the baby, the infant can start to be vaccinated. >> exactly. that is correct. and there has been a recent publicication from c.d.c. which shows that that protective antibody does cross into the baby's system through the placenta. in addition, those antibodies are passed through breast milk. so there's two possibility force the mother to protect the newborn before the age of six months. in addition, we still want all the family members and whoever is going to care for that baby, care takers for that baby, to also be vaccinate. and then the last thing is that we have been using seasonal flu for pregnant women for years. and we have not been concerned at all that there is any problems with the vaccine in terms of safety to the mother or to the baby. >> thanks, dr. riley. that's terrific. we have one question that's come in via the internet. it's a very simple question. when can you get vaccinated?

dan, when can you get vaccinated? this afternoon. right? >> now. . . >> i have another question that has come in from the web.

what reasons were given for not getting vaccinated? we did not go into that in great detail, but there are any number of surveys that have been done. some people are too busy. some people and not aware that the vaccine is available at new and diverse locations. some people are concerned about vaccine safety issues. my colleagues have addressed that. we give this vaccine and millions upon millions of doses every year. it is an enormously safe vaccine. some people are not convinced that influenza is a safe -- is a serious disease. some people think that because they have never had it, they do not have to worry about that. you could get a mild case and

spread it to your loved ones. that is also a reason to get vaccinated. doctor, your year and p -- you are here on behalf of the indian and alaskan native services. would you like to speak on behalf of that? >> thank you very much. i am with the indian health services division. we are the agency of health and human services that covers health care for american indians and alaskan natives. i am here today because influenza is such a critically important issue for american indian and alaskan native people. we have people from all over the world to have realized that

indigenous people are disproportionately affected by influenza last year. unfortunately, in the united states, american indians were the ones most likely to report influenza-like illness last year. they're the ones most likely to be hospitalized. tragically, the death rate from was higher in this population than other americans. thankfully, we think that all of those adverse events can be prevented, and they can be prevented by vaccination. we had indian health service argali and support of the recommendation -- we at indian health service are fully in support of the recommendation for vaccination of all individuals six years and older. we urge all indian and alaskan native people to please get your flu shot this year. it attacks you, your community and your family members.

thank you -- it protects you, your community, and your family members. thank you very much. >> it looks like there are only 190 million vaccines, but you ever recommendation for universal vaccination. that means that only one-third of americans can possibly be vaccinated. can you talk about that. >> that is the number that has already been distributed. the numbers that were put in by the manufacturers were upwards of 160 million that they were planning for. universal vaccination is something that we have is a policy now. as we know, with all vaccine policies there is a grassroots component to the policy picking up and becoming implemented. we think that this amount is going to be adequate this year to capture those that are going to get vaccinated, but we expect overtime that more and more people will want to get

vaccinated and therefore the amount of vaccines up there should keep up. >> you have talked about the barriers to vaccination, superstition, too busy. mccann you talk about how americans actively -- but can you talk about how americans actively have to seek out the vaccine as opposed to it being something easy to get. >> certainly, in the united states, people are used to getting vaccines here more than they are in other countries. even though we have a difficult care system here, the desire to get vaccines is pretty high relative to other countries. >> did you have another question? >> we have never had final figures on how many seasonal and

h1n1 vaccines were actually inventoried from last season. do you have final numbers on that? >> in terms of what we estimated for the people that had the vaccine administered, the h1n1 2009 texting was around 80 million. i actually do not -- the 2009 vaccine was around 80 million. there was an amount of vaccine that had to be returned. for the flu vaccine, about 114- 115 million doses were distributed. >> those are still estimates though, right? >> dr. foster, you wanted to make some comments about this

discussion. >> most of the seasonal vaccine was administered last year. all of our supply at the pharmacy was. h1n1 vaccine came out a little bit later, the demand dropped significantly. manufacturers have always made the supply larger than the demand. they have always had to throw vaccine away except for this one seasonal vaccine last year. i do not think supply of the population -- there was more this year than there ever was before, and they're hoping that they can get more people vaccinated. again, the manufacturers are not going to make more and then throw away unless they have demand. our goal is to increase demand. >> i just want to comment on the health care delivery system in question. one of the most exciting provisions within the new health care bill is the emphasis in

pediatrics on bright futures, which is our preventive services provision. immunizations will be covered with snow copiague under the new provision, -- with no code-pay under the new provision. we are very excited that this is now available through the affordable care act and we are having preventive service out reach, and obviously influenza vaccine is part of this new day. we are delighted. >> dr. price, you wanted to get a word in. >> i just wanted to comment about universal health in response to your concern. obviously, maggie, you were talking about the idea of a healthy system in which it is transparent in terms of a requirement to have the vaccine. i also wanted to make you aware

that there are a fair number of americans who are getting vaccinations outside of the u.s. that is particularly true for armed services individuals and people who are traveling sometimes. they would not need vaccines from our stock. >> we have another question that has come in from the internet. is it ok to get seasonal flu vaccine now if you got h1n1 as late as march, 2010? the short answer to that is yes. remember, the current vaccine does contain h1n1, but it contains protection against two other influenza virus types. during the course of the influenza season, we anticipate that not only 81, but these other two viruses will be out

there and active, and you will blunt to be protected against all three strains. -- you will want to be protected against all three strains. the virus changes out there every year. in anticipation of those changes, we have to create a new vaccine and get ourselves protected on an annual basis. further questions? any from the telephone or from the internet? yes. >> i am jeff young with bloomberg news. can you talk a little bit about, through the cdc board state and local agencies or any kind of partnerships, what are you doing specifically to increase the outreach to people? the vaccine is there. the recommendations are easy to understand. all of that is clear, but is

there something new in terms of how to persuade people to get up and go get this vaccine now? >> it is important to remember that cdc is one agency of a number of federal agencies, it is one a small component of a larger health care community. the only was a -- the only way to get this message out is going to require all lot of different partners that participate. the department of health and human services has a number of initiatives where they are working to ensure that hispanic individuals and other race and ethnicity are getting the right messages this year, putting things into the right language so that they can get them. we are also targeting through social media to make sure that we are using the most of the twitter, bloggingk tu and so forth.

the majority of the way people get their information, we are trying to make sure our information is there. the only way that this will work is to partner with professional organizations, a partner with assistroups dethat can with immunization information. the final holy grail is to get the message to every practicing physician. that is a hard group to get to. through a number of different mechanisms we are trying to get to those individuals, i get messages to them, have aps that they can down load on to their cars now assistance and so forth. -- onto their personal assistants and so forth. >> pediatricians, a pharmacist, internists are all here

together collaborating on trying to get the word out. one of the words that we are trying to get out that has made it easier for health care providers in the public is, the recommendation is yes, all of us should be vaccinated. we do not have to pick and choose anymore. a patient walks into your office, the pharmacy, whatever, the answer is yes. whoever you are, you should be vaccinated if you are older than six months of age. further questions or suggestions? >> just one quick to challenge. if we can document for communities at risk that based on prior year experienced that access to vaccine distribution is prioritized in those communities where they have the highest burden, the highest risk

of death and hospitalization, to make sure that supplies are prioritized their first -- their first in subsequent years. >> we can try to monitor the groups that are receiving it the most. we can monitor that. in terms of actually targeting them, there are in services and health care providers that will have to make sure those prairie groups are the ones you are reached early. we think it is important to get to those groups and we want to be able to do that. >> i totally agree with you. i saw that the vaccine was in pharmacies in august. we at the university of tennessee have not received our supply yet. in the previous year with h1n1, the federal government bought all of the vaccine and shows how it would be distributed. in this case, it appears that there is a free market for the

vaccine. it certainly hit some of the commercial areas first. >> from the pediatric community, i want to second this point. physicians are reporting that they are getting the proprietary vaccines easily in august but the other when they are not getting until three months later. i guess we are all seeing that there are health inequities here. the public vaccines for children program. >> sometimes, given the vaccine distribution system, not every practitioner has all of the vaccines for all of their patients simultaneously. this continues to be something we need to work on. i would like to emphasize that we are here at this point, early in october. we still have plenty of opportunities to vaccinate.

other comments and suggestions? i have another question that has been handed to me. how can private practitioners cost effectively afford vaccines for patients? here, i am going to ask someone to help me out. let me start out by saying that the influenza vaccine is relatively inexpensive. we recognize that particularly for pediatric practitioners and increasingly for family doctors and internists, the array of vaccines that are given today and the consequential expense make it difficult for the financial management in individual practices. i know we are all working on those types of questions with manufacturers, the cdc, the american academy of pediatrics, but perhaps you would like to say a word. >> this is one of the most

serious issues for practitioners in pediatrics these days. that is that while we are all committed to making sure that vaccines are delivered, the burden that is on a particularly pediatricians now, in terms of buying the vaccine, storing the vaccine, having the administration available, having the extra nurses and so forth, actually has tipped the balance for some practices. negativet them into a situation. we have been asking the insurers and the government to look very carefully at the cost that the practitioners take. one of the major things that has been a concern for us is the administration fees for children, the government fees are based on medicaid not medicare, and can be very small compared to what adults debt.

-- adults to get. this is an issue of great concern to us in the pediatric realm. it is something we have to continue to let that very seriously. >> is the other vaccine a larger burden? >> that goes easier, but that is because we have some mo many wonderful vaccines available. those costs can sometimes be over and above what the pediatrician can burden. >> the aarp is particularly interested in everyone 55 and

older. the medicare process goes a very -- goes very smoothly when it comes to influenza and other vaccines. >> older people go to the physician more frequently than people in middle age. we asked to make sure that physicians raised the issue when they see their patients, but we also communicated through all of our communications channels to power more than 40 million members to make sure that when they go -- to our more than 40 million members to make sure that when they go they know it is available and what the cost is to the individual. >> thank you. >> i would like to provide an adult perspective on the issue of how we can provide effective immunization. from the adult perspective, it

is more than just influenza, it is probably all immunizations, but that is another conference. i think the association of health officials posted a 2010 immunization conference to specifically looked at this issue of affordable care -- the affordable care act and its ability to improve adult immunization. while that will indeed open doors, coverage does not equal access, which does not equal adequate reimbursement. those are issues that we are all looking at. the adult immunization working group is actually looking over specifically to that issue of how providers can make adult immunization, including influenza, affective.

>> thank you very much. >> among the reasons some people give for not getting inoculation is one that i am not sure if it is true or where it lies. they said that they felt if enough people and around them were inoculated, they would not read it. is there -- they would not need it. is there any truth to that? >> for some viruses, when you get infected, the community your body develops lasts for a long time. you can get what is called herd immunity. the more people get infected, the less likely the virus will be able to move in the community. influenza has a clever design

that keeps changing. it is continually being different than it was the previous season. therefore, the notion of a herd immunity does not exist unless you are vaccinated at high levels each year. because the virus is changing, we have to update the vaccine regularly, and that is what people need to get vaccinated. >> let's all remember that this virus can take an absolutely healthy person with no underlying illnesses and put them into an intensive care unit in 24 hours. i think the person who is thinking about relying on others to protect them is kind of fallacious because there is not

enough of a number of people getting vaccinated that that person can be content with that. i would like to turn that question around further. there is clearly some merit to being protected yourself so that you do not give it to others. that self same person is out in the world. if everyone in their workplace is protected, perhaps that individual does benefit from a certain cocoon. but they go to the movies. they go to the mall. they go to restaurants. they have extended family. they do not want to be the vehicle of transmission of this virus to others. some members of that individual's extended family may have diabetes or be in the know- suppressed or have advanced aids so that their response -- the immunosuppressed, or have advanced eight so that their response is not as strong. -- have advanced aids, so that

their response is not as strong. i would like to thank our panelists, all of them. i would like to thank all of you for coming. we are appreciative that you will take this message and be a vehicle of transmission for the is information to the general public. we certainly hope that people get the message that this year and going forward, the recommendation is that we all get vaccinated for our own protection and for the protection of those around us. get that influenza vaccine and those of you who are eligible, ask your provider about the other vaccine. thank you very much.

-- ask your provider about a new pneumococcus and vaccine. thank you very much. >> coming up, a discussion with journalists who met with mahmoud ahmadinejad during his visit to the un. after that, report on private security contractors in afghanistan. tomorrow, a discussion on the political environment of the midterm elections. a democratic strategist and republican strategist will be the guests. also, a look at congress's operating costs over the last decade. after that, we will chapa -- we will chat about attack ads from

the 2010 campaign. >> what are people watching on the c-span video library? be it might be surprised. whether it is the most view the event of today, the past week, or the past month, click on most watched to see the most popular events. >> panel of journalists and scholars met with mahmoud ahmadinejad during his recent visit to the un. we will hear from two of them now. they discussed their meeting with the iranian leader with an audience at the wilson center for international scholars. this is one hour and 10 minutes. this isn hour and ten minutes.

>> i am the director of the middle east program at the woodrow wilson international center for cholar. i would like to welcome you to today's meeting and assessment of ahmadinejad's trip to the united states. as you know, iran has been in the news for the last three decades and continues to be just two weeks ago president ahmadinejad was in new york to take part in the u.n. neral assembly in a bizarre way he stole the show from all the other dignitaries present in new york and i don't think there was one media appearance that he

missed, and during his visit he met for breakfast with a selected group of journalists and rabin wright was present at the breakfast and he also invited a group of what they referred to as american and the iranian american intellectuals to private dinner. ambassador limbert was present at that dinner, and of course he also made outrageous remarks such as the assertion that 9/11 was preplanned and orchestrated by the united states and hat there are no political prisoners in iran, that iran is the freest country in the world and that

people's human rights are not violated in iran. so in order to assess that trip and to look at whether he made the same assertions in the private meetings he had with robin and john attended we invited both of them to come and take part in this public meeting lunch will be served at the end of the meeting around 1:15 or 1:20. if here is an overflow in the fourth floor, and we will take questions from the overflow and if he in turn is going to be there to take questions. i've asked each of our speakers to speak may be for 15 minutes,

18 minutes and then we will open the floor to your questions. i would like pleased to ask you to close your cellphone and please, no text messaging, no checking your e-mail whether it's on blackberry or iphone because it interferes with the life webcast that we are having. so, you know, not under the table, not on the table. [laughter] so please, put it out for 15 minutes to be cut off from the outside world. our two speakers were both very distinguished and iranian specialists. robin wright is a journalist, author and foreign policy analyst and she is currently a

wilson center distinguishd scholar. during her fellowship, she would work on her book, which was called jihad against the chehab which will probably get a new title by the time it will come out, and she just finished editing the iran primer, and she will talk about it for a few minutes before plunging into her talk. you istributed the table of content on the iran primer. i noticed some of you have picked it up. i think i will start here with robin and then move on to john who is a distinguished professor of international affairs at the united states naval academy and former deputy assistant

secretary in the near eastern affairs bureau at the state department and we are thankful to him for having accepted our invitation to bring his class along, so a secial welcome to all of you who are in uniform here. i must tell you that when i was being interrogated, occasionally i was asked who are these people in uniform attending your meeting, and i would say five months i've passed i don't know what your names are you think i would know what the name of the people who attended five meetings are. [laughter] >> thank y come haleh. we have been working on a craft project it's called the kuran primer power politics and u.s.

policy, and it's an unprecedented project that brings together 50 of the world's top experts on iran each to ride on a different slice of iran. it's all fact based and analysis. the book will come out december 1st but we are also putting the whole project on the web for free and will be available as of ctober 18th. halefor a chapter on women and john breaux is a chapter on the obama administration. patrick clawson rejected on u.s. sanctions. this is a very distinguished group of people but it's also only half of the western and half from the middle east, so we try to balance perspectives. anyway, let me get to our subject today which is ahmadinejad's visit. this is the third time i've met him in new york for one of the working sessions, twice for dinner with a foreig policy expert in this one time with the press. also the fourth president i had meetingsith in new york during

the visits to the united nations. i was the first one in 1987 when the then president made the first visit by senior high iranian officials to the united nations since the 1979 revolution, and as i waited for ahmadinejad to arrive for breakfast i reflected on how much has changed since 1987 but also how little has changed. in 1987 when khamenei arrived at the u.n., he was a secondary political player behind the speaker of parliament, nd behind, well behind the than a very able prime minister who was a former architect turned technocrat and got iran through what was the bloodiest modern east -- released ar during which the price of oil plummeted

as low us $13 a barr, so the one thing that lingered in my mind from the breakfast was the way that the two bodyguards standing behind khamenei had to come over because of the tape recorder that paralyzed his right arm the had to come over and cut of his breakfast meat and in many ways he seemed a weak figure at the time how much has changed. he's todayobviously the supreme power, not only e supreme leader, and both have been forced to the sidelines. the interesting thing about the speech in 1987 is that the youth and missing told us in advance this was going to a very important speech reaching out to the world and even nodding at the united states. but the day before the united states hit an iranian vesseln

the persian gulf iran the ship had been at least, three sailors had been killed and 26 captured. iran claimed it was merely a merchant ship. the ited states said it had photographs of the sailors on the ship dropping mines in the gulf. of course this was the height of the iran iraq war. needless tosay that is what hasn't changed in 23 years and the fact that the u.s. and iran are still confronting each other only this time the gap is far wider and the issue is much bigger. so that brings me to the breakfast 23 years later. and i would describe the breakfast in ahmadinejad and four terms. the first one is that he was undeniably in charge. he appea more self confident

today than ever. despite the unprecedented rmoil in iran a year ago. his answers were filled with crisp certainties', even when they were at minimal, at minimum questionable in terms of his responses, occasionally misleading and sometimes just dead wrong as when he yet again talked about denying the holocaust and wanting a panel on international panel to look at what was the truth behind what happened during world war ii. the second term i chose was infallible. there was no question that seemed to faze him whether it was on iran's deeply troubled economy, or on the raid of the opposition leaders in previous couple of weeks. the opposition leaders being who saudi and the to kind of

marginal leaders. he was masterful accounting any suggestion that ira faced any problems. on the economy he said the tehran stock market was one of the most active in the world in industrial exports have tripled that agriculture was showing consistent growth. he said that iran had fewer economic problems than the united states did. on the opposition he said the leaders were not facing any problems, they were free to publish their own news and views. and he said that they probably don't show up in public much because of their past behavior and led them toe embarrassed. on the talks with the international community, he said he was always prepared to talk as he had been in the past and as he was now. he said there's probably a good caulk that talks mediation will begin again soon. he said there was never a need for the interlocutors and that

there was no alternative t to talk to the united states directly and he called himself quite optimistic about direct talks with the u.s.. he dismissed any prospect of military action either by israel or the united states. he said no one could clash with iran and he said there was no other way but to talk. the third adjective i used to describe him was on daunting. by recent developments from the new u.n. sanctions to resumption of mideast peace talks. on the sanctions he insisted past actions were actually very useful to iran and strengthening its economic independence and its industries. he said new sanctions would be very useful as well. he said the american sanctions were particularly meaningless because there hadn't been treated for such a long period and he said while the trade accounted total abt $23 billion a year that it was

not a large part of iran's economy and that others could easily replacethem. on middle east peace, he said that yes, iran wants peace, too, there is no other way. and when pushed about whether he would accept any deal with the palestnians accept some language the former reformist president had once used he was quite clever as he often is. he kept saying that the world must allow the palestinians to choose their representatives for any peace effort and if the elected palestinian representatives were not included the talks would then go nowhere. in other words, no de will work or be accepted at least by iran unless hamas, which of course was elected in 2006 and

the election identified by the united nations was part of the process and a read -- agreed to terms. for the adjective i would use to describe him in the end was on convincing. his claims grew increasingly outrageous as the session continued. just three quick examples. first on the disputed 2009 electionand the government crackdown, he said iran had never had such open and honest elections. he said no one had been are arrested without proper judicial orders. he said the security forces and the ministry of intelligence to know action independent of the judiciary. second, he said, iran doesn't mind u.s. arms sales to the gulf countries. he said iran does not consider either of these countries or their arsenals to be rivals or a threat. he said u.s. allies effectively

had to buy american weaponry to bail out the troubled americ economy. he even issued a warning and said that those who sell arms might find that there is any political change in the country da silva east to the might and in the hands of countries that turn against them. the third of the most unbelievable allegation was that the united states had never fought a real war, not world war ii, korea, the imam, a rock or afghanistan -- iaq or in afghanistan. he said that iraq had dropped a couple of bombs at which point robert cohen from "the new york times" came to me and said sounds like he's never heard of normandy. he said the reason there will be a war with iran is because the u.s. knows would be a real war.

at the end of the breakfast, i was thinking back on how we got to the state where a man who made these kind of allegations becomes president of iran, and then there is a kind of secondary lesson, and with apologies to haleh and john have both heard this storyi thought back on the years when i covered the war from the iranian war front and i remember being struck in 1982 when i went down right near the iraqi border and it's where iran had launched the offensive that crossed into iraq, pushed back the iraqi troops for t first time, and i was with a small group of foreign journalists and agroup of revolutionary guards came over to talk to my group and one them said are there any americans among you, and i raised my hand because i knew you can get in a more trouble

for lobbying than telling the truth. meanwhile, i was thinking well, it's been a sweet life. [laughter] and th took me off to the site and hold around me and wanted to know if readings. was johnny carson still on the air, had never escobedo oklahoma and did pink floyd have a new album out, and the only hing that made them suspicious is the fact i had never heard of pink floyd. [laughter] that would not be true probably of senior revolutionary guard commanders. i think one of the things that is striking about ahmadinejad and there is an important lesson that we have now seen a generation almost a generation and a half since the revolution and the emergence of a group of people in power today we emerged from that environment who have no exposure or experience at least at close range with the united states and officer corps

that didn't train in the united states and is produced people who i actually think he may not believe everything he says putting he does believe some of the things that he says. i want to very briefly loo what is next i that's all right, just a couple of minutes. because we are clearly at a very important juncture with iran. last spring we witnessed the collapse of diplomacy, the effort, the last effort, first by the united states and the european union and then by brazil and turkey to get some kind of deal with iran, short term that would then open the way for the long term talks on iran's nuclear program. when those collapsed there was then the movement in passing the fourth round of sanctions at the united nations. the u.s. has assumed since this summer in fact there would be new talks this fall, even they've been working had and a strategy to deal with iran and

there are many who believe these could or have the potential to be the most important talks with iran since the 1979 revolution. the state department has worked on the possibility that these would have been shortly after the united naons general assemblopened last month. and the european foreign minister, katherine ashton, has en working very hard to try to get something going. my sense however is that iran is in no hurry to put it mildly, and is prepared to let this process of negotiating about negotiations dag on. the fact is there has been no response informally or formally. all we have is the kind of language he used the united nations basically in every setting. it may be that there is internal opposition to read it may be that they are talking about what they could put on the tabl that may well be part of it and

it may not be all of it. meanwhile, ahmadinejad next week is scheded to make a triumphant visit to lebanon, and primarily to south lebanon. during his visit he is reportedly scheduled t visit where he will lay a wreath at the graves of the lebanese were killed by the israelis and the scene of the heavy fighting in 2006 during the war between hezbollah and israel. he is scheduled, reportedly, to stop at the iranian reconstruction projects in the south, and quite possibly even go directly to the border with israel where some reports claim he wants to thrw stones across the border. israel, not surprisingly, is reportedly responding by beefing up security along the border. so my fifth term to describe ahmadinejad is he is increasing the audacious and what he's doing i think both at home but also in terms of the region and

the outside world. one of the things that also struck me about the theatrics of the breakfast was the man sitting next to him who is originally a longtime friend of ahmadinejad. his son is married to his daughter and ahmadinejad tried to get him appointed as first vice president, a move that is highly controversial even among conservatives and he was forced to make him chief of staff. and during breakfast she was sitting right next to ahmadinejad looking at him and was striking to watch the two of them. and i wondered as i watched whether ahmadinejad intended as some of the reports out of iran suggest that he may want to push

him for word as his successor as president. so i got the last question in at the end of the breakfast, and i asked if he intended -- if he believed that h was qualified to be president and if he would support him as president and ahmadinejad was clearly taken aback and he aid he finally came back and said that's three years away. but i wondereif he was trying to pull a putin so he could stay in. one final budget that is despite all of his rhetoric and his audacity i think, mahmoud ahmadinejad remains vulnerable and this fall will be interesting arguably more for what goes inside iran than what goes out of the international community. subsidies are expected to be

removed this fall first in a five-year plan to cut back on subsidies that account for something like 25% of iran's gdp a container of bottled water more expensive than gasoline and iran and i think this could become a real political issue in iran on the premise that it's th economy nd the sanctions are lobbying for more than they like to get mad, not necessarily the sanctions, the targeted sanctions but i think the financial sanctions that the u.s. has engaged in that don't get enough attention are really hurting the regime. and finally, i'd think the most under cover story iiran today is the labor movement but evn though the green movemt has been silenced the labor movement

hasn't, and you see often twice on the ahmadinejad speeches and labor movements coming out and holding banners demanding back wages going back three or four months shopping we want jobs, we want jobs, there are economic issues and labor is providing the kind of dynamism and leadership even fragmented bits and peces that the political opposition has not beenable to. specs before. thank you very much. john? >> haleh, thank you for those very kind words of the beginning. i was recently reading about a study i think it was the psychologist at the university of california did and she was looking to find the point at which flattery ceases to be effective. and her results were very interesting.

hurt results were there is no such point. [laughter] and cross our iranian friends have known this for thousands of years and anyway. much of the impressions and what rabin has told you about president mahmoud ahmadinejad i shared some media can keep my remarks short and we can either earlier today. >> [inaudible] >> pardon? [laughter] know, the setting for this ivate meeting of about 55 people up in new york, he apparently is on this every year. the first time i had ever been to one of these things. there were about 50, 55 guests including academics, former government officials, think tank, various people from the

iranian american community and what i call in general the second trackers, the people who've done for a long time the so-called track ii diplomacy with iran. .. in terms of content, he certainly knew his lines. he has done this so much, so many of these interviews, so

many of these sessions. he has these lines down very well. whatever the question is, he is going to go back to the talking points. about 80% of the questions were about the nuclear issue, and he again has his lines down on that. finally, he even got tired of it. he said, is there anyone who is going to ask a question about something else, other than the nuclear issue, because frankly the exchange was not terribly productive. he made, i would say, two points. one was, he spoke -- and this was an old, third world theme. i hearken back to the 1960's and 1970's. he spoke about the need to reform the way the world is run, a kind of new world order. talked about booty johnny, the management to the world and

how this is done. the current system with the new run and the iaea and other organizations were staffed against smaller countries like iran and it basically dictates to these countries. and they don't have a voice in the system, iran objects to it. iran does not and iran will push for reform. second theme, and this kept coming up over and over again in a different context was you can't tell us at to do. you cannot tape terms to us. if we are goig to negotiate, we are not going to negotiate under your terms, your preconditions and with you insisting that we agree to everything before the negotiation starts.

and in one form or another, this being kept coming again and again. now, and prescience. first of all, i thought as i watched them i said i know this man. it was the first to make seen him, but i said i think i know him. and it wasn't because he was alleged to be one of the hostage takers back in 79. i don't honestly know whether he was or he wasn't. they didn't introduce himself to us. no one can lead to me and said you know, my name is not good and i hope you have a pleasant stay with us. but when i say i knew him, i knew people like him. many of the people who have been

my students at university and iran take in the 60's, early 70's seem to think and speak very much as he did. many of the people who were holding us in 1979, night scene and 80 also had the same view of the world. of course, many of the people i meerut ahmad and me to grasp and out d. who are actually as friends. i mean, he knew then and i think he may have studied with them. but there was a kind of combination of looks smart,

being very smart at your engineering lesson with and apologize to all the engineers the room, but a kind of engineers view of the world in which there is no nuance, there is no doubt and there is one solution to every problem. that combined with the view of the world formed by a very conservative -- the attitudes of very conservative small town in iran. ma of my students had came from places like kozyrev and are rob and sysop and navies and albay bay around shiraz. and their attitudes -- the world reformed by the abuse of these very conservative town and they're very conservative families. many of them came from lower

middle class -- very traditional families. but with studying very hard and being very book smart, they were able to get into the universities, which were extremely difficult, extremely competitive. and a dance. and so my feeling was i recognize this. this is not new to me. this is something i've encountered before. not literally, but figuratively. but there was also something else. there was a mannerism that made me uneasy. and i couldn't for a while figure out what it was. i mean, he sounded reasonable, he was soft-spoken, he was self-deprecatory. he joked that the people asking questions. and i kept asking mylf, is this the new ahmadinejad?

and then i was reminded and some of us in this room will remember this. i said this reminds me of the new nixon. and some of us may remember from the 60's the new nixon were nixon got on -- would go on late-night tv and you could watch them being self-deprecatory and pleasant and soft-spoken and very open. and of course it was all coached and it was simply a façade to cover something else. and once in a while, as i watched president ahmadinejad, i saw something else inmarriage from behind the façade. and there was a kind of petulance that was there, this defiance that lay behind this new ahmadinejad façade.

it came through in particular when someone asked him about nuclear weapons. and they said does iranant nuclear weapons? 's and he said no. he said we do not want nuclear weapons. we oppose nuclear weapons on ideological grounds. nuclear weapons are only for murder. they serve no political purpose. they are expensive. they're not in our interest. they're morally wrong and all these other things. by the way, he never mentioned religion at all and is sold to an half hour program. and then he said that if we are to pursue nuclear weapons are not pursue nuclear weapons, but decision is ours to make. you can't tell us what to do. we will make a decision.

coming back to this sort of old science, petulance. any of us who've ever had the pleasure of raising an adolescent will know ectly what i'm talking about here. you cannot tell me what to do. i will do this, but i will do this -- we will do this for our reasons. and this will be our decision. finally, robin mentioned and you've seen some of his more outrageous statements, including the one about 9/11. he did not make any of the statements that evening. but frankly i was not -- when i read about this i was not all that surprised because i ain't that man his circle, the people that he knows, the people that he deals with, ideas like that

that was responsible, was responsible for 9/11 are pretty hot. and along those people he knows of the people he talks to combat is pretty widely held. i won't go into the whole question of conspiracy theories because i think that's probably pretty familiar to most of you. in my own years as a serving official -- diplomat, i was no in iran more recently than 30 years ago. but more recently, i encountered that idea and similar ideas. quite widely held, the difference being that many other -- many other wrld leaderwould not say them in public at the unit nations general assembly beuse they would understand the effect that

they would have on part of the audience. i think it ahmadined tb case, i felt and he necessarily said these out of malice. i think he said something that he believed in without any idea of what their effect would be. and to me, this gets back to this rather limited world, limited view that he has. so thank you very much for your attention. i look forward to questions. thank you, john. [inaudible] i'd like to ask both of you the first question. john, so you didn't need a translator.

did you feel any new ones in his answers or he just came out, you know, with an avalanche of words which some were familiar probably to you somewhere, not because i mean there is a new jargon and language which is very difficult to follow, at least that's what my experience three years ago. and whether that made a difference in the way he expressed his opinion. and to robin, what is the issue of human rights? any preface to the john's dinner for 70% of the questions had to deal with the nuclear issue. but i mean, what is important i think for iranians is the issue

of human rights more than anything else, then i would like to have both your opinions on the human rights sanction. john, the language. >> the language. actually it was interesting to listen to as version because i learned a few new persian words. i learned a new word which means it said seed, but is now -- there's a new vocabulary. actually you know, there's been a lot of exchange over his use of some very colloquial and vulgar expressions in his discourse. i won't repeat them here. but he did not do that with his audience. and i will give him the credit that he did seem to have the tone of is audience does get the tone of his audience rate.

his version was cler. maybe because he was working with an interpreter and he knows how to work with an interpreter. that is persian was clear. it wasn't very literary, but it was clear and direct to for the purpose. but i did not care about his new jargon and i didn't hear a lot of these kind of vulgar expressions -- expressions that he has been criticized for it. >> human rights. >> human rights. there was exactly one question about human rights. i wish there had been more. but to emphasize what robin said, everything is fine. there are no problems. everything is feared. don't lieve what you read -- don't believe what you read in the journals.

don't believe what the world ess is saying about this. i wish he had been pressed harder on this -- harder on the subject. but again, i think had he been so, he would've continued to press the same line at he was pressing. >> he talked about the hikers particularly when pressed and said that he had asked for clemency for the young woman who was released, sir shroud -- sur to was released and he had intervened on their behalf but he was dismissive. said they were trespassing on a rainy and soil and they had to go through the judicious process. so again, he tried to portray you played a positive role in the system works. in terms of human rights sanctions, clearly it's an

important move psychologically, but it's clearly not going o make any difference to the eight individuals who were sanction. but it does signal that the united states is going to address that issue. the timing of it w a little unusual because you had the armani delegation in tehran just as the sanctions were released, trying with the release of the two other american hikers -- [inaudible] >> what did i say? trying to release the range of the other two. so you know, the timing of the surprise me a little bit. but this is something the iranian opposition has been asking the united states to do now since the aftermath of the june election last year. >> yes, please, just wait for the mic. the mic is coming. could i ask you to identify yourself. >> yeah, i'm bob dreyfuss. and with the nation magazine.

i was in iran last yen o the election. i like to a lot of people there especially among the green movement for the sanction and they'll expressed the concern to me, including former ministers of industry and people like that at thesanctions are having a real impact economically and also translate into certain political opposition that was building. i think a lot of the green movement, you know, was given some impetus by the need to get out from under the sanctions that even then existed. she missed -- and robyn you touched on this at tend, but i wanted a lot more about the labor movement, because sanctions are designed to take, in my opinion, a long time. i mean come you don't does have sanctis and then they surrender and throw up their hands. you have superman -- senator lieberman said he hoped to the end of the year and that we have to consider the operation. he's an embarrassment way talks ke that. but don't sanctions take a long time? and what is the impact

politically -- but what is the mechanism by which we get from the current state of sanctions to some sort of political impact over there? >> sanctions to take a long time. i covered the rhodesian solo work and it took 15 years between instance declaration of unilateral independence from britain and his agreement to talks with the opposition forces. and that was only because south africans turned off the train so that the rotations could get their agricultural export out. so these things to take a long time. but i also think he didn't have the kind of financial sanctions. again, this is the most dynamic level of sanctions. and i think the fact that there are now i think well over 100 international financial duchenne that are notoing business with iran.

i know of one bank -- bankn iran who said that h wasn doing business with other iranian banks because he was afraid of being sanctioned as well. so there's backsides. i think the labor moveme is someing at's parallel, but not as a result simpy of sanctions. as a result of iranian mismanagement, you know, metropolitans the curve on that subject. but there have been cents in past year there have been literally dozens of strikes. some f them very small, but they have persisted and they have affected most of the major industries. they have taken place in front of government offices. i mean, i actually have a list of them. i've been keeping them because i think it's so interesting. there's been one of the oil industry where there's one place the government of is her sort through them because they understood what happened in 1979 when the oil workers were caught

caught -- signaled the regime really couldn't ontinue. so i think there a lot of things. it's not sanctions or do anything. if the mismanagement by the regime andombined with a little bit of the difficulty of doing business ad therefore businesses can't expand. they're not hiring people. unemployment is a growing problem, particularly among the young and that's of course one of the two most dynamic element of your civil society are opposition movements. >> you're exactly right about taking a long time. and the economic impact of these things is going to be very difficult to measure and predict. let's take an historical view on the economic side, a rant has beenonfounding the experts for 30 years. i mean, for 30 years, the experts have said this can't go

on, that the combination of sanctions, economic mismanagement, of corruption, of the flight -- the brain drain, the failure to invest in the energy -- the energy site you're. ithen it's going to bring ms. -- is going to bring the system down. it simply cannot go on and people have been saying that it's a little bit like what is it like vino's paradox. you know, they say the closer you got to it to further wickets away. my own view is that as long as there's 80-dollar pearls of oil or 70-dollars a barrel oil, the main impact of the sanctions and i don't underestimate this is psychological and political. i mean, most iranians that i've talked to and you have the advantage of me, bob, because

you've been there more recently. i haven't been there 30 years, not by choice, but i'm just not welcome. but many iranians that i have talked to -- it's very clear they do not like being put into the same category as the sudanese or other missed you and and -- but particularly the sudanese for reasons that you understand, cut closer to home. or the libyans perhaps for the same reason. and that gets back to what -- again, one of ahmadejd's dance about you must treat us with respect. you must give us the respect that is due to s. and this idea of constantly being singled out by the world of violato to be punished lies

in the face of the self-image that this government -- this government carries. so when the rest of the johnny says recently, i think we should take these sanctions seriously, i had this idea that he's speaking maybe one third economically and two thirds politically and psychologically. >> sure, i'm going to take a question from this site and the question from cass. and then there is a question from the floor which i'm going to take. >> mark katz from george mason university. robin, i was intrigued by your observation that ahmadinejad felt that the u.s. wasn't going to get into -- intervene in iran because it didn't want a real word. i was just wondering, did you

get the sense that he actually believes this? because of the police say, what it implies is he really doesn't believe the u.s. is going to intervene, but it simply talks or in your view was the simply bluster? i'd be very interested in your impression, thanks. >> it's a good question i wish i could answer. honestly i don't know. i had the sense you were the police it. and that's why he's unflappable. you know, he came across as particularly dangerous because i don't did she understands the realities. but when pressed on it over and over and over and he seemed so flippant about it. you know, this is a real war. i often -- i often describe iranians to those who don't know then. ifou know attacks in -- i happen to have a cousin from texas. he's impossible.

and think of e most chauvinistic tax and add 5000 years. and then you get an iranian perspective on things. [laughte] >> i can't follow that. >> thies, just wait for the mic. please, i want a very brief question. [inaudible] >> thank you. ahmadinejad has become hailed in muslim streets, even muslims are usually enemies to shiseido. the reason why auckland in the shattered -- mahmoud ahmadinejad has more than even mohammed

could teeny. this will be best to the very painful fact that american foreign polcy usually requite enemies and empowers them and says it needs to keep this country busy and unnecessary wars. this is my aunt there and questioned. >> do you want to go? >> i'm reminded of a persian proverb of poetry that says the sound of the drum is ery nice from a distance. people in other countries don't have to put up with him on a daily basis.

they don't have to put up with this economic policy. they don't have to put up with his -- erratic statements. maybe 's a comment on the difficulty of domestic politics that of someone like that from a distance appears to be dave. but i think from a closer examination would reval that this thing that looks so good in fact has feet of clay. the >> i decide something very briefly and i think in the islamic world we've been at war for almost 10 years. and there's a lot of people who are afraid, angry, whatever. and ahmadinejad looks like someone who is standing up to the united states and of the benefits from that. >> into israel if i may, that is another reason.

>> mercia hobby, british spending time at the center. a lot of conservatives in tehran, importune conservatives really don't seem to like this guy. he think he's bumptious. they think he interferes in foreign policy. they think he's mishandled the economy and they don't much care for his chief of stff, is rather strange character that rabin described. so why did they put up with him and ll they go on putting up with him? >> it's a great question and there's clearly a deep and growing prevision in that critical sector of the political spectrum of conseatives

unhappy with the hardliners, unhappy with ahmadinejad and particularly his political appointees. you know, supreme leader allows us to continue and that's the way it is. do i call them sailors? are the sailors had? you know, and i was a mainstay for the hard-core zoo have been covering iran for a long time there's a wonderful joke in tehran about a fairer fight iranian shiites, there have to be at least six political parties that they divide among themselves automically. i mean, the revolution started basically as a one-party state and today you have over 240 political parties, factions, movements, et cetera. and i'm surprised it's that small. so you know, as long as that allows to continue that soweto

be. >> there's a principle of iranian politics that i think if you keep in mind and that is no one ever leaves office voluntarily. you either die or are pushed out. and part of what you're describing, arthur, is i think a breakup or a split of this 25 member -- roughly 25 member men's club that has run iran pretty much without -- without opposition from 1979. and people like how many and how she me in chennai t. and others are charter members and they have stuck around.

in this group -- either it's the effect of age or the effects of a new generation coming up, but this group seems to be splitting apart. and you see the kinds of conflicts and others getting that she would not -- he would not have even imagined 10 years ago. of course the hard part to those is then to say, well so what? with this meme in political terms? what do these splits means? and i think it's either one of two things. either it's going to break apart the system for dissent. as our iranian friends say, it's either one of two things. and you don't know at the end of the day. i mean, you can lookt them. you can see -- you can see these splits, but the political implications are very hard to

read. >> if i may add something. in the history of the islamic republic, there has been one case ofimpeaching a president. and i don't believe that ayatollah khomeini would allow this to happen again. so therefore i think that's why after you heard rumors of impeachment or statements about impeachment imprisonment he called the various factions for a meeting and that the the three powers and iran should work together. so you know, they are the argument that the government has been -- these have been free elections and ahmadejad was elected with 65 -- over 65% of the majority, so therefore he has to finish his term. that's how i see it aired in the back, yes.

just wait for the mic, please. >> hi, this is benjamin rao. i got the impression from everything i heard that i'm addition it said is in a very strong position domestically. could it be that the action he's shown so far is an attempt to hide perhaps a week position within his own country? at think that's what i said again. i think he still very vulnerable to spike his bravado. >> a question from the overflow. to mr. limbert, utah about mr. ahmadinejad stressed amnesty international community cannot dictate its iranian government. are the iranian people in a position to dictate their views to the government?

>> good question. probably would like to be. and maybe for the last hundred years or so there's been an ongoing to do exactly that, to restore the same kind of balance between rulers and ruled. what you see today and i didn't hear anything or see anything because we're supposed to be talking about president ahmadinejad's visit. but i didn't hear or see anything in what he said that suggested that to you or those people, his allies were going to be more open and more accept

being of views of other segments of society, particularly intellectually is. particularly journalists or lawyers or human rights act to this. and others who have raised questions about his and other policies of the government. that tension i think will continue. >> yes, please. >> i'm from the heritage foundation. i have a question regarding two things that were said. the first idea that the sanctions are helping iran's industry and ahmadinejad engineering is. there's a lot of indication that the oil industry -- the oil and gas industry is suffering pretty

tremendously in the audio field are regressing in terms of capabilities of productions, seven to 11% a year which we knew would be pulling up nothing very shortly. do you think t biggest danger is the lack of technological impos into the country. the country is very very far behind terms of refining the downstream aspect of the oil industry. that's the question. >> look, i'm not an economist and i would select some pattern on that but it's been known for a long time that iran has had difficulty oilfields are the oldest. they've gone through significant percentage of what they had. you know, i don't know that

sanctions short term are going to make a difference on the oil industry. they've actually cut down on the amount airport team. they're taking steps to try to, you know, increase their independence. but you know i'm goingo fill you is giving you an answer because that's not something i know a lot about. >> once again i speak with great authority as a non-economist. but again, going back to something we mentioned earlier that you see many similar analyses to what you said, looking at thetate of the oil fields for failure to invest in them come the lack of refinery capacity. the growth in domestic consumption. all of these things. and yet you can find these studies going back to the early 80's and looking out five years

in the collapse that people were predict dean or the sense that eventually this group within five years will be what's the phrase, mugged by reality hadn't happened. which leads me to one conclusion because i'm not -- as i said, i don't have a good economist via this. t that tells me the iranians are either smarter than we think they are, they are luckier than we think they are or that people are much more long-suffering an we give them credit for. >> yes, wait for the mic. >> josé shabazz with the university. thank you so much for your comments. you mentioned -- you referred to the ahmadinejad defiance and i think so do refer to that

against five. now i'd like to ask you because one of the other themes that pushed in his visit was kind of a lack of respect. i'd like to ask you what you see fit points with reality and was spared the u.s. government can do something in public diplomacy to kind of to take away that point from ahmadinejad and the anian government. thank you. >> that's a good question because when the issue comes up about seeking respect -- i mean i thk that our colleague, barbara slaven who says she says the iranians think they are the rodney dangerfield of the middle

east. they don't get no respect. and listening to him speak, something -- i asked myself the same question. how do you get at this idea because president obama, when he has spoken repeatedly about the need to deal with iran on the basis of mutual -- on the basis of mutual respect, but here's what i think may be what's going on. the u.s. is talking about engament based on mutual respect. president ahmadinejad seemed to be talking about mutual respect anworry about the engagement later. how else to explain his idea they guess i'm ready to talk to the united states, but our dialogue should consist of a public debate with me and my

american counterpart in front of the world media. in other words, it in this way, the point -- the goal clearly in that casis for the iranian side to gain respect, to gain status without worrying much about the content and the process of engagement. >> yes, please. wait for the mic. >>hanks, hi. search for common ground. i heard a lot of people say, you know, i really wish people would stop going to these dinners in new york why are they meeting with him? and i've been at the dinner for the third year now.

john, i'm curious to know why you decided to go and what did shsay to people who discourage you from going? >> sonya, it's nice to see you here. i hope i wasn't too far off in what i -- i hope you recognize we were at the same event -- at the same event. actually no one tried to discourage me. including former colleagues from the government, from the department of state. they never said don't go. they said, you know, go. i went because my wife told me to go. and i always do what my wife tells me to do. but again if we don't -- we in the iranians have not spoken to each other. we have not listened to each other. i'm reminded a little bit of an

interview. some of you ma have heard that ambassador von neumann gave a few weeks ago about afghanistan and the reporter asked him, well how do you deal with president karzai? how did you deal with implication being someone as difficult as president karzai? and he said i listen to him. what a revolutionary idea that we actually listen to what the other side says. not that we through with it, you know, not that we necessarily accepted her like it, but at least listen. because you know, if for not listening to people -- i mean, we can always talk to her friends of course. but if we don't listen to people who disagree with us, we're going to end up i think in a very bad place. >> let me thank our two speakers for the wonderful presentation

and they were very candid in answering the question. and please join us for lunch. thank you. kopp back [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> tonight, the 31st annual news and documentary emmy awards from lincoln senator in new york city.

presenters include diane sawyer, dan rather, and katie couric that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. -- katie couric. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. tomorrow, will speak about the effort to increase voter turnout. that is at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> what are people watching on the c-span2 library? you might be surprised. whether it is the most the events this week, last month, were last -- today. watch what you want, when you want. >> the director of national intelligence gave an overview of recent terrorist threats.

this is a little over two hours. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we're ready to begin the program. hello, i'm michael allen of the bipartisan policy center. the bpc is a think tank founded by former senate majority leaders dole, daschle, mitchell and baker to promote bipartisan solutions where possible to the nation's problems. i am the project director of the national security preparedness group which is co- chaired by congressman lee hamilton and former governor tom kean, the former chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission. the mission of our group is to promote the continued implementation of the 9/11 commission recommendations and to study additional national security issues.

i'd like to introduce congressman lee hamilton, who will introduce director clapper. [applause] >> good morning to all of you. thank you very much for coming. we're delighted to have you here. i think we're going to have a very productive program in the following hours. i want to thank michael for all the work that he's done in getting all of us together this morning -- and of course the bipartisan policy center for their sponsorship. tom kean and i welcome you to the conference on domestic intelligence -- the latest in a series to bring attention to the state of the intelligence community we are very pleased to have a very distinguished group of panelists and speakers this morning before introducing director clapper let me just take a quick moment to mention the national security preparedness group. as michael indicated, our mission is to bring continued focus on the implementation of the 9/11 commission's recommendations to study and

report on other national security issues. we're delighted to have the executive director of that national commission on 9/11, phil zelikow, here with us this morning. good to see him after a few years of not seeing him. five years ago, the 9/11 commission found that the intelligence community needed to operate more as an integrated enterprise rather than a collection of specialized, department intelligence agencies. we recommended the creation of a dni and a national counterterrorism center to lead u.s. intelligence in this endeavor. and, of course, we look forward to hearing from these leaders this morning. we also recommended that the fbi concentrate on developing an intelligence capability, and advocated renewed efforts to close the gap between foreign and domestic intelligence within the government. we look forward to hearing from sean joyce of the fbi on these issues and of course, from

director mueller at lunchtime. let me mention the members of the group very quickly. professor bruce hoffman, georgetown university, peter bergen of the new america foundation -- two outstanding members of our national security group. they were the primary authors of a report released on the ninth anniversary of 9/11 regarding the current state of terrorist threats which has received wide publicity and much interest from the white house and from the intelligence community. i commend it to you. steve flynn is also a member of the nspg. he played a significant role in drafting that report. he of course is the president of the center for national policy. i also want to recognize john gannon, who has had a long and distinguished career in the intelligence community and is now at the bae systems. john will be moderating a panel at today's conference.

our group also includes homeland security advisor fran townsend, former secretary of homeland security tom ridge, former energy secretary spencer abraham. we have two former attorneys general, dick thornburgh and ed meese, and several former members of congress including jim turner and dave mccurdy. i think the two of them are here this morning with us. and our newest member, former secretary of agriculture dan glickman. our group exists to be a constructive resource to the congress and the executive branch, an independent, bipartisan voice on the national security matters. now let me turn to the introduction of director james clapper. just chatting with him a few minutes ago he has spent 46 years, i believe he told me, in the intelligence world. but not only that, he comes from a family of intelligence people. and so i can't think of anyone

more familiar with the world of intelligence than the director. he oversees the united states intelligence community. serves as the principal intelligence advisor to the president. he retired in 1995 after a very distinguished career in the united states armed forces. he began as a rifleman in the u.s. marine corps reserve. culminated his career as lieutenant general in the u.s. air force and director of the defense intelligence agency. he also served as a director of the national geospatial intelligence agency from 2001 through 2005. prior to becoming the director of national intelligence, he served for over three years in two administrations as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. it is my pleasure now to introduce to you director of national intelligence james clapper. [applause]

>> well, thank you very much, congressman hamilton. indeed, a privilege and honor to be here with all of you. i see a lot of familiar faces out there. i certainly consider it an honor and privilege to be introduced by, literally, a living legend, a real patriot who's served this country so long and so well. i understand sir that you're the end of the year as present director of the woodrow wilson international center for scholars. and that you and mrs. hamilton are moving back to indiana to be closer to the family. as a native hoosier myself, i can certainly appreciate the attraction. i'd also like to thank the rest of the bipartisan policy center for inviting me here. and for the selfless work that the center does.

i believe the students of history will point to the publication of the 9/11 commission report -- and thank you again congressman hamilton and governor kean -- and the rest of the commission -- as the date when we realized that no matter what the source we need to integrate our intelligence, which is my major theme at the office of the director of national intelligence, where i've been now for 58 days -- who's counting? students of history will note that it was 29 years ago today that president anwar sadat was assassinated at the annual egyptian armed forces day parade in cairo. and if you think about it, we're still feeling the repercussions of that day. the assassins believe they were justified because they'd received a fatwa from the egyptian named omar abdel- rahman. you'll know him better as the blind sheikh. he was convicted in part for

his role in the first world trade center bombing in 1993. and he currently resides in a federal prison in pennsylvania. another noteworthy figure from that same october 6th day was a radical doctor. he became the de facto spokesman for all the defendants at their trials in cairo because of his facility with the english language. it was ayman al-zawahiri who runs al-qaida these days and had his finger prints on the uss cole bombing on the embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania. who'd have imagined that 29 years later the broad reach of influence from these two is still directly affecting the territorial u.s. and our homeland security in the broadest sense? our focus today as mr. hamilton said is on the state of domestic intelligence reform, which means different things to different people. for my purpose here today i mean foreign intelligence activities of the intelligence community that take place inside

the united states mostly under the purview of the fbi and the department of homeland security. i'm not addressing criminal- intelligence and law-enforcement information when they involve purely american domestic activities such as timothy mcveigh or other purely domestic terrorists, which would be the province of our law enforcement and homeland security agencies, not the intelligence community. instead, i'm primarily concerned with total intelligence reform. particularly integration as envisioned by certainly the spirit and the content of the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act, or irtpa, which of course traces its inspiration to the work of the 9/11 commission. and when i think about the state of total intelligence

reform i'm focusing on integration, the merging of collection and analysis -- particularly at the odni level -- analytic transformation, analytic integrity, acquisition reform, counterintelligence, which is big on my agenda -- and information sharing, of course. these important concepts apply to foreign intelligence collected within the u.s., just as they do on intelligence collected outside our borders. let me assure you that progress is being made in this total context of intelligence reform. we're never there yet. we'll never reach nirvana. the challenges will, i think, face us in perpetuity. but i think, you know, i'm a glass-half-full guy. i think a lot of progress has been made, particularly, as i look back, you know, if you go back 10 years ago, where we were then and where -- and i was in the community then -- and

where we are now. we're working on information- sharing initiatives across the board. but the classic dilemma of "need to share" versus "need to know" is still with us. and i would observe that the wikileaks episode, of course, it represents what i would consider a big yellow flag. and i think it's going to have a very chilling effect on the need to share. so we've done a lot. but as i indicated challenges still remain. we're dealing with the realities of globalization, the blurring these days of foreign and domestic matters, which of course was indelibly thrust upon us with 9/11. so when threats like terrorism and international organized crime transcend borders it's critical that we think holistically about intelligence. but at the same time we're also

a people who constitutionally and culturally attach a very high premium to our personal freedoms and our personal privacy. those values have appropriately, i think, led to restrictions on the collection, retention and use of information about u.s. persons. so we have to strike the right balance between the acquisition of information essential to protect our nation and the protection of individual privacy and civil liberties. that requires tackling and resolving complex challenges to make intelligence reform a reality. and we must do intelligence reform in that context. so how do we make sure our agencies have the flexibility and agility they need to find and address threats inside the u.s., especially, when our constitution, laws, polices and system of government are designed specifically to guarantee people inside our borders fundamental freedom? and when our agencies have

developed their own policies and procedures over decades, specifically, to ensure that they respect those freedoms as they conduct their activities? and there really aren't any easy one-size-fits-all answers to these questions. we're working them hard. i know that many have a great deal to say -- to think and say about this. but above all we know we have to remain true to our oath to support and defend the constitution. let me quote part of the vision statement from the national intelligence strategy, which was drawn up by my predecessor but which i certainly subscribe to. the intelligence community must exemplify america's values -- operating under the rule of law, consistent with americans' expectations for the protection of privacy and civil liberties, and respectful of human rights and in a manner that retains the trust of the american people. so with that let me speak briefly about what we do and

what we don't do. the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act does allow the national counterterrorism center, which is part of the office of the director of national intelligence, in fact it represents about a third of it, to receive and analyze intelligence pertaining to domestic counterterrorist activities. its role is to analyze and integrate all terrorism information to identify international and trans- national terrorist threats. nctc's function is strategic and analytic. but it has no domestic collection mission per se. it receives the information it analyzes from the ic and from other government agencies. each of which properly collects that information under its own legal authorities. and i believe -- it's my view that nctc is an impressive organization under very capable leadership. not to say as mike leiter, the director himself agrees, that

there's not room for more improvement. but it does put a laser focus on counterterrorism. the fbi is the primary agency for conducting counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations and operations inside the u.s. it collects domestic information for purely domestic threats and coordinates clandestine collection of foreign intelligence within the united states. the bureau also runs one of the longest-standing and most successful examples of a partnership that crosses federal, state, local, tribal and territorial entities, the series of 104 joint terrorism task forces or jttf's. i've been impressed with the fbi's transformation having watched it, somewhat afar, in my last job in the department of defense. and now, of course, i'm a little closer to it. but i think the systematic, disciplined way they're managing their transformation is actually quite impressive and quite effective.

the intelligence elements of the department of homeland security also have a responsibility to analyze homeland security information which can include purely domestic information. we are improving information sharing through state, local and tribal organizations via the national fusion center network. and this network is not part of the federal government per se. it consists of 72 federally recognized fusion centers across the country, in all 50 states and some 22 major urban centers. i've visited some of these, and they're not necessarily mirror images of each other. and some are -- have progressed farther than others. but i think in all cases they're certainly maturing. there are other components at dhs that also collect purely domestic information such as integration customs and border

security. they pursue these collection activities for law enforcement and integration-enforcement purposes. so why does all of this matter? well, as you all know during the past year the three attempted operations by al-qaida and associated groups -- two in new york and one over in detroit. there were two lone-actor attacks by homegrown violent extremists in little rock and fort hood. together they surpassed the number and pace of such attempts during any other year. so this underscores the challenges of identifying and countering a persistent, adaptive enemy. there have been several studies, recommendations and corrective actions as a result of these events in new york, detroit, little rock and fort hood and the changing threat environment. of note was the failure of analysis to identify, correlate and infuse the various pieces of information, the failure to

assign investigative responsibility and accountability and the shortcomings of the watch- listing system. we followed through on the recommendations from each report and even those which are still not public. but our adversaries are always going to try to adapt. the increasing role of westerners, including americans in al-qaida and associated groups increase their knowledge of western culture and security practices and of course enhances their access. and of course that, obviously, raises the potential, the specter for attack. then we have the ever-growing popular use of online social media and blogs by violent extremist groups. these new media provide new avenues for groups of all kinds including prodemocracy movements which were helped by them during last year's elections in iran. well, when it comes to susceptibility to

radicalization, virtual communities have become as important as the physical communities where people live especially among youth. threats these days, be it a terrorist, cyber or something else, are often not purely foreign or domestic. so to protect our nation, we have to integrate information from all sources, both sensitive foreign and domestic data. and that vastly complicates the legal, security, policy, privacy and technical requirements because of different rules governing different kinds of intelligence. specifically, we face and will have to overcome enormous challenges on the following fronts. first, on always ensuring appropriate protection of privacy while still allowing for the proper dissemination of u.s. persons information necessary to uncover and disrupt threats to the homeland. and second, ensuring that the u.s. government has the necessary legal and policy framework to allow discovery of critical information across departmental and agency data sets.

so let me close and then i'll be happy to take some questions. at the end of the day the ic, the intelligence community, has to be able to integrate intelligence to effectively address threats to the homeland. and the bottom line is this -- we need to do our jobs keeping our country safe while always maintaining the trust of the american people and protecting their civil liberties. so thanks again to the bipartisan policy center for the conference which provides a much needed forum for publicly addressing these complex issues. so thank you very much. [applause] questions? go.k, let's are there questions this morning for the director? let's start over here. >> you indicated that after the attack in december that the

analysis showed there were three reasons why there were failures -- there was a failure to integrate analysis, failure to provide investigative resources, and other things. those three failures were played out in the 9/11 commission report. eight 1/2 years later we are seeing the same thing. why should we have any hope that we will not be seen the same thing in the next 8 1/2 years? >> well, these problems are perpetual, as are the complexity of the environment, which increases. the sheer volume of data that we have to contend with -- and in light of the restrictions on, particularly which accrue from protection of civil liberties -- these are going to be perpetual challenges. i certainly am not going to

stand up here and say we are going to achieve nirvana sunday -- someday. system, as hard as we work at it, we're certainly not going to -- these are going to be challenges. there certainly have been specific improvements that have been made. there are more that are in the works. but we will always have this challenge. so i cannot guarantee you that 8 1/2 years from now that all will be well and we will not have these issues any longer, because, unfortunately, things do not stop in place. the complexity increases. >> all right. further questions? we have one here. >> good morning, sir. my question is dci and your predecessors at dni i've had a

very heavy responsibility to manage the challenges and substantive responsibilities -- you have to attend those principals meetings and be responsible for substantive input to a very complex, international issues. how do you propose to manage that issue? >> that is a great question. my first 58 days -- in my first 58 days, the most daunting challenge i have this time management. and that is clearly -- and i think that has been an observation of all previous dni's and dci's, for that matter. the responsibilities you have for running the enterprise of the institution versus providing the substantive ellen --

substantive intelligence support for customer number one and all that goes with that. one of the things i am doing is restructuring this kind of inside -- restructuring -- this is kind of inside baseball -- restructuring the office of the director of national intelligence to better enable at least this one, to attend both of those responsibilities. my intent with the principal deputy, once we get one installed and confirmed, would be to use that position as a chief operating officer, more or less, to internally run the staff. and we're in the process now of making some adjustments on the staff. and i have stood up -- although the law allows four directors -- that the directors of national intelligence, we will only have one who will be director for

intelligence integration. that stood up provisionally friday. that collapses what the heretofore separate endeavors of collection and analysis work. it is my belief that the odni level, that is a place where these normally separate endeavors need to come together. it is appropriate to keep them separate at some level, but at the, ofodni, i believe they should be -- level of odni, i believe they should be integrated. this is causing some anxiety, but i am the -- i am convinced this is the right way to go to get at some of these issues addressed in my remarks. but you are right-on. that is a huge challenge for any dni, the way it is constituted now -- running the enterprise and providing the intelligence support to the president. >> ok. question we in the back -- way

in the back. >> i am from "the washington times." your remark that only god knows the number of special access programs in that article -- as did dni, are you -- as dni, are you any closer to omniscience? is the white house fully apprised of intelligence activities? >> we met for about 45 minutes and that is the only quote she took away from that session. i was humorously observing there's only one entity in the universe that actually has all the facts on special access programs and that is god. my piece of that, or the intelligence -- there are many, many other compartments that do not necessarily deal with intelligence, so i was speaking of the totality of that. and i think, you know, i

certainly have all of the access i need, i think, in the totality of things, when it is necessary. certainly, those over me do as well. there is always this dilemma between compartmentation and sharing and collaboration and that sort of thing. in this day and age of the hemorrhage of leaks in this town, i think compartmentation -- appropriate and reasonable compartmentation is the right thing to do. >> all right, another question. here. then we will come there. >> by the way, if i may, i was at a meeting yesterday with the president, and i was ashamed to have to sit there and listen to the president expressed his great angst -- express his great

angst about the leaking of that is going on here in this town, particularly when it is a widely-quoted, amorphous, anonymous, senior-intelligence official who, for whatever reason, get their jollies from blabbing to the media. i am not criticizing the media at all. you are doing your jobs. but i am criticizing people who are allegedly government officials and in responsible positions who have supposedly taken an oath to protect this country. as the president remarked, the irony here is people engaged in intelligence to turn around and talk about it publicly. >> mr. director, the topic of our conversation today is meeting to make -- meeting today's domestic intelligence needs. i think we all know what that means in a domestic since. where that blurs is in

cyberspace where the boundaries are very big and uncertain, if they exist at all, it is a global realm. i just wondered if you have any initial thoughts during your early tenure about how the intelligence community should be organized to tackle this new realm. >> that is a great question. you're quite right. first of all, cyber is a new frontier. you know, our policies and what we do in cyber are kind of a work in progress. i think a huge step, which was a big proponent of when i was in the department, was the establishment of the cyber- command. general alexander as director of the nsa and -- has cyber command. i think this is a very logical move on the department of defense, and it is the department's response on how to

protect and, if necessary, warfight in the cyber context. manfully -- thankfully, we're making headway on the civilian side in the structure to protect the nation's civilian infrastructure. the fact of the matter is the nation's center of excellence for the cyber-realm is the national security agency, so the challenge and the trick is to build mechanisms with due regard for civil liberties protection and privacy concerns, but nevertheless will enable us to dynamically protect our infrastructure. so, we're working through this. as part of tw administrations -- the last one and this one -- i think many of the issues kind of continue. we just have different lawyers making the same arguments. >> the question here and then

over to this side of the room. where's the microphone? ok. thank you. >> yes, diana west, "washington examiner." you mentioned the shortcomings of the watch list system and also the dangers posed by domestic factors in gaining access -- domestic actors gaining access. did you know a hamas operative was invited by the fbi into a six-week training session, and is that the kind of problem you are talking about? what is your reaction to that? >> well, i think the fbi will be here later. the fbi has -- you can speak to them about that. but i do think there is merit, frankly, in the outreach, to engage as much as possible with the muslim community.

i will acknowledge i do not know the specifics of how this particular person was invited, but i do think there is great merit in such programs. i think that would-be -- there will be some fbi representatives here later who could speak was physically to that. >> a question over here. let's wait for the microphone. >> i want to go back to the first question in your answer to it, which touches not only on the fact that we clearly do not have a perfect intelligence system nine years after 9/11, but the reality is that i do not know that the public fully understands how we measure the effectiveness of intelligence, that we do not really have a good standard for saying -- as we do with policing. i assume trying -- i assume crime took place, but the chief will not get fired. we did not expect police to obliterate crime. -- we do not expect police to

obliterate crime. how do you establish a measure that can be communicated with congress and the public? >> bill, as we like to say on the hill, thanks for the question. that is obviously a huge imponderable. evaluating, measuring, gauging intelligence -- it is no different than it has been as long as i have been in the business. it is a challenge. how much is a pound of intelligence work? when you can equate intelligence to saving a life, preventing an attack, or some empirical measure like that, it is easy enough. the problem with intelligence is that there is also a temporal dimension to the value of intelligence. something is collected today will have a different value tomorrow, next week, next month, or five years from now. this is particularly true in the imagery business that i was in pretty intensively for five

years as director of nga. the given images collected today, say from overhead, could easily have a different value a year or five years from now. but the great proclivity for americans is instant gratification. i want to know its value right now. another dimension of this -- i served in the career 25 years ago as director of intelligence or u.s. forces-korea. it was very important for me to have my eight hours of u2 coverage every day. if it showed them -- showed nothing, that was in very -- that was very important for me to know. if we saw nothing for a few days, i got very nervous. you cannot count up the number of electrograms for that. it sounds like an excuse for

defense, but i just think it is very hard to effectively assess the whole realm of intelligence, of what's collected and what's analyzed on a sort of byte by byte basis. the obvious connections -- shaving lives from a ticking down terrorists, preventing -- a saving lives, taking down terrorists, preventing attacks. there are many other things you need to collect in order to get to that public that are not so invitingly measured as someone -- that point that are not so and and in measured as someone might like. >> another question down the aisle there. >> sir, you mentioned that the lines were being blurred in terms of intelligence collection between foreign and domestic. is the law keeping up to protect

the operators who both died of the intelligence and who -- gather in the intelligence and to act on the intelligence, possibly in areas where there is no war that has been declared? drone's fly overhead, but they do not gather some of the intelligence or take some of the action that we have seen reported in the past. are the operators being protected when they are taking action outside of the war zone? >> i am not sure i understood your question. i think -- if i understood o the if it, it was -- if i understood the essence of it, was there legal impediments -- >> when you are going to gather intelligence on the faux pas -- the fattah or in somalia, and you're caught on the ground doing it, what protect you? >> well, what protect us as

intelligent in doing that, other than the immediate hazard, what protect us legally -- protects sus legally? in this form, depending on what arm of the intelligence community might be conducting such activities and under what conditions, what arrangements might there be with the host government, if there is one -- all of those sort of factors, and again it is not a one-size- fits-all proposition, are rigorously considered, debated, and discussed. if it is going to be a military operation, there are certain rules and policies and procedures that pertain to that. it is not military, there are another set of rules. each of them has pretty rigorous oversight aspects, particularly

from the congress. it is those processes, i think, which before the legal protections, if that is what you mean, quite aside from what hazards that -- what physical hazards there might actually be in collecting that. if, in fact, i'm not acknowledging this in any way, you're doing things on the ground. >> i think we have time for about three more questions. let's go back here. >> thank you, director clapper. recently, the fiscal year 2010 intelligence authorization bill passed the house and senate. it includes a provision for the d and nine -- the dni to work

with the gao to have access to the ic. looking at the dod and ic cooperation, how do you see this benefiting the ic across its management components, specifically information sharing, privacy, and also helping more effective and congressional -- and strong congressional oversight? >> i have worked with, been the victim of, however you want to put it, numerous gao's in the past. normally, in my last job, i have a lot of engagement in intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance road maps sorts of things, planning ahead for isr resources. the other area that they have been a huge help in keeping the heat on this is in the area of clearance reform, which has been

another allocation of mine for the last three years and which i intend to continue in this job. the concern i have which i have talked to members about is -- i am more concerned or sensitive about gao getting into what i would consider the sort of court essence of intelligence, that is evaluating sources and methods, critiquing national intelligence estimates, doing the sort of thing. i think that strikes at the very essence of what the intelligence community was established to do. my concern there is, the committees, who performed a very important oversight role, i am not advocating that -- they want to have the gao assist, if they have the subject matter experts,

that is fine, as long as it is done under the auspices of the committee. it when you're getting at the core essence of what intelligence is and does. >> two more questions. >> mr. director, thank you for your service. i am not a bipartisan policy center. i could not resist the opportunity to ask you the question about congressional oversight. in the past, it was almost non partisan. it seems to have been more and more partisan over the past few months or decades, or more polarized, and less effective. would you like to take the opportunity, off the record, i am sure, to kind of offer your suggestions or concerns about the way the committees are or are not functioning? >> thank you, chairman.

as a around in the 1970's young pup at nsa. i went through and watched the turnpike hearings, which is of course what led ultimately to the establishment of the two committees. my earliest interactions with the committees were in the early-1980's when i was in the air force. the atmosphere in that day was, as you characterized, largely bipartisan, where the members felt that this was a sacred public trust that had nothing to do with a home district or home state interest or equity. i think it is fair to say that, over time, you know, i think that two intelligence committees have gotten caught up in the

partisanship that is, i think, prevalent today. my own view on this -- and i made this statement in the numerous calls i had in the run- up to my confirmation and in my confirmation hearing i think there has to be a positive relationship between the dni and these two committees. i would assert and suggest that a positive relationship with the white house and a positive relationship with the congress between the two oversight committees could do a lot to compensate for the legend frailties and ambiguities of the office i am now in. it is my intent to try to do all i can to make that a positive aand to do -- make that a positive relationship and to do what i can to make it a

bipartisan discourse. >> final question, right here. center fore grimm, security policy. a number of terms were used in the 9/11 report which have subsequently been removed. the most recent example was the fort hood report. it down -- did not even mention the name of the allegedly shooter. there is a statement somewhere that the term "jihadist" cannot be used. do you support that banning of using such terms in these ways? >> i support things that acknowledge the sensitivities here and not acknowledge what i would consider the positive aspects -- and which it knowledge what i would consider

the positive aspects of some religions. we have millions of people in this country who are practitioners of moslem. we in the intelligence need to be sensitive to those terms. -- we have millions of people in this country who are practitioners of mosleuslim. we in the intelligence community needs to be sensitive to those terms. >> let's express our appreciation to director copper. -- clapper. [applause] >> we will take a short, five- minute break and then proceed with the next panel. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> it is my pleasure to introduce john gannon, the bae systems director bae -- the director of bae systems, who are --ponsor of today'd event today's event. he has been in numerous intelligence community positions. most importantly, he is a member of hamilton's national security preparedness group. without further ado, i would like to introduce john gannon.

>> thank you very much. i appreciate it. our panel, in comparison to the last one, which i thought was very well done -- terrific panel, very substantive -- it was a natural segue two hours. we looked at your panel as more focused on operational issues and ours as focused on reform. we could not have a more distinguished panel. to my right, michael leiter. i always like to look at bios to learn things i did not know. he was a navy pilot and then moved on to assistant u.s. attorney in virginia. he is a graduate, by the way, of columbia a university and then harvard law school -- columbia university and then harvard law school. he was known for the great job he did as assistant director of

the wmd commission. he went to the dni office as deputy staff director which gave him some broad experience. he was appointed director in 2008. he put tremendous energy and intellectual leadership into that very important organization. next to him, michael chertoff, also very well known to all of us. began his career as a federal prosecutor in new york and new jersey, assistant attorney general for the criminal division and actually oversaw the investigation of 9/11. he was a federal judge on the court of appeals for the third district, 2003 to 2005. he became director -- went to the cabinet as the director of the department of homeland security. it is also from harvard, both

undergraduate and his jurist dr. -- j.d. degree. philip mudd came from villanova to the cia back in 1985 and became very well known as a very successful and a list of asia and was a middle east expert. he ultimately to a charge of the iraq analytic group at cia. also worked in the national intelligence council and became a deputy for near southeast asia. he worked in the national security council on middle east issues. he served in the counter- terrorism center of the cia, where he also rose to the no. 2 position of deputy there. he went on to the fbi where he

helped develop an analytic capability and became director of the national security division there. patrick neary, a west point graduate, about 30 years in the intelligence business in the army and then at dia where he was known for his forceful advocacy of collaboration across the intelligence community. he became the principal deputy director and chief strategist for the odni back in 2005 and he held that job until this past year when he went to the department of homeland security as the associate deputy undersecretary for research in the information and analysis directorate their. -- directorate there. what we heard in the last panel is the real challenge that is represented in domestic intelligence. while our government is universally perceived to have no greater responsibility than to

protect its people at home, we also are deeply committed as a people and the democracy to civil liberties, privacy, and a limited government. in addition to that, we have are really unified national effort, impede it, really, by the fiercely-defended federal versus state constitutional prerogatives and legal authorities. this is all against the background of challenges or further complicated by the shrinking, fast-living world of globalization that blurs any distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence. it makes everything move faster across our waters, including people, operations-related information, destructive know how, finance, ideological, cultural information, to facilitate recruitment of terrorists. our adversaries find our borders not as great a challenge as was once the case, and include

weapons proliferators, organized criminals, cyber warriors, human traffickers, and countries working alone or in combination against u.s. interests. needless to say, we need a powerful, collaborative agency of such -- group of agencies to work against this threat. how do we define domestic intelligence and clarify that mission? how'd we assign roles and responsibilities to the multiple agencies that have responsibility in this arena? how do we deal with the foreign and domestic requirements for integration of the effort? so, i'm going to turn right to the panel with the question, kind of a 30,000 -- the dirty dozen quick questions. what do you see as the challenge we face today in effective

domestic intelligence capabilities? we will look forward and then get into more details while we proceed. >> thank you for your kind introduction and thank you to congressman hamilton and governor kane and the entire nspg for running this entire, excellent event. i would offer three quick observations. first, as you noted, i think we have not yet fully defined what we mean by domestic intelligence. i think that continues to hamper perform an investment. what do i mean by we have not yet defined it? we understand what we're trying to prevent -- terrorist attacks, weapons of mass destruction, and the light from entering the country, being in the country, and being used against us. there remains a significant and in some cases healthy skepticism of domestic skepticismor jargon -- healthy

skepticism of domestic intelligence or the more jargon term, domestic spying. i think congress has fully defined the steps which we think are acceptable to take in providing security within the homeland and those that are not too-clear boundaries. we will have an unhealthy tension between people like me and john joyce from the fbi who was appear before, we're trying to stop things from happening, and those were legitimately trying to ensure that civil liberties are properly protected. the second observation i would make is that this is a moving target. i think james clapper spoke to this. the challenges have changed significantly. on 9/11, we largely face an enemy that was overseas, but coming into the united states.

today, we still face that enemy, but simultaneously with a enemy here within our shores. those are u.s. persons who are here, who are aligning themselves with al qaeda's ideology and pursuing terrorist attacks. those challenges -- a threat from without and from within -- require a very different set of tools and highlight the need to have an intelligent conversation and discourse about the types of human intelligence, electronic surveillance, information- sharing analysis that needs to be used to combat the threat. finally, i would just say, we have these -- we have to continue -- we have to get past step one in information-sharing space. i would say step one was getting away from need to know and get to need to share -- a phrase that the 9/11 commission appropriately noted.

we have to get past that. the challenges of information- sharing are different than they were on 9/11, largely more complicated, and implicate civil liberties and existing statutory frameworks in a way that immediate information- sharing challenges of 9/11 did not. >> again, i want to thank the governor and the congressman for having us here. i think it is a very valuable conference to have. i agree with what michael said, so i do not want to repeat the same ground that he covered. i would add a couple of points. we've always had an issue with homegrown terrorism, even going back to 2001 and 2002. we were disrupting people that were training here or plotting here, but i think it is probably become more of a threat now than it was four or five years ago, and that is part of the evolution of the threat over the

last seven or eight years. we have been quite successful in making it difficult for non-u.s. citizens to get into the united states because of the way we collect information using sophisticated means or just collecting commercial data with it incoming airline passengers and then analyzing that data for purposes of identifying people who are potential threats. i should add as a footnote it is important to keep that. i know the european parliament would like to revisit some of the agreements we have made on the collective -- collection of information. i think it would be a terrible mistake to water down. the problem we have domestically is that the ability to collect overseas and the kind of techniques we use are not really going to work here at home, because we have a very distributed threat. as you deal with people who are not communicating necessarily

overseas, maybe on internet, but not dealing directly with people in another part of the world, or even small groups like mr. nepal hasan -- major nidal hasan @ fort hood -- it makes it more difficult. we have to enlist, literally, state, local, and community people to be part of the eyes and ears about what is proving. -- brewing. it is the beat policeman who see something funny or unusual who can detect some threats. we've seen repeatedly in the u.s. that, sometimes, a photograph development kirk picks up -- kirk picks up a scheme and report to the fbi and that -- clerk picks up steam

and reports it to the fbi. it can be looked at by a lot of different people. the second element is, in the domestic, legal context, for people to make a big deal out about the difference of collecting information and advocacy and ideas on one hand, which is protected, and collecting against people who actually got to the point where there is a predicate and they're about to commit a criminal act of violence. here's the problem -- a lot of people believed that the process of radicalization between become you -- when you become radicalized and the time you put a bomb on -- weeks, months, years ago by, and you have a lot of time to spot the radicals who will become bombers. i do not think that is true. the distance between putting the bomb on is sometimes just days or weeks. some people who have been picked up in london -- one minute, they

were apparently regular, ordinary citizens of great britain. then, within a very short amount of time, they became extremists and within a few weeks they were ready to start mixing chemicals to set a bomb off. we do not have the luxury of drawing that line between incitement and advocacy on the one hand and provocation in terms of specific criminal terrorist acts on the other. we need to think about how we collect and move. >> just a couple of points here. there is no such thing as domestic intelligence and i do not think there ever will be in this country, nor do i believe there should be. i worked with the cia and fbi. they're responsible in foreign countries like pakistan for collecting strategic information about al-qaeda.

he is not responsible when a bomb goes off in karachi. he is not a security officer and is not responsible for geographic security -- that is securing space in a foreign country. he owns tactics to collect intelligence, not turf. pakistanis do. a specialist in los angeles is responsible when a bomb goes off in watts, but that officer -- that domestic-security officer is not truly in intelligence officer. that individual does not on the tactic. i will put up intercepted capability, human sources, listen to e-mail, still there girlfriend, take your hard drive -- that special agent in charge, the assistant director in los angeles, owns the turf, not a tactic. my first point is that we have to drive toward an understanding of what domestic security officers who are not domestic intelligence officers. we do not do domestic

intelligence better because we cannot in a country of civil liberties. we do domestic security. a second quick point. how do we look forward? when i trained as an analyst, we trained on how to break down a problem. how you break down what you know and what you think. one of the things i see in how we improved is the digital exhaust that a human being leaves around the world when they get on e-mail, travel across oceans, it is increasingly brought. the amount of data we had in 1985, i was reading mail on paper when i started. versus the amount of paper today -- data today. you cannot believe how much information is coming in. training people who specialize in tracking and understanding human beings. counter-terrorism in newspaper is about plots. in practice, it is about people. increasing our sophistication about how we understand tracking the people and, to close, how we understand the distinction of

dragging the person overseas and tracking that person domestically. to drive home the point of the distinction between domestic security and foreign intelligence, if our expectations of that security officer in los angeles is that they stop stuff at by three kids in a basin, get over it. it ain't going to happen. i am astonished by the amount of ink that is splashed on pages about kids who are plotting pipe bombs in basements. the worst things i saw in the fbi were gangs, drugs, and child porn, who are responsible for far more violence and threats to my children than three kids in the basement who plotted a pipe bomb. they're not a national security threat to this country. gangs, drugs, and child porn are threats. we need a perspective about -- we're nine years into this counter-terrorism and we need to know where it fits into the broader security problems we

have. >> i gather you are now retired. is that right? [laughter] >> do you want me to leave the panel? >> you are not retired? >> absolutely not. >> i would like to extend my thanks. i think this topic is long overdue. when i was at the odni, i used to mention that domestic intelligence was the phrase that we dare not speak aloud. both the first and second national intelligence strategy is to not include the phrase "domestic intelligence." we went to great lengths to get to that point without saying it, so i think it is important we have this discussion and phil has kicked it off. back to the original point, the key challenge, i would say for us in terms of domestic intelligence, is the maturation of the approach we have taken. it may sound very depressed --

it may sound fairly depicts -- it may sound fairly pedestrian, but it is not. we are now nine years into a to, but just nine years. it is dramatically foreign and distinct from what we have done in the past. it required the old community to adopt fairly quickly. it required our law enforcement agencies to adapt very quickly and required new organizations like my department, dhs, to stand up and develop capability very quickly. that maturation has occurred and all of it has occurred during -- during active operations. it is not like we stopped and took time off to figure out how to do it. we're in life and fire training all the way. from day one, our successes were a good day and our failures for catastrophic and results for further investigation. we're still in that period.

we will not be out of it for some time. maturation of our capabilities in that network are quite important and in avoiding -- and avoiding overreaction is critical. we chose this networked approach -- some describe it as is a -- just read it as a debate between centralization and decentralization. i do not think that is the best way to characterize it. when you talk about decentralized, you're talking about the absence of something. we understand the centralized approach. a decentralized approach -- what is that? we have to listen to build the network, and there are a number of things special she did with that. i think it is a wise choice, whether it happens -- a number of things associated with that. i think it is wise to is, whether it happens organically or not. -- a wise choice, whether it

happens organically or not. it is still pointed out -- i think it is critical to understand that, in the domestic since, with certain privacy and civil liberty issues that are paramount and will not allow us to build a large, a federal target. the network was a wise choice. it was very difficult to stay the course with and to mature, because it goes beyond the federal structure. we now have chosen, for the first time in our history, to partner with our state and local counterparts to bring them fully into the intelligence community as partners. so there is an enormous amount of credibility out there to harness and bring to bear. there's also an enormous number of challenges associated with that. continuing to build professionalism and the network and the partnership without overreacting to any individual,

that is an enormous challenge. >> we have three agencies here that have direct responsibility for analysis on the domestic side. nctc is kind of the integrator. has a large responsibility for analyzing public threat. we have regular leaks or declassified information related to national intelligence estimates regard to the foreign track. there are regular and almost predictable. do we actually have an ability to do a comprehensive, sustained assessment of the domestic threat? if there is, why do we not know about it? >> because we do not leak as badly on this topic. [laughter]

i take your question as a compliment. i have to say that the amount of analysis, the national assessment on the domestic threat by and ctc, the fbi, dhs, the national intelligence council, another part of the odni, are quite extensive on domestic radicalization, different aspects of that, using the internet, tactics, techniques, procedures -- there is a constant flow in a senior policymakers did you read of intelligence on these very topics. daily rate of's intelligence on these very topics. it is not in the public realm because it is supposed to be classified. i think it is actually quite good that it is not. to the extent that it does leak into the public realm, frankly, it makes my job much more difficult. >> we get a fair amount of this at dhs during the four years i

was secretary. it is not generally for publication, though it is circulated within the community. there were a couple of occasions where things leaked out. i actually got into a rather acrimonious situation with some members of congress, because they objected to the idea that we would analyze domestic radicalization, because they viewed that as domestics island, even though there were other members of congress -- and i happen to think this was a good idea -- who actually wanted to have hearings on domestic radicalization. there was a real push back on this -- on the part of some people who believe that even to talk about domestic radicalization, particularly because we're talking about matters that touch on religion, was just totally radioactive and hands-off. the problem is if you cannot ask questions and look at the problem, you have no idea of its dimensions. you do not want to find out

about a problem when you are looking after a bomb goes off. we have to be candid about the fact we're going to look at domestic terrorism, which is largely motivated, in this case, by an ideology, and the ideology does purport to reflect a religious view, as wrong as it may be, you're going to wind up in some very sensitive areas in terms of what to look at, even if you rely totally on open source and public events, not even interested techniques. you are still going to have people object. >> analysis is constrained -- >> you cannot analyze what you do not collect. >> just a couple of thoughts. i was a bit surprised by the question. when i sat in government, i thought there was a lot analysis going on about potentially violent domestic groups, a lot of it done by nctc, which i

think is maybe the biggest success story of the intelligence reform. inside garment, i saw a lot of them. not a lot when i got outside. let's be clear, radicalization is not a -- there is a distinction between intelligence and security. we can get radicalization pockets and say, where might the european kid find his way up the stream into the tribal areas? we have radicalization that could lead people to blow up the fire station. we could be a radical -- you could be radical in this country. we do not do the same kind of analysis because you are free to do what you want -- think what you want. the distinction between what the cia would look at overseas are what dhs or at the guy might do domestically is a pretty significant distinction -- corporate -- dhs or fbi might do

domestically is a pretty significant distinction. we have to be extremely cautious. we are security entities, not intelligence. >> there certainly is a role for some type of larger, strategic context for the public consumption in terms of the threats both foreign and domestic. i agree with both of the comments earlier that it is good that the amount analysis we do stays within the community. it cannot be done publicly in many cases. we go to great lengths within dhs to derive the production of intelligence down to a level it can be disseminated safely and be partnered with the n fbi andctc -- with the fbi and the

nctc. if it's simply flows willy-nilly out to the public read large, you're just causing alert fatigue, because how is the average person supposed to react to a constant stream of intelligent links about domestic threats? what are they supposed to do with that? that is why we have government and policy officials who are supposed to put forward what and how we will respond -- to what and how we will respond. i do not think we're under serving the public by maintaining the intelligence in a classified community. >> i think the issue that bill raised, which i think is raised,t, -- phil which i think is important, is at what point is it appropriate to collect intelligence before a crime is committed? is it true that the collective model is that you do not have a

basis -- forget wiretapping, which requires court commission -- you do not have a basis to collect open information about people unless you have reason to believe they're going to commit crimes. the problem is that does not work in the world in which the distance between someone who starts to entertain a radical ideas and mixing the bomb formulas in the basement can be a few weeks. you do not have the luxury of waiting for things to ripen. i'm not sure that is necessary. if you go back -- i always find people in government highly risk-averse in terms of their interpretation of the law and what the law permits. the court of appeals recently criticized the department of justice for not even challenging a very restrictive interpretation of the fisa law which the quarter review said it was wrong -- it was mutually- constrained. when can you take action against

somebody? domestically, it is a high standard. we do not pick people up willy- nilly because they have radical thoughts. people are allowed to be radicals. the second question is, when can you use interested techniques -- searches, wiretaps? -- you use intrusive techniques such as searches and wiretap? we have an exhaustive policy. the third question is, when can you take publicly-available information that occurs out on the street, something that occurred 20 years ago, preaching extremism in a mosque to the public -- where public figures are inciting violence -- when can you collect that without using intrusive techniques and analyze whether that is ripening into a threat? i think that is what is presenting a real challenge to people. >> i do not agree on this topic.

this highlights, to me, the challenge of a lack of consensus on what we, the domestic and national security community should or should not be doing. i will give a couple of quick anecdotes. first, months before fort hood, i was testifying on behalf of the intelligence community, advocating for the extension of certain aspects of the patriot act. for very good reasons, people had some concerns. i got a lot of, why should we allow you to continue to spy on americans? several weeks later, in the wake of fort hood, i was back on the hill. i will tell you that a whole lot fewer people were complaining about me spying on americans and a whole lot more or complaining that i was not spying enough. it is a tough line to walk. in the four years that i have been in this job, i have

received many letters from many people about how we watchlist too many people. the day after 12/25, believe me, the letters were saying something a little bit different about watch listing. these are the sorts of tensions we have. i try to inform people the best i can as to what i think the best balance is to strike, and then we will follow those rules. but -- it can be difficult to be stuck between these extremes to maintain protection of civil liberties. >> if i can pick up on that, the distinction between sitting at the table at the bureau and sitting at an operational table at the agency -- if we collect what we call -- if we do what we call over-collection, that is front-page news for some time. the bureau of investigation was

established in 1908. we have 102 rules -- 102 years of rules. the architecture you operate in to collect information in the united states is not just what popular attitudes are now. it is about the rules that have been added since the institution began. the information goes through a funnel that creates a mindset. you have to be cautious. every time we make a mistake, our past is on the line -- ass is on the line. we did not have that at the agency. >> if i take what michael leiter and michael chertoff said, our ability to collect information is constrained. it inhibits your ability to do collection that would be driven by better analysis. we're inhibited all-around from

doing the kind of net assessment of the domestic threat that we do in foreign areas. that is what i have heard. in the early 2000's's, the president told our first responders they were the first line of defense against terrorists and we were going to develop the ability to give them the support they needed to protect the homeland. . customs and border patrol, ice, tsx had the information to contribute to domestic analysis. the fbi reduce the classic intelligence work. why is it taking so long to develop a model that does collect that information within

dhs in a way that can be integrated with intelligence? my assumption is we are not there yet at all. why are we not there? what do we need to do to get there? pat, you are the one in the hot seat there. >> we are not there yet, but this includes the fusion centers and the likes. when is a network ever completed? it is not. are we optimize? no. we are providing more informations to the state and locals. based on the out reach that we do, and i have spoken to the police chiefs and state and local directors, we regularly sample them using statistical techniques.

what we are giving them is scratching the edge of what they need. but we have is encouraging, but there is still all want to go. what is it that you need? if you talk to the beat cop, they would love to have the classic warning statement. the chance that the intelligence community, domestic or foreign having that information is slim. what we do have this information on techniques and different indicators we can then pass along to state and locals. here is when we can provide in terms of preparing them to be the eyes and the ears. phil pointed this out, but they are fundamentally law enforcement officers. they are not intelligence collectors.

and now we are asking them to do a little bit more of a little differently. think about it. as we've reached out across the 72 state and local infusion centers to the 18,000 law enforcement organizations, that is a non-hierarchical system. we can set some standards. it is impossible to reach down and in force this in a uniform fashion. we have places that have come a long way like new york city were the threat was so obvious and other areas where it is far less developed. state and local fusion centers are fundamentally local organizations that receive grants money from the federal government. there are local organizations. we do not direct them on what to do or tell them how they will do it. we interact as a partnership. we're trying to beef up the

capabilities of they can not only collect that information and improve this through specific -- suspicious activity reporting, but we spend a lot of time but -- talking about the operational components like customs and border control to provide access so they can now -- mike is leading the effort to be able to access that kind of data at the threat changes and becomes more important. we have a long way to go. none of that is too surprising. even setting aside the obvious physical difficulties of the electronic infrastructure which i think is an aspect of the problem that has been well recorded and well understood. >> can i ask pat and maybe phil, to add?

what is a constructive role for dhs in the domestic collection the arena? >> one things we could and should do better in both organizations is when i went to the bureau in 2005 as a career foreign intelligence officer, i look at the people involved in intelligence reform in virtually all of them, most, probably 80% or more specialized in oversees foreign intelligence. yet there are 18,000 police departments and i thought expectations, if we developed the architecture and do collect according to a clan and analyze all of the trade craft that would never work. it cannot work here. to be specific, what i think the bureau and dhs can do bureau -- do better is we have agency chiefs and start thinking about

how to deploy analysts and officers during the you reporting to the field. we probably have six, eight, 10 cities with the same problem as somalia. maybe we should have deployed teams for those who have worked in those communities. there is a gang environment there. everybody comes forward to a classic foreign intelligence standard. but a rehearing about this? the ploy that to the field instead of trying to deploy and understand foreign intelligence that can never be absorbed across 18,000 police departments. >> i do not think it as a on reasonable to try and standardize this. the major difference is the bureau and dhs which goes beyond

the ct function. the transitions into other areas of the homeland security intelligence. we work on national disaster, cyber activities. we have to reach out and use the fusion centers which are a primary venue for the two-way information flowed to provoke and a listener spoke -- illicit response we want to have had a real effort lately to beef up the capabilities we went to get the analysts and down and not to the state and local fusion center so that they can work there and become a distributing production model which has been used in the department of defense to be but that people on the ground closer to the action and the operational activities.

>> can i ask you to comment on regional organizations of dhs? >> dhs works with the fusion centers. they are state organizations. dhs does not have regional organizations. they do not need one. >> i am not sure i follow you as a sub-organization? >> regional organization and the national organization? >> i do not foresee a need for that. then there are the fusion centers which, in effect, there are 72 of them. it it may not be the most rational break down, but certainly over time the kids seem which runs work best and which ones do not. >> the last thing i would like to see is another layer in the

organization. i think this is a network approach. the one thing i would add, and we talked about the us i guess three or four years ago. los angeles began suspicious activity reporting. i do not know if this idea has been executed, but we started talking about making services available in which all of these fusion centers to be populated with the information. you need to have some standards that the idea was not to have the dhs or the fbi be the gatekeeper. then the fed would decide who takes action. rather we have this open to anybody. we could pick up the material, analyze this in terms of what

they are seen, then there would be visibility. you do not necessarily want to tell that is boston sees something coming out of l.a., you not necessarily want to tell them to stop until the federal government makes a decision about whether it is worth pursuing. you want them to do what they're going to do. this comes back to the civil liberties point. this puts more information in the hands of people at the local level. that creates a lot of nervousness. we need to resolve that issue. europeans are totally compartment said. they love stovepipes and want to keep them. the leaders have made a decision that if that means they miss something and bombs go off, so

be it. the decision in this country, after 9/11, it was ratified by the 9/11 commission, but that is a debate we have to maybe take another look at. >> that is the way is being looked at. dimension to the challenge of the liberties which is paramount is complicated by the speed of rationalization. i think we could talk about that here. with has become an issue as of late. the other complicating factor there is the increasing capability and the violent capability of individuals which the community has forecasted correctly, going back to john and working on the 2010 s finance about the individuals who increasingly have the structural capability that

states had in the past. to do something dramatic, and i am not saying a pipe bomb, but releasing chemical biological weapons, and now it does raise to national security levels. you cannot drop the ban off in the middle of times square before you say it is going to be a national security issue. >> let me throw out one last question. the mi-5 model has been proposed. it is still active. what is your view of that proposal? >> it is a non-starter. frankly, it is not a good idea. mi is a wonderful service.

one of the challenges they constantly face is the effective sharing of information between the domestic intelligence services and their law enforcement services. some countries are better than others. we do have an in vantage right now in some ways that within the fbi he have both sets of authorities combined. it does not mean that you will have an easy transition to become a better intelligence organization. i personally think that the emi- 5 model is not a good idea. >> this is like deja vu all over again. i remember having this discussion eight years ago. i thought it was a bad idea to change when we gave them and i think it is a bad idea now. one thing and want to take issue with is that the fbi cannot do a good job in intelligence.

repressive kidded the five families. -- wheat prosecuted the five families. they collected intelligence, literally thousands of the surveillance reports, wiretaps, and four months -- informants which allowed us to penetrate a very secretive system. i would argue that the training you get taking the case from intelligence your completion where you actually have to back it up is a great lesson in how to keep the tires on your sources. you cannot kid yourself when you are in a court room whether something is true are not because you will find out very quickly.

>> thank you. phil? >> it is a horrible idea except that i would like to run it. [laughter] one quick thought. a lot of what i would say has been mentioned already. if you are developing a case and there is another entity developing the intelligence, both of these in contrast to the 17,000 police department are suppose -- entity should be talking with each other. we want to get a law enforcement source in you can testify in court. i could go on and on about the operational complexities in a country that has so much the centralized law enforcement to have two going on in one city.

finally, in washington d.c., and i am not say this in the speculation, but i have a friend in the foreign service who will tell you the same thing. it is a 10-year tailed before the modest amount of fighting stops. guaranteed 10 years before people start running across the street saying, "look what these guys did. they just blew the case." >> i will not give you much diversity of opinion. i think the semi-5 model is great for the united kingdom. on the nature of the centralized route as opposed to the centralized network approach, it is difficult to backtrack from that approach. you are on a course and it is hard to change from a. our approach is far more network. and can create tension in coordinating who does what in

the terms of a strategic analysis and our work between fbi, dhs, and our cases against one another, it is still capable to change things very easily because it is a network which is a good reason to keep it. >> thank you. over to you guys. questions? folks. >> thank you. pollack of unchecked. in your opening remarks he mention i organized crime. the secretary tommy talked about the mafia. at the time of the 9/11 commission, organized crime with the non-and it's one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. how does that fact affect intelligence reform and specifically domestic intelligence reform? you've got the money, you can set up groups wherever you want.

how do we deal with? and especially in a world without borders. >> that's in a very astute point. you know, we live in these legal boxes where everything in the category of crime or foreign intelligence. and the bad guys do not observe those rules. the going back where we worked from a revolutionary terrorist organization which is also a drug dealing organization. the national security threat from transnational organized criminal groups is becoming -- it's not quite what terrorism is, but it's becoming a very serious priority. and these are global organizations now. so you look at house below, which is usually the collectivities in this country defined activities overseas. you look at what's going on in the northern part of mexico where you have transnational organized criminal groups. i think we've got to use all the tools, you know, in this case is

what we can't do is say it's preposterous to say we can't use the foreign intelligence tool against a transnational criminal organization until one day a leader of the organization gets up and says i'm a political leader and now we can switch on the foreign intelligence. the we've got to really redo the architecture of the way we handle our foreign intelligence correction. >> a couple points on this. it's not only organized crime. it's human trafficking from southeast asia. the global enforcement is child from eastern europe. i think there's a few of there's a few indications we haven't fully understood, but i thought every day at the table. the first is you have to law-enforcement capability that's global. my ci friends in the past vinegar is moving a non-terse. they are moving in because in a place like indonesia because you have to be able to work with the

locals, picking up information to put somebody behind bars. in 1908, it was established because someone had a car that could run and after the next bank robbery and the sheriff couldn't do it there. now you've got human trafficking in south asia. the stuttgart products out of black america being directed out of business in california. every single problem he faces globalize. the first is global capability. the second is network analysis and training network analysis for analysts i think is the wave of the future. everyone of these organizations have commonalities that you can map electronically. that e-mail, phone, she medications, travel. i mention human beings in digital trails before ability to understand a network of people as we can take about were rapidly. and the third and final has to do with how we apply traditional intelligence methods as the secretary said in environments where people will see a blurred lines between countries.

i mean, to me identity is becoming globalized. we can't say because of an electron passes or new jersey and communications are between poland and romania that we have to go through a legal process to collect in my opinion. i am no lawyer but that makes sense to me. in the world of speed and globalization money to have intelligence collection methods against them or face international networks to match the way the world is moving. >> of the point had been brought to earlier, certainly 9/11 and the problems and difficulties that terrorism has made it absolutely clear these problems are globalized entrance national criminal organizations are a direct threat to the national security of the united states. you recognize that, we recognize that. we're working those issues and that's really all. >> good. thanks, paul for the question. next question. yes, i'm sorry.

>> emberley dozier with the ap. now every panelist on this panel and previously today has mentioned the tension between intelligence collection and analysis and civil liberties. what would be your first priority if you go to capitol hill and say fix this now? would it be an all source intelligence network to analyze the data trail that fill mudd mentioned. the kind that is leading to successful targeting in pakistan and afghanistan and yemen. do you need that here? >> two points, can. first -- part me. i was a good part of my answer. [laughter] i actually reject the basic ms that there's an automatic tension between collection and civil liberties. i think actually much of what we

do in technology can improve our collection and at the same time provide a view capability of the increases people's trust and intelligence communities and domestic security apparatus to properly use information. the second point i would make is although it makes a good talking point, there is no one thing. i mean, it turns out that these are very complicated issues touched on many different aspects that we face. a few quick examples. recently in the intelligence authorization bill, there was the congress modified for your protection that will in fact help a national counterterrorism to sonics and have access to data that otherwise might not have access to. at the same time it's a secretary as noted, european restrictions on pnr gather enormous issues. fisa, a very complicated statue with the changing technological landscape. difficult there. refugee data.

the list goes on and on and on. and that is caused by the fact that as the secretary also noted it's not as though information is identified as terrorism information. it is lucky not often lots of information from different sources and figuring out whether or not it is terrorism information. and because you're going to a lot of different departments and agencies that we have this information and a lot of difference voices and types of information you had a plethora of information. legal and policy. you have to address piece by piece by piece. so there's not one answer here. they're a series of very complicated issues. >> and the others want to comment? >> i'll just extend to say sometime shortly and will about attention between collection and present. it really is only a shorthand and not an appropriate way to phrase it. i agree with mike that the privacy and civil liberties issues are paramount. it's a matter of learning what

it is we can do and under what circumstances. so much in 100 years of experience in the euro and trying to figure out each time you make a mistake of the few rows added on. but the way we figure this out. the cases are always far more difficult when you look at the details than they are even in public discussions. and so, if we use the shorthand phrases of trade-offs or a tension between privacy, civil liberties and collection i think were probably doing a disservice they are. it's the fact that it's a very, very difficult issue in his professionalism on how we pursue it. >> it gives me great pain to agree with mike. especially since it's not right. [laughter] i have to agree. you know, we live free or die. that's it, that's it. law-enforcement shouldn't be domestic. they shouldn't be in this sacrificing the live free or die for security.

the list for your die trumps security in my issue. it is how it far down the tale of someone headed towards violence you want to do? if the person is talking about violence, done deal, we're going after them. if your group that hates the duty in iraq or afghanistan, that's fine. and as the secretary said the problem with today's culture is the speed of globalization is the same for a company as it is for a kid. you know, a couple months a kid will go into a cluster of people in new york city and all of a sudden someone will say look at this video watch these four children in gaza and he says i'm good to go. we should be looking at that cluster of people. boy, i think there's some attention at thing i would ask worth a serious conversation about how far down the tale of radicalization you want to go. because every time we have a fort hood, people like me is to spend four months cleaning up after. with some guy wants to e-mail some idiot in yemen. wow, i'm not sure that they protect his conversation.

>> other questions? >> yes, hi. diana west, "washtington examiner." we are weighing the balance between civil liberties and security, but i wanted to ask keyer you are in balance between security and activities. we've been talking about fort hood in relation to perhaps extending the tolerance for domestic for things like that. but major has gone have been giving public briefs to his fellow officers that perfectly track the classical jihad doctrine on a 50 slide presentation. and this was not considered disturbing enough to be flagged and certainly stopped before he went to fort hood. that would be a situation where i would call a preponderance concern for islamic sensitivity.

it you think we are the next right? do you think were viewing islamic sensitivity over security in some case? >> i can tell you that in the work we do, there is no pc. if somebody is look like he there've been radicalized or islamic ideology. let me rephrase that. through islamic ideology or any other ideology, we have no problem whatsoever trying to collect information about them, analyze them and make sure they're disrupted. outcome of speaking directly to fort hood example, i think it's quite clear that the review that the department of defense did that information was not shared as effectively as it should. i think it is worthwhile though, frankly that we do remember the sensitivities that are important

to understand and appreciate the legitimate sensitivities one fact drive this radicalization process. so that is not at all an argument that in a that in a case like fort hood people shouldn't have reported that or discuss it analyzed it for investigation. i think again that's been covered quite well in the public record. i do think we have to remember that this whole conversation for national counterterrorism center and the fbi and the dhs, part of the goal has to be not to create more people who want to blow themselves up in this country. and we do that i affect his engagement with the communities of the communities don't feel there's an adversarial relationship between their government in those communities at risk. >> i would add one thing. increasingly if we're worried about homegrown terrorists on and we want to give an early warning, we're going to have to actually engage the community that it takes place to counteract recruiting and also

be willing to share information because i'm not going to have enough fbi agents to be in every single community. so when we have places, for example, when we had an issue in somalia, it you might have the crew go overseas and bites amalia and that actually creates a risk factor at home. you need to get a community to raise it and then not means they need to understand that the first big dams of this kind of recruitment are going to be the children of parents and the community at south. so it's not just a question of sensitivity. it's a question of actually working with the communities on this issue. now this is a controversial issue because i know in great britain there's a feeling sometimes that there's a mixed message. on the one hand you want to engage and make people feel welcome. and on the other hand are asking

people to inform an offense when someone is becoming an extremist. i think at the end of the day from a community standpoint, both of those actually make sense. either the community should want to be engaged and it's great in the wider society. but at the same time, they've got to recognize that when a young person from a community goes themselves up, that community has lost someone as well as the innocent people have been killed. so which is not something we can do only have a government function. it's got to be a community-based function. >> the quick operational comment. i don't buy these islamic sensitivity things. if you're going down a sense of captivity, you're going to get home. to be one of the real questions here is if you look at the amount of violence in this country i think when people look at it for target they see something about fort hood and say why can't you find this? if you look at the amount of people who are contemplating or might contemplate. i want to use that phrase

wisely. balance, subornation, gangs, drugs, islamic radicals. the amount of wheat out there to sort through, the volume we had to do with operationally is huge. so some of it is viewing when you're dealing with the amount of people that tens of hundreds of thousands who have committed or might commit or indicate they might commit an act of violence in new add-on to that file people who are looking to engage in ideology might need to take that step. you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people. hundreds of thousands. so operationally not only a civil liberties question of what you want to look at. it's a resource question when you're triaging fermenter in hamas and the public in energy hottest website in texas. i probably say how much fund-raising on federal crime. were going to go after that guy. i can't go after that many people and figure out which four of them. i'm making it too simple, but+j you have to understand the

volume business in the triage that goes on. >> i will speak to the specifics of the fort hood case, but i want to get to your larger premise to be clear and doing analysis in the department, we follow where the intelligence leads. and that is the nature of our nation and that how we do it. and in doing so, were looking to develop real indicators for future in events and try to prevent and into debunk apparent indicators are not absolutely critical because after-the-fact when they were clearly through the indicators in here is why you need to look at this group or activity or the thought process and they may apply only to the one case where is good intelligence tradecraft we looked for a number of cases, a number of classified sources and say is this a real indicator or not? and they use that to pass for operational purposes. it's also the right into our analytic rss and they work with the analysts early on in the

process. this is not done in the end it's sort of a let of the document and see whether it needs the pc requirement. it is built-in for they are working with the counterpart and asking hard questions. is that a real indicator? why do you think so? in june that all throughout the process as we develop our analysis. as the civil rights and civil outreach effort to some of the communities you mentioned, so we feel comfortable with better good mix there. >> thank you. any last questions from the audience? over here. and could we in response i had promised the panel members a final statement if you wish to make it. the last question and final statements. >> robbery goal. for the secretary in principle, when i saw the say that mastic intelligence reform, i was sort of debating the question that i did know we had something to reform from an intelligence

perspective. could you give us some insight on the difference between a threat information and intelligence for the audience paid for that they understand the difference between the two and why some things are easier to conduct another's? >> alright, i do want to dominate the soy may have a different view. the question was what was the difference between threat information and intelligence. your intelligence is a broad category. if you use it to support a lot of operational policy and decision may can't, both strategic and tactical. so intelligence can lead to changing the way we do things. if we see things working well or not working while, they can raise policy and terms the way we do things here at home or overseas. they can result in organizational changes. a subset of that is exchange information. in the years i was doing this, every day there were tons of threats coming across. the two issues are variables that were important to us for specificity and credibility.

you know, the worst kind of threat is a highly credible highly specific route. but in the wake easiest because of its specific you can take action. the toughest is a low specificity high credible threat because it opens up the whole world of possibilities and the results and putting rusher on figuring out what order to operationally. to keep from my standpoint to threat information with every day i was on the job for six out of seven days a week. after i got the intelligence in the morning i sat down with some principal people the department and we said what are we going to do with this information today? i view the point of getting intelligence not as getting details about interesting stuff going around the world, but it's something that called for action. and that meant at the end of that section we had to have two outcomes. either there was an operational

change or action we were going to have to take in response. there wasn't sufficient information. i had to be a task. so that was always a great lesson for me as a person who ran an operational agency. it only makes sense if you act on it. and so that is the that in my experience keeps the process going because that also keeps the analysis moving. it creates new mandates for collection and that is what circulates the flow of information. >> thank you. any others? any final comments you want to make? >> i guess quickly i would know first off thanks again again. i take this as an incredibly valuable conversation to have before an attack occurs and matches after an attack here at our ability to engage in a thoughtful debate about civil liberties, protection, collection, analysis and a

bipartisan way is critical to enabling the workout and ctc, fbi, dhs, all those organizations. we need to stabilize our and keep people safe. if i had asked governor hamilton when they were doing the 9/11 commission how many more americans would be killed in the united states by al qaeda oregon qaeda terrorist i would venture a guess to answer in the following eight, nine years the answer would not have been 14. now 14 are 14 too many. thirteen the fort hood, juan carlos shooting in arkansas last year. i think phil did raise an excellent point that we have to put up 14 in the context of other challenges our country faces. this is in part a statement against a national counterterrorism center. we do have to put the threat in

perspective. understand that we need to focus on below property high-impact event whether that's a complex attack or weapons of mass destruction. we have to do it very best to prevent that we have to do it very best to prevent the low when pat high probability event like the fort hood event. we have to work very hard against all of them. but i'm not going to hit 10 for 10 on those low impact high probability events. it is a big country. it is a big world with a lot of people. we have to work very hard. i think we have improved 1225. i think we went from that. sometimes clear cut was moved from all these. but when not going to have a perfect batting average. and it's important that americans understand that and it's important that we approach this with an extensive national resilience that in fact shows

that this country is not going to be defeated by a nidal hasan horrifies oceanside or anyone like that. we're a tough country and the day after that people do work in times square and they're working on fort hood and they're traveling in airplanes. and these sorts of attacks that will occur, but we have to do everything we can to stop them. they are not cutting at the very fabric of our society. >> i guess three quick points. one is i think implicit in what was said, intelligence is not prophecy. there's no absolute perfect ability to predict if it's going to happen. we have to bear that in mind. you're never going to get perfection but we aspire to be 100% in our success. second, i have to go with michael eisner said. any terrorist attack is very bad, but there's a difference between a bad terrorist attack

in the existential threat that would occur if we had a biological attack on the country for a series of devastating radiological attacks are something about tort. and we have limited resources has to focus on those areas with the highest impact with the u.s. government has unique capabilities. and that's one of the reasons of state and local authority in the business of collecting and analyzing in a network way is a very good way to distribute the responsibility. the last thing i would say is we do have a lot of uncertainty about the rules. i think there's less uncertainty than we think because a lot of times it grows up and the urban legend about what the law is as opposed to actually looking at the law. but the results of this consequence of the people who are responsible for carrying that intelligence activities become very risk adverse. time and again they've seen that they're told not to go out and be aggressive in men with the immediate threat is passed there punished for being aggressive.

what we owe the people who carry out the activities of the intelligence community overseas or even those who do it here is the clarity of the rules. if we decide we don't want to do certain things or we don't want to collect certain kind of information, we should say that with clarity and that those who make the rules are to stand behind that decision and accept responsibility if it turns out we missed something. alternatively, if we do say we want to collect certain information, then we have to stand behind the people who do the collect team by giving them a clarity of support in terms of what they will fire. and then i think his piece that's missing. we haven't sat down in a systematic way looked at the overall legal architecture what we're doing and come to a consensus to pass laws that would give people the direction and the protection that they're entitled to have two protect the country. >> thank you. so. >> i guess i'll sort of go along with the secretary.

another surprise for nine years into this week will struggle to have mature conversations in this country, especially in the wake of events, whether it's december 25th or fort hood. in some ways the security professional to take part in that. if we the series of incidents that people would not have any questions. i'm kind of proud, i know what they want their separate debates. nine years and we had to collect against people who are looking at jihad on the internet? and if not, there's implications. personally wouldn't want to be a part of it, but as the secretary saying that the wake of every incident -- i know this is sort of tilting at windmills in this town, but don't go looking at what solectron didn't go on the right place at the right time or whose head out to be on a platter. as the question again how could we do better in the future. we made a mistake in the past and had with move on? is one of the bigger national security threats we face in my generation and our ability to

speak maturely the forums are good and quite limited, especially compared to what my friends and security services overseas wife. they laugh at us and it's painful to be in a situation nine years and we can't have mature cumbers nations about how to do better national security. >> i won't tell pat windmill. i'll tilts it a different way. i would just say my time in the foreign intelligence predication mooted on admissions over we try to de-conflict everything and it was detrimental to the overall health of the community to do that. since were talking about the state of domestic intelligence reform, i want to put down a marker that we need to avoid making this a mistake on the domestic side we did in the old foreign intelligence committee by becoming obsessed. if are going to have a network path we've chosen is going to be overlap. we need to embrace that and deal with it. again calling for maturity and another wound that may be impossible to get, but we can actually hope for. policy on behalf of my

organization it has a unique nexus at the center of both federal and state and local and law-enforcement and intelligence and can play a vital role in that regard in being a two-way conduit of information. that doesn't mean, for example, we need to be the only conduit. there's other ways information can get past that to state and locals. or we are the unique advocate for that role. and i want to underskirt homeport smudges. it is the most fundamental change in my opinion that came over the entire telogen's reform and on the domestic side versus inclusion of the state local aspects of our government as partners of the intelligence community and someone has to be an advocate for that. that's a key job for my organization. >> i want to thank michael leiter, michael chertoff, pat neary.

i also want of knowledge karen wagner who is the for intelligence analysis at the department of homeland security was designated to perform here today. she got called away on another mission by the secretary yesterday afternoon. so pat, tell her we missed during you can also let her know that you were very able. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we have lunch outside. director mullen is going to speak in 15 minutes. if you go pitcher for the comeback i think we can get started. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> tonight, a 31st annual emmy awards ceremony from the lincoln center in new york city. presenters include diane sawyer, dan rather, katie couric, and more. hosted by the national academy of television arts and sciences here at 8:00 p.m. eastern. the supreme court has started their new term. you can learn more about the nation's highest court in c- span's highest book -- c-span's newest book, "the supreme court" including the interviews and unique insights about the court. available wherever you buy books and also as an e-book.

>> chairman carl levin briefed reporters on the findings of a five-year long investigation into private security contractors in afghanistan. this is just over 30 minutes. >> all set? today we are releasing a report which is the result of a bipartisan senate armed services committee investigation. the report describes a number of private security contractors from the u.s. taxpayer dollars to afghan war lords and strong men linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery, pro- taliban activities. this describes the failures of security contractors.

it discusses contractor personnel using drugs being issued and leaving their guard posts on land. all too often our reliance on private security contractors in afghanistan -- i will start over again. all too often our reliance on private security contractors in afghanistan has empowered warlords operating outside afghan government control. there is significant evidence that some security contractors even work against our coalition forces creating the very threat that they are hired to combat. these contractors during the

security of our troops and risk of the success of our mission. that was the assessment that lieutenant-general david rodriguez in major general and nick carter both shared with me when i visited afghanistan in july. according to centcom's on contractor oversight division as of may 2010, there were 26,000 private security contractor personnel operating in afghanistan on u.s. government or isaf contractors. most all of them are afghans and most of them are armed. the investigation was bipartisan. i want to thank senator john mccain and his staff for their work. i want to thank my extraordinary staff for their work, too.

the staff reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents, conducted more than 30 interviews with u.s. military command dod, civilian, and private security contractors. the report we are releasing today includes an extensive discussion of two department of defense security contracts in afghanistan. the first is an air force subcontract which began in spring 2007 and was performed by a private security company called r merkel group. they are a subsidiary of a british company called g4s. they rely on a series of war lords to provide for their forces. this is the company's naming of

these warlords, "mr. payback, mr. white, mr. white 2," and these were names from tarantino's "resevoir dogs." those warlords were variously implicated in murder, bribery. mr. pink killed mr. white 1. they were determined by the u.s. military to be in league with the taliban. mr. white 2 was killed in an august 2008 raid by u.s. and afghan forces on a -- at a

taliban meeting held in his home. that was someone paid with u.s. taxpayer dollars. the second contract discussed in the report was performed by a company called d.o.t. -- dod technology or dodt. there are registered as a foreign corporation in tennessee. like armor group, they relied on afghan power brokers to supplied men for their guard forces. those men included the following -- and one individual who they said "played both sides" and whose son according to u.s. military supports -- reports is subject -- suspected of being an agent of a hostile foreign government and is accused of killing

interpreters. the second individual who reports said raise the money and recruited personnel for the taliban. and a third individual they identified as working with a hostile foreign government. we must shut off the spigot of u.s. dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers to act contrary to our interests and to contribute to the corruption that weakens the support of the afghan people for their government than for our efforts. in addition to those two contracts, we look at documents associated with more than 125 other departments of defense security contracts in afghanistan. the investigation uncovered systemic deficiencies including security companies failing to vet guards, provide weapons

training, or provide them with working weapons. we found a security company owner arrested for ties to a terrorist organization. another security company who used rocks to simulate personnel. a third walked off the job. we made many conclusions. these are in our report. here are some examples. conclusion number one, the proliferation of private security personnel is inconsistent with the counterinsurgency strategy. another conclusion, and these are the formal conclusion of the committee, afghan war lords and strong man operating as force providers to private security contractors have acted against u.s. and afghan government interests.

conclusion four, can years to adequately that, train, and has been widespread among contractors posing a grave risks to u.s. and coalition troops. this is also a threat to afghan civilians. these are not abstract issues. they involve the security of our own troops as well as the success of our mission. in february of this year, a squad of u.s. marines were out on patrol when they came under fire. it killed a young marine lance corporal. once the shooting stopped, the meat -- the marines detained the man who fired at them. they also seized some opium. the sec -- the shooters were security guards working for an

afghan company on a department of defense contract. they later said they had not been trained to use their weapons. one said he had not even fired a rifle since the 1980's when the russians occupied afghanistan. tragically and sad believe they were working for a u.s. military contractor. failing to fix this problem will put more troops at risk and it is not a risk any of us are willing to take. in july, just a few months ago, i filed our findings to the two military task forces that the dod has set up in afghanistan. that our task force 2010 and task force spotlight to have been charged with looking into contacting practices that run counter to our counterinsurgency policy.

we sent our draft report to the department of defense in july. i am very grateful to secretary gates and the department defense for their support throughout this investigation. secretary gates recently wrote me that the committee's report "has helped the department of defense understand the nature of the problems associated with contacting in afghanistan." a copy of secretary gates's letter is available to you. to their credit, our military leaders, general petraeus on down, are working hard to get a handle on contacting. the department has taken important steps to addressing some of these problems. the two contrasting task forces i mentioned are up and running. earlier this month, general petraeus issued guidance on the use of contractors and other steps being taken by the

department of defense as outlined in secretary gates's october 5 letter to me. i have made reference to that already. it is critical that not only our department and our commanders take action but that the afghan government take action. president karzai has called private security companies an impediment to the growth of afghan police force and army. last month he issued a decree that he wants to get rid of most of private -- most private security contractors in the next four months. in recent days, we have seen reports that president karzai has begun to move to disband some of these security firms. i would caution, however, that what we really need now is a considerate realistic plan not just to phase out security contractors but to integrate the thousands of armed men who work for them after they are being

affected -- vetted into the afghan security forces. we do not want to the thousands of unemployed armed men around the streets that are qualified to do security work for the government. finally, i want to emphasize a point which has been raised by some. most of the contractors that work for the united states and coalition governments in afghanistan are honest, hard- working people who support the mission and want our efforts to succeed. the committee investigation clearly indicates that we need to change the way we do business in afghanistan, and make sure that those people, the honest people who'd want our mission to

succeed, that those are the people we are working with. u.s. military counterinsurgency doctrine states that militias operating outside of the control of the host nation, "can often be obstacles to ending an insurgency" "and constitute a long-term threat to law and order." in contacting guidance, general petraeus cautioned that we spend contract aimed funds " quickly and with insufficient

oversight, it is likely that some of those funds will strengthen patronage efforts and undermine our efforts in afghanistan." our committee investigation turned up strong evidence to support those statements. the success of our mission depends on us facing this problem and fixing it, and fixing it promptly. general petraeus has said that contacting us to be the commander's business. this is not a matter that can be left to lower-level personnel. it is a matter of contracting with people who are undermining our own mission. that is something that will make it more difficult for us to

succeed, which is a strategic, a tragic mistake and needs to be corrected. our commanders in the field know that and have assured us that they are now taking strong steps to change the situation. general petraeus has issued a directive that will hopefully make a major change in this direction so we will no longer be using taxpayer funds to pay for contractors to do not that their personnel properly, who play into the hands of the enemy, and sometimes actually higher personnel that are in league with our enemy, not just undermining our mission but actually working against us. this is a matter of tremendous importance. i am very, again, grateful to secretary gates, because he and

his people have worked with us on this investigation. they have been totally cooperative and supportive. as a matter of fact, when they briefed the task forces, as they indicated that our work would be of great assistance to them and their work. people now have to change the way in which we hire contractors and get their personnel. those people we have talked to have also been very appreciative of our work because we have laid out various ways in which activities below the top corporate level, unintentionally i hope, play into the hands of our enemy. that is what this report has said. i will not put it to you for questions. -- i will now put it to you for questions. >> is your goal to change the way in which people are hired or

to actually reduce the number? is it possible to do what the united states is doing in afghanistan without these contractors? >> we have to have the contractors. we have to reduce the reliance. we have too many. secretary gates has the knowledge to that. we also have to change the way in which they are hired, make sure they are vetted and properly trained. the goal -- obviously you need people to provide security. those people have got to be part of a group that is coordinated by, overseen by, and directed by authorities that cannot be running around loose working for strong men. they cannot be working for private militias. we have to shift from the use of

people who are basically working at the suggestion of or recommended by strongmen and private personnel and therefore are operating not in our interest, we have to shift control to either legitimate contractors or to the afghan government. we have to move a lot of those people into the afghan army and police. a need security to have security. the answer to your question is both. we have to reduce the number of privately organized, recommended guard personnel who end up either working for the enemy or undermine our own mission by stopping this negligent, reckless behavior. and, in addition to reducing those numbers, you have to vet them properly to make sure that they are not in fact working for the enemy. >> what do you plan to do now that the report is out?

are you going to hold hearings? is there anything legislatively you can do or will you continue to work with d.o.t.? >> we continue to work with d.o.t.. d. -- we continue to work with the department of defense. we need the security of our convoys. that security has to be provided by others. they have to be people under the control of the afghan government or under the proper control, at least for an interim time, and properly hired and that contractors. we are working now with the department of defense. we have made a task force that has been briefed on this material. our findings, in terms of the

detail in these reports, the examples of how private security forces have undermined our mission so that they can try to address those specific types of problems which exist and which we have demonstrated. a couple of more questions and then i will turn it over. >> this is a classic protection racket. people get paid to reduce the tax that are happening in afghans and americans. if you cut out of these warlords, do you not risk making security workers in afghanistan? >> there is a risk. the current situation has huge risks which are unacceptable. the question is, how do you reduce that risk? how do you reduce the risk? the decision as to whether or not to utilize a strong man or a

warlord, or whatever you want to call it has got to be made at the highest level. it cannot be made casually by someone lower down in the chain of command, at to take the easy way out and say, we will use this guy because he can provide the best protection. there will be a time when our top-level people are going to want to take some risks annualize people which are not ideal but which, under the circumstances -- and utilize people which are not ideal, but which under the circumstances, are the best we can do. that decision needs to be made at a high level. there will be examples of when that decision is made. this is not an ideal situation, but when that kind of a compromise is made, it has to be made by somebody who is a top commander ahmad.

-- a top commander. >> we had a similar situation in iraq in which you said that the corruption and fraud and criminal activity was rampant. so you moved legislatively to correct that. why is that not applying to this particular situation? why are we seeing it occur again? >> because this is afghanistan. they face in afghanistan different types of situations van de phased in iraq. that is the short answer. -- that they faced in iraq. that is the short answer. the remedies are going to be different from country to country. >> tell much responsibility do you think congress has in this role in terms of -- how much

responsibility do you think congress has in this role in terms of putting a bad time pressure on getting this done, getting it done fast, and getting out? >> the president -- when you say congress, i do not know who you are referring to. i will just speak for myself. i believe in the president's decision to have a timetable in which to reduce our troops. it is a vitally important decision. it is the right decision to force the afghan government to take responsibility for their own security. i support the position. i gave a speech on that the other day on my website if you want to read all the reasons why i think having that staple -- having bad date of july 11th, 2011 is important. it puts pressure on the afghan government to clean up their act.

i am not sure that is the timeline you are referring to. you used the term get out. there may be some who want to get out of afghanistan -- >> the coalition wants to move quickly, to make progress quickly. >> the pressure on the part of the coalition forces to succeed is internal. they want to succeed as quickly as they can. this is not something that congress imposes. that is something military commanders want to do. if you are talking specifically about setting that day by the president to begin reduction of forces, if that is what you are referring to -- apparently are not, so i will not go over that again. >> have you briefed the findings

of this report to the department of state expert -- a state? are you aware that the company recently won a contract is a subsidiary of black water? >> this information is being shared by the state department. >> [unintelligible] >> i think that is a decision that has to be made after looking at all of the evidence. that evidence will be described by my staff and rather than by me. that gets into the kind of detail they should consider, whether to give the contract to anybody. >> paying people to shoot at us

sounds like a pretty serious scandal. should someone be held accountable for that? should anyone be fired? like many military scandals, mistakes were made, and we all move on. it seems that no one is ever held accountable. >> of course the people who are engaged in illegal activity should be held accountable. that is not under our perdue. >> -- our purview. >> this is the second time the private contractors have been -- that blackwater has been engaged in activity that has endangered u.s. soldiers. should they still be awarded contracts at this time? >> we do not reach, nor is inappropriate for us to intervene into