $3.4 million just to pay rent for office space. who can deny that they have no office space? all their federal buildings collapsed. that's a transition and i'll stop just to the private investment part. haiti does not want to be dependent on foreign aid any more than rwanda does. andra wanda's vision for development is called vision 2020. there will be no foreign aid going into rwanda. we need job creation and private investment. i've been working a lot with the american bank. last fall all the hotels in port-au-prince were full of people who came in to invest in haiti from latin america. couldn't get a hotel room. we were going to have a meeting in week in the montana hotel which unfortunately collapsed,

but it was for investors from ireland. i think there's good news out there if we can just marshal our resources. >> to follow up a little bit on what senator corker raised and to go back to what i think each of you are saying. as you look at longer term, is the first priority governance, assistance with governance in haiti? and if that's the case, then who should we look to to take responsibility to do that? is it the international community, is it the united nations, the entity that's going to get that done? is it oversight from this committee and our state department in the united states that's going to get that done? is it pressure from the haitian american community? who takes responsibility to get that done? if it's governance to get that done? >> as i suggested, i mean, i

think within the security sector, police, the general politicals, i think the u.n. is the best place to do those. i think in terms of resuscitating ministries like the education ministry, transportation ministry, agriculture ministry and the health ministry it's probably somebody else. it may vary. a single country may decide, we need to fund public jakse in haiti. and japan or the united states or someone else say that's going to be our sector. we'll do public education. it's got to fit in a broader framework. or as i suggested, the well bank or the interamerican development bank. they take a major ministry or re-creating downtown port-au-prince and become the main funder and coordinator of funders in that. i think a division of labor between the world bank and the u.n. should be the two primary

international institutions. i think the united states can be very influential. but i think that, you know, an american czar who sits in haiti and makes these kinds of decisions would be counterpro ductive. -- counterproductive. >> yes, thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. let me thank our witnesses. i think this has been a very helpful hearing. we're looking -- the congress is looking at our foreign aid program and how we restructure our foreign aid programs in order to use foreign aid more effectively in carrying out u.s. objectives internationally. and in a previous hearing i raised the issue on gender matters issues. many of the countries we do business with, their record on gender equality is very, very poor. and how could we focus our foreign aid programs to be more effective in carrying out that objective. we look at haiti and look at

our previous foreign aid commitments in that country, we certainly were not terribly successful as it relates to the governance issues as we've seen in this crisis. the question is, what can you learn from haiti as we look at trying to restructure our foreign aid programs international plea? what can we learn from rwanda? mr. farmer, i was very impressed with your observations about the progress that's been made in rwanda. how have we learned from our experiences so that we not only focus what needs to be done in haiti in the point of longer term sustainability, including governance issues and international systems and investments and jobs, what can we change -- i guess, in the overall strategy of this country in trying to avoid another haiti in the future? >> thank you, senator.

i believe that the change that you're referring to has to begin inside haiti. and when we talk about governance and leadership, again, we have to remember that this country rose to become independent back in 1804. so again, i'm personally, you know, skeptical about trusting entities that in my opinion have not delivered. again, all you have to do is look at the response or lack thereof of the leadership in haiti. so as we move forward, i believe that we need to partner with leadership that has utmost integrity, leadership that puts

haiti and the haitian people first. >> here's the dilemma. we can't -- governments are what they are. yes, we can try to impact them and impact the way that they develop the institutions of democracy that can protect their people from not only natural disasters but from abusive practices of a government. that needs to be part of our strategy. i guess my point is, how do we structure our foreign assistance budget that does not become a tool for anti-american intervention in the country but is -- uses the right incentives so that when we put money in the country it goes to the purposes for what we intended? >> let me offer a self-serving response to that. we don't have a very introspective reflective foreign aid bureaucracy. the defense department spends a lot of time and a lot of money trying to find out what it did

wrong. after action reports, the tactical operations and strategic lessons are a major element of military learning. if you look at the military in iraq from 2003 to 2007 you see very substantial improvement because they reflected on what they did wrong. they wrote studies. they changed the doctrine. we didn't do that. the british agency spends a lot of its money on research and analysis and gets people to tell them what they're doing wrong and how they could do it better. there's no money in the a.i.d. budget, what did we do wrong and how can we do better. that's what my rand corporation does. we do it for the pentagon all the time. sorry. >> i don't work for the rand corporation. but i want to echo what you say as a volunteer. i am lucky enough to be able to be a volunteer for all these quarter of a century because i have a job at harvard.

and i want to say what you suggested is not at all self-serving. there's no real critical feedback in foreign aid. and we can easily develop that. we can use rand or other universities that's not trying to be part of the beltway scene but say, how can we improve the quality of aid and not have us looking back saying, gee, haiti or rwanda or whatever -- rwanda, prior to the genocide, was called the switzerland of stra africa and there is a book called "aiding genocide" which is about how the aid that was going in -- massive amounts of aid, mostly from france, i believe, not from our country, actually set the stage of the genocide. you'll see that some would argue the massive amounts of aid going into haiti actually served inadvertently for wheat

and security. you don't need to be a nuclear scientist to figure out that some of the rules of the road would be the ones you mentioned. for example, gender equity. what are the ground rules on job creation for women in a grant even to do with education and health, agriculture improvements, small business investment? and that's one job creation gender equity. it's half -- a lot of these big grants, half of it goes to overhead. i've done some study of this at harvard looking at major grants in the health care sphere where more than 50% doesn't leave the united states or stays in consultansies and overhead. i think that's way too high. we can create a lot of jobs by tweaking the rules a little bit. finally, i would say, integrated this into the district plans of niece places, in the local plans is difficult but critical. >> thank you. i appreciate that, mr.

chairman. >> thank you so much, senator comparedin. we are on the back end of the boat here. we have a couple of minutes. i'd like to ask a couple of things. some haitians have complind that not -- complained that they have not seen or heard very much from president preval. can you speak to that? >> senator, chairman kerry, i've watched quite a bit of news on this tragedy. i have not seen president preval much. what he said was he lost his home. so again understanding really the magnitude of this earthquake and what he has done, again, it's -- i can certainly understand that there would be an initial paralysis

in any leader. but from my perspective, crises , again, are where good leaders define themselves. >> we got to try to pull this in. i apologize. there are a number of questions, particularly about the aid programs, that we wanted to air publicly that i think would be valuable. let me get -- what percentage would you say of port-au-prince has to be rebuilt now? >> just as an eyewitness, the majority of it, because -- >> 75%, 80% -- >> 75%. the standing structures are -- there's something some of it.

you would have a home standing surrounding collapsed buildings. >> it boggles the mind to think about the level of clearing of debris and where it's going to be put and then to begin to contemplate the rebuild after that. you looking at several years of major investment, construction process, correct? i don't see -- i will go back to senator dodd's concept. maybe receivership is the wrong term. but i don't know how you get this done with any semblance of normality in terms of the approach. this has to be kind of -- again, this is probably the wrong term, but it's almost like a d-day invasion. you have to have so many moving parts coordinated and come in there with a new city planning concept. you have to have a vision for what you want this place to look like and what kind of

government buildings and where are they going to be put and will that contribute to the functionality and long-term of the country? i don't see any entity at this point or movement -- i talked to dr. shah about this, that suggests to me that the global community is going around that organizational effort in the way that it ought to. >> i want to get this out of the way, senator. someone that's very much opposed on the encroachment of the sovereignty in haiti and someone that's underlined the dignity of the haitian people and their struggle over 200 years for basic social and economic rights and probably underline some of my own country's previous and less than fruitful engagement, i'd still agree, you are right. there is not -- we need this -- this is so massive that we need the international a-team on this caseworking with the haitian people.

we still -- i can tell you in haiti i went to a meeting where i saw 40 or 50 haitian architects and urban planners working under a tree trying to work. i think there are people there. >> i am convinced this can be coordinated. it doesn't have to be -- i believe that this can be pulled together. i need to run and vote so i apologize for it. [inaudible] >> work hand in hand. i don't think they thought for a second that [inaudible] that there is an expertise that is necessary or a level of planning that is necessary or so forth that will not be on the -- i think you could -- rules are so critical in talking about it. there's an active effort not just to leave it all to the

n.g.o. or outside comprtor or whatever entity. but you're bringing the haitians into that rebuild sufficiently, you create wealth, you create confidence, build that future. i think what senator dodd said, we'll buy in, do a kind of diminishing sense of urgency, attention and ultimately wind up with the same unsustainable situation that we have faced in the last 25 years. as you know. so we are not going to let go of this. we are going to stay very focused. we're going to try to press this concept of how we are going to pull this together because there is a lot of effort in it. i think the best chance for haiti, best chance for haiti is all of the definitions we have

given in terms of the problems in the last 25 years is to take this moment and create the kind of joint rebuild, international cooperative effort provides a sustainable ending. .

we stand adjourned and i thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> more about haiti in just a moment, we'll bring you today's defense briefing with the head of u.s. southern command in a couple of minutes here on c-span. the u.s. senate today is continuing debate on raising the federal debt limit by nearly $2 trillion to about $14 trillion. senators are voting now as you heard senator kerry mention. a number of amendments, including one to create an independent commission to review the federal budget. later today, the nomination of federal reserve chairman ben bernanke to a second term.

the house is not in session, republicans are meeting in baltimore for their annual retreat today and tomorrow. they hear from the president tomorrow. the president is hitting the road after his state of the union of address. he traveled to st. petersburg, florida, to talk about grants for 13 major high speed rail corridors, we'll have his remarks live just after 1:00 p.m. eastern. a year after the stimulus was approved, $329.4 billion committed, $172 billion paid out. this weekend on "q&a," we'll hear from "the wall street journal's" terry teachout,

that's sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span this weekend on c-span2's "book tv," andre schiff ron on the political cartoons of dr. seuss published in the war years in the 1940's, also ken colodn and tom schachtman about the war. and now, a briefing on haiti from the u.s. southern command and the pentagon. this is a half-hour. >> general frazier, it's colonel

dave lupin at the pentagon. how do you hear me sir? >> lou -- loud and clear, good morning. >> we have you loud and clear here. good morning, privileged to reintroduce to you general dowling las fraser, the commander of u.s. southern command. he's joining us from miami to provide an operational update on our operation unify red spons in haiti. general, to you for opening statements, sir. >> ok, good morning. our relief efforts continue in support of the people of haiti, the government of haiti and the international effort that's ongoing. i guess i would characterize it as the situation improves day by day. the requirement is still enormous but that relief effort is continuing to flow in. from the united states perspective and the department of defense, we now have over 20,000 men and women in the

theater supporting that effort, a little over 6,000 people on the ground in haiti but those numbers only reflect those men and women who are actually in the theater. there's a lot of effort that's happening within transportation command and across the department of defense to support these efforts that are ex-tenl to the theater, so i don't have a good precise number for that. we have 23 ships currently operating in the area, we have over 60 rotary wing aircraft and over 30 fixed wing aircraft also supporting this effort. the airport continues to operate . as you see, we've had a reduction in the demand, the demand is now down about 20% from what it was so we're supporting roughly 100 flights a tai into the airport and another 80 to 100 airport flights operating in and out of there as we go along. if you look on slides to your

left in the lower left-hand corner, you'll see a picture of the temporary tower, mobile tower that we put in there, it's an f.a.a. facility now helping operate the airport. before that it was individuals standing on stools with a card table and that's what they were working on to control that airfield. so still operates in a very efficient manner from the port standpoint, the port is operating, has roughly 200 container a day capacity going through it. we suffered a loss to the south peer yesterday with some of the tremors that have continued, a pier we have been inspecting has now been -- has had more damage to it, we think because of the tremors and as a result we're not being able to use that anymore. we're expanding into some of the other ports right there in the port-au-prince area and to see what we can do there.

in addition to that, we'll have additional capacity coming into the port here next week that will enable us to cross the shore to increase the capacity to 500 containers per day. if you look in the lower right-hand corner, you'll see the divers that go down and inspect every day what those piers look like. that's navy diver first class john neil in that picture. from a medical perspective, we still continue to concentrate on medical capacities of the hospital ship comfort continues to see many patients. to date, they've seen over 3,000 patients. in fact if you look in the upper right-hand corner of the slide there, they had their first birth ever for the comfort, that's babiester, she was premature, five weeks, weighed in at five pounds. her mother had back injuries as well as leg injuries, so a very successful operation. i have a little bit of a

connection there, her birthday is the same as my daughter's birthday. a lot of effort continues in the medical feel. one of the things we're finding and working to improve is the capacity for patients to recover. we don't have enough capacity with the hospitals being full so the joint task force is actively working to establish that facility. in addition to that, we still have the 82nd, the second brigade of the 82nd on the ground supporting efforts in port-au-prince. the 22nd marine expeditionary unit is support regular leaf efforts along the northern part of the southern claw. the 24th marine expeditionary is supporting efforts in the northern part of haiti as well as on the west end of the southern claw. they're operating with the mb-22, that's given us a reach we wouldn't have had otherwise in that area. in addition, we've distributed

lots of water, almost 19 -- almost two million bottles of water, distributed about 1.5 million rations, if you will, and that effort continues. we've also distributed about 43,000 radios and i just wanned to give you an example, this is an example of the radios we're distributing. it has a hand crank on it that has been popular, you just twist the crank and it will operate the radio for about 45 minutes. you can charge a cell phone with it and it has a light associated with it also. that's been very popular with the haitians and provided them information on where to go for distribution as well as opportunities to listen to their favorite radio station. it's been a very key effort. in addition to that, going back to the port, the picture in the upper left-hand corner gives you an image of what that floating

dock looks like. as you can see. it's fairly constrained. but it's able to meet the needs of what we're doing. we're getting great support through the international community and that's who we're really supporting. menusta continues to provide support throughout the nation and is working closely with the j.t.f. as well as the entire international community. so the coordination improves every day, the relief efforts continue every day. the world food program will start a pretty big distribution effort here in which we'll help support in the next day. so day-by-day, conditions continue to improve in haiti and we continue to focus our effort on sustaining that. with that, i'll entertain your questions. >> general, we did not receive those photos that you described before the briefing, but we will get those out to the pentagon

press corps as soon as we can and we'll also provide a link when we post the transcript. just so you know, those photos you did describe didn't make it to the folks here. we'll get those out as soon as we can. to questions. ann. >> this is ann flaherty with the associated press. do you have an estimate yet for the cost of military operations and also if you could explain why we're still hearing reports of people not getting the food and water that the military has brought, are there logistical challenges still or do you not know where the people are? is it an issue of security, trying to get order in these camps? can you give us a better idea of why that aid isn't being distributed as widely as it should be? >> sure. first, i don't have an accurate assessment of the cost, primarily because it involves many different parts of the department of defense because

we're getting support from not only all the services but from combat and command. what i will tell you is, the president and the secretary of defense have said if you need something please let us know, we'll get it to you, and that's what we've been doing. the support we've needed has been there all along and that continues. as far as aid getting out to different areas, i think what we're finding is we have a lot of people out working this, but we're only part of an international effort, so it is -- the aid we put out, we're still, because of the capacity in the ports, we're still not up to meeting the needs of the haitian people as far as the amount of supplies that are there. so there have been so instances isolated where we have been out to get distribution to citizens,

there hasn't always been enough food, we haven't anticipated the demand, i guess, at each site as we've gone out because the haitians have migrated around, if you will, from distribution site to distribution site. we're still finding pockets of places we haven't been able to get into, yet in other places there's a great economic system ongoing where there's food available, fresh fruit available so it's very inconsistent picture as you look across the country and try to determine where those pockets of need are because they could be right next to a place that has a lot of food available to it. we're still working to find those pockets. >> i wanted to follow up on all of that, what -- still the u.s. military, even though it's part of the larger effort, is very much leading much of the effort, so what's your estimate right

now on how many haitians still in week three don't have sufficient shelter, regular meals, regular water, regular shelter, and access to medical care? and i ask this because then again, week three, what are you learning from all of this that perhaps will help you do this better the next time around, better in the future, better in the days ahead? >> well, we don't have an accurate number of exactly who still needs shelter, who needs food, and water, we think, is in pretty good shape. there's -- there doesn't seem, as our people move around, that there's a demand for water. fuel is not a demand either. so we're still having to move

around and find those pockets for food distribution and so it's really just a communication and continuing effort to get out to every spot that there is in the country and so, that's just an ongoing effort we continue to work. again, it improves day-by-day. from a shelter standpoint, the same thing is happening. there's a lot of capability and capacity going out but some of the haitian citizens have moved to different locations. so the challenge is that the need keeps moving around a little bid if you will. it's -- a little bit, if you will. it's difficult to stay up with the need where it is, that's an evolving issue as we work through it. as we look into the future, we'll do our assessments, we'll look to see how we can improve this better, but it's an ongoing process because of the magnitude of the need, the difficulties as

we're working through the infrastructure to meet the needs, and then, just getting the information flow because there's 109 nations involved, there's over 500 registered nongovernmental organizations so there's a massive number of people and a massive number of communication that has to happen in putting those links together just takes time and effort. that's ongoing. >> a couple of followups, is the u.s. military -- one point, is the u.s. military still bringing in tents, and my other question is going back to cost, is the pentagon press secretary -- the pentagon press secretary was asked about this, he said, quote, it's a very expensive operation and he said, the meter is running. do you have any indication from the defense department or washington that the meter is running, and you only have so much money to spend on this?

>> to answer your second question, no, i don't have any limit that anyone has placed on me. the focus is on meeting the needs of the haitian people. that's where we're focused on doing that. we're in the process right now of going through our assessments, looking at the exassy we've brought in. as the need adjusts, we're looking to figure out how and where and what to adjust our capacity. then also as agencies come in that are the ones who are providing the longer term assistance, usaid, u.n. agencies, we're working to understand the capacities they're bringing in so as we look at our capacities we can easily transition those from what the u.s. military is assisting in doing and transition those capabilities into those more enduring capacities that will remain with haiti for a longer time.

that's an effort that's ongoing right now. >> general, also if you could address shelter, whether we're continuing to deliver tents or any type of shelter. >> we're working with the shelter cluster within the united nations. so we're really looking for them to tell us where the need is, how we need to do it and go -- they're the experts in providing this. we're providing the capacity to move a shelter capacity in tents as required within that effort. directly, we're not pushing a lot, we from the department of defense are not pushing a lot of tents in where we're relying on those other organizations that provoid long-term relief and working with them as needed to get shelter capacity to where it needs to be. >> all right, general. jeff schobel with "stars and

stripes," do you have how long the 82nd and 27th could be on the ground before they need to be replaced by other units? >> that's an ongoing effort that we're assessing. our focus is meeting the needs of the haitian people. that's where we'll continue to do and as we accomplish that mission, as we see that capacity growing, within the international community as well as the u.s. relief organizations, we'll transition that capacity out. that's an assessment we have ongoing. i don't have a special need and we're basing it on need, not on time. as the capacities are available and we can transition, that's the way we'll work this process. >> both units have other things to do, how long can you keep them there? >> again, from think standpoint

and the secretary of defense, the focus and the pressure and the emphasis he has put on me is looking at the needs of the haitian people there's not a demand or pressure on the other mission requirements. he's asked me to focus on the need i have here to tell him how that is going and when we have the capacity to transition. that's what we're working on. there's not a specific demand that he's put on me with a timetable or a need to move those capacities in a different manner. >> in your opening statement, you talked about opening the sea port. i guess that's going to be key to feeding and sheltering people because ships can bring in a heck of a lot more than planes. how soon do you expect to hit full operating capability at the

sea port and then you also mentioned something about an over the shore capability. what is that and when do you expect that to be up and running? >> we have an over the shore capability right now. the containers we are bringing in right now are from over the shore capability, both a military capability as well as a commercially provided cape b89. right now that's 200 containers a day. next week, we'll bring in some additional over-the-shore capability to increase that to 500 containers a day. about the middle of the february, we'll bring in additional military capacity, joint logistics over the shore, that will increase it up to around 800 containers a day. we're looking at the repear of the pier, the south pier that we just had to stop using yesterday

and we're -- estimates right now is that will take us eight to 10 weeks to repair that facility. then we're doing assessments on what it will take to restore the pier but that's a longer term effort. that's in months, i don't have a firm estimate on that right now. >> would it be safe to say that the joint over the shore capability sort of bridges that gap until you can get the commercial piers up and running? >> that's exactly what we're doing. that's why we brought in and look for this over-the-shore capacity because the initial assessments and views we had was that the port would be a problem, we needed to get an over-the-shore capacity so as soon as we saw that need, transportation command started moving all the capacities for this joint logistics over the shore to haiti. we also looked at alternative piers within the area.

there are a couple of other piers that have a exatsity for about 150 containers a day, so we're currently working to see how we can use those also. every place we can find some capacity, we're looking to enable that. >> thank you. >> general, i'm carl osgood with the executive intelligence review. the military services have resident within them some tremendous engineering capabilities. i wonder if you could expand on that more particularly in areas such as power generation, i understand electricity is unreliable now in port-au-prince, structural reconstruction capabilities, things like that. also, can you talk about how any of this is helping to expand the capacity of the haitian government? >> we have our engineers out doing a lot of things that you've done. they've gone out and surveyed the electrical distribution

system from what i understand right now, it remains intact and they're working to -- working with the haitian government to restore power and restore that. we're also looking, again, the pier has been -- and the mort has been really one of our focus areas in delivering that capacity. there's a lot of commercial and international capacity also engineering capacity that is coming in, so we're trying to leverage that local capacity wherever possible to work the engineering capabilities that we need there resident in haiti. the other engineering portion we're looking at is just the logistics distribution standpoint to make sure the roads are capable, the bridges are there, so we're out surveying those routes also so we can assure that easy distribution if you will, throughout the country. so that -- those efforts

continue. this is all being done in conjunction with the government of haiti. so their engineers are out, their folks are out with us so we're working this in conjunction along with the u.n., the international community, it's a combined international effort. everybody working together, everybody coordinating their efforts. so it truly is that cooperative effort. everybody bringing their expertise together and leveraging that for the goofed haiti. >> this is courtney kube from nbc news. what's the assessment on how many dis-- displaced persons camps have sprung up in haiti and how many haitians are living in them. and if you could talk about the security in those camps, i know the haitian police and menusta are responsible for security but has the u.s. military been asked to supplement security in any of

the camps or respond to any problems? >> i don't have precis numbers of those camps. they, again, move around a little bit. we found that they tend to cluster around the distribution points. to this point, we've had four distribution points within part awe prince. that's going to expend ta 15, the distribution points, as the world food program start theirs effort. that should start tomorrow. that will have people move around a little bit so the camps are very sporadic. they're very mobile, i guess, is what i would say. and there are hundreds of those camps. the estimate that i've seen run from 800,000 to 1.2 million people who are displaced from their houses. some of those people have moved up to the north, they've moved in with family or moved into houses that they had up there, so there doesn't seem to be an issue with shelter up in the

northern part of haiti. as you go out to the west, you're finding similar displaced camps out there. we have not heard of any security incidents within the camps and that really remains the responsibility of menu stmbings a and haitian national police. our focus remains on supporting the security for humanitarian assistance, the distribution of that, and that enables menusta to focus on that general security and stability throughout the country. it has remained stable throughout this period across the country. so all indications i have is that menusta and the haitian national police are doing a good job and we're supporting their efforts to enable them to continue that job. >> we were also hearing earlier this week that the haitian police and minister were looking for about 5,000 prisoners who

escaped right after the earthquake when the prison collapsed. any chance you have any update on if any of them have been found or what the -- how the efforts are going for that? >> their efforts continue. i don't have specifics on whether they've recaptured or found any of those. there are sporadic indications that some of them have been detained, there have been some indications that neighborhoods where gangs used to be, where criminal elements used to be, have been resistant to those elements coming back in. there are some indications that some gangs are reforming in small number bus it's still very sporadic throughout the country and menusta and the haitian national police are keeping an eye on that, working that, but i don't have the specifics of anybody that they have captured.

>> general, mike with cnn. just going back to the hospital shift and the nassau and the baton, how is the bed capacity doing there? there's a stretch there, we were understanding, it might have been a little stressed out, is that still very much an open option to be bringing numerous people back out there and are people being discharged? is there a fairly decent discharge rate as well coming back into the country? >> that's the issue the joint task force is working right now. the exass i have to the comfort is reaching their care limit, i guess is what i would say, not their physical bed capacity. what we found is some of the

injuries have been more -- have required more treatment and more longer-term treatment than we anticipated and so that's put a -- put an effort and strain on the capability of the comfort to handle those. again, strain is probably not the right word. it's used up the clinical capacity before we reach the bed space capacity if that makes sense. so the effort we have ongoing right now for the discharge is looking to put together a facility where we have the ability to recover those patients and be able to provide them with that recovery space and time they need. that's an estimate of a facility in the 3,000 to 5,000 bed to be able to do that. that's an ongoing capacity that we're building with the health cluster right now.

there's a piece of land that the government of haiti has agreed to establish this facility, we're looking to make it in a temporary capacity right now with just tents and cots and whatever capacity we have there as well as while we bring in whatever capacity we can. that's an effort ongoing as we speak. >> you said it was ongoing. and the land was identified. are there tents and cots set up there or is that still something kind of under discussion on how and when it will be created? >> no, we're working that today. so it's finding the capabilities and the resources to do it, we've heard through nongovernmental organizations that there's staffing and there's organizations who are willing to staff it and provide the medical care required so

it's putting all those things together and getting the -- and finding all the resources to build it. so again, the joint task spors, the health clutter is working that today and next day in a very concerted effort to put that system together because it will dramatically help, that's my assessment, the capacity of the medical care being provided. >> last question. >> i have a question about the -- i know you talked about hospital location, is it accurate to say it's going to be at 40 acres in size? i've seen some reports that that's how big a space you wanted to put tents in, is that accurate? >> i don't have a very precise number on that. i'd have you ask general keane, he probably has a better,

precise number on that. but it's going to have to be at least big enough to handle the capacity we talked about, 3,000 to 5,000 bed spaces is a large facility if you will a large area. so it will have to be large enough to handle that capacity, that's all i can tell you right now. >> general, thank you for your time. i know you have many things to do, if you'd like to make any closing comments at this time, it's back to you. >> this really is an international effort. the united states and the united states department of defense is really focused on continuing to support the government of haiti, the people of haiti in bringing their suffering and alleviating that as quickly as we possibly can. that's what our focus has been and that's where our focus will remain as we work cooperatively to understand how we can transition this to the longer term capacity and needs that the

haitian government will need. ongoing effort, a lot of focus continues to remain that it will remain a central focus of the united states southern command until we've been able to meet our mission requirements. thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. >> and our international coverage continues this weekend with britter prime minister's question time. this week, house leader harriet harmon fills in for the prime minister and answers questions on the iraq war and the news conference. that's sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. president obama is on the road after his state of the union address last night. he's traveling to st. petersburg, florida, accompanied by the vice president. they'll talk about the grants for high speed rail corridors,

we'll have coverage of that town hall at 1:05 eastern here on c-span. >> saturday, the history of executive power from george washington to george wrment bush, john yoo talks about his book "crisis and command" as part of our book tv weekend on c-span2. former president clinton appealed to global business leader today to help haiti rebuild. he's the u.n. special envoy for haiti. he spoke at the world economic forum in switzerland. his comments along with others at the meeting, about 45 minutes. >> mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, your excellencecies, i welcome you to this very

special, very important, crucial session on haiti. all of us in this room remain deeply saddened by the scale and scope that has ravaged haiti. the scope of the destruction. disasters of this magnitude serve as a harsh reminder of how fragile life can sometimes be. but it is also during these moments that we are reminded of the common humanity which we all share. we decided to convene this special session immediately following the earthquake as the scale and scope became really clear of the devastation.

in speaking with president clinton, he and i immediately agreed that a joint effort of the clinton global initiative, the world economic forum, together with the united nations should be a powerful partnership to effect meaningful change. let me be clear. we are not here to try and to coordinate issues related to the short-term disaster relief and recovery. there are many agencies already doing great work and here i know many of you have already generously contributed to that end. i would also like to mention that many of those who have done

such great work at the very short notice and have engaged personally in a very deep way into the help for haiti are sitting here in this room and i would single out particularly the former minister of haiti who has come all the way from haiti just to be here today together with us. please let's particularly recognize the work and presence not only of her but of all those n.g.o. people here in the room who have done fantastic work. [applause]

i would like to introduce someone who has become a real friend of the world economic forum and who we owe a lot. william jefferson clinton, the president of the united states from 1993 to 2001. i will not forget, never forget on the occasion of our 30th anniversary, mr. president, the very difficult situation when you joined us and when you made such a great speech and since that time, you have been with us, i think, every single year. and we are so glad to welcome you back and particularly at this very special occasion. [applause]

i think what people appreciate most is your sense of passion and the deep sense of humanity which you show always as an individual. it's not so much your former work as the president which impresses everybody, but it's in addition, you, as a human being which is such a great characteristic of yours. you have relationship with the country that dates back several decades. even you have honeymooned in haiti. and since that time, i know that you have to spend a lot of your attention, of your time in your presidency, but also afterwards with the clinton initiative, giving special attention to haiti.

your knowledge of the country, the people, its challenges has also been the reason why in may last year the general appointed you as the u.n.'s special envoy to haiti. despite all your tremendous engagement with haiti, i know from your -- from our conversations that nothing could prepare you for the degree of devastation that you have witnessed personally during your recent visit in haiti. we are now all looking forward to your address, but it's more than just an address. i think what we want to do is assist you in your efforts. and we all have an obligation, being global citizens, exercising global citizenship to

help haiti in such a way to show the world that we are really committed to improving the state of the world. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, good morning. i want to begin by thanking the whole world economic forum for making the opportunity for all of us to gather here today and let me say briefly what we're going to do. i will try to tell you where we are and what i want you to do. and then, we will have remarks and a conversation from the others who are here, including the minister of foreign affairs

of brazil, foreign minister ammaran. i want to say to all of you who do not know this, the united nations security force, menusta, has been commanded by a brazilian general. the brazilians have led an enormous increased involvement from south and central america and the caribbean, haiti's neighbors. they have done so specially. while a number of people in menusta were killed in the earthquake, they basically have held things together, president obama and the secretary of state and our aid people have worked with the american military and signed an agreement with the brazilian leaders of menusta so we, the united states have tried to provide extra logistic and distribution support in haiti but i want to say on behalf of

the whole world, i think brazil has been magnificent in all this and we're grateful to you and your country and your leaders. [applause] dennis o'brien is the chairman of the digisaw group. he lives in ireland, except when there's an earthquake in haiti. we have been friends for many years he told me not long after i met him that the young haitians who sold his telephone cards on the street were me best entrepreneurs he had ever met and he has worked tirelessly to help rebuild the haitian economy. he has now agreed to basically coordinate the business people that we have recruited through the clinton global initiative over the last two year, they made well in excess of $100,000 in commitment to invest in haiti and he's done everything he

could through et -- through getting his own cell phone service up again and a number of other things to help haiti. helen clark is the director of the united nations development program, former prime minister of new zealand who went to a lot of trouble to come here and robert greenhill, many of you know, the c.o.o. here, is the former president of the canadian international development agency. i want to thank former prime minister pierre louie for being here, when she left office she asked me to keep working and she's been a real inspiration to all of us. she came from haiti to be here today. if you have questions, you might want to talk to her. i think -- i thank all the others who have sent emergency aid and long-term commitments, including, i want to mention,

particularly george solis, who has reconfirmed his commitment to make a substantial private sector investment in haiti. let me just be very brief here. i want to say a few words about where we are and then i want to turn it other to the people here and then maybe give opportunities for you to talk now or with everybody here as soon as we break up. the world economic forum has agreed to work with us in partnership to work between now and the clinton global initiative in september and then for the next couple of years to increase preist sector involvement in haiti. there will be outside here a haiti desk. robert will explain how it will operate in a minute. we want you to think about this. if you want more information, we want you to go there, we'll get you the information. but there will be a place where you can go between now and the

enof this session of the world economic forum either to tell us what your interest is and ask for us to follow up with you or to tell us what you're doing now and what you're prepared to do. so where are we? the bad news is, somewhere around 150,000 people have lost their lives, at least 200,000 others have been injured, many of them have had limbs amputated and have not received wheelchairs nor prosthesis and there are hundreds of thousands of people who need temporary but extended housing and even more who need food and water every day. the united nations, the united nations security force, as i said, has been working well. i think the americans have done a good job, the government of

haiti has asked the united nations to manage the flow at the airport while there are 800 to 1,000 planes trying to land there, you should know that on the day tpwhever earthquake, only 10 or 12 planes landed at the port-au-prince airport, now they land more than 100 every day on basically a big, one-runway airport. they are managing it well. there are serious unmet food and water needs and part of it is just the distributional system does not exist. the government of haiti was devastated by the earthquake, the united nations suffered its worst loss of life on a single day in the history of the u.n., but the airport has become the de facto operation center of this relief effort. the haitian government is building out some officer there

is so everybody can be in one place and work on a daily basis. the immediate needs -- think about it like this right in the aftermath of the earthquake, you had all these people walking the streets, not knowing how many of their loved ones were living or dead, with only what they had on their back, no food, no water, able to get no sleep, no light anywhere at night, so for days and days, the haitian people were stumbling over bodies, living and dead. and i think -- i don't mind an international media showing people in unrest at the food distribution centers and all that because it spurs us all to do better but i think you need to know in my opinion, given what they went through, the people of this country behaved magnificently in the aftermath of a most unimaginable tragedy. so i think that things are better now but there are serious problems with getting enough

food, medicine, and shelter. what do we need? we need safe, sanitary shelter. the camps are being developed. both are important. right now, every piece of green space in the larger port-au-prince area in the west is occupied by somebody sleeping at night without organized sanitary conditions. there's -- we need more food and water distributed. we are attempting to set up even today a better system of monitoring all the hospitals and clinics in the area, basically eight traditional hospitals and a number of field hospitals and clinics and offshore hospital units that have been set up. they do daily monitoring on what are the medical needs so we can either bring it in or distribute what's there at the airport in a more effective way.

we have to then get temporary schools open and get the chance -- get the kids back in the school the teachers before they leave to do something else, and the government itself has no revenues to restore basic services, everything was taken away. i tole somebody i spent last weekend on toilets and trucks. i say that not to make you laugh but to remind you of what they are up against now. right now, we need to figure out how to get through the week. i want to -- i want the people of haiti not to have to worry about whether they can eat today, whether they can get water today, whether their kids will be hungry today, i want them to know from one week to the next that they have a place to sleep, that it's safe, that it's sanitary, that there's some lighted conditions at night, all of that. the thing they need most now is, instead of 15 distribution centers for that food we need

100 or 200 and the only practical way to do it is trucks and we have money. dennis and i were talking about, former president bush and i asked president obama to raise some money, i raised money for a u.n. fund, we raised money in our fund, we'd like to have a -- to help a good deal. we can't buy these trucks. we need a distribution network down there to get the food and medicine out. people don't have the cabs are destroyed, they don't have a way to get around. it is simply not enough, even if we had all the food and water we needed every single day, to distribute it at 15 sites. so if there's anybody here who knows where i can get some, not big truck, not semis, pickup trucks or slightly bigger, i need 100 yesterday. they do. so, i will say again, if you

want to help, unless are in contact with the medical facility and you are sending specific medical facilities or unless you have access to medical teams, right now, we need cash more than anything else because we've got enough cooks in the kitchen, not enough coordination and distribution. we've got to get people on a week-to-week basis, where they can think about at least that and not having to worry about getting through the day. now having said that, united nations is committed to setting up work for cash programs to begin the cleanup. we can involve a lot of haitians in that. the haitians are returning to normal life as far as they can. there are large numbers of n.g.o.'s there, haiti has about 10,000 operating n.g.o.'s the largest per capita in the world work, with the possible exception of indyasm virtually all of them have been heroic in this crisis and good on a

consistent basis. the u.n. is the agencies like the world food program, the unicef a lot of other people have been working hard in spite of the fact that our leadership was crushed there. here's what i want you to think about. before all this happened, i was asked to be the u.n. coordinator in a very different time. haiti lost 15% of its g.d.p. in 2008 because of four hurricanes. michelle was then prime minister and the haitian government had a commitment to modernize the country and the u.n. said, the u.n. secretary general said we want you to go in there and help them by making sure that the donor nations and international organizations honor their commitment and we get more private investment. i said i would do it but only if

i were helping the haitians to implement their own plan, that our goal this time should not be helping the country but helping the country to stand on its own to determine its own destiny, to be sustainable in a different and fundamentally positive way. they did that. the haitians took dr. paul tauier's economic report, made amendments to it, they had their own plan. and we were doing well. the donors were beginning to distribute the aid. we had a foreign investment conference in port-au-prince where there were more people from the neighborhood, latin america, central america, the caribbean, than from europe, canada, the u.s. and asia combined, first time in my lifetime all the maybes -- neighbors have been committed like that to the future. dennis o'brien will tell you in a moment, we had a group we recruited over the last year or so through the c.g.i. to invest

$100 million there. i tried to mobilize the haitian diaspora and meanwhile the haitian government, the parliament, gave dual citizenship to the haitian diaspora, which has enormous potential positive implications for the development of the country and the n.g.o. community was beginning to work together for the first time to try to harr monoize and intensify their efforts. we had people interested in building up the agriculture sector, the tourism sector, the potential for development of call centers, all kinds of things, then the earthquake happened. here's what i want to say to you. this is horrible for the people of haiti. they are virtually in shock now and a lot of them are frustrated that they're not getting the aid fast enough. but i still believe they have the same chance to escape their past and build a better tomorrow

than they had before the earthquake. if we can manage this crisis, and then develop both a plan for what happens in port-au-prince and a structure that will have the confidence of donors and accountability that will both empower and increase the capacity of the haitian government and involve haitian citizens and all the rest of us in the long-term reconstruction. and i am working on that. we did it in indonesia after the tsunami. we had a system that mobilized and coordinated what the government could do. we had total transparency, total accountability and a regular set of progress reports that made a big difference. i also believe that a country can rise from the ashes in a very short period of time. my model for that is rwanda and dr. paul former, my deputy at

the u.n. who worked hat haiti for 25 year, his foundation and mine went to rwanda and essentially helped rebuild the entire health care system in three years. four years after the genocide in 1998, rwanda's per capita income was $268. 10 years later, it was $1,100. it had nearly quadrupled. a lot of you were probably part of that don't tell me they can't do this this is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the haitian people to build the future they want to become instead of to rebuild what they used to be. we have to get through the emergency, we have to get it organized and we have to have the right structure and support. i invite you to be part of that. and i can tell you this, then i will turn it over to the other panelists here. after we had that investment

conference in port-au-prince, we did what we always do we said, how did you like it? what did you like? what did you not like? how did you feel? here's the most important thing those of you on the outside need to know. 97% of the people who came to the investment conference agreed with dennis o'brien. they said they were surprised by the positive opportunities available there for them. .

we've invested about $370 million over the last four years. it's a terrific place to do business, believe it or not. the government policies are very faveably disposed toward foreign direct investors. but more importantly haiti has a very young population and, you know, we have 900 staff, they're hugely talented people. they're very committed. they're very hard working and, you know, there are 10 million consumers in the marketplace and certainly it's my view that over the next five years the president's given an example what have happened in rwanda, that can be replicated in haiti with a proper reconstruction plan and development plan. and by way of example, just to give you an example of how committed people are, i met a

man the other day, he came back to work, he lost five of his family, and he still showed up for work. so, you know, i think haitian workers, haitian staff, haitian managers and most of our businesses run by haitian managers are some of the best people in the world. and, you know, you probably will ask yourself this morning, where are the opportunities for me and my business? and first of all there's opportunities in tourism, particularly in the northern part. there's wonderful beaches. already the cruise liners are coming in there. there's hotel groups like choice hotels, best western are coming in there and investing money. but also in the area of light manufacturing, particularly in textiles because there's a thing called the hope two agreement which allows manufacturers of these goods to have very favorable tariff treatments in the united states. i know the president's been involved in pushing that. there's also opportunities of fruit production.

in food production, a taiwanese group are putting $16 million into rice production but also for people who are in the rebuilding-reconstruction-const ruction business, property development, i think there's an enormous opportunity for those people to come in now and make very solid investments. also in infrastructure, electricity generation as well. and, you know, we in this space of four or five years since we've been there, we've never had any problem with our business. we've never had any difficulties with the government. and that's why i actually think that this market is the doorstep of the wealthiest consumer market in the united states. and most of us in this room have investments all over the world but they're generally pretty boring because they're all, you know, we're making money, creating jobs in other countries. but haiti is not boring. it's challenging. but it's also a way where you can actually strengthen your management team by sending them

there in this new market and i'd have to say, you know, haiti is wide open for business and for those of you who are looking for a low cost manufacturing location right close to the u.s., please go and register today at the haiti desk. or get in touch with the clinton global initiative because within the c.g.i. we are really trying to push investment. i will personally go and make a presentation to you, even though i'm not the foreign direct investment agency for haiti, but, you know, i just can't strongly urge you enough to actually do something. and, you know, you do it for the right reasons and not just do it foral truistic reasons but do it for economic reasons because haiti is a great country and tomorrow it's going to be even a better country. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. let me -- let me just say, first of all, we were going to

have a meeting of all of the people who had already made these business commitments in haiti, then the earthquake intervened. dennis told them all to come to south florida and meet anyway. and they all re-upped and i can't thank you enough, but you're right, haiti is not boring, but neither is it hopeless. and i thank you for your commitment. i should also tell you that i've met with 50-plus n.g.o. and flopic leaders, all of whom reaffirm their commitment. the people who have been down there are hooked and they believed in what we can do together. so i thank you very, very much. now, i'd like to ask someone from brazil to speak a little bit about his perspective on this, his country, where he thinks we are, where we're

going, then i'd like to ask helen clark to speak and then maybe you could talk a little bit what about what our partnership is going to be like going forward. prime minister. >> thank you, thank you, mr. president. well, i'm really very honored and touched and moved to be here today because i just came from haiti about four days ago. i was there last saturday. and i could see with my own eyes some of the things that are mentioned here. in spite of all the horror, the disaster, the tragedy, people are living, the marks are reviving, even the street markets and certainly it's not boring and actually what i would say just as an aside, i didn't think to say that, but even in the aspect of art, painting and music, that's also an area which can bring money and which can be used and remember that franklin roosevelt, quote when he was busy reviving the american economy, he also paid attention

to the artists because that's also part -- an important part of the team of the country. i was reading yesterday or day before yesterday in "the herald tribune" an article which speaks about a cathedraly you -- where you have -- cathedral where you have the stained glass window with bible figures but they are black bible figures. this is part of the national pride also that has to be recovered. well, as president clinton has already said, brazil is already committed. we lost 18 soldiers and officers now and we also lost what we consider the brazilian mother teresa who worked with children there. but it the device, the deputy of the u.n. mission, of the civilian mission, but that didn't detract our attention. on the contrary, we're even more committed now.

i don't want to belabor and to extend myself on what we have been doing and what we are doing because i don't think this is the time to make any kind of propaganda publicity but this is a moment of solidarity, actually. i'm very moved to see the least of donors, countries like botswana, countries like chad, countries like gabon, not to speak of the region countries, so it's a moment in which the world has to show solidarity and i think i want to also compliment charles swab for proproting mees -- for promoting these. there are a lot of things going on in haiti that have to do with some sort of economic activity. but it's rather small scale things like the cash for work, which is now very important, crucial at this moment. but i also want to take on what president clinton said, taking in the medium and long-term, because the medium and long

term are around the corner. after all, we have to deal with them as we deal with the emergency. and in these respects, i think there are four questions that have to be addressed and the private sector is fundamental for. that i just mention these four. there are others. but, drugs, energy, environment and food security. jobs for young people, one of the main occupations of whom i have just talked are the outflow of young people because these are the people who can reconstruct haiti. so it's important that there is investment and that the investment comes quickly so people see that there are prospects. and in the area of jobs, not to mention other area, but just to take one like garments and for instance us in brazil, we were discussing, how you could facilitate the rules of origin so it would make it easier for people to invest. we had 11 businessmen from brazil in the mission that was

coordinated by president clinton. and i think it's essential to do that and for the first time i saw the brazilian textile industry saying that they were prepared to give reciprocity. so if the american companies investing their -- hope to give easier rules of origin, we would also do the same. so this is one thing. and there food security rights are essential. maybe it's not so attractive, i don't know, from the point of view of different areas but it's an area which we have to do something because one of the causes of it's last political crisis in haiti before that was precisely the food. in energy, brazil has an enormous experience in biofuels. but these can be done not just for to help haiti but to make money. in the beginning it can be dehigh drade biofuels coming from brazil or somewhere else, going to the west market. in the future they can use sugar cane planted in haiti itself. and finally, you've had good

mention environment. haiti is a devastated land from the point of view of environment. i don't want to go into the causes. but that's the fact. so we would need a massive program financed maybe by the world bank, the i.d.a., i don't know, but with also private sector interested in replanting trees in haiti because otherwised country will continue to suffer from floods. floodses don't come only because it rains, it comes because the environment is not adequately prepared to absorb those rains. so i would say that. and if i could just finalize, since i've always came to those forum only to speak about trade and w.t.o. and so on, this is the time to show that w.t.o. is not only about profit and greed. this is the time for all the countries to offer all the developing countries and all develops countries that can do

so to offer duty free, quotea free to all haitian products with facilitated rules of origin. that's what would really make a difrpbls. >> thank you. [applause] thank you very much. let me try to clarify, for those of you that aren't involved in haiti, you all saw the pictures on the international television, not just of the human misery but all the channels repeatedly showed a map, showed you a map of the island of hispaniola, haiti, and where the earthquake was most severe. essentially in port-au-prince and west. i do want to emphasize something that both the previous speakers said but i want you to be clear, those of you that are interested in this, 70% of the land mass of the country and about 60%-plus of the people were not directly damaged by the earthquake. the economic plan which was developed by the government then headed by prime minister

louie and now by bellerive includes commitments for this whole country. it is more important than ever in my opinion while we're trying to rebuild port-au-prince and help people put their lives back together to try to if anything accelerate the impact of the economic plan and its implementation in the rest of the country. i want to make a defense of the royal caribbean lines, they were criticized for continuinging to dock their ships in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. i think that's wrong. they brought in money that the haitians desperately needed. they kept people working who needed jobs. you didn't want us to shut the whole rest of the country down while the capital was broken and bleeding and burying their dead. it would have been a terrible mistake. but let's just take tourism. there were 800,000 tourists in

haiti last year, 500,000 brought in by the royal caribbean line and they didn't spend the night because the facilities weren't there, because there's not an airport there. i hope we can accelerate the construction of the airport, i know personally two investors who want to open resorts there. they'll put thousands of people to work. a lot of people have left the port-au-prince area, gone back to their home villages, they need to make a living, the other people there do. i just want to emphasize that. we have agricultural products, environmental projects, tourism projects, all kinds of opportunities in the rest of haiti and doing something there will be a direct benefit to the area hit by the hurricane as we begin the rebuilding. and i want to thank all the people who have kept economic activity going in the rest of the country during this moment. so now let me -- otherwise i don't have strong feelings

about this issue. i cannot guess that anybody would criticize the people who are trying to keep the rest of haiti together at this moment. i want to call on our u.n. dmplet p. directer to talk a little bit about what the u.n. system has done and i'd like to say again i'm a volunteer there but i am profoundly moved by how dedicated they all are to doing their mission in the wake of unimaginable tragedy for the u.n. system as well. so, please. >> thank you, president clinton. gished -- distinguished fellow panelists, ladies and gentlemen, i think out of all the contributions so far there's a common message coming and that is that out of this terrible catastrophe, it come a time of renewable. if we put together unique partnerships that make that possible and everyone can play a part on those partnerships. there has been an extraordinary outpouring of goodwill and commitment for haiti, from the

governmental level, from the level of the ordinary citizens across our societies, from the private sector, from the foundations, from the nongovernmental organizations. the key thing is to keep that momentum going. right now humanitarian relief phase is still very much there. we're moving into early recovery with cash for jobs. but beyond that there's the huge agenda that others have talked about and there's no doubt in my mind that the kind of private sector initiative which president clinton and world economic forum have in mind and which i understand robert will talk about, can be incredibly important. as president clinton said, there was an economic recovery plan driven by the government of haiti in place before this catastrophe. that plan must not stop. that plan must be accelerated. there are large parts of haiti which were not directly physically impacted whereas president clinton said the work can go on now.

so i've come today representing the secretary general debate extraordinarily supportive of the initiative that president clinton and the world economic forum are putting to you and to say that the role of the private sector, the role of the foundations, the role of the n.g.o.'s, this is just so important, alongside the role that governments can play and alongside the role of the department banks and the multilateral institutions. it's about unique partnerships where everybody played a -- place a -- plays a role in supporting haiti at the hour of this need to build back better and actually renew. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. why don't you just explain what we propose to do now. we obviously don't have -- we've already run over time, we don't have time to explore a lot of the specific questions you might have, but we have to try to set up a system to do that. >> thank you, president clinton. as the president mentioned i was involved in haiti as a part

of canada's international development agency and i'm proud of the leadership role of canada together with brazil and the united states and others on this issue. what we're calling for now goes beyond that. we're calling for a global partnership and we're calling upon people to go beyond engaging, beyond giving to engaging. actually after the tv cameras are gone, to continue with the hard work of creating work, sustainable work through sustainable jobs for haitians. and we actually think the power of the international business community can be a major force behind that. so how do we hope to do that? well, as president clinton mentioned, we'll be working under the haitian leadership of the haitian economic development plan, what we'll be doing together with the clinton foundation is we'll be working in collaboration, gathering together those business leaders here who are interested in engaging and actually committing to procuring, potentially looking at investing, partnering to help build haitian jobs and haitian businesses. we've already contacted a number of you over the last seven days and we've had dozens of you already sign up to look

at what those opportunities might be. i'd invite you all who are interested in now to go to the haiti dess tock receive more information but also we'll be reaching out to each and every one of you in the week following the forum electronically to continue you to encourage to engage and just in closing, the theme of this year's thing is rethink, redesign, rebuild. we're saying we should rethink how we engage in these challenging situations, we should redesign how we work together and together we can rebuild haiti. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. let me just -- let me close by saying this, there are a group of people that are meeting in haiti every day now including architects and urban planners trying to imagine the future. if you think it's hopeless, i urge you to go to new orleans and look at the lower ninth ward where perve said it was over and we could never build affordable hurricane-resistant housing and we now have some of the greenest housing anywhere

in the world. that's more affordable than what was there before. yes, we need plans to rebuild port-au-prince, yes, we need plans to do the rest. yes, we need a structure that guarantees transparency and accountability and all. that but let me tell you what the bottom line is here. haiti is the only successful country ever established as a result of a slave revolt. for that they were punished by either being ignored or abused. the united states did not recognize them for nearly 60 years and when finally we did, we were in with the rest of the crowd of european powers saying that they had to pay enormous reparations for winning their freedom. then for 20 years early in this century, starting during world war i, the marines occupied haiti but did nothing to empower the people, to change the fundamental structure of society, to build the kind of self-determination that you have to, so when we left things

went to hell again. then, i don't say how anybody could have been surprised when there were haitian leaders who abused their people the way haiti had been abused by outsiders, the same way some children who are abused grow up to be child abusers. then they started trying to get their democracy back 20 years ago and i tried to give it to them but a lot of us on the outside haven't really known how to help. so haiti has also been hurt a little bit by all of us who feel self-righteous that we're doing good to help them. they wish to be empowered to chart their own course in the future. and they need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster to get there. but i will say again, they got the best chance they've ever had in my lifetime to escape that past and we have the best chance we've ever had, those of us who are outsiders, to be a part of it as partners, not, you know, just trying to help people so we feel good, but to

empower people who are as gifted and hardworking and creative pund unbelievably adverse circumstanceness that any people i've ever seen. this will not be boring for you. but i'll guarantee you, you'll feel better if you do it and in all probability you'll be successful and after this is over you might want to talk not just to the people here but to michelle pierre lewis who came from the port-au-prince. he had to go to the dominican republic and then fly out of there because of the clogging of the airports and to george soros who has been all over the world promoting freedom through enterprise and investment. i'm very grateful to him. and there are others here who are involved in haiti. so i thank them, i thank you, the haiti dess success there. if you have any interest in this, even if you don't know some of the answers to some of your question, sign up.

i promise you, our office will follow up. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> former president clinton from earlier today, president obama meanwhile has arrived in florida. he invites president biden

there to speak at a town hall meeting talking about the $8 billion in stimulus funds they'll be announcing, grants for 13 major high speed rail corridors. that town hall meeting coming up just after 1:00 p.m. eastern. we'll have live coverage here on c-span. next month marks one year since congress passed the economic stimulus. of that, $787 billion approved, just under $330 billion has been committed, with $172 billion actually paid out so far. to learn more about those stimulus projects, go to c-span.org/stimulus. ahead on the weekend, q&a d has a new boigreaf titled "pops" and that's on "q&a" here on c-span. this weekend on c-span 2's book tv, how the growth of the muslim middle class in the middle east could end religious extremism.

the political cartoons of dr. suess published during the war years in the 1940's. and the neocons and presidential foreign policy going back to the nixon administration. find the entire weekend schedule at book tv -- booktv.org and get the latest book tv updates on twitter. >> house republican leaders spoke with reporters today about the president's state of the union address. this happened shortly before the start of a republican retreat in baltimore which will include a visit by president obama tomorrow. this briefing is about 20 minutes. >> the gang's all here.

well, good morning, everyone. we did this a little later today so you could all get a little sleep. and maybe us, too. yesterday i said that i thought the president needed to prove to the american people that he was listening. unfortunately the president doesn't appear to have listened to what the people in massachusetts have said, what the people in new jersey and virginia have to say in the elections last year. and decided to just double down on his job-killing agenda. you know, it's the democrat leaders here in congress and the president are serious about getting our economy going again and putting people back to work, we can in fact work together to promote policies that will do that. but there was nothing last night in the president's speech to indicate that there was any willingness to sit down and work together.

except one point. the president said when he was talking about health care and i'll quote, but if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. that's when i put my hand up because that's exactly what the republican health care proposal does. much more so than the proposal that he and democrat leaders are trying to shove down the throats of the american people. and so we're eager for the president to come to our retreat tomorrow. we're going to have an honest conversation about america's priorities and trying to find ways to find some common ground. the republicans have stood all year against their job-killing agenda. republicans also all year have offered what i've called better solutions. we're going to continue to get

on the same path this year. we're going to look for common ground but we're not going to roll over on our principles, we're not going to vote for things that we believe will hurt our country. at the same time, though, you're going to see us continue to work for better solutions for the american people. as we go off to our retreat today, republicans are going to work to develop better solutions when it comes to energy, the environment, better solutions on health care, better solutions on trying to get our economy going again because the american people are still asking the question, where are the jobs? i believe that the solutions will be laid -- that we've laid out will go much further in terms of creating jobs for americans than what this administration has proposed thus far. >> you know, this state of the union and then our retreat later on this week is really an opportunity for us to press the restart button and to look for those areas where we can come

together on some shared priorities. and we believe it should center around creating jobs and getting this out-of-control spending under control. it's clear that there's a consensus across this country that the government is spending too much money. and that it's not sustainable and that it's going to impact us for many years to come. i was encouraged last night that the president at least admitted that there was a spending problem. he talked about the need for a freeze. you know, i'd like to go back and let's freeze based on 2008 levels before there was such a spending spree. and let's take it a step further. let's return the nearly $900 billion in tarp money that's unused and stimulus money that's unused rather than a whole long list of new spending proposals. you know, every american family understands what it takes to balance budgets. it doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, you understand that you have to

balance your budget and i'm hopeful that as we move forward in 2010 that there will be an opportunity for us to focus on some areas where we can get our economy growing and get this spending under control. >> job creation and economic growth was the resounding message that came from the election in massachusetts last week and it's the message that every single one of us here on a daily basis from our constituents. in the area that i represent in suburban los angeles we have an unemployment rate that is in excess of 14%. the american people understand that creating good private sector jobs is the way for us to continue to see this country , continue or what we've seen over the last two centuries. seems to me that while the president did point to some issues that i found appealing, the idea pursuing nuclear energy and offshore drilling were very appealing. i happen to think that the idea of opening up new markets

around the world is important, to, too to create good private sector jobs. the president talked about that. he talked about the idea of working with panama, colombia and korea to do trade agreements. but he did not say that he's prepared to send up these agreements. in fact, right after the speech i went to the former treasury secretary, now the president's economic advisor, with whom i worked very closely in the clinton administration, larry summers, and asked him when are we going to have this agreement which will create a quarter of a million private sector jobs set up? and his response to me was, he hoped soon. now, in the past when presidents have talked about these kinds of agreements, they have indicated that they're sending them to us and challenging us to pass these agreements so that we can create these jobs. unfortunately, well, time will tell. i hope very much that he will

do that. this was my 30th state of the union message. and i have got to say that i don't remember one that was more partisan than this one. the idea of taking on the united states supreme court, the idea of looking over to us and saying to us that rather than listening to the polls we should do what's right. the message of trying to reduce the size and scope of government and get our economy back on track and have a defense policy that is second to none is the right thing to do and that is exactly what is driving us. we have offered positive solutions over the past year, we just completed a historic year when it comes to this institution. never before in the now nearly 22021-year history of the united states of america -- 221-year history of the united states of america have we had one single opportunity to have an open rule for consideration of legislation. so while the president said as

leader boehner has just pointed out, come forward with these ideas and i'll our rules committee these ideas have been completely shut out time and time again. >> thank you all for joining us. >> the american people are anxious. they're concerned about a title wave of borrowing and spending and bailouts and takeovers and deficits and debt. and last night i believe millions of americans were leaning into their television sets hoping that something would change in the change that came to washington, d.c. we have been told by various spokesmen for the administration there thank there would be a pivot by the president at the podium. but house republicans have to ask what millions of americans were asking last night, where's

the pivot? the president of the united states came to the well of congress and after apparently offering a nod to focusing on jobs, he renewed his embrace of the failed economic policies of this congress and this administration to date, calling for one more so-called stimulus bill built on the same failed policies of the last stimulus bill. then the president nodded in the direction of fiscal discipline and let me say, house republicans welcome the president's call to put our fiscal house in order but putting off to tomorrow with a spending freeze that begins in 2011 does not represent the urgency and the concern and the priority the american people want to place on fiscal discipline and getting runaway federal spending under control. and then after this nod to

focusing on jobs with the failed economic policies and a nod toward fiscal discipline someday, then we remarkably heard the president embrace the same old-same old as we say back in yinled. the president endorsed the government takeover of health care as is. he endorsed the national energy tax that will crush jobs in this country. all in the name of climate change. the president even argued in favor of the failed economic stimulus plan of last year, time-outing its so-called success, a success that has taken this country from 7.5% unemployment to a heartbreaking 10% unemployment. it was rhetoric about a pivot but no pivot at all. house republicans do however welcome the president's call for greater engagement and greater dialogue and greater bipartisanship. we were pleased to invite the

president of the united states to our house conference retreat and we were grateful that he accepted. and tomorrow it will be an opportunity, yes, for us to hear from the president, a few remarks about his priorities, but this is not an opportunity for one more presidential speech. tomorrow in baltimore the president has agreed to have a conversationitthe opportunity i respectful ferms but candid and frank terms and make it clear to the president that we have better solutions, that we offered opportunities to get this economy moving again, we offered a budget that would make the hard choices to put our fiscal house in order, we have an all-of-the-above energy strategy that will steer us toward energy independence and prosperity and we have health care solutions as republican leader boehner just said that will achieve the very goals the president described without expanding the size and scope of government in the lives of everyday americans. we look forward to this conversation. it will be, as the leader said, an honest conversation. and we hope that it may well

facilitate the president getting the message from the american people and delivering on the promise of pivot away from this big government agenda. questions? >> did you take the new jersey, virginia, massachusetts races as signals that the american public is ready to place republicans back in power of authority or was that just anger in general directed to everybody in washington? >> the people of new jersey, the people of virginia and the people of massachusetts elected a republican in each of those states, statewide, because they are angry. they don't think washington hears what they're saying. and they clearly don't believe the president and ms. pelosi and senator reid are hearing what they're saying. they're saying enough is enough is enough.

and so they sent a message washington should listen. >> is that message, put the republicans back in power? >> at this point i think what they want to do is they want the job-killing agenda here in washington to stop. listen, they're not enamored with us except that right now they're ready to take a chance on us because they've seen what the other team can produce. >> yesterday on n.p.r. you said that you would favor bipartisan legislation as long as it leans in your direction, the balance leans in your direction. do you think that it's the responsibility of the majority, the only way they can get bipartisan votes is to have legislation that leans in the minority's direction? >> you have to remember that there are 59 democrats in the senate and 41 republicans. in the house the democrats, majority, is 40 seats larger than the minority. the only bipartisan opposition

in this town to the job-killing agenda are republicans and moderate democrats who are saying, no, stop. and so they don't need to us pass legislation. but we want to work with them. but there's been no outreach all year. i'm willing to sit down with the president and democrat leaders to try to address the problems that we have. i know who i am. i know what my principles are, i know what the principles of my members are, and i'm not going to sacrifice my principles just by sitting down and negotiating. but i'm willing to sit down and work with them. >> -- have a majority of elements that you -- >> i'm not going it vote for a bill that raises taxes. i'm not going to vote for a bill that grows the size of government. and i'm not going to vote for a bill that puts government in control of decisions the american people should be allowed to make on their own. those are three principles that would guide me.

>> when the president said he would like to start having more regular meetings with the house republicans, what's your reaction? you sort of threw up your hands like, ok. do you think that was just window dressing or do you genuinely think that that sort of operation will be productive? others used to meet all the time. doesn't seem like that sort of thing goes on very much. >> we'll see. >> you have to give us more than that on that answer. >> the president -- i have never, i have never refused the president's invitation to meet. and nor would i. all the way in the back. >> mr. boehner, mr. boehner, the president last night did talk about offshore drilling and offering some more incentives on the nuclear side in terms of extending a deal perhaps in the energy climate package. what's your reaction to that, the idea that there's some things that might be new on the table from the president?

>> it was welcomed news that the president was for more offshore drilling, more domestic production of oil and gas. i don't think -- i don't think i've heard the president be more forceful when it comes to the expansion of nuclear energy in the united states. so we'll see what -- how that will manifest itself in legislation. >> republican leader asked know head up the working group among republicans to develop what is the american energy act. it's available at gop.gov. it's an all-of-the-above energy sfradge that says -- strategy that says, yes to wind, solar and nuclear power plants, 100 new nuclear power plants in the next 20 years. that's a bicameral agreement that republicans are will support. we also say more exploration for oil and gas, we say yes to conservation and other

incentives. so in our conversation with the president tomorrow we look very much forward to making him aware that republicans have an all-of-the-above strategy that's designed to lead us on a pathway toward energy independence. but let me say, while the president made those comments and they were welcomed, it is disheartening to many of us that the president thinks a national energy tax that would raise the cost of utilities for every working family in america was, i think, it the word that he used, an incentive to move to cleaner, greener technologies. raising taxes in the middle of the worst recession in 25 years in the name of climate change or in the name of moving us to new technologies is a prescription the american people are rejecting. republicans have a better way, a better solution and it's available at gop.gov and we'll be discussing it with the president tomorrow. >> what -- [inaudible] control. that's another agenda that the president mentioned.

do you think there could be bipartisan legislation on that? >> i would expect -- i would expect that there could be. it's always been a very delicate issue in terms what have type of technology we should export around the world. but we have to recognize that if other parts of the world have similar technology we shouldn't be denying u.s. manufacturers the opportunity to sell that. so it's one of those issues that i think historically has been worked out in a bipartisan way. >> i wanted to ask representative dreier, which of the trade agreements do you think should be brought up here first? and -- but assuming you're going to have to have to do them one at a time. >> i believe that all three should -- i mean, if you go back and look at the time frame and when these agreements were signed and the fact that in each of these countries,

panama, colombia and korea, they are now embarking on free trade agreements with the european union nrkts case of colombia and panama, with canada, we are losing by, as the leader just said, not sending all of these up asap. so i'm not going a determinant to which agreement gets here first but i will say this, i pledge and i know my republican colleagues join me, to do everything that we possibly can to pass the agreements that come as quickly as we can. >> when you asked mr. summers about that, did you ask him about any particular agreement or all three? >> i talked to him about all three and i said we need to get them up and he said he hoped that it would be soon. and i said, we're here waiting and we are -- every day, every single day that we wait we are losing jobs in the united states of america because we don't have, for caterpillar workers, for whirlpool workers,

union and nonunion workers in this country, opportunities to break into those new markets. >> thanks. >> thanks. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the associated press reports democrats had to scramble to approve the plan which means they won't have to vote on another increase until after the midterm elections this fall. while you heard from republican members this morning, that's their news conference wrapping up and now to house speaker nancy pelosi. she said the president's spending freeze proposal should not -- should include the pentagon. she spoke with reporters about the proposal and other parts of the president's state of the union speech. from the capitol, this is about 20 minutes.

>> good morning. >> good morning. >> last night the president gave what i thought was a masterful presentation to the country. about his new foundation for prosperity, reiterating some of the building blocks of that foundation. his administration and our work in congress has always been about jobs. creating jobs through recovery package, creating jobs through the president's budget which was a blue print for prosperity for the future, to stabilize our economy, to create jobs through investments and education in health care and in energy climate change legislation. those were the three pillars of the budget which gave tax breaks to 95% of the people in our country and the middle class, the great middle class,

which -- and which reduced the deficit. following up on this, it's important for us and the president to acknowledge congress' role, the house is already pass the wall street reform. wall street's recklessness affects the prosperity of main street. i was happy that the president acknowledged that we had already passed in the house the education bill, regulatory reform, the wall street reform bill, the education -- energy and complimet change and the jobs bill. i was particularly pleased the emphasis the president placed on education . when we talk in the recovery package about retaining or hiring more teachers, it's not just about those jobs, that's really important, there are consumers who have families to support. but it's about the education of our children, it's about the investments in the future that education are about and

everything that you talk about, as the president said, jobs, that's an answer to every problem, but education is fundamental to good paying jobs and to innovation to keep america number one and competitive. i was particularly pleased that the president talked about ending discrimination, whether it was don't ask, don't tell, whether it was nondiscrimination against women in terms of equal pay for equal work and the civil rights division of the justice department was up and running once again. all of this is in the context and under -- or deficit reduction, deficit reduction. the president talked about and i agree that we must subject -- he said it this way, i do, every federal dollar that is spent in harsh scrutiny as to whether the taxpayer is getting his or her money's worth and that we're investing in the right way, better commission that would make certain

recommendations to congress for deficit reduction, and about what i hope the senate will pass today, pay as you go. our obligation to our future and to our children is that we reduce this deficit. i'm pleased that the president showed the road that got us here, but he also showed a path to prosperity for the future. he emphasized, of course, what is our first responsibility, protecting the american people. and i thought he did so both in terms of our national security and our economic security that instilled confidence in the american people. and that confidence, i believe, will help to turn our economy around. with that i'd be pleased to take any questions. >> quick question, please, on the jobs bill that the president said he'd like to address without delay, do you see that the jobs bill that the house has already passed is -- [inaudible] with the senate or do you think

additional legislation needs to be passed in the house and secondly, on don't ask, don't tell, a chairman recently said on c-span that he would oppose efforts to repeal don't ask, don't tell in the house. do you see yourself playing a role in this -- [inaudible] or are you going to be on the sidelines? >> first let me go to your first question about the jobs pill. we believe that the bill that we passed was appropriate, it was paid for, it was focused on how we can create good payinging jobs through investing in infrastructure in our country, about how we could support small -- credit to small business, which are the major creators of jobs in our country. and had certain safety net aspects in terms of those who had lost their jobs through no fault of their own. we think it's the right framework. let me just say, as i began my

remarks, everything we have done and that the president has proposed has been about jobs. so i hope that as the president called upon the congress to finish the complete work on its energy bill and the energy climate change bill and the education bill, these are job creators. the health care bill alone will produce four million jobs in the life of the bill. the good paying green jobs of the future can make us competitive and keep us number one, those bills have to pass, too, because they are about larger numbers of jobs. we're talking about addressing part of the cyclical aspects of unemployment here. we've got to be talking about a fundamental change for job creation. we had the industrial revolution, we had the technological revolution, we have to have this agreement -- green revolution and we have to have the education because innovation begins in the classroom to go to that place and we have to, again, good paying jobs in the health

industry, improving health insurance for all americans, but what's important about that, too, is that it has a dynamic affect on our economy, when people can be free to it be entrepreneurs because they're not chained to a job locked because of not having health insurance. so i believe that with what we did was appropriate. i certainly would like to do more. we wanted to make sure, though, that our legislation was paid for. so we look forward tone gauging with whoever the senate puts forth and i think -- i have confidence in what the president said that we will have a jobs bill. i wish it could have been last year. but the sooner the better. in terms of don't ask, don't tell. this is a principle that repealing it has been something that's been very important to many of us. the leadership of patrick murphy, there are 180, something like that, co-sponsors for the legislation and commitments of many more

people for those votes. i respect our chairman enormously, chairman skelton, the time has come to end it. now what would you replace it with? let's see, some principles of nondiscrimination in the military, whatever. but it's not just about yes or no, it's about, let's have a very positive policy to go forward. to be patriot -- so every patriotic american who wants to serve our country will be able to do so without being discriminated against. >> i detect frustration among house members -- [inaudible] seems some of that expressed recently by mr. hoyer and some listened to the state of union. >> this is the legislative process. we're responsible in the house of representatives for our work product, what we do for the american people. what is instilled in each one of us is that our work be relevant to improving the lives

of the american people and we take responsibility personally and institution alley on the house side to do that. the rules of the house enable more expeditious passage of legislation, the senate takes longer, that's what our founders built into the system. so rather than get into that, i'd just say there's a way we will get it all done, but, again, a natural instinct is to be immediately responsive to the needs of the american people, the senators i'm sure share that view, but their constitutional affords them -- their constitution affords them a longer time to do what they want to do. i don't want to waste any energy on criticizing the senate and i don't want them criticizing how we do things either. we all have our constitutional responsibilities. >> last night president obama talked about the breach of

trust and then called for bipartisanship. do you see any way forward in terms of imimproving relations with the g.o.p. and do you feel a responsibility as speaker of the house to answer president obama's call for bipartisanship? >> i have always said as speaker of the house or member of the house of representatives, every one of us represents constituents who are -- and we have the responsibility to them regardless of their party to find our common ground. to work very hard to see where we can find common ground to address the challenges that the american people face. we also have a responsibility if we can't find that common ground to stand our ground on principles that say no to wall street when they want to recklessly jeopardize the homes, the savings, pensions and the education of america's families. to say we support a budget that is about the middle class and

not about trickle down from supporting policies for the wealthiest in our country at the expense of the great middle class. so we have differences. i think, as i said to you, there's always a way and we do have a responsibility to try to find that way. i myself welcome the opportunity to go to conference with our colleagues. i always liked the idea of conference. when i was a member in terms of serving on committees i loved to go to conference and i know that our members like to have that exchange of ideas and that the more we can do that in the public domain, i think that the distinction between the two parties will be clear and perhaps the motivation on both sides to find common ground will be there. but, again, none of us came here to obstruct. we came here to do something for the american people, to be

relevant to their lives. that's why i don't like to waste too much energy on these kinds of processes, the senate versus the house and this. what are we doing to address the serious concerns and challenges that the american people have? if it's we can't find a bipartisan way to do it, we're not going to say, well, if it's not bipartisan we're not going to do it. we are going to do what we believe. >> i'll stop talking about it once you pass it. the d.c. voting rights bill has been hobbled by the amendment. delegate norton says she's in conversations with you. if the time should come in february where she accepts the amendment even though they're onerous and horrible, only six democrats left when they voted it in 2007, are you ready to move the d.c. voting rights

bill then and can it really pass in this election year? >> i didn't understand what you asked. six democrats left -- >> only six democrats left last time the issue came to the house. it had overwhelming support when it was passed before. >> no, again, i'll take it back to what i said earlier, you have to -- we have to find a way. it's very important for the district of columbia to have full voting rights in the congress of the united states. there's no question about that. but as you know, within the district itself, there's some different views as to whether it should go with the gun issue, without the gun issue. certainly we'll take our lead from congresswoman norton, but we're still trying to find a way to do it in a way that shows the strongest support for the voting rights act and she has been very resourceful in

coming up with ideas, reaching out to the senate, reaching out to the outside groups who have an interest in this on both sides. and has made proposals to us, but we haven't -- they haven't materialized in terms of votes. >> in this election year is there time to vote on this bill? it's not too controversial or even the president said -- >> we don't know what the proposal will be yet. and that's all we can do. >> how does the president's fervent plea last night to pass comprehensive health care changed the situation and when do you hope to be able to move a bill? >> well, i think that the president not only his appeal to pass it, but his explanation to the american people as to what the possibilities were was a very powerful statement that