in london to talk about his group's findings. this is one hour 15 minutes. >> wikileaks has won a number of awards including the new media award, and an award of distinction. in june 2009, wikileaks 1 the u.k. media award. in july this year, he won the sam adams award for integrity.

he is joined by [unintelligible] who has traveled to baghdad on a fact-finding mission. he has 20 years of experience in investigative journalism. he has been awarded iceland's highs journalism award twice. since 2003, john has been the coordinator of the iraq body count, an ongoing human security project, maintaining and updating the world's largest data base since the 2003 invasion. he shares the international advisory board. he is america's professor of psychology and an honorary

professor at university in london. the iraq body count data has been used by an extraordinary group of people. the world health organization, the international criminal court, the new england journal of medicine and brookings institute in a washington. we will also hear from the leader of the team of public interest lawyers. he has been practicing as a solicitor in the u.k. since 1981 and has written extensively on international human rights law. in recent years his acted in some of the most important judicial review cases. he was made a solicitor of the

year in 2008 and was in the sunday times top 10 solicitor's of britain the same year. i think we can now start. >> since we don't have much time, i won't speak for long. this disclosure is about the truth. philip nightly, the great investigative reporter who of the past 30 or 40 years has made the uk his home said that the first casualty of war is the truth. the attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts and continues long after war ends. in our review of these four

hundred thousand documents about the iraq war, the intimate details of that war from the u.s. perspective, we hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued on since the war officially concluded. in the material, the deaths of some 109,000 people or documented. internally declared, 66,000 civilians. working with the iraq body count, we have seen that there are approximately 15,000 never previously documented or known cases of civilians who have been killed by violence in iraq.

that tremendous scale should not make up lying to the small human scale that occurs in this material. in fact, it is the death of one and two people per events that kills the overwhelming number of people in iraq. following the release of the afghan war diaries, we thought we would try and pull together a broader coalition, not just -- one that has the emotionality and impact of tv journalism an expert research from other groups, so we structure a collaboration between the new york times, our previous

partners, and new groups, the bureau for investigative journalism, iraq body counts, whose knowledge of deaths in iraq is unsurpassed, swedish television, algeciras, channel 4, bbc radio, and i am sure i have missed some others. that collaboration seems to have worked. we will see over the next few days what is to be made of it, but so far, we can see a fairly strong response. as of 3:00 a.m. this morning, 1500 articles, and all real- world we can see the results.

we make a promise for our sources to go through incredible risks sometimes to get us the material that we will do justice to their efforts and get them the maximum political impact possible. while i am not sure we have achieved the maximum possible, i think we are getting pretty close. with that, i will introduce you christophe.t >> it was described as sensitive to afghanis in the troops in the country. those overblown statesmen were echoed in the media without any criticism or critical questions.

three months have passed now, and there have been no reports of any harm in relation to the release of the afghan war diaries. this is even been acknowledged by the pentagon. a letter was sent by the u.s. secretary of defense robert gates to the head of the u.s. armed services committee on august 16. this was about the same time that gates and the pentagon spokesperson were sending out strongly worded statement. it is the knowledge that the document had not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources or methods. last week, a top nato official reiterated in a statement to the press that he had not seen any harmful results as or -- as a

result of the release. it should be reminded that people should not accept condemning statements against wikileaks without question. in relation to the afghan files, wikileaks was held one in six reports, 50,000 in all, for line by line reviewing. that work is now finished and report will be released soon. this time, wikileaks took a new approach to its process. combined with test done by groups of people, it is an approach it has been perfected by a group of people contributing to the process. it can best be described as a reverse approach. at the outset, everything in all

reports must be considered harmful until proven otherwise. from there on, words, phrases, locations, alterations, etc., work, uncovered or un redacted step-by-step. the work in the passive repassing weeks has been focused on minimizing -- of group of qualified volunteers and further tests were done on the 390,000 documents. we are confident now that the documents in a highly redacted form contained no information that could be harmful to individuals. having said that, i would like to ask -- add that in the system can contain flaws. the end result that we are

presenting is a highly redacted document. it is easily readable for those interested. we will also look into the possibility of providing news media and academics access to underreacted parts of the document --unredacted parts of the document. being a small organization with limited resources, it could take .ome time rip >> [unintelligible] it permits full text searching of the entire redacted selection.

you can search for keywords, euphemisms, or -- produced a system where people who have information about these events can comment and rate them. go to the website and have a look at that. there is tremendous worldwide interest at the moment. the systems may be slow, but if you persevere drub the day, it will force them to be quite usable. -- throughout the day.

>> any human disaster, finding out who died and how they died is the overriding public concern. seven years on, the public does not have a full account of the full cost of this ongoing war to the iraq people. what we have is an incomplete patchwork of stories, often published one day and forgotten the next. the victims of this war, their families, and the public is taxes funded this work deserve better than this. there is a public right to know. the iraq body count has been working on a daily basis since march 2003 to ensure that no facts about the civilian deaths that is uncovered are then lost from view. we carefully monitor, compare, and analyze published reports did. we have been able to build and

keep in the public eye the most detailed and comprehensive list of events to date. haveorld's press and media seen the frontline that a gatherers of this war. without journalist and organizations for which the work, the world would know little of substance about iraq death toll. thatrday's release reveals there has been another front- line data gatherer, the u.s. army. day-by-day, secretly, soldiers all over iraq have been writing detailed reports of the violent deaths the calls, witness, or are informed about. they'd sometimes, precise locations, names, ages, and occupations -- dates, times, and precise locations. it is very good that the state has been collected, but it is wrong and i justifiable that it has been kept secret for so long.

iraq body count started the huge task of integrating the new information into the existing patchwork, just as we would any other source brought to our attention. in a few weeks since we have had access, we have only scratched the surface. we have a clear emerging picture of what the laws contain. the reports on that website give the full details. let me take you to the headline findings. my colleagues will be available to answer further questions during and after this conference. we estimate that when fully analyzed, these laws will bring to public knowledge of more than 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths, to add to the 107,000 that are already in the iraq body count database. 15,000 is a huge number.

the newly rebuilt data do not primarily come from large publications like this. most of the larger incidents are already well reported by that world's press and media. the new deaths are concentrated in small incidents, killing one or two people at a time, scattered all over iraq but occurring almost every day for the whole period. targeted assassinations, drive- by shootings, executions, checkpoint killings -- these are the small but relentless parts of this were. combine with other previously reported debts, we are not able to say that more than 150,000 people have been killed in total since 2003, of which about 80% were civilians. even where deaths were

previously known about, these often turn numbers into human beings. on november 1, 2006, 35 bodies found around bad debt that day, as reported by reuters, the new york times, cnn, among others. the reports did not identify any of the victims nor give details about each one died. the iraq war blogs also report 35 bodies found that day, spread across 27 lots, including a wide range of details including the precise time and date the bodies were found and in many times that of dignities of those who were found. most surprisingly of all, we have found a huge number of names of victims, particularly recorded in these laws. it is unclear why the u.s. army

wanted to go to such link in its recording, but it is of huge public interest that they did. names are the gold dust of casualty reporting enterprise, and the only thing that will satisfy reif parties, including families. we estimate there are many thousands more that will be discovered as analysis proceeds. on november 29, 2006, 28 bodies were discovered. this was comprehensively reported by press and media at the time but not a single report gave the names of the victims. the iraq warlocks list all these names, one by one. today for the first time, they have been put into the public record, nearly four years later. the unprecedented level of detail in these laws is important for another reason. it is the main way to properly

assess what is new in them. it can bring people to mistakenly assume there is nothing new in the logs. in conclusion, we believe that having received these laws, wikileaks was right to publish them in its heavily redacted form. the real story was not about the release itself or the content of the laws themselves. almost every law tells the story, and far too often is a previously unknown story of human suffering and death. it will take many months, even years, to extract every important facts from these laws. wracked body count was committed to playing its part in this back running work, no matter how long it takes. there can be no closure or moving on from this or any war until every last victim has been properly recognized and the full details of the circumstances of

their death acknowledged. these logs are potentially the largest contribution to achieving that goal that has ever been published. we ask everyone, including the u.s. government, to support this work which is in the public interest and brings closure and proper recognition to all the victims of this tragic war. >> the question you are probably asking is, what now? -going to tell you about some of the legal action that will follow here in the uk. it would be wrong to assume this has nothing to do with the uk. public interest lawyers, acting for many iraqi civilians who have been killed or tortured by u.k. forces. some have been killed by indiscriminate attacks on civilians or the unjustified use of lethal force.

other have been killed in custody with u.k. forces. no one knows how many iraqis lost their lives wall held in british detention facilities. the most notable is [unintelligible] and we now await the inquiry report into his death. the iraq war locks at a huge leap to the evidence in the public domain. the facts of the invasion and subsequent occupation a coalition forces. what can be said about the loss comes under three headings. all three areas are or will soon be the subject of legal action here in the uk. first is that of unlawful killings of civilians are indiscriminate attacks on them or the unjustified use of lethal -- legal force against them. it may never be known how many iraqis died, but we now know from the important work of iraq body count that the previously

unknown number of deaths, 107,000, is likely to have increased by a staggering 15,000. some of these deaths will be circumstances for the u.k. have clear legal responsibility. this may be because the iraqis died while under the effective control of u.k. forces, under arrest in vehicles, helicopters, or detention facilities. these will all fall within the jurisdiction of the european convention on human rights. if it is asserted that once u.k. forces have authority of iraqi forces, there is jurisdiction for the purposes of the european commission. others will not be covered by the convention on human rights. public interest lawyers is a case where a u.k. tanks stopped and in broad daylight, aimed,

shot, and killed and 8-year-old girl playing in her yellow dress in a street. there were many other cases like that, and the laws at to the number of cases that will not be within the jurisdiction of the european conventions. will argue in a case shortly that the common law here in the u.k. provides the same remedy at the european convention, namely that there must now be a judicial inquiry into all these debts. if unjustified or unlawful force has been used, prosecution must follow. we are bringing forth a new case seeking accountability for all unlawful debts. we argue that there must be a judicial inquiry to fully investigate you can responsibility for civilian deaths in iraq. the second area is the huge number of laws that detail horrendous torture and abuse of

iraqis by either the iraqi national guard or the iraqi police service. the u.s. and u.k. appear to have adopted a fragmented order that requires them to take no action whatsoever once a have established that this torture and ill treatment was the responsibility of the iraqis. this is completely contrary to international law. it is well known that there is an absolute prohibition on torture. it may never be used. accordingly, all states have a duty to each other to cooperate together to stamp it out so that know beforehand that they will be found and prosecuted for their war crimes. u.s. and u.k. forces cannot turn a blind eye on the basis it was not there soldiers during the torturing. that is what happened and is revealed in these logs. both states have obligations to

take definite and clear action to stop the torture by the iraqis. that did not make them complicity. a second case 6 accountability for the u.k. failure to act in these circumstances. the third area concerns the huge and growing body of evidence about killings, it would treat, and torture of iraqis while in u.k. custody. there appear to be many cases where iraqis died in u.k. custody were certified as dying of natural causes. none of these have been investigated. many of these iraqis were abused and we do not accept the explanation that each and every one of these deaths has an innocent explanation. additionally, there are hundreds of iraqis out complaining of ill treatment and torture, often as

a result of coercive interrogation techniques by u.k. interrogators within secret facilities run by the joint forward interrogation team. insofar as the laws add to this body of evidence, that will help us gain a single inquiry into the uk detention policy and practice in southeast iraq. sitting together they will hear a case about of these incidents on november 5-9, 2010. >> we are born to open up very quickly for questions from the audience. we have a surprise announcement, an unusual announcement. we have an unusual addition to the speakers this morning. we have in the front row probably the most famous whistle blower in modern american history, daniel l. burke, author of the pentagon papers -- daniel ellsberg.

the speakers are pleased to enter any and all questions concerning the release of the documents. i would like to open questions by asking daniel ellsberg, what is your reaction to this kind of release of material? it is quite different than what you did yourself. >> it is different and the same in many ways. the war in afghanistan has more fundamental similarities than it has differences. i would just say that a couple of us here came over the ocean last not for the opportunity to stand with gillian assand and the rest of you here in a circumstance that i have been waiting to see for 40 years.

that number is not drawn out of the air. judie aronson just come directed a film called "the most dangerous man in america." it seems inevitable the new title will be "the most dangerous man in the world." if one country is pursuing for prosecution that person, who regard him as dangers of over three continents, the threat being made by the pentagon, if you read in the last few days of warning newsmen to stand away from this material, to refuse to receive it, and if they do receive it, to return it. it seems and served on its face. we are not dealing with 7000

pieces of paper that combine -- comprise the pentagon papers. the times never did return it and refused to stop the presses until a court order came down. with cyber material, it is all over the world right now. the demand scenes of sir. -- the demand seems absurd. for the first time it used the esplanade to act as if it were the current of official secrets act that you have in britain, which criminalizes the release of any classified material to

any unauthorized person. we do not have such a law. the irony is with president obama making these threats -- obama's threats are not entirely without credibility, because it has started as many prosecutions for leaks as all previous presidents put together. it is a small number, 3. is small because we do not have an official secrets act. prior to bush and obama, president took it for granted that any application of the fbi attack was likely to be overthrown as unconstitutional by the supreme court. we are now facing a different supreme court, and after 9/11, obama is making a new experiment on this issue, which will

relieve change the relation of the press to sources very radically. as it is, any source with or without this change in the law, who gave this kind of material to wikileaks would have to know that they were facing arrest of being where bradley manning is right now, in prison, accused of these things. . don't know who the source is if the president should prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it is recommended, we give him his unreserved admiration for what he did, but whoever did acted very appropriately in the course of a hopeless, deadly, stalemated war which has one characteristic in iraq, which is not going to come out clearly in these four hundred thousand pages or in the discussion. this that is the origins of the war were clearly in the form of

lying to the public's of britain and america and of carrying on in order to carry on a clearly illegal war of aggression. all these civilian casualties are killed in war of aggression. one has to say also the non civilian casualties that are reported here are in the role of fighting against foreign occupiers, invaders, and by the standards of the world, the question is raised whether their death by the invader is not also to be counted among the murders. i want very much to congratulate all of you who are mining this material to learn all we could have learn if it had come out earlier.

>> craddick murray is representing a group that was mentioned earlier, given the sam adams award for integrity. we want very much to appreciate him for that. >> as a former recipient of the sam adam award, i was british ambassador in a uzbekistan before i made a series of leaks. this award has been given to a number of people including colonel wilkens and in the u.k. and others. it is given to people who in the public interest leaked details of dark things that governments do. i am very happy to present this assand.ward to julius

>> i think we will take questions now from the floor. >> i would just like to ask phil shiner. you mention the case involving death and torturing of iraqi civilians. how many deaths are you talking about? you mentioned at the young girl getting shot by the tank. can you give us any more details on where and when that happened? >> i will do my best on both questions. and the 20th of may, 2003,

lieutenant colonel nicholas mercer, a u.k. army officer, wrote an order that says chillingly to all the troops who were there, there had recently been a number of deaths of iraqi civilians in custody with various units. when it panorama try to figure out what he meant by it the number, they said two. it may be seven or eight or more. on may 20, 2003, the ongoing disclosure in the inquiry keeps turning up more and more and more cases where the royal military police have investigated deaths where there is a common pattern. often these men are arrested and subjected to severe abuse on

arrest in their homes. sometimes women and children are abused and sometimes pregnant women have given miscarriages, etc. the men or abuse, rival butted, hooded, and not surprisingly they die. every time they die, is said they died of heart attack or natural causes. they have never been seen by u.k. doctor. usually they have accepted someone's were something that has been written down on a piece of paper. a cannot tell you how many iraqis were killed what we tell them in uk detention facilities. you'll have to ask the ministry of defense that question. sphere as to the small girl, it was havoc for her and her young friends to play in the street, and often uk tanks would stop

and they would get out give the sweets.n suite on the morning in question, for some unknown reason, the tanks stopped at the end of the street. she is there in her yellow dress. a rifleman pops out and blows her away. you'll have to ask the minister of defense why that happened, because they will not tell me. that is one of the reasons and one of the case is why we are calling for a judicial inquiry into all of these deaths. >> the pentagon spokesman said last night that the names of 300 iraqis have been released and their lives could now be in danger. are you worried that you are not

careful enough and the people's lives could be put at risk? >> no, i am worried that the press chooses to credibly report statements like that from the pentagon various the pentagon would not have been able to review our material in those few hours. it is impossible. we also have strong confidence in our redaction process. that statement by the pentagon, at its base, is referring to their own internal review of their recollection of significant actions. it is not referring to our material. you will notice that they do not say that fact. instead, they tried an issue some deceptive statements to

fool the world press, as they did last time with some similar statements, reporting something that is not true. >> he said in your opening statement that you make a promise to your sources that you will do them justice for all their efforts. given that we have seen very much 8 shrugging shoulders attitude or turning a blind eye from the americans thus far, according to these documents, will let not continue and therefore the efforts of your sources may well largely be in vain? or have you had positive noises from the u.s. already? >> an interesting question as to how responsive government is to the condemnation of these people

and the rights of other people, but the shrugging shoulders is of course the second arm of powerful people. the first arm is silence. so we have got to be on silence, and now we see an attempt to act in a nonchalant manner about something that is very serious. that does not mean that it is not treated seriously. rather, there is or at least was, certainly early on with the afghan material, an attempt to make it look like it would not be treated seriously, to frame the material as if it was of no consequence. i highly recommend a daily show episode that collected all those nothing new in this

material reports for afghanistan. as it turned out, that is not true. according to pure research, total reported she that week increased to 18%. the approval rating for afghan war decreased approximately 15% and barack obama's personal rating, depending on which poll you read, decrease somewhere between 4% and 8%. those are only crude figures that speak about the whole run of an individual cases, but we can see continual reportage, high-quality reported, in the past two weeks from norway and italy based on that afghan material. a number of parliamentary inquiries. i will be speaking at the un

early next month in relation to the afghan material. i expect the same thing to happen for this material on iraq, and maybe even more. we are talking about five times the number of deaths in the same period. we also put together a much star coalition, a much broader coalition -- much stronger coalition involving human rights groups. i think we are going to see some concrete effects. if not, just it deceptive affects about how war is conducted. when i made the opening about the truth being the first casualty of war, we can actually see that most wars that are

started by democracies in ball lying. -- involve lying. the start of the iraq war involve very serious lies which were repeated an amplified by some parts of the press. which leads us to say not that -- it leads us to a great hope that democracies don't start wars unless there is lies. there is enough truth, early on, then perhaps we will not see these kind of force. >> there are suggestions in the hacking community that the system's wikileaks use do not

offer sources the full protection that advertise on the site. can you comment on that? >> there is a lot of tabloid press surrounding our organization, and every organization that has a high profile and is involved in controversial and activities. >> [unintelligible] how would you characterize the conditions that existed in iraq in the time that you are reporting on? >> you prefer the more ignorant opinion, but i will it let john answer first. this >> our focus is entirely on

the victims, those who died. it is simply a finer detailed picture of what was already very well known by the world at large, the press and media, is this relentless grind of daily killings, day by day in almost every town and province in iraq, of checkpoint killings, drive-by shootings, with no end. the effect that must have on the ordinary iraq people is just an incalculable. in regard to the other kind of information in regards to torture and other observations [unintelligible]

>> on the importance of the government's granting traditional investigation, if that doesn't happen, will they take each case on an individual basis and string this out for a decade and more, there for lessening the impact of it? the government coming in granting that judicial review is crucial to your process isn't it? >> it is. the government's position, if they can deal with one case at a time and each case will take a year, we have 142 outstanding cases, so that would take 142 years. the alternative is for the administrative court here in london to put teams of judges into court rooms to deal with these cases within a proper time scale.

both of those we say or of sir. the only rational solution to all these cases is to get it over with and hold a proper inquiry along the lines of the one which was just concluded. they need to stop covering up, which they do with greater and greater desperation, slurring everyone that they possibly can. we all know it, that many things went badly wrong in iraq. we know for instance that we should have had a detailed interrogation directive in force in iraq. that would have told interrogators what they could and what they could not do. the m o d was very sorry, and

say they are very sorry also that it meant that the interrogations' fell back on training techniques. we are also very sorry to admit that the training was completely unlawful. involved forced nudity, leaving people-they would not cooperate, the use of threats. the only limits on coercion or the limits of one's imagination. i am not want to try and explain the horrendous things that people did to my clients when they let their imagination run wild. a lot of it involves tech of billick images, hard-core pornography, sexual intercourse and sexual acts in front of my clients, etc., etc.

you simply cannot say this is all down to a few bad apples, a few isolated incidents. it is horrendous. it is being covered up, and you simply don't learn the stories. you are obsessed, some of you, with what we might have done in pakistan or we might have known in guantanamo bay. i say to you, wake up and have all look at what is happening in our high court next month or november bit about what we actually did. we intend to open that enquiry and reveal material which no one has yet seen about the way in which we interrogated people. i invite you to turn up in force in the high court on november 5 and find out what the uk actually did, and stop going on about what we might have done

what we might have known about what the u.s. is doing. i can tell you a comparison of what we did -- i have to say none of my friends ever have been found to be embellishing the truth, let alone line. they have all been found to be telling the truth. i invite you to come along and find out what we actually did and stop going on about what we might have been conclusive in. -- complicity in. >> we have been lied on, and the recent interest for iraq that was on afghanistan this summer. >> to whom are you directing a question?

>> for afghanistan, we have 14 .ages o for iraq, we have nine. i suspect that is a proportionate view in the u.k. press about the relative importance. iraq is now just -- there are still 50,000 u.s. troops there and something like 100,000 contractors. iraq is now cooling off, at least in the public's imagination, to probably take a look at it. that is not something that is possible with afghanistan. we did a little bit of that

with the afghan war released because it was a primary source documentation that other was used -- about patriotism. for iraq, i can see already in the news reported she is much fairer and less defensive portrayal of what happened in iraq that is being revealed by this release. the countries do not stand in isolation. they are both modern, western wars, and the lessons of iraq, which are ongoing -- remember, this material covers significant abuses appearing during the first years of these -- of the obama administration.

can be applied to afghanistan and other places. the war itself, in the united states, is becoming more -- the republicans are using the mismanagement of the afghan war against the democrats. we are one week before the congressional elections, and the democrats can point to the terrible abuses that occurred under the republican administration. i hope that will permit raising of this issue. i think in the last 24 hours, the press has been doing precisely what they should and

there is a good and broad spectrum. the press cannot overplay things, but i think on their response to this issue, it has been brought and proportionate and will continue. >> can you detail this additional step she took between the release of the afghan documents and these documents in terms of redaction, to make sure that names, etc., were not released? >> i think we covered that pretty well. it is a fairly long and technical process which iraq and speak about later, but the fundamental principle was to

star with everything, every single word and number redacted, and then to wind that back by finding safe words and then modifying the save words and phrases for the rare accounts where there were dual meanings of words. that process also involved some of those drawn was and researchers consulting with us to give us a feel for what sort of information needed special care. although i must say in that process, the human rights groups were very helpful and the bureau of investigative journalism was also helpful, but

none of the mainstream provided any assistance whatsoever to the demands to get 400,000 very serious documents into the public record where they can have ongoing effect. if i may add, the pentagon of course refused. statement was, we are not interested in a conversation about minimization. we are only one to hear how the documents will be returned and the legal counsel for the dot also issued that statement to us.

>> sometimes you were portrayed like a man on the run. are you worried about your safety? do you think that your enemies are trying to hurt you, to get you? >> i think that question has been answered. >> i can only get people to consider that we have a serious case here where the obama administration is trying to create new law through changing the interpretation of the existing law. in a similar manner to the way in which bush expanded the power of the presidency, using lawyers to create a new interpretation of previous arrangements, and that is a serious business.

that implies to me that statements made by the pentagon applies to all press inside the united states and outside. >> wednesday he wrote that wikileaks [unintelligible] was under attack. the you have anything to pinpoint who is making these attacks and can you elaborate what the attack was about? >> that matter is still being investigated and is too far removed from the subject of this conference. >> you said you wanted the truth to come now, but i have the

feeling now that a lot of wars are started by in democracies. you hope that this might stop that happening in the future. >> we are pursuing the agenda we have always pursued. >> a microphone is coming. >> you mentioned that you hope the lessons will be learned from iraq. what would you say are the main lessons that will come through these documents? >> it is too early to tell yet. it is the responsibility of the press and the opportunity of the press and human rights groups and legal outfits to draw those

conclusions, but iraq, as we can see, was a bloodbath on every corner. the stated aims for born into that war, of improving the human rights situation, improving the real law, did not eventuate, and in terms of raw numbers of people arbitrarily killed people arbitrarily killed, it worsened the situation in iraq. >> is there a microphone? right over here. thank you. >> i'm from munich, germany. your press release stated that the current lake is a pretty good account of the war in iraq

without the months between may 2004, and march 2000 -- the months of may 2004, and march 2000 night. why? >> we do not know. it is important to remember that this material, while the most comprehensive and detailed report ever record -- ever entered into the public record, it is far from complete. it is based on the statements of u.s. soldiers who were often in a position where they have intended to lie, where they have reported on their own activity, and no one says i have unlawfully killed a civilian. it is only used on the secret level or below -- defense that were subsequently classified as top secret. i am not present. it does not cover u.s. special

forces, the cia, the military activities of any other nation in the coalition partnership, or the activities of the iraqi army, except where the regular united states army interfaces with them. sometimes, the regular u.s. army will engage in combined operations with the iraqi army, u.s. special forces, and you pay forces. we get small glimpses through a corner of the window for those organizations involved which are not the u.s. army proper. we do glimpse their activities, but it is not a full account of their activities. >> we have time for one further

question. i will pass it on to you. you right here. you had your hand up the longest. >> i am with voice of america. this is a question i'm asking anyone on the panel about week, the press. why do you think it is easier for us to cover things like race as a tool of war in places like west africa, where it has been widely documented, as opposed to some place like iraq? >> one of the things that we

have to face up to, and we see a very clear, is a british historic colonial savagery, if we could put it like that. the techniques we were using, putting stress positions, food and water deprivation, they go back to all of the collodion -- colonia wars, and into northern ireland. you might think that when they disbanded, it disbanded, but not at all. if you look at what the british did in iraq, it is savagery. these iraqi men did not exist. they had been completely dehumanized. now, my take is that one of the reasons is we just do not want to face ourselves. that is my take on the british position, and what we did in iraq. you would have to ask americans for their take. i think it is important that there is a horrendous racism, and we see it in the british army, and i think we can see it

very clearly in everything that is going to come out when we get this case heard next month. again, i invite the british press particularly to pay attention in this case. it is important >> we're sure have one or two minutes left. there was a hand over here. ok. >> secrecy is essential to the empire, and what i was saying earlier was the united states right now, no doubt is declining in various ways, but no doubt in intention. we're moving more toward the british system of the control of information, which is a

legacy of empire. that torch is passing. the republican house and senate, if that comes into being in the next month, is almost certain to pass a british type secret sack, essentially ending leaks of the sort we have seen, which means that wikileaks becomes more indispensable that has been one it comes to the future of unauthorized disclosure. it will become more and more important to make these disclosures anonymously. what has to be disclosed, honestly, wikileaks is not sufficient. what we have seen so far, is not what we need. it is only the beginning. it is not the pentagon papers. we still need the pentagon papers of afghanistan and iraq on the decision making. for that matter, the pentagon papers were not that adequate. what we need is classified documents that were shown to bob woodward for his latest book. possibly, he could contribute

to all of the documents he was shown. that would be very worthwhile. short of that, one of his researchers could give those documents to wikileaks. that would be very worthwhile. if not one of his researches, someone within the administration should give the material to wikileaks. bradley manning is accused of doing what he could to end this war. he did what he could. what he is needed is for people who lack access to information that will help us understand this war in a way that will enable us to understand it to show us what they know with documents, and actually, wikileaks offers itself as the best vehicle for their doing that. >> what we are going to do now

is not run a fall of ", which was booked here, four simple reasons of time. we have a short film produced by wikileaks to help explain some of the technical issues involved in reading the document. it is a short film. might be helpful to you because it comes from the knowledge of the documents directly. you have canceled it? ok. we are not going to see it. that is the one. we still have this film, the we not? -- do we not? >> ok. let's do it. it is going to happen.

>> because we are so incredibly overloaded presently, you might not have actually seen this yet. this is a souped up from version of what we used. this is the interface to explore and analyze the 400,000 classified documents, but of the war in iraq. it is a similar interface to what we produced subsequent to our initial release for afghanistan, but a bit more sophisticated and able to handle many tens of thousands of people simultaneously. this is the website. you can see automatic drafting. you can search by keywords.

here is an example of selecting one of the categories on the side that is produced by the u.s. military and several other categories. these are the internal military categories. by clicking on these, you can see the type, criminal event, regions, and this is the list of reports. the underscores reduction. this is looking at a bit further down on the side panel, so you can see, perhaps, the number of documents on a numerical field. quite a few of these. very easy to use. here is an example of going

into a particular record. there were bodies found in a car. you can click on here, and expand acronyms. it is very important, almost unreadable if not. acronyms, killed in action would have been kia. on the left, the structure data concerning the events. this is interesting here. it is not often used. it will sometimes include a field which may cause international media reporting. if you want something to report, you just click on this field, and they have done part of the work for you in some cases. odyssey, and some units were that are involved themselves do not like to suggest that they have done sell -- so. this is a slightly more

interesting one. sometimes it is here as a type of unit. oga stands for other government agency. it is a euphemism for the cia or the defense intelligence agency, typically the cia. you can find the cia-related records. it can expand the acronym here. fortunately, the redaction is fast and heavy, but was necessary to prevent any sort of political attacks to distract from the real issue. as time goes by, and we worked

through this manually, we will be able to see the levels of redaction, but in this report, it is not too bad, namely the names, and some specific locations. that is it. pocket. we are done. select. -- thank you. >> still to come, general stanley mcchrystal and the chancellor of d.c. schools on the importance of leadership. then, a coladas senate debate between michael bennett and republican can block. after that, the release of

nearly 400,000 military documents. that was released five wikileaks. >> sunday, a discussion leaks of classified documents. then, patricia murphy talks politics on the campaign races. after that, charlie gasparino on his latest book, "bought and paid for." plus, your e-mail. washington journal, sunday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this week on q&a, to form of parliamentarians, one british, one american, compare and contrast the house of representatives and the house of commons.

that is sunday night on q&a. >> it is time to get your camera rolling. it is the c-span student cam video competition. tell us about an issue, event or topic that helps you better understand the will of the federal government in your community. be sure to include more than one point of view as well as c-span programming. if you will have a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there is the key thousand dollars in total causes. -- there is $50,000 in total prices. for details, go to student cam.org. >> next, a panel discussion on afghanistan forces.

general mcchrystal is joined by frances townsend. later, michelle rhee. they spoke at a summit in new orleans held by the daily beast. this is one hour 18 minutes. >> my favorite line about general mcchrystal is that the was working with us at the colleague -- of foreign relations. the first thing that comes to mind is that he has no body fat. that is very much true of him today. it is his high metabolism that explains his behavior. one of his fellow officers said that he has all of the special qualities + intellect. his leadership is very

clandestine . >> i'm believe he will bring powerful insight to rethinking, rebuilding and recruiting america. please join me in welcoming general stanley mcchrystal. [applause] i would also like to welcome frances townsend. she will be interviewing general mcchrystal.

she chaired the homeland security council from may 2004 until january 2008. before that, she was a senior intelligence officer for the united states coast guard. over to you guys. >> thank you. i would like to start. there was a wonderful details introduction and i should tell our friends in the audience that we had the privilege of being colleagues together. i consider them to be friends. the greatest compliment i can give you is the teddy roosevelt " about the man in the arena, where it is better to be marred by blood, sweat and tears than those timid souls that no needed to -- victory or defeat. i am going to start by thanking you for your service commission. -- donation. [applause] you have moved on.

we are going to talk about what you know best. that is leadership. tell us what you are doing now. >> thank you. i appreciate you being here today. i am trying to take what i have learned and, to be frank, i am still adjusting what i have seen and had a chance to be a part of for most of my life. the first thing i decided to do, i was given an offer to teach at yale. so, i am teaching leadership at yale and i have a class of 20 really bright young people that are smarter than me. they come from a number of countries, most of them are graduate students. we are teaching practical leadership and trying to teach strategy and policy that is critical and when critical decisions are made, they tend to be made by leaders. people need to become as important as the object of parts. we are also on the board of the yellow ribbon fund which is a

wounded warrior fund. >> general, tellus -- many of the students that you were teaching leadership skills to make go into the military, but most will go into the private sector. can you explain to us how you think those lessons in leadership that are your experience are transferable to the challenges in the private sector? >> i can. i have not spent much time in the private sector, but most of the hardest things that i experienced in the military were not particularly military propped military problems. there were decisions that test -- military problems. they test your maturity and patience and the ability to get a core set of beliefs and in the skills to import those in deal with people in that. it does not matter if you are in the military or the classroom for if it does not matter if you

are in business. >> i believe that experience is the greatest teacher. give us an example of those things that happened during the course of many decades in the u.s. military that will shake your thinking about leadership. >> we get an operation where we did a very successful strike against a terrorist leader. if someone looked up the outcome of that, they would think that it was very straightforward and simple. but if you go back, that was our second effort against that and we had failed the first time. we failed for a number of reasons. the wind up our chain of command all the way up to the top and we explained what we would want to do and why we were going to do with and we failed. the ability to go back up within the organization allow us to look internally and determine why we failed and what we want to do differently and how will

blow going to ask senior leadership to risk everything again. it is about making tough decisions. it was one of the toughest of was a part of. -- toughest that i was a part of. you have to accept that risk on behalf of something you are going to do. it is a leadership lesson on a lot of different levels. >> are there people -- i know that with myself, there are other people in your career that will really good leaders as you were coming up? >> -- that were really good leaders as you were coming up? >> by spent many days preparing a real-world operation for a senior officer. as i went into the room to explain, he were back in his chair and asked if it was a good

plan and i said that it was. i leaned over and opened it up and said beat would go through it page by page so that he except ownership of this plan and he said to close it up. he said that if it is a good plan, then let's go. at that moment, the trust that he gets shown in me and the ownership that i had, it affected me tremendously. i knew that that was the most powerful thing that he could have done. if he had gone through it in detail, then he would have accepted responsibility for the plan, not trust in me. that has carried with me forever. >> leadership is at its most critical in a crisis. president karzai gave an interview to larry king. he talked about how you handled civilian deaths, and you handled it personally with him. can you tell us your part of that story? >> as i went back into afghanistan to take command in

the summer of 2009, afghan frustration and concern about civilian deaths caused by coalition forces were extraordinarily high. there was a sense, in the afghan people, that despite all of our technology, we were really -- willing to be cavalier a enough to cause afghan deaths. i do not feel that we were being cavalier, but the perception was that way. what we needed to do was to rebuild confidence, some kind of trust with the afghan people. we changed how we used air power so we would get to an accurate minimum three we could not get it down to zero. the second was to connect with the afghan people at the local level and all the way up to president karzai. when an event would occur, i would go straight to president karzai and start apologizing to him and the afghan people. whether it was an intentional

thing or not, it is like offering sympathy for a loss and i think it seemed very appropriate to me. at the time that we were making the kinds of good faith effort and trust came up, when an event would come up that would test that trust, we had a reservoir to fall back on. i felt that was the most important thing and president karzai became a great partner in that. >> i found it interesting in the karzai interview that it clearly made an impression on him that he picked up the phone personally and would call him and apologize. the to realize the impact it would have on him for was a natural and in a reaction to it? >> at the time, i was not thinking about the long-term relationship, it instead i was thinking about how you would deal with someone with which you have a trust relationship. as we build the relationship

over time, it became not only of trust but deeper. that was something that i took great confidence and comfort in. >> i think that people do not realize that our military leaders deployed in war zones, they have to leave their own men and they have to be diplomat and soldier and leader and they have to do it under the scrutiny of a 24-hour media cycle. talk about the impact of media on leadership. >> i think that both the amount of scrutiny in the speed in which scrutiny comes out in media has changed the environment in leaders in a way that we do not fully comprehend. a leader, even at a junior level, it will be in the media very quickly and it will go viral. that is before additional facts

can be gathered and actually assess what has happened, before people have had time to put together different perspectives of the story. leaders, despite best efforts to try to project a good information -- they cannot put something out until they are sure it is correct, so they tend to not be so fast as someone who does not have that same responsibility. a leader has to operate in an area where it there is a perceived mistake. i would argue that there is great danger on leadership. one thing that it will do is cause leaders to become overly cautious. i think it will likely have an effect to keep people who would be leaders from entering the field because it becomes such a no fail situation. >> how do you take that experience that you talk about internationally with the media and make that practical advice

for the students? >> the first thing that i do it is one then the that is the reality. you cannot pretend that -- if we just manage better and set up the war room, i think that is not realistic right now. i think that the best that you will do is break-even. on most days, it will be very difficult to do that. leaders have to first understand that requirement. they have to build trust up and down their chain so that if something comes up, people see that and they can put that into context. if they see something that happens, they suddenly know that does not seem right. beyond that, i think the media has to take lessons from that. the media does not carry the same level of responsibility that has to. they can affect the situation more than is understood.

>> is that exacerbated because we have journalism reporting the facts, but there is a lot more opinion out there right now. it is not always clear which is which. is that an added factor to the chaos? >> i think that it is. i think that the one thing that helps with that is that people are starting to recognize that. unfortunately, they are starting to discount certain parts and positions of the story. they assume that there is a certain bias to it. that affects our media in the long term. >> what is your sense of the students? is there an interest in public service? they have access to you and access to many wonderful leaders at yale and harvard. does that inspire them to service or do you see that they ask why they would want to do that? >> i do not see any reluctance

to serve for the some of my students have already been serving in various levels. some in government and some in the united nations that have come back to graduate school. i see that they have a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and a deeper sense of responsibility. i sense that they are willing to try this, no matter what the risks. if we can arm them with a better appreciation, they stand a better chance to be affected. >> are there good examples of positive leadership that you have seen, whether it is here in the united states or around the world? acts of leadership that impress you? >> there are three. i went down into helmand where people were not being successful. that was not the reality on the ground. as i went down, this was a company that had been creative for high in combat and people

that had entered the service with the expectation that they would fight the enemy. in this area, i found pieces of cardboard that were off of mailboxes and they had written different lessons of counterinsurgency and they were written and posted all over the camp. every time you to your bond for to the small child all, you read the lessons that were learned. these were things that they learned in that area recently. i thought that this was kind of gimmicky, so i went to talk with the noncommissioned officers and the young marines. it was extraordinary because they were doing it. was not a chain of command. -- it was not a chain of command handing it down. harvard university is a preeminent university, but the students there have a level of idealism and frustration with the progress that they see and they have organized student

leadership groups. they still e-mail me as they try to reach out to the future. finally, the group that really is most stunningly courageous is the female legislatures in afghanistan. to be in the parliament in afghanistan is to be challenging. to be a female in parliament takes real courage. you are running against a lot of cultural pressure that you have lived through. they lived through the tall that era. they show not only an extraordinary amount of maturity, they actually are very centrist in their views and they show the courage that is is not required of everybody. >> we have talked in the past come and i think it would be interesting for the group about the importance of leadership that is required in the nonprofit sector to support the

mission in afghanistan. we talked about the government and the media and the military. can you speak about the need and impact of leadership in the non- profit sector in afghanistan? >> i think it is as important as it is on the government side or the military. there are 1700 non-government organizations in afghanistan. it is possible for each organization to the dairy and negatively -- very narrowly focused and try to do what they want to do. they want to do what seems good for them. working in an organized fashion, the not only do not accomplish what they want to do, but in the grander scheme, the work against the overall effort. a combination of uncoordinated good does not equal a generator -- a general good. this is something that is very difficult.

often, the magic's they are sent to operate with do not play well. >> i am going to ask one more. before i give up the store, i have to ask you to talk -- one of my favorite general mcchrystal stories is about plywood leadership. if you would share with us, what is plywood leadership? >> i thought that it was great when i saw that everything was built out of plywood. we built everything out of plywood in iraq. you could do it very quickly and inexpensively and you could rip it apart and we do it so that your function of your organization was shaped body form and you could change it as often as you needed to. it also has a certain mind-set to it. if you are working on plywood, you remember that you're here for a function and you are not here to enjoy the particular

types of furniture that you have. over time, i got a little more is in -- like -- these are pieces of the grade lumber that is shaped very thin and and it is grouped together. when they are alone, you can break them with your hand, but when they are glued together, they have extraordinary strength. if you take ordinary people, and you have leaders as the glue, you have created something much stronger than individuals. i became a great believer. >> let me open this up. we have microphones around. we will go to harold first. >> thank you very much. i read sebastian young book.

his extraordinary an inspiring. added to capture the bad guy? [laughter] >> i will start at the end. the night after we killed mr. is our colleague -- mr.zarkawi, i gave an award to an intelligence analyst. he told the t -- he pulled the team together. it was a manhunt that was as much police like. over 2.5 years, we built an understanding of zarkawi the man and his organization. we targeted the center of that

organization until we understood how the operated. we were able to leverage a certain pieces of intelligence, but we were not just doing it in a one day lightning strike. we built a stronger and stronger understanding until it was a tiger caught in a news. about one month before we concluded it, we were all sure that we were very close. we did not know where he was, but we had built up a focus of knowledge that gave us confidence. it was extraordinary. it was a team of people that did pick and shovel work month after month after month. >> ok, give them up front. >> general, thank you very much for your service to your country. the question i wanted to ask is about innovation. there are some that would argue that the wars of today are actually innovation wars. if you look at 9/11, in some perverse way, that was a new way

of waging war. on the ground in afghanistan, we innovate, they innovate, we innovate back. i wanted to ask you about our abilities and the abilities of our adversaries. >> on the enemy side, they have innovated very well. they started by using certain terrorist tactics like 9/11. they have changed how the opera to use improvised explosive devices and those devices have gone from very simple wired artillery rounds to the extraordinarily complex devices that are put off by remote devices or they are operated by some interesting ways. what we have done, i think that the biggest innovation is that we have forced ourselves to become a better team. we use technology in a way that you would not a predicted

before. different technology to detect changes in things, but the real innovation is the different parts of the u.s. government and across the middle force -- the nato force. you always have the pieces, but you cannot get them together at a time and place that is right. innovation is the biggest. bringing our intelligence community tighter and tighter. there is still long way to go on that. there is innovation that is not so much technical as it is cultural. our processes work against cooperation. a person can follow the rules of this organization and do everything they were told and not do the level of cooperation. that is the biggest level. there are young people out there that are extraordinary. they take ideas and they do not seem to be handcuffed by old rules and old ways.

>> hello. i am here representing the blonde -- blog community. we're wondering when the book is coming out. there are a rumor buzzes going. >> we will have to see how it goes. we need to focus on leadership. we need to talk about it. we need to study it. we need to write about it. it is a passion of mine. that is what i am thinking of. >> we look forward to it. >> i was struck, general, by the disparity between how you describe president karzai and somebody you trust and somebody you like and yet people in afghanistan, afghanistan leaders and american officials in afghanistan really do not have that same view. what are they missing that you saw? >> i think that any senior

leader is in a position where they see him from their perspective. it is very hard to get into that perspective and look out. president karzai has a number of constituencies. you can go to his background and his father was killed by the caliban and he has a fairly westernize education. as he comes into leadership in afghanistan, there is a certain part of the population that looks at him as a pastun leaders -- pashtun leader with a western bank. -- bent. he is part of the northern alliance. some leaders have a different concern about the caliban -- taliban. president karzai is in a

position where he has to balance between competing elements, the support of all of which he needs. if he is completely in the pockets of the west, he is a puppet. if he completely goes to the north, then the pashtun and the talnban are upset with them. -- taliban are upset with him. he is in a country that is economically dependent on outside sources and so that makes it even harder. i found working with president karzai something that i felt was not only important, but something that i valued. i am sure that he did not find me a perfect commander, and i would not claim anybody that i worked with was perfect, but it was a trusting relationship. i think that is what we need to build with any leader that we work with. >> in the back? >>we are getting your microphon.

>> general mcchrystal, it clears that with the leak -- wikileaks is planning on releasing thousands of pages of confidential material. >> i think it is sad. the decision by anybody to leak classified information is something that is not only illegal, it is something that that individual is making judgments about the value of the permission and the threat to comrades that almost nobody is qualified to make that judgment. if somebody leaks information that puts me or one of my soldiers at risk, that is level of irresponsibility that is very upsetting. then there is the decision to

release them widely. i am also not comfortable with that, either. i think the level of responsibility towards our people needs to be balanced within the argument for a need or right to know. i cannot judge every piece of the affirmation. i would not try to. but i would say that there has to be that balance and that level of maturity, because it is likely that some of that information could cause the death of our own people or some of our allies. >> you mentioned the courage of some of those women in the legislature in afghanistan. what do you think is going to happen to the women in afghanistan when the american troops leave? can anything be done to keep any gains that they have made or would they be put in this a

position that they were in before. >> the current policies of the government of afghanistan are in their constitution and will be protected. that is imperfect, as you know. what is the law of the land is not always the practice of every locality. the general concept of protecting those rights will continue that role. if the government is increasingly affected by the taliban, that is all at risk. the officer the work with me was about 13 and he was living in his home with his mother and his brother and he watched as the mother and two children were walking along a mud bank next to the road. the mother was wearing a burkett and because of the uneven ground, she lifted her birth a slightly to see where her

footing was. taliban gunman went over and beat her with wire pieces of metal wire. the young man who watched this letter became my aid. he vowed that he would never let the taliban take over again. it is that kind of fate that i think awaits many women if we do not given up to to to protect their own society. >> all the way in the back? >> >> general mcchrystal, what leadership skills come into play when dealing with an ally like pakistan, which seemed to help us one minute and help us the next? >> i think that one of the things you have to have from leadership is like any friendship, hopefully you have

consistency. its consistency on both sides. if you use the term erratic to describe our allies in pakistan, if you took a mackerel look at u.s. policy, you might make the same argument from the pakistan standpoint that american policy has become erratic. good intentions create a lack of consistency in the relationship. if you do not have that in a long-term relationship, it is very hard to expect allies or friends to be there when it is difficult. it is difficult for both sides right now. in aakistani's are difficult time right now. the floods were much more devastating than katrina was in new orleans with much less capacity, naturally, to deal with it. -- nationally, to deal with it.

i am not arguing for being an apologist for what anybody ought to do, but we need to look at both sides and try to see it through each other's eyes. >> stan, let me ask you, you mentioned the yellow ribbon nonprofits. you're seeing the greatest transition of soldiers from military live to private life. we see more families struggling because of the multiple appliance. -- multiple deployments talk about military families and what leaders need to anticipate to help bring those families back to civilian life. >> i have to think the american people for the level of support of the soldiers that has never been better. it has been really good. at the same time, to provide

some context, we are fighting two wars with a professional force. unlike a war we use draftees, we have soldiers with four and five a year long tours in combat. that means four or five year long tours for families in the united states. i think we have to do everything that we can to support them. those who leave the service, particularly in the economic economy like this, we need to have given as much support as we can because they made a real sacrifice. it is important for this effort. people will watch how you treated servicemen and service members and now and they will draw lessons from that. i think we're doing pretty well, but it is something that i would ask everyone to continue with. >> yes, last question.

>> thank you, very much. you see many governments in the west cutting defense budgets. i think that the obama administration might also be tempted to do that. as a military leader, would you advise, given the fact that we are mired in a long-term military situation, what advice would you give? would you say that it is responsible to cut from defense? if it is inevitable, then where would you cut and were to absolutely not cut? >> there is no right answer to that question because in each nation, if a nation leans too much towards defense and weakens their economic position, then very soon, they do not have an effective position. it is a balancing act. i would never urge any nation or the united states to defend its

way to bankruptcy. our basic power comes from our values and our economic strength. it is a balance. if you do have to decrease military spending, and i think that is inevitable in difficult times, the only thing -- the one thing i would protect in these times is people. your real talent and your real effectiveness lies in the people. we have a very highly technical trained people that have families. if you have to protect anything, i would do it at the expense of hardware and technology because it just takes another generation to replace that talent. >> thank you. we will ship rolls and i will actually lead a panel. i will take my leave and what you call ahead and explain about this great panel of business leaders. >> thank you very much. i appreciated. [applause]

-- i appreciate it. [drum cadence] [drum cadences] >> let me first that my pal and fellow comrades here for joining us here today and thank you for giving us a chance to do this.

what we wanted to do this afternoon was to talk about leadership with some extraordinary leaders. a think you know the background of each of these people, but what we have represented is business, the airline business, the financial business, education, history, the ability to understand what has been. what is most interesting that we can talk about is leading it is difficult. leading into a headwind. that is what leaders are most challenge by. in many cases, obstacles are not obvious. but are not a business competitor, the our people and environments that make it will challenge for whatever we are trying to do. but i would like to do is start by getting some historical context. if you would, give me an idea on leaders in history who have run into a headwind.

>> i was thinking, as you were talking, that i have no business being on this stage because academics are the least qualified people in society to talk about leadership because the only thing i have ever let our discussions. are discussions. all i would do this brought a few ideas. i was really enjoying it your idea of plywood leadership in the last session. i was thinking that it is a lot better than deadwood leadership, which is often what democracies get stuck with. there are two decades that are helpful to think about in terms of the difficulties that the u.s. has faced. but one was in the 1930's and the other was in the 1970's. whether you were leading a political movement, a government, or a corporation,

the head winds were very strong. in the 1930's, there was a sack at inflation. -- a stagnant inflation. people desperately want leadership in a crisis. they crave it. the look for a messiah. sometimes they get one, but it is actually the blood dangerous. it was -- hitler was a fantastic charismatic leader who led germany to hell and took most of the world with them. luckily, the united states that franklin roosevelt who did not abuse the charisma that he had. the figure that most attracts me to this day is winston churchill, who was deeply unpopular through much of the 1930's, yet he alternately save not only his country, but western civilization. the key point the comes out of the comparison is that to be a

leader means to be deeply unpopular because of what you believe them. i think that the great leaders are ones that lead in the face of a popularity, even that are begging for leadership. >> i think that education in america may be in a crisis. when i graduated from high school i had a sense of that. give me an idea on leading in an area where you have a clear need. >> i would first say that it is not that we may be in a crisis, we are in a significant crisis. if you look at any of the statistics, we are spending more than twice as much money on education that we were 40 years ago. the results have declined. the children who were in our schools today will be the first generation of children who were

less educated than their parents. if you look at where we were several decades ago forces were we are now, -- versus where we are now, we are 26 out of 30 developed nations. there is no doubt that we are in the midst of a crisis. part of the problem that we face in education is that people do not understand how significant the crisis is. in terms of leadership against a strong headwind, i would say that for me, when i took on the job leader in the -- the -- the job as chancellor of washington d.c.'s schools, i felt that my contributions to the effort would be that i could not be

foolish enough to take the same path of somebody else had taken or that i was smarter than anyone else. i decided that i was or to take a different path that nobody else had taken. whether i succeeded or failed, someone would learn something from me. as i thought about what leadership means and how could i leave in a different way, i think that my biggest lesson has been that it is ok not to be liked. let me say, i am really good at this. [laughter] but in public education, it is probably the most conflict averse area that you can imagine.

in my mind, for for two long, we have been willing to turn a blind eye to the injustices that are happening to kids in classrooms today. let me just give you one statistic to give you an idea. there is a -- an economist who has basically done a lot of economic modeling. he has basically shown that if we, as a nation, were to take up the lowest performing teachers in this country, move them out of education and replace them with an average teacher, we could literally propelled ourselves from the bottom to the top. if were to ever tell a ceo of the corporation