working on to make that better? >> this is an area of focus but we have a system right now that will only allow me to pull something and if it does not come to me naturally. particularly on the acquisition side. >> are you working the transaction? >> i am, but i do not see a change coming in that regard. the fundamental principle that was laid out. >> >> thank you. >> we will break no later than noon here. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i was not going to get into a discussion -- we have been down that road.

but when you responded to senator mccain's questions about why you did not discuss problems about the f-35, you said you did not have an independent cost analysis that you have now. i thought it was ironic that the report from the independent commission, the jet came out about two days after the senate. . in the senate, where the f-22 in effect was killed. but and i couldn't understand why you didn't know about that, didn't know that report was coming, but really the 2009 report was simply a validation of exactly what that same commission reported in 2008. now, i assume you knew about the 2008 report, and for whatever

reason you didn't give much reason you didn't give much credence to it, but am i out that sumtion? did you not know about that 2008 report from that independent commission or did you just seek to ignore it? >> i honestly don't remember, senator. the restructuring of this program has been due not just to the report of the jet from last fall, but to the time that the undersecretary for atnl spent on this issue just in the last few weeks. and that's the reason that the restructuring has only been announced in the last few days. it is because he completed his investigation of which the jet was one part, just within the last couple weeks or so. >> well, i heard your comment yesterday about you're not intending to in any way revisit the f-22 issue. is that a correct statement?

>> correct. >> and that's even in spite of the fact that we now know that the assumptions that you based your decision on last year were wrong, that the f-35 is going to slip, and that your department has no idea of what the cost of an f-35 is going to be, as we have been told in a hearing by dr. carter. and now it has gotten to the point where i understand you even have relieved your program manager of his duties as of yesterday on the f-35. so you're not going to in any way revisit that even though we're struggling with the issues that we talked about might come about with regard to the f-35? >> no, sir. because the ioc's based on information that i was given in preparation for this hearing. the iocs for the services, for the arrival of the training squadron in eggland all remain pretty much on track. the difference will be somewhat fewer aircraft delivered.

>> do you intend to allow the expiration of foreign military sales of the f-22? >> my impression is that that's prohibited by law. >> well, you've been instructed and the authorization bill last year that you will do a review of foreign military sales and the prospect of those sales. and there is another independent commission outside the dwe department of defense that is also tasked with that. is that review not under consideration at this point? >> i'll have to check, senator. >> could you get me an answer on that? >> yes, sir. >> let me just ask you a quick question on the budget -- i want to go back to the -- the mrap that is specifically designed for afghanistan. tell me again about that vehicle. what is the difference in that and what we're using in iraq and what's the budget difference there? >> the cost per vehicle is roughly the same for the all

terrain vehicle and the -- for example, the r-31 mrap. the mrap being designed for afghanistan has much more -- is designed to operate off-road where the mraps in iraq is designed for iraq were designed to operate on the roads. so there is quite a difference in the engineering as well as in the powertrain and so on. >> any of those vehicles in afghanistan today? >> yes, sir. we probably have somewhere between 500 and 700 of them now. we're ramping up the production right now and our expectation is that we'll be sending in between 500 and 1,000 a month pretty quickly here. >> you have an idea when that will begin? will it begin before the weather warms up? >> yes, sir.

again, we're probably either this month or next going to be at 500 a month going into the country. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator chambliss. senator lieberman. >> thanks, mr. chairman. thanks to the witnesses for your service. it strikes me after three hours that we're coming closer to violating your rights under the geneva convention. but i thank you for your strength as shown here today. i frankly -- i'm serious, i don't think we have had a better team than you at the department of defense in a long time. and i thank you for your service. in every way, i think this is a very good budget. we'll go over a matter of subject hearings. i want to ask a question i think hasn't been addressed, both of you talked -- secretary gates, admiral mullen -- about the proper balance between giving funds to meet the unconventional threats that we're meeting on war on islamic extremism,

terrorism, and being set to meet threats later on from large potentially pure competitors. somewhere in the mix of both of those is iran. and now still the major state sponsor of terrorism in the world according to the state department, it seems to me that it is also the most significant threat multiplier out there, if it goes nuclear. and we all want to find a diplomatic way to get the iranians not to go nuclear. the senate passed a strong sanctions bill last thursday, unanimously, which goes to conference now and hopefully will come back soon. but i wanted to ask you the extent to which the budget that you present to us will enable us to deal with this threat. if iran goes nuclear, it is --

it greatly strengthens their terrorist proxies including some that have killed a lot of americans in iraq and are causing some trouble in afghanistan. it probably ends the nonproliferation -- nuclear nonproliferation regime. admiral mullen, at one point i saw you quoted somewhere a while ago that said just in the normal dispatch of your responsibility you are -- you are preparing -- it is your responsibility to prepare plans for -- for potential use of military force against iran regarding a weapons and then i want to ask you if that's the case and how you would describe that and in what context you would put that preparation? >> well, i would put it in the context, senator, that you laid it out. i think the potential for instability is still there, that -- as many are hopeful that the engagement dialogue has legs and actually can produce something.

i would agree with your assessment that them achieving that capability, it becomes a whole new ball game in terms of what the downside potential is. i don't see much upside potential. we certainly, over a long period of time, have recognized that and focused on that and we work contingencies all the time. it is in that context that i was speaking of that. and the president said, secretary gates have said, i said, all options remain on the table and the military is one of them. >> secretary gates, let me ask you a different side to this. in a recent trip over the last year or so that have taken to the middle east, both to the arab countries and to israel, it seems to me that there is a -- a kind of increasing military connection in a very positive sense between ourselves and our allies there. i wonder if you would comment on that and to what extent you see it in relationship to the current future iranian threat.

>> we have made considerable progress over the past two years or so in developing a regional maritime surveillance air and missile defense cooperation in the gulf region. it is at a step at a time. it is in my view clearly motivated. they are motivated because of their concerns by -- with iran's armaments programs and leave aside nuclear weapons, the number of missiles they're building and so on. and so we have made considerable progress in those relationships. >> i thank you. my time is up. we want to give you a minute or two off.

thank you again. >> thank you very much, senator lieberman. that concludes this hearing of the chart i referred to which i prepared relative to the afghan army will be made part of the record. secretary, we would ask you and chairman mullen to present this chart to your folks, make sure that it is accurate. if there is any errors in it, please let us know immediately. and ask general rodriguez to provide us the information that he has committed to provide. admiral mullen -- >> one for the record, and it is brief. i the senator was asking about decommissioning bombers and, in fact, what i didn't say was there is consideration for a reduction in the number of bombers, and negotiations are ongoing and which have not come to a conclusion yet. >> we will ask your staff to give them that information. we're going to recess now for

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>> you are watching public affairs programming on c-span. cognex, the head of the federal agencies testify by u.s. security threat. after that, president obama hold a town hall meeting in new hampshire. then we will hear from a nasa administrator. the senate is not in session tomorrow. democrats can go to their annual retreat. president obama will attend the meeting and give remarks. live coverage from the museum is at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c- span2. later in the day, health and human sources secretary testifies about the hss budget request. that is life in the senate finance committee at 330 eastern

-- 3:30 p.m. eastern. >> we know is darkly that market often to not work. >> this weekend, the 2008 economic collapse and the effect on the global economy. >> now senate hearing with senior intelligence officials on national security threat. we would hear from national intelligence director dennis blair put the directors of the fbi, cia, and defense intelligence agency. dianne feinstein chairs the intelligence committee. >> the hearing will come to order. the committee meet today in open session to receive a coordinated and analytic assessment of the intelligence

community of the threats facing the united states. we welcome our witnesses. at the mountainous blair, the director of national intelligence, who will provide a summary on the written statement he has submitted on behalf of the intelligence community. the director of the central intelligence agency, leon panetta. bob miller. the director of the defense intelligence agency, lieutenant- general rahm purchase and the acting assistant secretary of state. this hearing present an annual opportunity to focus on the threats our nation faces and provides a rare form for the public to receive strategic intelligence analysis. i think that right now the top threat on everyone's mind is the kind of terrorism threat. especially against our own homeland.

the committee has held hearings in the past two weeks. -- to review the christmas day attacks and the board would shootings by nidal has somme. we also reviewed the attack on the cia coast base in eastern afghanistan on december 30. on cia's coast base in eastern afghanistan on december 30. the most deadly attack against cia personnel in decades. these three event are reminders of the ongoing threat the nation faces from within and without. and the challenges and danger with which the intelligence community must deal on a daily basis. we've been briefed on the continuing terrorist threat, and i want to thank director muller for our discussion yesterday. i received a lengthy followup briefing on the status of

ongoing terrorism investigations and intelligence we've received as part of those investigations. i know this is a very sensitive matter. and will ask if members who have questions relating to counterterrorism operations will hold them until we can go to a classified session at the end. the written testimony submitted to us today provide an important reminder stating that, and i quote, "the recent successful and attempted attacks represent an evolving threat in which it is even more difficult to identify and track small numbers of terrorists recently recruited and trained in short-term plots than to find and follow terrorist cells engaged in plots that have been going on for years." our committee stands ready and wlg to provide the tools, gentlemen, you need to make sure

our counterterrorism efforts are the very best they can be. despite the christmas day and ft. hood intelligence shortcomings, the intelligence community has thwarted numerous terrorist plots and apprehended several suspects in 2009. and i'd like to tick a few off. al qaeda operative najibullah zazi was identified through intelligence work as having trained in pakistan and conspiring with other to detonate a bomb in the united states. two of zazi's associates were arraigned in january, and his father also has been charged. secondly, chicago-based davidheadly was identified -- david hedly of identified in his involvement in the attacks on mumbai in 2008, and for his connection to a plot to bomb a

danish newspaper. three, 14 people were charged in minnesota this year for recruiting somali american youth to travel to somalia, train, and fight alongside terrorist groups. in october, tariq majana was arrested in boston and charged with plotting to attack shopping malls and seeking out terrorist training. in september, hosam mohar hussein smadi was arrested for plotting to bomb a dallas skyscraper. and earlier in the year, daniel boyd was identified as having traveled to terrorist training camps and plotting an attack on u.s. military personnel at the quantico marine base. he was charged along with six others on charge that include conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

so clearly, there have been both counterterrorism successes and a few failures. also clear is that the threat to the homeland is high, and the terrorist groups have identified ways of getting operators and facilitators into the country without raising suspicion. let me shift from terrorism to the topic the dni blair highlights in his written testimony. the threat to our government, public, and private sector from cyberespionage, crime, and attack. director, your description the problem is very blunt, and i believe it to be accurate. the need to develop an overall cybersecurity strategy is very clear. this committee has carefully examined cybersecurity through five hearings in the past year. carefully reviewed various cyberattacks and penetrations from foreign actors.

and appointed a cybertask force of three members. senators whitehouse, mikulski, and snow, to conduct a six-month analysis of our government's current plans. the task force will be reporting to the full committee shortly. it is my belief, and i think the belief of others, that certain nations represent serious cyberattack potential to our country. and i believe that robust diplomatic efforts should be made with the goal of effecting international agreements among key actors regarding cybersecurity. the time has come to look at the value of a cybertreaty with built-in mutual assurances of behavior. it is noteworthy and commendable that the state department has for the first time demarshed another country for its cyberactivity. it is also worth noting that this country has stated its

willingness to cooperate internationally on these matters. there are far more developments around the world that threaten the national security interests of the united states. the past year saw a taliban surge in afghanistan that led to the president's decision to shift strategy and increase troop levels. pakistan continues to be an uneven partner in our counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. somalia and yemen are failed and failing states that require enormous attention. these and manier threats are outlined in the dni's testimony. so now let me turn to the vice chairman with whom i have had the pleasure of working this year, and i thank him very much for his cooperation on all matters. mr. vice chairman? >> madam chair be let me welcome our witnesses and thank you for

the very open and generous way that you and your staff have worked with the minority. we believe that this is the way we can achieve what we're supposed to achieve, bipartisan, nonpartisan oversight of the critically important intelligence community. this hearing today comes at a time where the importance of the national security threats are currently highlighted by recent events. from the terror plots disrupted this fall by the fbi, to the deadly attacks at ft. hood and the little rock recruiting station to the failed attack on christmas day, we have seen an alarming number of terrorist threats in particular within and against the homeland and their being carried out. as members and witnesses are aware, this will be my last annual worldwide threat hearing as i intend to depart from the senate upon the completion of

the 111th congress. no applause, please. ironically, i believe we find ourselves today in the same place we were in when i first joined the committee years ago, analyzing deficiencies within the intelligence community to make recommendations for changes that will help us better prevent plots and connect the dots. so as we embark on our final year together, i offer these thoughts for the path forward over the next year and into the future. first, our priorities congressional oversight committee members be and your constant challenge as leaders of the i.c. is to focus on threats to the homeland and to our interests overseas. al qaeda, its affiliates, and other terrorist organizations today have a global reach. in pakistan, afghanistan, algeria, the horn of africa and elsewhere. terrorist operatives train and prepare for attacks against us and our allies. our focus must be on these

entities wherever they operate. this is a global conflict and, yes, it is a war. a war of terror. these radicals have declared on america and the west. the intelligence community must lean forward in this war, and we on congressional oversight committees must back you up. when we ask you behind closed doors to be aggressive and we do that quite freely, it is our responsibility to stand behind you when the doors are open and to support your actions when they are under the spotlight. and i pledge we will try to continue to do so. at the same time, our committees will hold the i.c. accountable, and the i.c. must hold itself accountable because the threats we are dealing with are far too dangerous to tolerate any kind of sloppy work or careless mistakes. as the saying goes, the terrorists only have to get it right once to be successful. you and we have to get it right

all the time. we must use all avenues available for obtaining the crucial information we need to protect our people. and that includes a full and humane interrogation of captured suspects prior to or without miranda rights. and i emphasize enemy combatants must be questioned to the fullest by the intelligence community before -- if they are mirrandized before they are mir an diesed and given an opportunity. treating terrorists like common criminals can cost us life-saving intelligence. while i have no doubt that the fbi obtained useful information from the christmas bomber, we just don't know how many timely leads have been lost as a result of his refusal to cooperate after he was mirandized. this approach gave his terrorist colleagues time to cover their

tracks while americans remained at risk. any fbi interrogator or other interrogator will tell you that 50 minutes is not long enough to build rapport and get all needed intelligence. any interrogator will tell you that you study up on your subject and read everything in the file first before you are ready to go in for a full and productive interrogation. that takes time, and that time must be devoted to the preparation prior to effective questioning. we must plan ahead for our we can bring intelligence to bear in interrogation whether at home or abroad. timely action demand timely intelligence, and we must ensure that all intelligence tools are used when we find ourselves in a similar circumstance again. i am frankly appalled. i am appalled that one year after the president ended the previous administration's interrogation program that there was nothing in place, nothing in place to handle the sort of

situation presented by the christmas day bomber. i submit to our witnesses today that we cannot afford to make that same mistake again. i presume that the high value interrogation group that is still coming on line will solve a number of these problems, and rest assured this committee will be following this closely to ensure that it does. similarly, we cannot let campaign promises blindly guide us -- guide decisions no matter the -- what the consequence is to our society. the idea of closing the guantanamo bay detention facility cannot become more important than protecting our american citizens from the terrorists imprisoned there. and we cannot put americans at risk by letting detainye after detainye rejoin the fight. that of a mistake made in a prior administration. that mistake must not continue to be repeated today. the top two al qaeda operatives in yemen today just as one

example are both gitmo graduates that have returned to the fight despite the fact they were supposedly in a rehab program. we also must not let our desire to showcase american justice outweigh the requirement to protect our citizens. terror show trials in new york or anywhere else are clearly not the most expedient way to try the 9/11 suspects. it has taken a while for some to wake up to this reality, but i believe mayor bloomberg's evolution on this topic and his comments from this past week are telling. some in the administration have said they w besides any security concerns and cost, they have exposed sensitive and classified information in the past and have given intelligence to al qaeda. they samples are well known. i mean not recount them here.

mike mukasey has spoken eloquently about that. there are some that have tried to contradict him. they have proven no contradiction. it is in an essential -- unacceptable risk. the military commission process ensures that even a foreign terrorist/enemy combatant can get a fair trial. turning to afghanistan, we must win there. we cannot afford to fail. the addition of 30,000 troops to implement the counterinsurgency strategy is a positive step. employing smart power is the best way to eliminate al qaeda and the taliban insurgency in pakistan it must rally around general mcchrystal strategy and continue to shift from act only focus to make counter-terrorism and counter insurgency approach.

there are other factors here. the wars are by no means the only threat in our community. for more than a decade, intelligence committee has debated the nuclear intent and it has progressed closer and closer to a nuclear weapons capability. today they seem to be capable of producing highly enriched uranium. that is the long pole in the tent. the alleged waiting for a nation that provide support to our enemies in iraq and afghanistan along with allies. while the intent may change over time, and hoping the people will be successful and pressuring the government.

the other nations are there. i trust our witnesses will did this. turning now pauli do this, i believe we must be good stewards of taxpayer resources. we will continue to raise billions of dollars on one trick ponies. some of these never come to fruition. those of you in the committee know the examples. ever come to fruition. those in the community know the unsustainable programs that have followed this path. now the nro director told madam chair and me last week that he agreed with our committee's approach for more versatile

acquisition that this committee has recommended for years. he was moving forward to execute the program. that means we were very surprised yesterday in the president's budget that this option is not even funded. i believe that's a mistake. our committee will be closely following and hopefully we'll be able to correct that through the legislative process. finally, director blare, i was encouraged to see in your written opening statement you spent the first two and a half pages discussing cyber threats. recent cyber attacks against google underscore the importance of sound cyber policies and initiatives. and we know that the intelligence community recognizes this threat as real and of highest importance and goes well beyond what we are discussing publicly. yet, to my chagrin, the administration solution has been to create another position i'm afraid as a figurehead, a cyber

czar with less than a half dozen staff. in a few years, i believe we can lament the fact that more was not done now to confront this challenge when we had the chance. senator feinstein and the chair said and they comprise the cyber working group on our committee and should have much to say on this cyber topic. i believe all on the committee agree that it's very real, very serious and the administration needs to treat it as such. in conclusion, the greatest danger comes from the unknown. the threat not yet on the radar. further threats are unlikely to be repeat performances, so we must create new methods and trade craft to recognition terror threats we haven't seen before. unfortunately, the process of intelligence community reform, legislatively is not complete.

congress gave the dni a load of responsibility without the authority. the squabble between the dni and the cia director which unfortunately surfaced earlier this year over who will serve as a dni representative over this past year is just another disappointing example to me that we don't have the right balance and clear rules for the ic. we must get the balance right if you're expected, mr. director, to meet the challenges ahead. congress still has work to do in reforming itself in this regard. i pushed a proposal for seven years, one that 14 members of this committee signed on to a few years ago that would provide better coordination between the authorization and appropriations process for intelligence in the senate by creating an intelligence subcommittee on the appropriations committee. the 9/11 commission and others have said we have to bring the authorization and appropriations together. unfortunately, there are some who still strongly oppose making

these necessary changes within the congress to serve our intelligence community better. i would hope to see progress on that. i'm not holding my breath. but it still needs to be done. additionally, i would mention that the project on national security forum led by jim lockner had made excellent recommendations concerning long-needed national security reform within the u.s. government. the current administration like national security adviser jim jones, deputy secretary of state james steinberg, ambassador to the united nations susan wright among -- rice -- among others all sat on the guiding coalition of that project before assuming positions in this administrat n administration. the administration has not shown any interest in making the necessary changes that the project rightly recommended.

i hope they're listening today because we need some leadership to make sure that we are better equipped to face the challenges of tomorrow. as we remember the sacrifices made by the men and women fighting these threats on the front lines every day, including those who so tragically paid the ultimate price recently, our primary concern must be to prevent attacks on the united states and to insure the safety of the american people as well as our friends and interests abroad. today's hearing will give us a good idea how we can measure up. i thank you, madam chair, and look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses. >> thank you. here's how we'll proceed, gentlemen. director blare if ural begin representing the entire intelligence community. we'll then go to mr. panetta, mr. muller and mr. dinger for five minutes or so each. and then each one of us will

proceed with questions. so director blare, we would be delighted to hear from you. >> thank you, madam chairwoman, bond members of the committee. in providing with you this intelligence community annual threat assessment, i'm proud to represent the thousands of patriotic, highly skilled, brave professionals of the world's finest intelligence team. and we're especially conscious of this as we mourn the recent loss of seven of our officers and care for a dozen others. all intelligence agencies participated in preparing my statement for the record. and i'm pleased to be accompanied by my colleagues here this afternoon. every day as we know information technology brings gadgets and services that make our lives better and more efficient. however, malicious cyber activity is growing at an unprecedented rate assuming an extraordinary scale and

sophistication. in the dynamic of cyberspace, the technology balance favors malicious actors rather than legal actors. it's likely to continue that way for quite some time. the growing role of international companies providing software and hardware for private met works even for sensitive u.s. government networks increases the potential for mischief. the recent intrusions reported by goog rl yle are yet another p call. cyber crime is on the rise. global cyber bank and credit card fraud has serious implications for economic and financial systems. attacks against networks controlling critical infrastructure, transportation, financial networks, energy could create havoc. cyber defenders, just the facts of the matter are cyber defenders have to spend more and have to work harder than cyber

attackers. and american efforts are not strong enough in this regard right now. the united states government and the private sector who are interlinked in this space have to insure that adequate defenses are in place. let me turn to the global economy where the trends are more positive. it was a year ago that i sat here and warned of the dangers of a global depression. but an unprecedented policy response by governments and central banks around the world laid a foundation for global recovery that most forecasters expect will continue through 2010 although high unemployment and pockets of difficulty will still persist. not all countries have emerged through the -- from the slump and several of them are important to the united states. pakistan, the ukraine are still struggling to put their economic houses in order. our allies are trying to insulate spending on afghanistan where they are -- many of them are helping with this from budget cuts.

china is emerging with enhanced clout. its economy will grow from being a third of the size of that of the u.s. to roughly half by 2015 and earlier date than we previously projected. this is assuming it maintains the rapid growth which it appears to have the ingredients to do. last year beijing contributed to the g-20s pledge to incruise imf resources. it deployed naval forces to anti-piracy forces in the gulf, it supported a new u.n. security council sanction resolution against north korea. however, beijing still believes that the united states seeks to contain it, seeks to transform it, and reinforces chinese concerns about internal stability and about perceived challenges to their sovereignty claims. china continues to increase its defense spending, preparation for a taiwan conflict involving u.s. intervention continues to dominate the modernization and contingency plans and china also increasingly worries about how to protect its global interests.

turning to a violent extremism, as you mentioned madam chairwoman, we have been warning in the past several years about al qaeda itself, al qaeda associated groups, and al qaeda inspired terrorists striking the united states. and we've seen the reality of all three of those characteristics in the examples that you cited in your opening statement. the violent extremist threat al qaeda at center is evolving. we have made the complex multiple team attacks very difficult for al qaeda to pull off. as we saw with the recent successful and attempted terrorist attacks, however, identifying individual terrorists, small groups with short histories using simple attack methods is a new degree of difficulty. we did not identify mr. mutalab

before he boarded the flight on christmas day. we should have and working to improve so that we can. on a positive note, only a decreasing minority of muslims support violent extremism according to numerous polls within the muslim community. but even with decreasing and smaller amount, al qaeda's radical ideology still seems to feel strongly to disaffected muslims and suicide bombers and other fighters. and this pool includes americans, unfortunately. although we don't have the high level homegrown threat that faces european countries right now, we have to worry about the appeal that figures like they exert on young american muslims. however much we improve our intelligence, and we intend to improve it more than it is, however, we cannot count on it to catch every threat. so intensified counter-terrorism efforts in the afghan-pakistan theater and around the world like yemen and somalia and elsewhere is critical to further

menacing the threat. we have to continue to work without eyes and partners in this campaign. security measures and visa controls, aviation and border security, all these are important for a multilayered dynamic defense that can disrupt terrorist plans. let me turn to the outlook in afghanistan and pakistan. since january of 2007, the taliban has increased the influence and expanded the insurgency while -- >> director, can you pull that microphone -- >> over here? >> you fade out when you turn your head. >> all right. >> all right. >> thank you. >> as i sense for about two years the taliban has increased influence and expanded the second, improving afghan security forces and economic capability for the security gains will indoor and the

responsibility can be transferred to the afghanistan people. early successes and places like hellman where persons have been deployed for several months, and programs are emplace a more local governments are competent show that we can make solid progress. the safe haven that afghanistan and surgeons have and pakistan is the most important outside support. the shifting the saving one of a sufficient by itself, but disrupting it in afghanistan is a necessary condition for making substantial progress. the increase in terrorist attacks have made the pakistani public more concerned about the threat from islamic extremists, including al qaeda. pakistanis continue to support military action against the insurgents. the llama but has demonstrated determination and persistence in combating militants.

it also has continued to provide some support to other pakistan based groups that operate in afghanistan. u.s. and coalition success against the insurgency, provide new long-term incentives for pakistan to take steps d provide new long-term incentives for pakistan to take steps against afghan focused militants. increased pakistani cooperation is more likely if pakistan is persuaded that the suits committed to stabilizing afghanistan and will ultimately have success. finally, turning to iran, the available intelligence continues to indicate that tehran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. this is being done in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to the ability to produce weapons. one of the key capabilities

around continues to develop is its uranium enrichment program. published information from the international atomic energy agency indicates that iran has significantly expanded the number of centrifuges installed in the facility. but it has had problems operating the centrifuges which constrain its production of low enriched uranium. the united states and other countries announced last september that iran for years has been building in secret a second enrichment facility. overall sh we continue to assess that iran has the scientific and industrial capacity to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the next few years if it chooses to do so. and ultimately, to produce nuclear weapons, the central issue is a political decision to do so. iran also continues to improve its ballistic missile force which enhances the power

projection and provides tehran a means of delivering a possible nuclear payload. we do not know if iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons. we continue to judge that iran takes the cost benefit approach in its nuclear decision making. we judge that this offers its international communities to influence tehran's decision making. the a rainian regime found itself in a weaker internal position -- internal political situation following last june's disputed presidential election and a crackdown on protesters. reacting to stronger than expected opposition and the regime's narrowing base of support, the supreme leader and president ahmadinejad and allies appear determined to retain the upper hand by force. they're moving iran in a more authoritarian direction to consolidate their power, however, they have not been successful so far in suppressing the opposition.

madam chairwoman, this is the top layer of threats and opportunities, other areas demand continued attention and focus. they include security in iraq on the korean peninsula, weapons of mass destruction, and challenges right here in the western hemisphe hemisphere, especially working with mexico and its efforts against the drug cartels. and i'm also prepared with my colleagues to discuss important transnational issues. really, it's the decree complexity of the issues and actors in state, nonstate that increasingly constitute one of our biggest challenges. the intelligence community is meeting these challenges every day both to policymakers and to units in the field both civil and military. in my year on the job, with an enormously impressed by the abilities, dedication and the results of the military professionals i have the honor to lead. thank you madam chairwoman. we'll be glad to answer questions after my colleagues have a chance to make

statements. >> thank you very much, director blair. mr. panetta? >> thank you, madam chairman, mr. vice chairman and members of the committee. thank you for this opportunity to be able to share our thoughts with regards to the threats both current and future that face this country. i think the director has presented a summary of some of the key threats that we confront. of those, i would share with you that my greatest concern and what keeps me awake at night is al qaeda and its terrorist allies and affiliates could very well attack the united states. that's the primary reason the president provided the mission that we follow which is the mission to disrupt, dismantle

and defeat al qaeda and its allies. having said that, the biggest threat i see is not so much that way face another attack similar to 9/11. i think the greater threat is that al qaeda is adapting their methods in ways that often times make it difficult to detect. we have done a very effective job at disrupting the operations. and i think intelligence confirms that they are finding it difficult to be able to engage in the planning and command and control operations to put together a large attack. what's happening, instead, is that they are moving to other safe havens and to other

regional notes in places like yemen and somalia and others. and what's happening is that they are pursuing an effort to try to strike at the united states in three ways. one is that they deploy -- they have deployed individuals to this country. we've had a series of arrests. i think the headley arrest is indicative of those that have been deployed here and continue to stay in touch with al qaeda. secondly, it's the concern about the terrorist who has clean -- "clean credentials." it doesn't have a history of terrorism that has come to our

attention. mut they decided to make use of somebody like that within a very short period of time that he arrived. i think they're going to be looking for other opportunities like that. and thirdly, there is the loner, the individual like hassan who out of self-radicalization decides that the moment has come to engage in an attack by himself. so it's the lone wolf strategy that i think we have to pay attention to as a threat to this country. we are being aggressive at going after this threat. we've expanded our human

intelligence. we are engaging with our liaison partners and other countries to try to track these kinds of threats. we obviously are checking and reviewing watch lists and other lists to determine who among them could be that potential lone wolf. and we are taking the fight to the enemy. and we will continue to do that. but in addition to the fight against al qaeda, we are also facing threats from other terrorist groups. terrorists like el shaba, hezbollah, hamas, other jihadist militant groups. and a particular concern is l.e.t. if they should conduct an attack against india could very well undermine our efforts in pakistan.

we mentioned the directors mentioned the threat of north korea and iran. we're concerned about the nuclear side. they also continue to export terrorism, providing weapons, providing support to a whole series of other terrorist groups. so bottom line here is that the war on terrorism is not just al qaeda. it is a series of terrorist groups that are basically confronting us. and it is the kind of changes that we see and their method after proeof approaching the united states is a very important threat we have to pay attention to. we are being aggressive. we are taking the fight to the enemy. and at the same time, we have to be agile. we have to be vigilant and we have to be creative in the way we approach the new threats. fundamental mission we have is

to protect this country. it's the mission that people at host gave their lives for. and it's the mission that the cia will follow because we believe our greatest mission is to keep this country safe. thank you very much, mr. panetta. mr. muller? >> thank you chairwoman, director blair and panetta pointed to the global nature of many of the threats we face from international terrorism in pakistan, yemen and elsewhere to cyber attacks to computer crime committed by international criminal enterprises. and what is striking is how many of these overseas threats reach directly into the united states. the events outside the united states often have immediate impact on our security here at home. as i discuss our mission in the

overall threat assessment, i do want to highlight how quickly these threats are evolving and how globalization has often led to the integration of these foreign and domestic threats. over the past decade, the focus of strategic terrorism threats has been south asia. the heartland of al qaeda. but now as director panetta pointed out, al qaeda trainers see the tribal areas of pakistan as less secure and this is led al qaeda to franchise into regional components in places such as north africa and the arabian peninsula. this evolution has been most rapid with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula which has changed from a regional group with links to al qaeda to a global threat with reach in american cities such as detroit. these changes affect the way we at the fbi think about the targets we pursue and what tools we need to pursue them.

they also require us to keep changing continuously to meet the evolving threats of tomorrow. the expansion of ideology has been proven to be consistent and global as demonstrated by the plots we have seen in the past year. those plots listed by the chairman and her opening statement. those cased demonstrate the global diversity of the new terrorism threats. some extremists were radicalized over the internet or in prison. others received training from known terrorist organizations abroad. they were of different ages and nationalities. a number were u.s. born. the targets these attacks range from civilians to government facilities to transportation infrastructure to our military both in the united states and overseas. the threat from cyber attacks as pointed out by director blair reflects the globalization and pace of change.

in the past we focused primarily on state actors seeking national security information from our military for intelligence services or seeking to acquire technology related to defense systems. but as the global economy intergrats, many threats now focus on economic or nongovernment targets as we have seen with the recent cyber attack on google. targets in the private sector are at least as vulnerable as traditional targets and the damage can be just as great. our focus on the cyber threat does not mean that we have seen a decline in classic intelligence and counter intelligence activities in the united states. the presence of foreign it continues to pose a significant threat. it remains a high priority for the fbi.

lenny conclude by thanking you and the committee for your support from the bureau. with a foreword to continue to work with the to improve the fbi and to keep america safe. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for this opportunity to be here today to present the projected threats to the security of the united states. the global strategic environment today remains marred by a broad array of similar threats and challenges. as the united states conducts operations, the nation faces the threat of terrorist attacks at home. we continue to face risks posed by other nation's ability to maintain seniority. our armed forces in the region

we must remain constant din of global forces. -- our armed forces must remain cognizant of global forces. al qaeda remains the most significant terrorist threat to the united states. the network continues. the group still pursues chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear chemicals. the phillies continue to extend terrorist group reached an brand. al qaeda is growing in size and has broadened its repertoire of attacks. once focused mainly inside algeria, they are conducting operations in neighboring countries. attacks. al qaeda in the lands of the islamic magreb is conducting operations in neighboring

countries. violence levels in afghanistan increased last year while security declipd becaunedecline. the government's inability to extend security throughout the country and insurgent access to sanctuaries in pakistan. originally concentrated in the south and east, the insurgency retains momentum and has spread west and north. afghanistan security forces are growing but not keeping pace with the taliban's ability to exploit the security vacuum. pakistan's federally administrative tribal area continues to provide the insurgency, al qaeda, and terrorist groups with valuable sanctuary for training, recruitment, planning and logistics. successful strikes had a disrupted terrorist activities but the groups are resilient. pakistan's military has demonstrated increased counter insurgency training and doctrinal adjustments but its

pry order remains india. we have confidence in pakistan's ability to safeguard the nuclear weapons. not wi notwithstanding high profile bombings by al qaeda and iraq, the country is on a generally secure path. the group remains the most capable sunni terrorist group though constrained by a lack of safe havens. it regained some freedom of movement following u.s. forces withdrawal from iraqi cities. iraq security forces conduct the majority of security operations independently but still require improvements in logistics, tactical communications, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. in iraq, iran continue to rely heavily upon the islamic revolutionary guard force and especially operations command to undermine u.s. efforts by providing weapons, money, and training to iraqi shia militants for attacks against u.s.

personnel. turning briefly to nations, regions and trends of interests. iran support terrorist groups and insurge ens in iraq, afghanistan, lebanon, gaza and elsewhere as a means to expand its own influence. frustrate regional rivals and impede u.s. strategy across the region. and invest heavily in developing ballistic missiles with greater accuracy and new pay loads. with more than 8,000 installed centrifuges, iran has enough low enruched uranium for a nuclear weapon if it further enriched and processed. china's military mod eshization continues with the 5:groug numbs of aircraft to employ the capabilities. china seeks military superiority along its periphery with military advantages in nar and naval power projection and in space. north korea remains unlikely to

eliminate its nuclear weapon capability for the foreseeable futures. believing the weapons serve as a strategic deterrent and leverage while also counter balancing the logistic shortages, aging equipment and insufficient training that plague its conventional forces. russia is proceeding about ambitious military reform. the effects of the global recession and asian industrial base, corruption, mismanagement and demographic trends will limit moscow's ability to realize the full benefits of the reform plan. but the sweeping organization will likely increase the military advantage over adjacent nations. in latin america, mexico remains locked in a violent struggle against drug trafficking organizations which pose a grave threat to the state. venezuelan arms purchases from russia continue. colombian organizations have reduced the guerrillas end strength by nearly 50% to approximately 8500 personnel.

sustained pressure to splinter it until it poses less of a threat to democratic institutions though it would remain involved in criminal activities. the threat posed by ballistics is likely to increase and grow more complex over the coming decade as they become more mobile, survivable, reliable, and accurate at great eer range. prelaunch survivability grows as potential adversaries strength their denial and deception methods. while dia's top wartime priority is to provide the intelligence way our kmocommanders. this agency concurrently retains a core responsibility to prevent strategic surprise and be willing to respond to a wide range of contingencies. that includes the most grunt and judicious resources, especially our people. both civilians and those in

uniform. in visits with dia's four deployed civilian and army personnel, i remain impressed by and thankful for their willingness to serve the nation in wartime. many are on their second or third deployment alongside our troops in harms way. some have been wounded by morter afakz. notwithstanding their sacrifices, they continue to serve knowing that the intelligence they provide saves lives and speeds operations. on their behalf, i want to thank this committee for your strong support and continuing conference in the defense intelligence agency and our mission. >> thank you mr. chairman, general burgess. ambassador dinger, if you'd be the wrap-up speaker, please. >> thank you, madam chairman. members of the committee, it's my pleasure to be here today to represent the bureau of intelligence research and state department. one of the smallest intelligence community elements, we consider

ourselves to be mighty contributors to the secretary of state. we're proud of our participation in the committee. >> apparently, you have to speak directly into the head of the microphone. >> i'll do that. >> thank you. >> our principle missions is to provide timely and accurate intelligence analysis that enables diplomacy to address threats and opportunities and to do so early enough so that policymakers can take action. the average analyst in inr has 11 years of experience and allows him to offer what we believe is an uncommon depth of understanding of the characters and issues that play in the world. inr is proud to put its analytical debt at the services of the secretary. through our intelligence policy and coordination staff, inr also insured that intelligence action

tis is are consistent. and that other components of the intelligence committee understand the information and analytical needs of the foreign policy decision makers. inr has other important missions. one is drafts as the executive agent for analytical outreach bringing outside expertise to bear in the most challenging intelligence and foreign policy issues of the day. inr's office of opinion research aims to be the u.s. government's foremost authority in worldwide public opinion. the written staple comprehensively addresses the global challenges before us. i'll take a few moments to highlight two areas that dni and others have already spoken to. and of which inr is supporting the paerlts of secretary clinton and intelligence committee and the united states government. first, counter-terrorism. terrorism remains a key focus for inr's analysts.

we have a small but dedicated team of analysts in our office of terrorism, narcotics and crime. they work closely with our regional analysts to produce all source strategic counter-terrorism analysis with nuance context and perspective. the second area i also want to highlight is cyber. in 2008, the state department sfa established a new office. inr cyber to analyze cyber issues and help coordinate the department -- help coordinate the department of cyber activities. currently inr's cyber collaborate rates across corridors in the state department and throughout the ic to strengthen cyber security. it is also engaging in other nations to establish norms to maintain the stability of and confidence in the internet. inr believes the intel jents community has an obligation to provide global intelligence conference. i want to very briefly mention

two items. only one of which has been covered today in today's oral statements. first, economic and political prokbres in africa sun even. varies greatly from nation to nation and still subject to sudden reversal or gradual erosion. the daunting array of challenges facing african nations makes it highly lukely ly likely in the coming year that new countries will face economic stress and will join on going and seemingly entrapable conflicts such as sudan and somalia. nigeria, for example, faces serious social economic and security challenges over the next year. new guinea can provide an example. many african nations risk humanitarian crisis. in some latin american countries, democracy and market policies remain at risk because of crime, corruption and pro

governance. powerful drug cartels and violent crime undermine basic security elsewhere. elected populous leaders in some countries are moving toward a more authoritarian and status political and economic model. madam chairman, members of the committee, inr will continue to think, analyze, and write strategically to identify for secretary clinton the threats, challenges and opportunities arising from a complex and dynamic global environment. we will work hand and glove with the rest of the intelligence community to insure the community of the united states. inr will strive to put intelligence activities advance america toward our foreign policy goals and protect us from threats. thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before you. i'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> thank you very much, mr.

ambassador. to begin the questions, i'd like to ask a very specific question of each one of you if you would answer it. the question is what is the likelihood of another terrorist attempted attack on the u.s. homeland in the next three to six months? high or low? director blair? >> an attempted attack, priority is certain, i would say. >> mr. panetta? >> i would agree with that. >> mr. mueller? >> agree. >> general -- >> yes, ma'am, agree. >> mr. dinger? >> yes. >> all right. that tells us something very clearly. i would -- there has been a response to the case that all suspected terrorists should be labelled enemy combatants and prosecuted through the military commission system if at all.

candidly, my view is that president should have the flexibility to make a determination based on the individual circumstances of the case, location of the terrorist activity, location of the arrest, the nationality of the suspect, whether fred crimes have been violated, et cetera. i'd like to ask this question, mr. mueller, what is the fbi's track record in gaining intelligence and collecting evidence to convict terrorists since 9/11? >> well, madam chairman, in your opening statement you mentioned many of the cases that we addressed last year. and a number of disruptions from dallas to springfield, illinois, charlotte, north carolina, the case in denver and new york and almost all of these cases, the intelligence we have gathered intelligence. some of that intelligence is

evidence so that we could arrest, indict and continue to prosecute those individuals. the -- since september 11th, we've had numerous disruptions and just about every one of these cases where there are two or more involved. one or more of the individuals have ultimately cooperated given the leverage of the criminal justice system to cooperate not just against the conspirators but also to provide intelligence as to other potential threats. and to the extent that we have had@@@@!

weaponry. iran's senior leadership cited hezbollah as a model for other groups. how has hezbollah rebuilt the military arsenal since the 2006 war with israel? >> let me get help from general burgess but hezbollah is stronger now than in 2006 when the last war took place. and it's also developed politically. >> madam chairman, the director, i would agree with his assessment. they, in fact, reinforced and replaced very quickly what they had lost in the 2006 war with

israel. and today i think they are actually stronger and improved themselves. >> can you comment on the sophistication of these replacements? >> in some cases, from a missile standpoint, i think there are indication that's they have improved. but at a minimum they maintain parody but they have more quantity. >> thank you very much. i think that's going to be it from me for right now. >> thank you, madam chair. we precious and congratulate you on the excellent work that the februa fbi has done in capturing and bringing to justice the zazi and other people whose capture was

announced last fall. i would ask that -- whether you believe that questioning of an enemy combatant, someone with potential nknowledge of battlefield intelligence for the future can be done briefly or within the short time frame needed to give the customary miranda rights of a normal criminal suspect, a bank robber, in the united states. do you agree with those in the intelligence community would said the only effective way of interrogating somebody like mutalab would be to spend the time to collect the information.

otherwise available in the intelligence community, background and what other intelligence may be available in order to question him effectively, to be able to ask him questions about issues where we know the answers, to see if he's telling the truth. and to confront him with other intelligence. do you believe that that is necessary in some cases? >> senator, let me talk generally and then also somewhat specifically about the events of christmas day. let me start off with the belief that we in the fbi, as everybody in this room, understands, knows the importance of intelligence. since september 11th, it has been the mission of the fbi to prevent terrorist attacks.

not just indict and arrest and convict persons for those terrorist attacks but to prevent the terrorist attacks and intelligence is key. if you look at the circumstances of christmas day, the plane came in at 12:00. the -- shortly there after we started out pushing out information relating to the events that had occurred on the plane as it went into detroit. we then, as i think everybody in this room knows and understands, he was arrested on the plane and taken to a hospital. we had agents from the joint terrorism task force go to the hospital. they were given an opportunity to talk to him before he went through surgical procedures. he had burned himself in trying to light the explosives. they had a window of opportunity. they exploited that wuindow of opportunity to try to find out if there were other bombs on the plane, whether there were bombs in other planes, who was responsible, and took that opportunity because i was given

and there was an immediate need to have that information that intelligence to determine what the threat was at that time. the doctors then took him in for surgical procedures. during that afternoon, there were discussions here amongst most of the agencies here as to what should occur down the road. although no specific instructions or consultations with persons at this table as to whether the individual should be mile an hour andized. we were then given an opportunity later that night to, again, interview him and after consultation or in consultation with justice department attorneys we determined to follow our protocols, protocols established by the supreme court in terms of how you interrogate and question individuals in custody in the united states. he was -- a team went in to talk with him. he talked for a few moments and then afterwards after he was given his miranda warnings, asked for an attorney and we discontinued the questioning.

we felt we had to take that opportunity at the outset to gather the intelligence. it was not ideal. we did not have much information at 3:30 in the afternoon when the plane came in at 1:00. we gathered information throughout the afternoon to do a better interrogation that evening. we have found over a period of time that the miranda warnings can but often are not an impediment to obtaining additional intelligence. and the story continues. we have been successful, very successful in gathering intelligence over a period of time with teams, persons from various agencies, the most recent example being the intelligence we got from david headley who was arrested in chicago for his participation in the copenhagen plot. but also subsequently indicated his involvement in the shootings. in mumbai. as in this case, as in all cases, we will continue to try to provide and provide -- or

obtain, i should say, information from mutalab. >> we will ask that. i'm asking the general procedure question. you're not saying that an enemy combatant that comes in to the united states has been ruled by the supreme court to be entitled to miranda rights before questioning proceeds are you? >> no. what i'm saying is that if a person is accepted by dod or prosecution before a military commission, he is not entitled under the procedures that are extent to miranda warnings. however, that has not yet gone up to the supreme court. and so there is a difference between having a person and the federal district court and the civilian courts and under military commissions. >> that's -- and that's the point. that's the point. many commentators and i have

agreed that treating this person as a common united states criminal when he was clearly an enemy combatant, i don't know how much more clearly you can be in enemy combatant by the germans who arrived in the united states in the early 1940s, nobody thought they were bank robbers coming in from germany to rob some banks. didn't treat him as such. and from the press reports of what we've seen, this was not your bank robber. he was not a car hijacker. this person was a enemy combatant. how -- who ultimately made the decision to mile an hour andize him? who is the individual? where did that decision rest in the chamber? >> it rested in with the head of our counter-terrorism division along with attorneys from the department of justice. >> so the department of justice

decision to mile an hour andize? >> no, it was a combination of our providing the facts to the department of justice and in consultation with the department of justice making a decision that he should be mile an hour a -- read his miranda warnings. >> while other agencies took part in it, we have heard that they felt that they needed to have more opportunity to question him. >> on that score, i'm as strong for getting as getting as much intelligence remotely connected with terrorism much less xmp that carried a bomb into the country. i'm -- but i think that we need a -- we need to have a flexibility of the tools that we have available to use. i'm not convinced that you can make a -- in fact i'm convinced you cannot make a hard decision that everything should be taken through a military tribunal or everything should be taken through court. there are decision that's have

to be made in which you balance the intelligence with. requirement for prosecution and the sorts of pressure can you bring on to the people that you arrest in either -- in either forum. it's going to be a decision made at the time. i think the balance struck in the case was a very understandable balance. we got good intelligence. >> i disagree very strongly with that conclusion. but i agree with you that there should be -- there should be a decision made after consultation with the relevant agencies and the intelligence community when an enemy combatant comes in before the department of justice gives the order to mirandaize him. he is an enemy combatant. the decision ought to be made by the intelligence with the participation in the intelligence community whether he thinks future safety of the united states would make it

imperative to question that enemy combatant before getting him a lawyer. i see my time is up. >> let me just say that a full member of the intelligence community, he is one of the brothers. >> but he reports to the attorney general and you, mr. director, in my view should be the head of the intelligence community. that's -- we haven't made it clear, we need to make that clear. >> thank you very much, mr. vice chairman. senator rockefeller? >> i don't relevant initial pursuing this. but in that it has become a cause, i think it's important to. i agree totally, director blair, with what you said. it should be done on a case by

case basis, nothing should be ruled in, nothing should be ruled out. the instinct on the part of some that the only way that you can correctly get intelligence and then prosecute the enemy combatant or whatever you want to call them is through a military commission. i think their record is they've condemned three and two of them are gone. on the streets. you, through the criminal justice system, director mueller, have prosecuted hundreds. and they're around or in jail. let me just ask, director mueller, your experience as fbi director in the eight years since 9/11, and you've been there every single one of those

days, have terrorist suspects provided valuable intelligence after they have been mirandized? >> on a number of occasions, yes, sir. >> case by case. >> case by case. there are two cases. one that was already mentioned, david headley out of chicago which is one of the more recent ones. back in 2004 there was an individual that provided substantial intelligence. >> on the flip side, do terrorist suspects always automatically come forth with intelligence unless and until they are mirandized? >> no, it differs case to case. circumstance to circumstance. >> thank you. is it true that depending on the circumstances in some cases the best method for gaining intelligence is by charging the terrorist with a crime, mirandizing them and conducting a thorough criminal

investigation? >> we have found that the system of justice and the united states which allows for consideration for contributing intelligence and information and credit for that is a powerful incentive to persons to provide truthful@@@@r answer from any of you on this. but it is my impression having studied this some that the military commission's process

for prosecuting is relatively unformed. and in a state of plague. it is not an experienced professional process such as you have at your disposal. it may work very well. it may not work very well. i'm not talking about the getting of intelligence. i'm talking about the prosecuting. i'm simply gfg yiving you my opinion. recognizing that the information is at stake here, can you tell me -- you answered this already. i want it on the record, if he had provided the valuable able intelligence in his fbi interrogations? >> on the christmas day itself, he provided responses to questions, information and to the extent that we go into more detail we'll have to -- i'd ask

that we do it in closed session. >> i understand that. i understand that. in your professional judgment, i would say to director blair and you sort of answered this. i would like it again on the record. i think this is -- this is a debate which is spilling most unhelpfully across the talk shows and beyond. in your professional judgment, are the compelling national security reasons to prosecute some terrorism cases in a federal criminal court rather than in a military commission? and on the other side, would there be some cases where you i military commission? or are you familiar enough with their processes to make such a recommendation? >> senator, it's not my -- it's not my responsibility or do i have a great deal of expertise

in the venue that's chosen for prosecution. what i'm interested in is getting the intelligence out so that we can do a better job against the groups that send these people. and as i've seen intelligence come for -- from a variety of interrogations, primarily based on the skill of the interrogators and there are good ones in many different -- in many different places. and by the degree to which we back them up and back them up quickly with an intelligence team which can -- which can help them with their requirements. i think that's the key thing from my point of view. >> then i would ask both of you, and actually of all five, it seems to me that what we come down to in this brief interchange is that this should be done on a case by case basis, based upon what seems to be best, according to professionals who carry the responsibility and the judgment for making those decisions. should it be a criminal justice? should it be military

commission? would you agree with that? >> i think that decision is bound up in the interrogation -- in the interrogation which is what i care about. so i think, yes, it should be a rapid flexible case by case balancing. the requirement for intelligence with the requirement to put these people behind bars and not let them go free that is what we need. >> director mueller? >> i think our history has been that the decision whether or not to proceed in a federal district court or in a civilian court versus a military commission is a weighty decision. we've had two occasions where it's happened in the past where somebody has been taking out of civilian courts and put into the military courts and then ended up back in civilian courts. amari and padilla. and so, yes, the differences in

procedures for interrogation is one factor, but there probably are a number of other factors that need to be weighed by the justice department and the executive before that decision is made. and i'm not certain that it is a decision that can be made very quickly because there are a number of competing factors. and one would want to take some time, i think, in order to sort those factors out. >> but in the end, this is a decisions that should be made by professionals, according to their responsibilities and according to the facts of the case. >> yes, but ultimately, it is the attorney general and the president making decisions as to -- >> but what i'm saying is we should not limit the president by saying it has to go here or it has to go there. >> absolutely. >> he should not be limited. >> i thank you both. thank you, madam chairman. >> thank you senator rockefeller. senator hatch? >> thank you madam chairman. i'd like to thank all of you for the hard work that you do do for

our country and for our people. you are all great people in my eyes. the director blair, let me just start with you. a few minutes ago, we received a -- from your office, a copy of a letter signed by john brenen who is assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism to speaker pelosi on the secretary of the closure of guantanamo and the transfer of detainees abroad. now the the second paragraph of the letter states the following. the professional assessment of our military commanders and civilian leaders of the department of defense is that closing the detention facilities at guantanamo is a national security imperative in the war against al qaeda. secretary gates and admiral mullen and general petraeus have all stated closing guantanamo will help our troops by eliminating a ponent recruiting

tool. the word imperative implies something that has to be addressed for an immediate reaction. now director blair, i concur that terrorist propaganda does use guantanamo as a theme. it also uses our close relationship with israel. but i don't think we're going to change our policies toward israel as a result. and by his assertion or this assertion by mr. brennan, let me just ask you these specific questions. is there any intelligence or analysis that you can share here or provide in closed steering that proves, indicates or even suggests that al qaeda would change its plans and intents towards us if we close guantanamo? >> i don't think it would change plans or intent, but it would deprive al qaeda of a powerful symbol and recruiting tool which

it has actively exploited over the years. >> well, just because that -- they would have one less recruiting theme is there an intelligence or analysis that the threat from al qaeda would be diminished? >> the extent to which they didn't -- weren't able to recruit people who were -- who the guantanamo symbol helped them to recruit, they would be weaker without it. >> is there any intelligence or analysis that you are aware of that specifically indicates the u.s. forces abroad would be under any less threat from al qaeda were guantanamo closed? to be closed? >> you are a much better lawyer than i am, senator hatch, but what i'm trying to say it's a exactor that helps the enemy that if we can -- >> i'm not -- yeah, i'm not trying to give you a rough time, nor am i trying to examine you. but i am trying to establish that, my gosh, nothing is going to change their attitude towards us. tlair lot of things that we do that they don't like, including

our friendship with israel and some other countries in the middle east. arab countries. let me ask you this. have you ever provided any intelligence to our policymakers that supports the notion that the homeland or our troops will be safer after guantanamo is closed? >> we provided intelligence and i assess, senator hatch, that among the factors that weaken weakened -- among the things we can do that would weaken al qaeda would to be close gone town me and diminish the -- and diminish the emotional and symbolic support that that gives them in the pool of people they try to recruit in order to come against us. >> isn't it true that al qaeda used to prosecute -- the prosecution and imprisonment of the blind sheikh as a recruiting tool that al qaeda members have said they were inspired to

attack us because of that incarceration. you know that's true. is there any intelligence that suggests al qaeda would not use a prison located in the united states as a recruiting tool? i've been to guantanamo. it's pretty nice compared to illinois, where they want -- the place in illinois where they want to put them. it will be nice and cold in the wintertime. all i can say is that i imagine there will be a cry that we're not fair by bringing them here. >> yes, i'm sure there will be stories about wherever they are incarcerated, but i'm thinking of books that have been written by former detainees that are passed out, testimonies on the internet that guantanamo has achieved a sort of mythic quality which helps al qaeda.

>> well, i think the point i'm trying to make is no matter what we do, they're going to criticize us. we have -- we've got a very significant courthouse down there at guantanamo that can try these in a military commission. we've got -- we treat them very, very well down there. some of them probably are treated better than they've ever been treated in their lifetimes. no matter what you do, the terrorists and al qaeda and taliban and others are going to complain and say that we're not doing it right. seems to me crazy to, you know, to take the position because guantanamo has been a recruiting tool that we ought to xloes it when in fact it meets basically every need that i think we need

in handling these matters. i have a lot of other questions, but i think i'll submit them in writing. i'm really concerned. we've seen what's happened just this past week with regard to the desire to hold the trial in midtown manhattan. and now there's a great desire not to. as a trial lawyer, i can tell you right now that there are all kinds of approaches that could be taken that would be better than trying khalid shaikh mohammed in this country. and i think of the zacarias moussaoui case. four years to try it, or to go through the whole process. he ultimately gets off because one juror didn't believe in the death penalty. and during that trial, he was taunting families of those who

had been killed and using it as a propaganda device to look like he was a hero when in fact he was nothing but a murderer as the 20th hijacker. and i can't even begin to imagine what khalid shaikh mohammed would do if that trial is within the confines of the united states and not a military tribunal. i know that you have to be a loyal member of the administration, all of you. and i accept that. but i think it's a dumb, stupid approach to take when we have the facilities that are perfectly capable of taking care of these people and doing it in a way with a military commission that makes sense, is legal, after we corrected the military commission statute. and totally acceptable, it seems to me. >> would the senator yield? >> sure.

>> that was quite a potent statement you made there. >> yeah it was. >> recognize that these five men before us are members of an administration and, therefore, the implication they can only talk based upon what they've been instructed to say as opposed to being profound professionals in their field, as opposed to what they might actually feel. so are you saying they're just saying what they've been told to say? >> i've only been here 34 years, but i can say i've seen administration after administration executives support their administration. i don't blame them for that. let's their budgets depend on it. their jobs depend on it half the time. >> thank you. i don't have any problem with that. >> madam chairman, if i could finish. what i do have a problem is i think it's stupid to put the

whole country through this mess by -- because the attorney general feels like it might be a better way of doing things when, in fact, it's the worst way of doing things. >> if i may, now, you know, you're a good friend of mine, senator hatch. and i love and respect that friendship. but i've really god to correct the friendship. first of all the policy was really established during the regime of@@r saying that on behalf of president reagan, has been to

delegitimatize terrorists and get society to see them for what they are. that was the policy then. it was the policy of every president since that time. george bush and i can go chapter and verse on each individual when they were transferred from one custody to another. he had flexibility. he made changes. and now all of a sudden, it's a huge political issue. and i think it's absolutely wrong to do that. so i will -- now i've had my say. >> madam chair -- >> move on. >> let me just take a point of personal privilege. >> you may respond, senator hatch. >> i think it's a question of law. it's a question of how you approach the law. and whether reagan did that or not, i don't know. all i know is that we didn't have 3,000 people killed in one day in new york city -- in the

three various incidents that occurred. these are vicious people. as i understand it, khalid shaikh mohammed said he would plead guilty and that he wanted to be executed. so he could be a martyr for his people. i think even having said that, he deserves at least an opportunity to -- for a trial. but i think when you have the capacity of doing it, a place as good as guantanamo it ought to be done there. and it shouldn't be brought to this country on our shores. and i think you are seeing more and more people getting upset about this. and it's not so much a political thing as it is just a domestic security thing that people are concerned about. >> thank you very much, senator hatch. >> madam chair, i just have to add, i don't think ronald reagan deserves to be in this discussion. you talk about 1986, that was

before the activities of the '90s and when 9/11 brought a whole new threat to our views. now when 9/11 happened, president bush took a number of actions. there are some that i think where he's been proven wrong, and i would hope we would learn from releasing detainees. that was wrong. he made the right decision when he did treat jose padilla as an enemy combatant and question him. but if we can't learn from our mistakes, no matter whether it's republican or democrat, when we're doomed to commit them again. and i just suggest that we are learning a lot. and i would hope that we would have a different approach next time and an enemy combatant lands on this soil. >> thank you. just for the record, i am going

to submit to the record a list of individuals convicted under the bush administration in criminal court in article 3 courts beginning with richard reed, going to omar abu ali, zacarias moussaoui, nabazul nabazulla zazi charged as well as padilla, lynn, the lakawana 6 and so on and so forth and put these on the record. the point is that a president should have flexibility to cite the venue for trial. all i can say is those of us on this side of the aisle did not criticize president bush for doing this at this time and we view with some suspicion the fact that president obama is being criticized for following policy that had been established since 9/11. >> madam chair, i will add the

names of the people, the information released as a result of these trials where we held the trials. and i will discuss further disagree with your characterization. thank you. >> senator whitehouse? >> madam chair, i have not been here 34 years. i have been here only three years, but i find it extremely discouraging that with these gentlemen before us, the head of the defense intelligence agency, the head of the fbi, the director of national intelligence, head of the central intelligence agency and the acting head of the state department's intelligence service who i would add is the acting head because there is a republican blockade of the person who is slated for that passion here more than a year into the obama administration.

that all this committee can talk about is where abdullah abdulmutallab was miran diesed. there are so many issues that these gentlemen have real expertise in. it's clear that the tradition has been strongly towards civilian trials. there is one person in the world incorserated as a terrorist as a result of a military tribunal right now. hundreds because of the other. and yet this question persists and persists and persists and persists. it seems to be the only talking point on the other side of the aisle. because so much is fallacious, we then have to respond in order to clear up the record and then this whole hearing turns into a

focus on a point for which one of these gentlemen would need to be here and it really does not bear on as significantly as others issues on the responsibilities they have to discharge. i'll say that. i'll move to another issue which is your report, director blair, leads with a discussion to the risk of cyberattack to the country. and i want to read a couple of statements from an article in foreign policy magazine by josh rogan. he reported senior u.s. military officials believe the chinese government is supporting hackers that attack anything and everything in the national security infrastructure on a constant basis. he continues the defense department has said the chinese government in addition to employing thousands of its own hackers manages massive teams of experts from academia and

industry in cybermilitias that act in chinese national interests with unclear amounts of support and direction from chinese people's liberation army. it seems the analogy in cyberwarfare goes back to the ancient days of naval combat when nations not only sent out ships under their own flag to engage in warfare but also offered to private ship owners to pirates, indeed, letters of mark to go out and act in that nation's interest. what do you believe are the most important structural deficits that we have and need to fix in dealing with state-sponsored

cyberattacks on our country that either come through false flags or are hidden behind work stations that are located all around the world in order to be able to deter these attacks. and if it makes a difference, could you distinguish between what mr. rogan referred to as hackers that attack anything and everything in the national security infrastructure on a constant basis and the brain drain that we face from wholesale industrial espionage, stealing our manufacturing and technological secrets so competitors abroad can without paying for the intellectual property they have stolen. >> senator whitehouse, the individual skills of a single hacker, whether he be doing it

for fun or paid off by a criminal or by a criminal service of another country are -- you can have really ace hackers under all three of those scenarios. the advantage of a government or the characteristics of government-sponsored terrorists are more what they do and the ability to put it together with other forms of intelligence, spies and humans that they can use, not just sitting there at the keyboard. criminals can do some of that. so the nature of the threat is pretty much the same no matter who is doing it. it's just the resources they have to put against it. >> those resources can matter a lot when it ends up to thousands

or tens of thousands of attacks daily and weekly. >> absolutely. >> and that brings me to the second point which is that the -- as i said in my statement, the general level of our defenses is just not good enough for either the monetary value or the intrinsic value of what we keep on the net, intellectual property and so on. now our big international central banks that send data across wires in networked systems have developed tough defenses. and they spend a lot of money on them and put a lot of people on. they continually check them and they can have high confidence that they can be secure against outsiders. an insider is still a threat. there are many transactions that involve extremely powerful

information which people seem to think a relatively simple password is enough to protect. and even a moderate hacker can get into files in major companies, in lots of commercial areas that are not protected at all. so i think we simply have to raise the game. spend more money which is proportionate to what we are protecting, rather than just making it an add-on thing. they are making it more skilled and take advantage of the techniques that are available there if we just put them in the plan. i'd say if we do that, we would be up at the 90%, 95% level prove techs. and after that, it would take a very skilled, determined, resourced timely attack in order to get in. but a lot of the -- a lot of

extremely valuable things are just available through very unsophisticated hackers who just do brute force methods and they can be criminals or hackers or they can be government agents. >> thank york director. my time is expired. >> thank you very much, senator whitehouse. senator widen. >> thank you, madam chair and thank you to all of you for your service to our country. we've had a number of closed sessions on the christmas day attack. but i'd like to talk about a couple of issues in public to getctuall on the record. when i think the country is especially my sense is that the intelligence community does a good job collecting intelligence but does a -- has a harder time integrating it and analyzing it. you all have talked about a number of steps through the course of the afternoon. senator pa net ayou tapanetta,

talked about this. i want to ask this of you, director blair. if the events leading up to abdulmutallab's infect were repeated over the next several months, how confident are you now that a new mr. abdulmutallab would be identified as a threat before he bordarded an airplane bound for the united states? >> senator wyden, i'm confident that someone who left the trail that mr. abdulmutallab did would now be found, even in the month since the 25th of december, we have jumped a series of both human resources. we put more people on the problem. we have assigned them more specifically, and we have made

some more tools available that would catch an abdulmutallab. what i can't tell you is that even with these improvements, we would be able to catch someone who took more care in the -- iáá i wanted to ask you about this home grown al qaeda and

terrorist threat. and certainly when you look at some of the high-profile arrests that the fbi has made over the past year, people like headley and mr. zazi, this is something also very much on people's mind. you touched on it in your statement. how serious do you think the threat of a homegrown al qaeda threat is today? >> i think it's a very serious threat and increasing, principally because of the enhanced use of the internet to radicalize and to be utilized to coordinate actions. with the growth of the internet so, too, has grown the threat domestically. if you look at issues like smati in dallas who was radicalized by the internet. the individual in springfield. individuals in charlotte.

the homegrown radicalized by those in the united states who have not traveled overseas for training has grown over the last several years. >> are you more concerned about al qaeda terrorists coming from inside the united states now or from outside the united states? >> i'm equally concerned about probably both about the same level of concern. i do think that the attacks undertaken by individuals who have some association or training overseas attend to be more of a threat in terms of the capabilities than some of the threats we've seen domestically. and so it is the training, the enhanced capabilities that come for persons traveling overseas and then coming back that would

make any terrorist attack a more substantial terrorist attack in most cases than undertaken by a lone individual. >> let me close the loop on this. so you think it's a serious threat, and would you say it's a significant threat as you see, say in great britain? >> i think to a certain extent in some areas we share the same concerns as great britain. places like somalia and yemen and the ability of terrorists in those countries to identify individuals who can be trained in somali, yemen or travel back to the uk or the united states. we have somewhat the same problems, particularly with somali youth, individuals we found last year who were traveling to somalia and coming back to the united states. on the other hand, the uk has, i

believe, a stronger network of individuals who have been radicalized with close ties to south asia, stronger ties to south asia than you'll find here in the united states which presents a different threat to the uk than us. >> director panetta, do you or any of your associates have an estimate about what it would take to drive al qaeda out of the pakistani tribal areas? i think i want to touch briefly on the issue of pakistan. what is your assessment of what it would take to drive al qaeda out of that area? >> senator wyden, i've asked that question a number of times becau because, obviously, our operations are very aggressive and very directed. and as i said, are very effective with regards to disrupting their operations. having said that, the reality is that they continue to operate.

they continue to move within the fata and tribal areas. and i would just share with you that i think to effectively be able to disrupt al qaeda and to end their threat, we need to have boots on the ground in addition to our operation. >> one last question, if i might, madam chair, what else director panetta could the pakistani government do if pakistani leaders want to provide more assistance on counterterrorism issues? >> just what i said, which is boots on the ground. they, in fact, went in to south waziristan. that was very effective on bringing pressure on these groups. they had to move. they had to scramble. that happened us in terms of our operations. we need them to continue that effort. >> thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, senator wyden.

senator snowe? >> thank you, madam chair and thank you all for being here today. i just want to be clear because i think there's obviously a profound concern. i share the sentiment about the whole issue and issues a miranda rights to a terrorist. on christmas day. i think the american people need to have reassurances as well in terms of what is going to change as a result of what happened? and what is going to be the process going forward because it seems to me in this instance there clearly should have commanded the attention at the highest levels in the intelligence community about whether further questions should be posed to this individual to be certain the questions being posed were based on all of the information regard iing al qaed in yemen, about this individual

and putting it all together before issuing his miranda rights. and i think that's what's so disturbing here because that did not occur. so it didn't seem to me, and i don't think it seemed to the american people that it was a cohesive, concerted effort, determination based on all of the information that had been gather gathered in highly classified settings regarding al qaeda in yemen and, of course, this individual and any associates and whether or not there was vital information that needed to be gleaned. and we won't know that now. and so i am, you know, furthermore, the administration said they were setting up a group called the high valued detainee interrogation group, precisely for this type of circumstance. has that been done? and why wasn't that done. and how are we going forward? how is the intelligence community going to move forward based on this particular

situation that really does cast a shadow because we won't ever know about what could have been elicited from this individual because of who posed the questions, frankly. you weren't consulted, director blair, at the highest levels for any questions that should have been posed of this individual. and it seems to me it should have warranted, you know, consultation with you and others to be sure under this circumstance. >> senator snowe, if we had known all we needed to know about mr. abdulmutallab, he wouldn't have been on the airplane. it was a pop-up. there were extraordinary time pressures on christmas. i've said to another committee that the process of bringing together intelligence and skilled interrogators in the light of how we want to prosecute somebody is the absolute key thing. a form of that was done on christmas day. the joint task force fbi agents

asked good questions. i've read the intelligence reports they put out, and they were good. we have taken advantage of the time we now have in order to bring the full intelligence expertise into the support of the fbi which will, we hope, provide more intelligence which we can use. we have an intelligence team building the files so that when we get somebody that we know about, probably overseas, we can have done a lot of that homework that senator bonn referred to first. so the principle of using intelligence, using good interrogators, making sure that we are taking the steps we need to to get them behind bars in the most effective way are what we need to bring together and we just need to do that fast and the right way.

>> i understand the concerns of the public's understanding of what happened on christmas day. i also share your concern that in doing a thorough interrogation you have input from a number of sources, the background, the preparation and the like. but it also is important to obtain the facts as soon as you can and the time frame is such that you do not have the opportunity to do that background such as you would like. there were very fast-moving events on christmas day. we took advantage. i say, we, the fbi took advantage in my mind of the opportunities to gather that intelligence as quickly as we could under the constraints of -- that we operate in. and the -- with a person arrested in the united states. i am, along with director blair and director panetta, believe that teams of individuals with appropriate backgrounds should be deployed to do interrogations. and the protocol has been established, has been set up, but we have not waited for that

protocol. we have utilized those teams already. with headley, for instance in chicago. we had a team of individuals who were doing the follow-up questioning of him with expertise from a variety of areas, and there we had the luxury of time in order to do it. we have teams established that will be ready to go in terms of -- or in the instance where we will pick up somebody in a particular area of the world where we will have teams and do have teams ready to go to undertake those interrogations. so we have done a lot in terms of putting together these teams to interrogate, but you also have to look at what happened on christmas day in the confines of trying to get intelligence on that day as to what was the immediate threat that the american public faced. >> so what was the -- what were the fast-moving events of that day that necessitated issuing his miranda rights. i'm not clear on that. what was the rush in the extraordinary pressures that

were being faced? >> first of all, we had to determine whether there were any -- in the initial interview, we had to determine whether other bombs on the plane, other planes that had similar attacks contemplated. wanted to understand who the bombmaker was, who directed him, all of that came in the first series of questions. later that night, we had another opportunity to interview him and i believe at that time, not only would be able to interview him, but we had to interview him in a way we could utilize his statements to ensure a successful prosecution. understanding that we have the obligation to take the individual before a magistrate, without undue delay which would mean he'd go before a magistrate within the next 24 hours. we sought to take advantage of that time to undertake the interrogations we could with the evidence we gathered at hand. >> but why wouldn't it have been -- i guess i'm still not clear because i don't understand why we'd want to issue the miranda rights when we're worried about what other subsequent events that might be

occurring. >> because we also want to utilize his statements to effectively prosecute him. >> well, i, you know, i profoundly disagree with that. i think most people do, given those circumstances. it just doesn't seem to me to make sense. and, frankly, i mean, not having the collective weight of the intelligence community to, you know, to really zero in on this particular individual at this moment in time is really disconcerting and troubling. and i think that's the point. >> let me just add one other point and that is it is a continuum. in other words, you can look at it in that day. i encourage you to look at what has happened since then. it is a continuum in which over a period of time, we have been successful in obtaining intelligence. not just on day one, but day two, day three, day four, day five and down the road. and so i encourage you to look at it as a continuum as opposed

to looking at it as a snapshot of what happened on one day. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, senator snowe. senator reese. >> thank you. >> first of all, senator snowe is right. i'm going to come back to that in just a minute. but i want to engage in the political sparring we've had here briefly to start with. first of all, i think the questions by my colleague from oregon were very on point, wanting to know if the american people can be assured that somebody like mr. abdullah will not be allowed on a plane again. and i have every confidence that you guys are right that you've got it figured out, that unfortunately, most people that -- if they are going to do this again, they won't have a guy with the credentials that this guy's got. there's a million people out there that have no record and you won't see it again. but it's important. as far as the article 3 trial, i don't understand it, and i don't -- you know, whether bush did it or reagan did it or this

president did it, when it comes to a combatant, they are all wrong on this. article 3 courts were put together for the protection of a united states citizen. it is expensive to try someone in article 3 court. it is a great protection, that it is a great protection, that most of the world doesn't have." was decided. we all thought it was the end of the world. turned out it wasn't. but he learned a lot of things from it. miranda simply, the court said,

look. in america, we are not an inquisitorial criminal process. we are an accuseitorial criminal process. that means the government has to accuse you. they have to prove it and you don't have to come up with any information to help them do it. that's what miranda was all about. again, it was done for the protection of united states citizens living under the united states constitution and not for foreigners. miranda is simply an exclusionary rule. i think most people in this room know what an exclusionary rule is. you don't go to jail if yir police officer because you don't mirandize someone. the case doesn't get thrown out because you don't mirandize someone. the only thing that miranda does is it excludes any evidence that the police got because they didn't give the guy his miranda warning. all right. let's take the christmas day

bomber. somebody tell me why he had to be given his miranda warnings? with all due respect, mr. mueller, by the way, thank you for all what you do. you guys have tough jobs and i appreciate it. but with all due respect, you didn't need to give this guy miranda in order to have a legitimate criminal prosecution. you had 200 witnesses that saw what he did. you didn't need a confession from the guy. and anything you got out of him if you didn't mirrandize him couldn't be used in a court of law, but who cares. you have all kinds of eyewitnesses. you were going to convict him. i'd hope you'd go back and look at this again and understand that the miranda rule is simply an exclusionary rule. number one if you're not going to try him in an article 3 court, you don't need to miranda him. and number two, if you got all the evidence you need, you don't need to miranda him. go ahead and interrogate this

guy until the cows come home because it doesn't matter. what you want that for is you want it for intelligence and if it never sees the -- whatever he says never sees the light of day in a courtroom, who cares. this guy is going to get convicted. but with all due respect, i think you lost some information that could have been very, very valuable to the american people. and with that, thank you very much, madam chairman, and there's a couple minutes left. so maybe mr. blair, you are in the middle seat. do you want to comment on that? >> i find the intelligence committee has an awful lot of former prosecutors on them. but i think that the -- i think that the balance that we're trying to strike, it's interesting. i hear these same conversations inside the executive branch when we have our meetings on the same subjects.

these are not easy matters. somebody would have found the absolute perfect way to balance -- to balance the prosecution and intelligence valuable for now if it had been right there. so i'm going to say these are balanced cases. and we can talk about individual ones. but we need to keep all the tools out there. we need a process to think them through. we need to take advantage of whatever time we have, and the circumstances of a case and try to do the best thing. >> well, mr. blair, let me disagree with you as far as just being a balancing matter. this is not a balancing matter. the question is, whatever i get out of this guy, do i need it in a court of law? if you don't need it in a court of law, there's no balance that's necessary or anything else. i mean, there's just no reason. just think about this guy. came from a foreign country and he didn't -- wasn't able to accomplish what he wants. so he gets drug in the room by american authorities. and he's sitting here thinking, gee, i wonder what's coming next. i don't know what these guys do, but i bet it isn't pretty.

someone comes in and says, by the way, we're going to give you a lawyer if you'd like one. this guy says, have i died and gone to heaven? of course he's going to shut up. when you say don't say anything until you talk to a lawyer and we're going to give you a free one, of course he's going to do it. with all due respect, this is not difficult. it's really simple? do you need this statement in court or do you not need the statement in court? if ot not, wring everything you can out of this guy. >> i don't disagree with what you've said, senator, but i will say that you are looking at it in the rear mirror. >> and i appreciate that. >> the decisions that are made, you are assuming that at the point in time decisions are made we have a full understanding of the case that we have against him. and this is but five, six hours afterwards, four or five hours after he's gotten off the plane. so i don't disagree with a lot that you say, but by the same token, you are looking at it in the rearview mirror. if you put yourself at the time

and the decisions you have to make at that time, you may come down on the other side. >> i don't disagree with that. but in this case, i'll bet you guys had talked to about a half a dozen people that saw exactly what he did and knew you had an air tight case against this guy. >> we were out interviewing that afternoon the passengers from the plane. but the results of those interviews, we don't get until late that night or the following day. the first information we have off the plane, when our agents are out there is saying there's an individual who set off firecrackers on the plane. and that's the first information we have. and so as you well know as a prosecutor as the day goes forward and the events that you get pieces of information at a particular point in time. the other point i would make is that, again, as i made it with senator snowe, is this is a continuement over a period of time. and what happens -- what happens on that day happens in that day. but do not discount what has

happened or what does happen after that in terms of gaining that intelligence. >> and that's fair. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, very much, senator. senator feingold, you're up. >> thank the chair. i have a statement i ask be included in the record. >> without objection. >> in light of the discussion thisatch, i want to note my strong support for the decision to try khalid shaikh mohammed and abdulmutallab in federal court. it's a decision that i think actually demonstrates our national strength. director blair, on january 7th, white house counterterrorism adviser john brennan acknowledged, quote, we didn't know that aqap had progressed to the point of actually launching individuals here, unquote. do you agree with that statement? >> senator, we had some information that they had ambitions to attack the united states before that point. >> you know, this strikes me as

an area of strategic intelligence and perhaps a failure of strategic intelligence. and it's important, i think, that we acknowledge and address that as a part of this. even as we simultaneously work on how to improve the so-called connect the dots tactical capabilities. i just think it's important to see that as part of what happened. c.t. adviser brennan said that al qaeda is looking in africa for recruits and that the government is very concerned about this and is following up. i'd ask both directors blair and panetta, where in africa do you see this occurring and are you concerned? we have a good enough handle on this threat continentwide? >> the areas of principal concern are somalia and, you know, we have intelligence that, obviously, there are individuals

that are going to somalia. in some cases, u.s. citizens that are going to somalia and that are involved in training camps there. and that's one area of concern. yemen is another area of concern, as is obvious. and, again, there al qaeda has a presence, and we have strong intelligence that's trying to target those individuals. more importantly, we have intelligence that indicates that there is a continuing effort to try to recruit somebody to institute some kind of attack on the united states. >> director blair? >> senator feingold, i think you are familiar with the organization al qaeda in the magreb which is based in western africa. i think what we're learning is that this really is a syndicate

al qaeda in the south asia, yemen, other places. and that they, in ways that we don't entirely understand, pass people from one to the other. abdulmutallab was a nigerian. 70 million muslims, generally moderate in nigeria. obviously, there isn't a number who can be -- who can be radicalized to the point that he went. so i'm -- what i'm finding is it's -- to put them into geographic pigeon holes is limiting our vision. that was part of the limited vision we had before. >> i think that's exactly right, mr. director. i appreciate your adding that to the items that director panetta mentions. i tried to talk today to the secretary of state about the countries in western africa where drug trade, perhaps from latin america, is perhaps being connected up with these things. and, of course, your reference

to al qaeda in the islamic magreb is absolutely right in terms of northern africa. so i guess i go back just to a comment about the -- do we have the resources? do we have the capacity to follow this? these are incredibly vast areas. and the conditions that allow al qaeda recruit in africa is exactly the kind of problems that i think demand broader reform of the sort that i have proposed of this committee and that the senate has already approved. and i'm hoping that that can be completed and undertaken in terms of a commission in the near future. until we integrate the intelligence community with the ways we openly gather information, radicalization, i think, will then keep being one step behind al qaeda. we also need counterterrorism policies that are informed by what is actually happening in these countries. last year the state department concluded that the rebellion in yemen was distracting the government from counterterrorism. do the witnesses have any

concerns that the recent interest in ct will not be sustained, or that fighting the rebellion or dealing with a southern secessionist will be competing priorities? director panetta? >> senator, the situation in yemen remains a volatile situation. and although we have gotten strong support from president sala to go after targets and to share opportunities to ensure that we are working together, he is besieged by the situation on the border. he's besieged by what's happening in the south and the potential that they might divide from his country. so there are a series of problems there that could very well consume him. this is not a clear-cut situation in terms of having his support. >> thank you. director blair, your prepared

testimony is refreshingly candid about pakistan's continued support for militant proxies and about the assistance provided by some of those groups to al qaeda. you also indicated pakistan's actions are motivated by a desire, of course, to counter india which makes pakistan's strategic view of india central to our national security. i am not convinced that the u.s. military operations in afghanistan are going to actually change islamabad's calculations in this regard. isn't something else going to have to happen to alter how pakistan has looked at the region for the past 60 years? >> senator, in conversations with pakistani officials and through assessing them with intelligence, with intelligence experts, we think that that historical foundation that you cite certainly provides the foundation in their heritage of what they go into these

decisions with. but they are constantly re-evaluating what is happening on their western border. what i think general kayani, one of the key leaders said yesterday that what he sees as important in afghanistan is that it be a friendly state and stable state. and he has offered, for example, training to afghanistan armed forces in order to achieve that. so, while the pakistani threat coming from india is historically -- well, historically well-grounded and lies at the core of pakistanis concern, i think they are realistic in terms of looking around and seeing how do they best carry out their interests in that regard. >> i thank you all.

>> i think we should probably begin to wrap it up. there may be some additional questions. >> i have just a couple. >> mr. vice chairman, why don't you go ahead and then i'll wrap it up.@@@@@@@@r granting his greatest wish. now turning to gitmo, it was always my understanding that the

many detainees in gitmo were never intended to come to the united states for trial. that's why we worked in 2007 and 2009 to get the military tribunals properly established. now moving along, mr. director, i was very disappointed. i wrote you a month and a half ago asking the recidivism numbers for the past year detainees returning to terrorism to be made public. i first got my answer via the media last night when the letter from white house adviser brennan was sent to the house speaker which stated openly what we've known that the recidivism rate was 20%. he went on to note that all of those were from the previous administration, but putting aside all that and the fact that we -- took us a long time to get

that answer. number one, i hope that the information will be forthcoming on a regular basis in the future. i -- when i ask a question, i'd like to hear from you in a more timely manner. but if the -- i do know that the detainees released prior to 2009 were judged to be the very most rehabable or most subject to rehabilitation detainees they had. so i don't believe it takes a rocket scientist to realize that letting any more go would be -- would heighten the risk. do you have any reason to believe that additional detainees will not go through the so-called rehab programs or come back additional information they can use to plan and execute terrorist attacks against the united states?

>> i think you are absolutely correct, mr. vice chairman, that the 500-some odd detainees who have been released before last year and then 120-some odd that had been designated for -- designated for release since then or probably easier cases and i have been personally going through some of these harder cases and there's a fairly large number of them that we shouldn't -- >> i would hope they would not be released. moving to the high value detainee interrogation group that everybody is calling h.i.g. for short, when will the document be finalized and committee get a copy of it and have this operation in place? >> for the charter -- i have -- i signed off on the charters so it should -- requires a number of signoffs around the

government. i will look at when it would be available up about it is -- it is moving along and it is -- director mueller said we are using the components we expect will coalesce into a hig right now. >> but as i understand it from the executive order, that the hig is under control of the white house through the national security council. is that correct? >> the body that makes the -- makes the decision on the -- in the white house with representatives from everybody at this table. >> national security council. if osama bin laden were captured tomorrow would the hig interrogating, would he be read his miranda rights? >> if osama bin laden were cap tired i would very much -- hig interrogate him and squeeze tall information out of him. >> prior to mirandizing him? >> i'm not going to talk about

that. >> director panetta, to what extent does the cia in the interrogation business at all talk to colleagues over who have gone overseas and met with commanding officers who when asked about who can interrogate them bring their lawyer in and give an answer because they don't seem to know, is the cia -- does the sigh vie any role in interrogation? if so, what sit? >> yes, senator, we are engaged with the teams and we bring obviously the intelligence value associated with whoever sing being interrogated. but we do participate in those kinds of interrogation. >> so you have been participating in the hig? >> that's correct. >> how long has that hig been going? >> well, we have been, obviously -- we have gone ahead and dispatched some of the teams with the fbi, with the cia in on order --

>> how long have they -- >> i didn't know that the cia or anybody else interrogating people. how long has that been going on? >> we are participating with the fbi. >> since when? >> last fall. >> we have been doing teams and anticipation of the formal signing of the document but the congress september has been in place since last fall and used it on a number of occasions. >> the cia personnel are not tin interrogatorors. they are the backups, aren't they n. >> they are backup. they are doing some of the interviews. >> if i may, the hig is operational and has been deployed, correct? >> yes. >> thank you. senator rockefeller, you had a comment. senator white house wanted to make a comment. >> i don't have a question but just a comment. time is running out. the two things i hoped to discuss here today but which we won't have time to do but plenty

of time in the near future, number one, the two greatest growing threats within our terrorist community, one has already been discussed. that is the youth -- that is that abdhe was claimed bay two-r visa and started in when he was 22 years old and arrested when he was 23 years old. i see this as growing all across the world, including in our own country, obviously. because they are clean, because they cannot be traced, and for that reason, as director blair knows, it is a concern of mine that when these folks choose to

travel and they pay in cash and because they pay in cash, there's simply an -- interchange with dar somebody in an airport or travel agent, nothing is known about them. just that they are paid in cash. and, you know, maybe checked luggage or maybe didn't. there has to be a way which we can work out that when somebody pays in cash, that the person at the counter or the person at the travel agency asks questions, gets certain information from that person, social security number, telephone number, address, address where the person will be overseas, people won't like it. airlines won't like asking those questions. they will think it is harassment upon them. but there is no other protect that i know of for people who

have a paperless trail. so that -- that's one thing that concerns me greatly. and the second one we have also talked about in other situations and that is the fact that -- i think i read tonight several books and plenty of articles. that let's say the entire operation of bringing down the twin towers cost al qaeda about $500,000. and that with all of the poppy activity, the corruption activity, the criminal gang activity, which interrelates in, you know, the taliban and pakistan and the taliban and afghanistan, with -- with others, and they cross fertilize at some point because money is money. also, the -- so much money contributed to this from foreign countries.

we all know who those foreign countries are. that the question of chasing down the financing of terrorism is to this senator a primary concern. i don't know how much is being done about it. i do know that i think that they can sort of do a twin tower every three weeks, according to the amount of money they raise. that may be just from the drug trade the narcotics, much less the other types of financial resources that are coming to them just in overwhelming hundreds of millions of dollars. hundreds of millions of dollars. that has to be faced up to. it is serious, hard, and it is a hard thing to shut down because it is worldwide. you are dealing with different people and not necessarily dealing with the terrorists themselves.

you are dealing with people that facilitate. now they become equally dangerous and enable. and that's scary. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you very much, senator. senator whitehouse, have you a question. >> i believe that the chairman in her opening remarks referenced the report that the committee is working on cyber security. i believe that the extent to which the country is under cyber attack is underappreciated by the public, and i would like to ask each of you for your cooperation with that report in making timely decisions about declassification. so that we can, without compromising any national security information, present information in the report about the scale of the attack that we face in a meaningful way and in

our time frame. i believe that will require some cooperation from each of you as declass fires since nobody in the legislative branch of government is a declassifier. it is so complex that i, frankly, believe they never actually have been used. it will require cooperation and i would just like to take the opportunity to ask you for your cooperation in accomplishing that. >> we will do that. madam chairman, if can i clarify one thing in my exchange with senator feingold, had a chance to review the statement by mr. brenten he mentioned. we are not at odds. it is a distinction between strategic and tactical intelligence and it is -- we are both seeing the same thing. >> thank you very much. i would like just to clarify my understanding. my understanding is that the high value detainee ing interrogation team is operative and has been deployed and that

it will participate in any future interrogation. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> thank you, mr. panetta. it is also my understanding that mr. abdulmutallab provided valuable information. shark? >> yes. >> thank you. and that the interrogation continues despite the fact that he's been mirandize d? >> yes. >> it is also my -- information that the no-fly list has been substantially augmented, is that correct? >> that's correct. we have added a number of names to the no-fly list. >> can you discuss the definition for placement on the no-fly list? we discussed this and you read the definition, philadelphia lawyer to -- >> closed session. we showed you the paper which is

required and i think it is a cause of practice and interpretation of those rules. and i -- director panetta said, we are interpreting those more aggressively right now because until we get handle -- better handle on the situation with al qaeda, so it is within the same -- it is within the same words written object the paper but it is -- more aggressive and flexible in terms of actually getting more names on the list when those -- when we are in the gray area. >> it is my understanding that the views of the chief of station will be taken into consideration in terms of determining whether an individual should be placed on a no-fly list or watch list, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> i think that's very important. i'm delighted to hear that. i would like to thank everybody and would like to thank you for your service to the country.

i would like to thank your staff that worked on this. i know it is a very hard time and that the next six months are a difficult period. the committee stands available to be -- what help it can be. >> before you close -- excuse me. first -- join with the chair in thanking you for your discussions. i believe having been around here a little while, when we have these open hearings, one of the most important things we can do, talk about, issues that are important to the public. and while we have had very spirited debate on both sides, strong disagreement. i think that the public wants to hear from you, from both sides of the aisle, on our views on this. so i find that this a very, very helpful discussion. it is difficult because good friends are disagreeing.

but i thank the chair for having this in open hearing and letting us pursue those. number two, i have said that -- i believe that we have very strong interests on both sides of the aisle making sure the cyber security is pursued as an intelligence matter. but that the american people understand just how dangerous these cyber attacks are for our personal bank accounts, credit cards, for p the security of our infrastructure, power supply, water companies, and all of that and for our national security. so when we find things that can be discussed openly, we would -- we will look forward to doing so. and finally, madam chair, i believe that the record normally will stay open for a couple of

days. >> it will stay open. >> surprisingly, enough, i didn't even get through the questions i would like to give. our distinguished witnesses an opportunity responsible to some of the comments that have been made by former attorney general mike mccasey who was the trial judge and i would -- i would like to get your reaction to those. you thank you, madam chair, for putting up with this and having a very spirited and interesting debate. >> thank you very much. the hearing is adjourned. ,vlvltx

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over the next several months to make sure that we don't lose sight of the fact that even though the economy is now growing again, almost 6% last quarter, people have not started hiring again and we have to do everything we can to put people back to work because we need a sustainable recovery over the long term. [applause] now i've got to be honest with you. there is no magic and with that makes the economic problems that were years in the making disappear overnight. sometimes it is easy for politicians to exploit the anger and pain that people are feeling

right now. i have to point out now that some of the very same folks in congress who opposed the recovery act and claim that it hasn't worked have been all too happy to claim credit for recovery projects. they come to the ribbon cuttings. [laughter] they find a way to have their cake and vote against it too. [laughter] we're making progress. but it can't come fast enough. we want to accelerate and we know if we truly want to have long-term economic growth in this country, then we need to start addressing some of the struggles that middle class families have been dealing with for years. this past decade has been one of the toughest our middle class has faced in generations because folks have seen their paychecks

shrink, their housing prices fall, when the cost for everything from groceries to health care to college keeps going up. so a lot of you are working two jobs. certainly everybody in your household is working. you're working longer hours but you feel likeñi you're treading water and in some cases, it is not adding up. a lot of people put their kids to bed wondering whether they will be able to give them opportunities in life that they got from their parents and this thing, new hampshire, when i was up here campaigning, i told you i didn't run for president to kick these challenges down the road. i didn't run just to keep my poll numbers high. i ran to solve problems for the next generation. i ran to get the hard things done. thalts why you elected me. [applause] -- that's why you elected me.

i won't rest until businesses are rising again and wages the rising again and the middle is thriving again. i won't rest until we do what we know has to be done. to secure our leadership in the 21st century. i don't want to feed our future to china, india, european countries. i'm not willing to settle for second place, not for the united states of america. [applause] but if we're going to win the race -- here is the thing. i can't do this alone. democrats can't do it alone. the president can't do it alone. we've got two parties in this country. that's a good thing. it means we have heated debates and vigorous disagreements and

as messy as democracy sometimes is, it means bad ideas can be discarded and good ones refined and we don't go anywhere too extreme. that's the genius of american democracy. i was pleased when the house republican caucus grarbleely invited me to join a retreat last week. we had a good time for more than an hour. we had a frank exchange. we aired some of our grievances and shared some of our ideas. there were plenty of things on which we didn't agree and also plenty of things in which we did and more things in which we should agree on if we could just focus on solving problems instead of scoring political points. [applause] for example, we all agree that

education is the key to a 21st century economy. we all -- [applause] we all agree that the best anti-poverty program around is a world class education. so why don't we work together to transform our schools so that every child in america can compete with their counterparts around the world from by a joining the bangalore. -- from beijing to bangalore. [applause] i know we have a lot of young people who are about to head off to college in an era when a high school diploma is no longer a guarantee of a good job. let's make college affordable for every student. [applause] as i said at the state of the

union, no graduate should have to pay more than 10% of his or her income on student loans each year. we can see to it that they don't. we can see to it that they don't. we've got legislation pending right now that can make this happen. the republicans and democrats may not see eye to eye on the threat of global warming. i happen to think the evidence is overwhelming. some disagree. we can have a respectful argument there, but shouldn't we agree that america's home grown energy is good for our security and that new clean energy jobs are good for our economy? [applause] can't we all agree that new jobs shouldn't be going to china or germany or stain?

they should be right here -- or spain. they should be right here in the united states of america. so let's invest in innovation. let's put people to work on solar panels or wind power or cutting edge batteries because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy and america has to be that nation. [applause] these are key parts of the foundation we need to build for a better future for our families, for our country. another foundation stone is fixing a health insurance system that works better for insurance industries than for the american people. i do not quit. we are going to get that done. [applause] nobody -- we've got to get it

done. [applause] we have to get it done. nobody -- nobody should be satisfied with a system that allows insurance companies to deny care to folks with pre-existing conditions. that allows insurance companies to kick people off their plans when they get too sick. nobody should accept a system where small businesses are forced to pay outrageous premiums in order to get their workers covered and seniors have big gaps in their medicare prescription coverage. nobody should accept another day in which health insurance premiums double and millions lose their coverage altogether. there was just a report the

other day that showed even greater numbers of americans now are having to rely on government insurance. not because of my plan but because employer-based insurance has declined to an all-time low. now these are the things i hear about every day in the letters i get from families going bankrupt, from small businesses crushed by the health care costs. so i am not going to walk away from these efforts. i will not walk away from these people and congress shouldn't either. we should keep working to get it done. democrats and republicans together. let's get it done this year. [applause]

we should all be able to agree that we've got to do something about our long-term deficits. they won't just burden our kids and grandkids, they can damage our markets now and jeopardize our recovery right now. responsible families don't do their budgets the way the federal government does. right? when times are tough, you tighten your belts. you don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. you don't blow a bunch of cash on vegas when you're trying to save for college. you prioritize and make tough choices. it is time your government did the same. [applause] now, that's why -- that's why i continue to insist on making investments for job growth this year, why i continue to insist

that we put more money into education. that's why i say we put more money in science and technology for innovation. that's why i continue to to believe that we've got to invest in our infrastructure so that we are building the kind of america that can compete in the 21st century. those are smarter. if you need a new boiler you have to get a new boiler. if the roof is leaking you have to fix the leak. there are some things you got to do. but you can put off buying the new curtains, even though it would be nice to have. remodeling the bathroom, everything is working. don't need it right now. i mean, what we have been having is folks who want to buy the curtains but don't want to fix the boiler and our priorities

have to change. that's i propose cutting more than 120 government programs, consolidating ones that are duplicate and eliminating those that just don't work. that's why i propose to cap government spending over the next three years, spending related to medicare, medicaid, social security and our national security will not be affected but all other government discretionary programs will. that doesn't mean we have to do less. it just means we've got to do more with the money we've got. that's why i'm grateful that both the house and the senate have now voted to reinstate the paygo rule. it is a very simple concept. it means pay as you go.

although it is not to be confused with paul's wife, pago, although i really like her too. remember the 1990's? remember that? way back when. instead of the record deficits that we had when i came into office. the concept is very simple. you want to start a new program, go ahead. but you have to cut another one to pay for it. that's how we'll make sure we're spending your money wisely. you want to cut taxes for somebody? that might be a good idea but you have got to find a way to close the revenue hole so that everything actually adds up. that's how we'll get our deficit under control. that's something that democrats and republicans should be able to agree to. if we could just stop playing politics. get past the washington game. [applause] now let me just -- let me just

give you an example here because we released the budget right away. the other side says look at all of these trillions of dollars of debt. absolutely. i'm concerned about it very much. it keeps me awake at night looking at all that red ink. most of it is structural and we inherited it. the only way that we're doing with going to fix this is if both parties come together and start making some tough decisions about our long-term priorities but last week, the senate blocked a law that i supported to create a bipartisan fiscal commission that would come up with a set of recommendations for cutting our deficit in the long term. this is a difficult thing. it is only going to be solved if we do it together. if this law fails -- this law failed by seven votes when seven

republicans, who had to sponsored the bill, had co-sponsored the idea, suddenly walked away from their own proposal after i endorsed it. they make a proposal, sign on to the bill. i say great, good idea. i turn around [laughter] they are gone. what happened? look, it is one thing to have an honest difference of opinion on something. there is nothing wrong with that but you can't walk away from your responsibilities because you don't think it is good short-term policy. we can't afford that. we can't afford that. [applause]

the message you all sent when you elected me, the message that was sent is whether you're democrat, republican, independent, you're out of patience. you're out of patience with this kind of business as usual. you want us to start worrying less about our jobs and more about your jobs. [applause] you want us -- you want us to worry less about our election and more about solving your problems and for once you would like a government that reflects a sense of responsibility and decency and generosity because that's how you try and live your lives. [applause] that's spirit that led students here at nashua north to spring into action in the wake of the

tragedy in haiti. i want to congratulate you guys for planning fundraisers and selling ribbons all to help folks that they have never known in a place where most of them have never been. [applause] we're proud of you for that. that's good work. [applause] that's good work. it is that same spirit that drives small business owners, like tim and like k.r. gupta, the c.e.o. of an energy company. the two guys who run it are right here. k.r. founded a.r.c. but he also,

years before, co-founded a company called g.t. solar. with just $1,000, it now has 334 employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. as he was growing that company, he made sure his employees shared in the company's profits. when the company hit hard times, he cut his own salary first. when talking about his business philosophy he explained that many c.e.o.s take a me, me and me approach but his approach has been we. it is not about benefiting just himself but lifting his employees too and his community. [applause] we -- we need that kind of spirit. we have come through a tough year and a tough decade but that

fundamental decent si, that sense of determination, that willingness to work hard in pursuit of good ideas, the determination to do what's right. that has been at the core of the american experience and that should fill us all with optimism about what lies ahead. let's put aside the small things. let's come together and welcome the challenge. let's do what's necessary to help the middle class succeed again to give our kids a shot at their dreams again and to fulfill the promises of this great country in our time, in our generation. that's our task. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. thank you. [applause] thank you. all right. thank you.

thank you. thank you, guys. thank you. thank you. ok. we, you know, when in new england, we got to do the town hall. you guys have been -- thank you. thank you very much. thank you, god bless you. now -- a lot of you guys have been to these before. so you know the drill. i'm going to call girl, boy, girl, boy. [laughter] there are microphones in the audience and i will try to get in as many questions as possible. it would be nice if you introduced yourself so that people know who you are and don't yell out.

just raise your hand and i'll call on you although she seems very eager. go ahead. we're going to start right around here. uh-oh. how did this connecticut person sneak in here? all right. go ahead. i love people in connecticut. go ahead. >> i'm a three-time cancer survivor due to the great helts care in this country. >> we're proud of you. [applause] >> but like many cancer patients was pushed out of a job. i was lucky enough to be able to retire early by entering the retirees health plan and then start my own successful business. however, this is not case for most people with chronic illnesses. health care for cancer survivors is more expensive. how are the jobs bill going account for the needs of cancer

survivors? >> first of all, we're proud of you. you look great. you did say you agree? you should. you look good, too. go ahead. [laughter] there are a couple of aspects of this. first of all, i think we shouldn't lose sight of the enormous potential in the new branches of medicine. to go after cancer. i was over at n.i.h., national institute for health. we have increased funding drastically. this is an area that should be one of our competitive advantages. we have the best scientists in the world and the best universitys in the world and we have traditionally led in innovation and the more money we're putting in, they are

starting to come up with drugs that only kill the cancer cells and don't kill healthy cells. or that can be taylored to a particular kind of cancer that's matched up because of new genetic information. there is enormous potential here to go after cures and that involves the kind of research and investment that we have made. in our health care bill, one of the most important components was the idea the basic principle that nobody should have to go without health insurance because of a preexisting condition. [applause] nobody should have to go without health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. now this is something that is very popular if you just say it in isolation but when you start explaining what is required to make that happen, then sometimes

some people get a little nervous. you can't have insurance companies have to take somebody who is sick, who has a pre-existing condition if you don't have everybody covered. or at least almost everybody covered and the reason, if you think about it is simple. if you had a situation where not everybody was covered but an insurance company had to take you because you were sick, what everybody would do is just wait until they got sick and then they would go buy insurance. and so the potential would be there to game the system. the reason i point that out is because a loft reforms that we proposed fit together. so we want insurance reforms to make sure that a cancer survivor can still get health insurance but to do that, we want to make sure that everybody has health insurance, ch, in turn, allows

us to cut back on some wasteful spending and help upgrade hospitals and doctors and how they perform medicine because now they are not dealing with as many emergency room patients so the cost control aspects of it, the coverage aspects of it and the insurance reform aspects of it all fit together. here's the problem, though, is when you have all of those things together, it ends up being a big, complicated bill and it is very easy to scare the daylights out of people and that's basically what happened during the course of this years debate. but here's the good news. we're essentially on the five-yard-line for those who like football analogies. we've had to go into overtime but we are now in the red zone. that is exactly right. we're in the red zone. we have got to punch it through.

what i have said is that both the house bill and the senate bill were 90% there. 10% of each bill, people, they had some problems with and legitimately so. so we are just about to clean those up and then massachusetts election happened and somebody said, oh, oh, it is over. no, it is not over. we just have to make sure that we move methodically and that the american people understand exactly what's in the bill. and what i've done is i said to the republicans, show me what you've got. you've been sitting on the sidelines criticizing what we're proposing. i'm happy to defend insurance reforms. i'm happy to defend the fact that we need to provide 30 million people with access to

coverage. i'm happy to defend the need to provide small businesses an ability to pool so that they can have the same purchasing power that the big companies have and drive down their premiums and rates for their employees. i'm happy to in this debate. i just want to see what else you've got. if you have got a great idea, great. the republican caucus said we have a plan that will provide everybody coverage at no cost. and i said, well, if that were true, why wouldn't i take it? my wife michelle thinks i'm stubborn sometimes, but i'm not that stubborn. let me think. i could have everybody get health care coverage that is high quality and it's free, which i'll bet is really popular but i'm not going to do that. i'm going to go through painor really working through this hard

process of congress getting yelled at and called a socialist because that's how i roll. i'm a glutton for punishment. no. look. if there were easy and simple, first of all, somebody would have done it before. seven presidents have failed at this. seven congresses have failed at this. if this was simple, it would have already been done. it is not. this is 1/6 of our economy. it is extremely complex. the health care proposal we put forward is basically the same shape it is a proposal we would put forward by tom daschle, former senate dreament majority leader. bob dole and howard baker. two republican senate leaders. so it can't be that radical.

it's a very straightforward principle that says we're going to set up an exchange, a pool where people who don't have health insurance in small businesses can buy in to the pool. even though we have driven premiums down due to competition and choice, you still can't afford it, we're going to give you a subsidy depending on your income. we're going to have that everybody get it. there are some folks that it is just too tough. we're going to insist that the insurance companies all abide by certain practices like making sure that you take people with pre-existing conditions. that you don't drop people just because they bet sick. we then say that we have to control the cost of medicine so we're going to set up a panel of experts, doctors and health care economists and we're going to

scrutinize how we reimburse things like medicare to make sure that doctors are encouraged to work as teams. don't order five tests if you can just do one test and email it to five different doctors. pretty straightforward. now what i just described is the essence of what we're doing and according to the congressional budget office, it would save $1 trillion in our deficits, which is the single mothes important thing we can do, by the way, to reduce our deficit in the long-term. it has everything to do with the growing cost of medicare and medicaid. almost all of it. you project out 20, 30 years, almost all the growth is because health care costs are going out of control and we have an older population that is going to need more care. if we can't figure out how the

give a better bang for the buck, we're going to lose. you have a better idea, bring it on. what i will not do is to stop working on this issue because it is the right thing to do for america and you need to let your members of congress know they shouldn't give up. they should keep on pushing to make it happen. all right 12347 -- all right? [applause] ok. all right. it's a guy's turn. it's a gentleman's turn. this gentleman right here. go ahead. hold on a second. we have a mic coming over here. that's right. >> ok. i'm gary myer. i live in hampton, new hampshire. i was a quality leader who worked and i know you're well aware there is a lot of

nonvaluated work both within health care and within enuq%=9 and within a lot of businesses and government. you also talked eloquently about the need to have more jobs and to be more energy efficient. all these things together require that we get a health care act reform passed in the senate, a better one than we have today and that we also get a clean air act passed. would you be willing to meet one-on-one with senator greg to get these things passed in the senate? you know, i'm willing to meet with anybody, including senator greg, who i offered a job to. i don't know you guys remember that. i like senator greg. i think he is a sincere person. you know the fiscal commission that i just talked about? that was greg's proposal.

it was senator judd gregg and senator kent conway. they had been vocketting for this for years. mitch mcconnell, the republican senate republican leader had just a few months ago said this was the way to deal with this. i said great, let's do it. and suddenly, they are gone. not judd. judd is still supportive of it so what we're going to try to do is try to do it by executive order. my point is the easiest thing to do with politics is to point fingers to figure out, you know, who to blame for something or to make people afraid of things. that's easiest way to get attention. that's what reporters will report on. you call body is a name and you say look what a terrible thing they have done and they are

going to do more terrible things to you if you don't watch out. and you'll get a lot of attention and in some cases you can win elections, particularly when unemployment is 10%. what's hard is to figure out how to solve these problems. our long-term deficit, if we can't control health care costs, i don't care who's talking about eliminating waste from the government, we can't soft the problem. a lot of people -- let me just give you one example. if you ask a lot of folks what accounts for the federal budget? they will say foreign aid and pork plonlts. if you just eliminated that, somehow we would bring our deficit under control. foreign aid accounts for 1% of

our federal budget. 1%. earmarks. all of these pork projects. a lot of them, by the way, people like. a lot of them are a waste of money and we have to be able to distinguish between the two and make it more transparent so they are not snuck in the bills without anybody foggy about it but they only cost -- only amount to about 1% of the budget as well. what really accounts for the budget is medicare, medicaid, social security, defense, interest on the national debt and then everything else from national parks to environmental -- the e.p.a., the environmental protection agency and in order -- if you just want 20d cut the deficit to balance the budget, only on nondiscretionary or on

discretionary non-defense spending. if you wanted to exempt out ault all the entitle yms, exempt defense, you would have to cut all of those other things by 60%. 60%. can you imagine? so we've got to have an honest conversation about all the aspects of the budget. and that's what this commission was designed to do. that's why i think judd gregg was absolutely right. i support him on this. we're going to set up by executive order a commission to do this. but i want good ideas. it is not in my interest to blow government with wasteful problems because every time i spend money on wasteful programs that don't work, that's money i'm not spending on early childhood education that would make a difference in a child's

life or on college scholarships to send kids to school. we have to use our money more wisely but that can only be done if both parties are responding to the interest of the american people and not their short-term politics. all right. young lady up there. yes, you. yes! you sound surprised. wait, wait, wait. i i saw another lady in the black box. sorry about that. it is nice to see you, though. >> my name is ashley and i attend nashua high. [applause] during your campaign there was a lot of promises of transparency but lately a lot of stuff in the media says most of health care has been behind closed doors.

i was just wondering how you would grade yourself on your transparent government. >> i have to be careful about grading myself. but i will tell you that a recent independent watchdog group took a look and said this has been the most transparent government, most transparent administration that we have seen in a very, very long time, perhaps in the modern era and here is the reason. let me just list off the things we have done. this is the first white house ever where you know every single person who visits the white house. now that seems like a small thing but that means any lobbyist, any company, anybody who comes to to visit the white house, you know who it is. the recovery act that i just talked about, we put every dollar of spending, you can go

look up right now every dollar that has been spent on the rory act, where it has been spent, who got contracts, how it has been spent. that is all there. plain as day for everybody to see. we put more information on line. we declassified things that used to be classified. we revamped the system. we posted salaries for everybody in the white house, all on a website, which, as you might imagine when it comes out, everybody is looking in the white house. hm. but seriously, we very much believe in transparency and accountability. now, when it came to the health care debate, think about all the hours of congressional hearings, all the meetings that were on

c-span. they were constant. it look a year, remember? i did town hall meetings all across the country in august talking just about health care. so when people say well, the negotiations were not on c-span, what they are frustrated about, and i take responsibility for this. after congress went through process and the house and senate voted on a bill, it is true that i then met with the leaders and chairman of the house and senate to see what differences needed to be resolved in order to get a final package done and that wasn't on c-span. and look. i made that commitment and probably should have put it on c-span, although one of the tricky things is trying to figure out well, if it is on c-span or people are going to be saying what they think about trying to get the bill done done or is everybody going to be posturing to say things that sound good for the camera?

but i think it is a legitimate criticism if you say all of it is going to be on c-span, all of it is going to be on c-span, which is why at this point it is important for me to say when the republicans put forward their proposals for what they want to do on health care and we put forward what we want to do on health care, i very much want that on c-span and i want everybody here to watch. i want everybody here to watch. because i think it will be a good educational process. for people to weigh the arguments about the relative merit of the bill instead of listening to millions of dollars worth of insurance industry ads that have been put out there or whatever pundit on the left or the right is saying about these different issues. so we're going to keep on doing it. have we gotten it perfect?

no. have we done better than any other administration? absolutely and we'll keep on trying to improve on it. all right? good. gentleman there in the back in the tie. you got all spruced up for the meeting. i want to make is thur i call on you. -- i want to make sure i call on you. >> my name is dick sweat. i live in beaux, nanch. >> you have paying fan club here. >> first of all, thank you for coming and we are pleased and proud that you are here. in your discussionses, you have said that you're ready to listen to anybody with a good idea. well, i would like to go out on a limb and say i have a good idea and i would like to share

it with you. when we talk about energy issues in this country, we're talking about jobs and dependence on international oil and some coming from difficult places that are feeding terrorist organization s that arecausing harm to our citizens. we are talking about a problem of keeping our money here at home opposed to sending it overseas when we purchased that foreign oil. i think what we can do is we need to put all of these issues together in one basket and first set a date by which time we can be independent enough of foreign oil. i can't say that we could be completely independent and i think you understand the reasons why but if we can invest in technology here at home to develop clean technology, place that technology in developing countries not only just where they can have energy and little bit to be productive with but establish with that, an economic system where they have jobs and they are opening up new markets, that we can sell our products

into and that we can build our relationships with their leaders through and at home, if we can focus on making ourses more energy efficient because we are a very efficient country when it comes to use of energy just like all of the industrialized countries. these two things i think done first can help us have to avoid doing cap and trade and other aspects with environmental controls that are going to have negative impacts on our control. we need to make productive use of our economy and people so that we can clean up the economy and put people to work and then if that isn't sufficient enough we go through kinds of programs that are talked about at the copenhagen summit. >> let me respond by talking more broadly about energy. first of all, those are such good ideas, i have already adopted them although i didn't know they came from you. number one, we have to invest in

innovation and new technologies. there is no doubt about it. by the way, we have to upgrade some old technologies. i know it is controversial in some quarters but if you're serious about dealing with climate change then you have to take a serious look at the nuclear industry. if you are serious about climate change you have to look at a technology that can allow us to sequester cole and the emission -- coal and the emissions that are set up. the reason is not just for the united states. china is build agricole plant once a week, it seems like just about. india is doing the same thing because coal is cheap. unless we can franchise that technology so that they are equiped to burn that coal cleanly we're going to have problems no matter what in this country when it comes to the

environment. we can make significant profits and create huge jobs just upgrading traditional technologies. then you the whole clean energy sector, which is ready to take off if we provide the kind of capital, the kind of r & d credits that are necessary. this past recession almost killed a lot of our home grown clean energy sectors and the industry will tell you. you talk to the wind industry or the solar industry, if we passed the recovery act and all the support for clean energy, a lot of them would completely go under and we would be feeding leadership to a lot of countries like spain and germany and japan, who are doing a lot more work on it. this is a huge engine for job creation and we have to make those investments.

third thing you said, energy efficiency. we are one of the least efficient advanced economies when it comes to energy usage. it is estimated that we could probably lop off 35% of our energy consumption just on efficiency without changing our lifestyles significantly. i say significantly because you would have to start buying l.e.d. light bulbs but it is still a light bulb. you don't have to sit in the dark. you don't have to use gas lanterns. you just j have to make the investment. one of the things they are trying do is bringing down cost for each of those light bulbs. a school building like this, i guarantee we could make this school probably 10%, 15%, 20% more energy efficient but school

budgets a lot of time don't have the money to put the money up front to make it more energy efficient. we can make schools and other institutions for efficient. we could take every building built over the last 50 years and get huge increases in energy and greenhouse gas emissions but it requires some work and that's why part of our jobs package is a very simple concept. hire people to weatherize homes that will save those homeowners' heating bill or cooling bills and at the same time put people back to work in things like insulation and heating systems. so there is a lot of opportunity there. now here's the only thing i would say the most controversial aspect of the energy debate that we have been having, the house

passes an energyñi bill and peoe complain abou! well, there is a cap and trade thing and you just mentioned, you know, let's do the fun stuff before we do the hard stuff. the only thing i would say about it is this. we may be able to separate these things out and it is conceivable that's where the senateçó endsñi but the concept ofñi incentivizg clean energy so that it'sñi the cheaper, more effective kind of energy, is one that is proven to work and is actually a market-based approach. a lot of times people just and no matter how good the matter is if you're notçó factoring in the soot that is beingñ put inçó the atmosphere, a very long time. for the aver! industry, the

avescgeñiçó company, we can mak huge progrescó onñr solarñi and can make huge progress onçó win 0qñi that yuó get from thoseñi )uuz coal are still going to be pretty substantial. they are going toñai getñrñi ber it mightñi take 20,ñi ofñiñiñi technology to get betti fo pricing in the fact that thisñi thing is really badñr for the can we do it in ñiñi way that bureaucracy in añrñi controllin command system andñi sayçó look adapt and decideçó which are th that's how they gotçóñiñiñrñi s p]

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ct'ext onçóçóñiñiñiñiñrñiñrñi c onñiñiçóñr thisxd morning's "wa bama'sñr budgetxd morning's "wa historian and former advisor to% margaret thatcher paul johnson, author of over 40 books.=/%çó his latestxd on winston churchñr hill. paulçó johnson, live from londo sunday at noon eastern on bookx tv's inñi depth onñiçó c-spanñii c- make it morenbñi useful for teachers. you can find the most watched video clips orkedsed byñr subjes andñiu,xgwtegmw÷fá topics. ztion news

plus the chance to connect with+ otherñi c-span teachers. it is all free. sign up at theñiñoo new[gr c-spanclassroom.org.w72çó eliminates funds for nasa to the moon.çó [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]ç

agencies and interprice, as an advisor to businesses,

universities and flant miss and now as the visionary leader of the nationalñiñiñiñr aeroocutic technologyçó advancing leadingç nation it needs to beñr to meet the challenges in space in theñ 21st century. before i tell you a little more about majorñiçó general retired charles f. boldin jr., i want ti say a few words about those challenges andñr tons in space. i startxd by noting that presidt obama realizes, i realize and general boldin realizes that our activities in pace represent not just a grand, inspiringçóñiñrñr of exploreation of the universe but also an indispensableçó platform for observing what's happening, land and vegetation to melting ice and rising sea

level to hurricane the track s of hurricanes and typhoons. an indispensable pillar of our communications infrastructure and geopositioning capability and añi source of new products, businesses and jobs. u.s. strength in space, science one of the pillars alongside research universities and national laboratories, theñi strength ofçó our education sysm and our information energy and transportation infrastructures. >> long and healthy lives for all of our citizens and for national and homeland security. u.s. leadership in human space

life -- the human landing on the moon and convincingly continued program and the central u.s.çóç rule and the n the international space station has brought forth the theçó bravest among us and e cleverest o among us,çó thetologists by which they can do so. so study science and engineering so they too can reach for the stars. president obama understands all of this with crystal clarity. he said so clearly and repeatedly in his campaign and has done so repeatedly since. the decisions that were unveiled yesterdayñiçóñiñiçó the most ca

reflection on the inevitable tradeoffs not exclute collude job losses and gains in in all the affected states.çó on the pros and cons of the program of record andñi alternatives to it. the uge seen the community was an all-star group that included three leaders in addition to norm, two former astronauts, a

retired air force general, the goals of the u.s.ñi civil spaceflight program, the chairç of the national research couple st the princeton university space scientist who serves on president obama's committee ofñ advisors and technology. this groupñi worked tirelessly from june through october holding 14 meetings andç(uhree site visits in that period andñ receivingñr extensive input fro members of congress, former astronauts and nasa officials and the public. their 150-page report was immensely valuable to me and to boldin and toçó the president i clarifying the choices before us. many of his key findings are