bottom 6% of his staff you will move from 25 in the marketplace to number one, they would do it and a heartbeat. that one move, we agonize over it and we talk about how it is so humane and cruel. that is one example. this is the most important sector. >> wall. we talk about making tough calls. the airline industry has been anything but easy money. you have done some amazing things in starting and number of airlines. talk about flying in the face of

headwinds. . .

>> the essence of a leader is somebody who can inspire people. i have two goals. and i tell people this every day. number one is i want this to be

the best job you ever had. i walk through the company and say is this the best job you ever had. if they say no, i said why. what can we do to make this the best job you ever had? i want every customer to get off the plane and say wow, that was a great flight, i am never flying anyone else again. we can't do number two without number one and create an exceptional company. there are very few exceptional companies. headwinds and issues. we had an issue at jetblue. we had the same problem that everybody else did in new york. delta had planes on the runway for 10 hours. but people expect hero from jetblue. jetblue can't do that because it is a great company. we took a huge amount of abuse in the press. i could have said let's try to be like everyone else or let's

be different. i convened our team together and said we are going to create a customer bill of rights that no other airline is going to have. we will put in writing what we are doing for our commerce. that is still in effect today. we are the only airline that has a customer bill of rights. washington is trying to impose one on the others, and they refuse to do it i went on the air waves starting with "today" and lerm at night -- literman at night. i apologized to our commerce and said i am sorry, we screwed up. i am not going to let this happen again. we value you, and here is our customer bill of rights, and we have learned from our experience. >> none of this would work in politics. >> i know. we were number three -- and this is what i'm really proud of. business-week magazine did a

survey of the top customer service companies in the united states. there wasn't an airline in the top 100, except jetblue was number three. before they publish, they scribbled us out and put nordstrom there because of a stumble. the next year we were back there. our score is better now because of this attention to detail. but a time of crisis is when you grab it -- >> and every board member is grabbing me saying don't apologize. i got fired a couple of months later. i would do the exact same thing today. sometimes it didn't always work out. there are 2,500 people in brazil that have jobs today because i got fired, and there are four million brazilians that will travel today because i got fired. they are happy that i got fired at jetblue. i have to do what you think is right.

as long as you do what is right, things will work out. >> it happens, david. [applause] >> you know what i mean actually. >> we talked about some historical context, how hard it is against headwinds. you have led countless organizations now. what separates great leaders from a run-of-the-mill leader? >> well, i kind of agree with a lot of what everybody said. starting with neil, i was laughing internally because i said i wonder what comes first, being disliked or being a great leader, the chicken or the egg. i certainly know what being disliked is all about. then like michelle, i was involved in the education wars and that kind of slips over. the day that it was announced that john walton and i were

going to put 40,000 kids in school at our expense, a union official was interviewed on television who said all you need to know about this bozo is he was unamerican. i was leading, and eventually we put 100,000 kids in school and whatever. so, as you and i have talked, i think the greatest impediment to leadership is conventional wisdom, which would be a little different way of saying what david is saying. that is the greatest impediment. most people think that success is doing kind of what everybody else does and doing it better. i don't know whether it was in my genes, and i wouldn't recommend it except here we are looking at a bunch of successful people -- for me

that was never -- it didn't make any sense. if everybody else was doing it, i didn't want to do it. i wanted to do something different. so out of that has come a lot of different things. i think you have to have kind of a moral compass. you have to care about what is right and what is wrong, which you were mentioning, dave. and you have to be secure in yourself and go do it. if you're just trying to do what everybody else does, though, and do it better, which is where the great preponderance of people live, you're not a real leader. >> extraordinary. what i want to do is now jump ahead to what we've learned. everybody here has actually been through a lot. neil, i'm going to start with you, throw it to historically what we have learned. i am giving time to the other panelists. what i'm going to come back and ask you, as virgil says, trust one who has been through it.

if you were going through it again, what would you advise the other you in terms of doing it differently or better? neil? >> well, the things i have learned from history, not of course from my own personal experience, and i want to make that clear again -- there are two really. the first was really allude -- alluded to, but it needs to be emphasized. information needs to flow through an organization. whether you look in the mill stare sphere, in the business sphere or in the political sphere, having flows of knowledge that reach the guy or gal at the top, that is tremendously important. a side light on military history. one of the most extraordinary things that happened in the 19th and 20th century, the russian army became the best army in the world.

the german army tended to stumble, because there were mistakes made at the top. but man for man, they were formidable. why was the german army so good? it was good because the junior officers were listened to up the chain of command. we don't have a board room lunch area. we all lunched together. that is a relatively recent phenomenon. when it was decided that a merchant bank in london would have an open door policy, that everybody would be gathered together and exchanging information, he was regarded as a revolutionary. that is number one. number two is a more puzzling things. i have heard michelle speak twice now about the battles she has waged to try to improve d.c. he cation. both times i came away completely inspired and ready

to make her czar of american education, ideally also all western education including the u.k. you hear somebody speak, and you think this person totally gets it. let's give them total power. this is terribly dangerous. i think it is great, but i am stopping myself from doing that, and i wouldn't let anybody else from doing that. no matter how gift an individual, if you give that individual too much power, they are err because they are human. i have learned a huge amount from reading the diary kept by one of the senior military figures in the second world war, allen brook. his diary of world war ii was all about how he kept churchill from screwing up. there were constant checks on his genius. in addition to having knowledge

flows, there has to be a check on that leader, no matter how brilliant the leader is. what i would love to explore here is the difference between a good and a bad check. the good check is harder to identify. the bad check is common. we know the bad check is a vested interest. you bumped into the vest interest in the teacher's union. but i want to have the good check to stop you from screwing up. >> michelle? >> or do you just want absolute power? >> it is preferable to what we have today. >> it hasn't been such a bad thing. you know, it is interesting. as i sort of look back over actually my entire career, when i came out of college, i went and taught through teach for america in this inner-city school. through that experience i came away with it is all about teacher quality. if we can get great teachers into schools, then it would

work. i started an organization that recruited great people into the teaching protchings. as i was doing that, i quickly realized, it is not that nobody wants to come in and teach. it is just that the h.r. departments in these school districts are so dysfunctional that great people actually can't come into the profession. so then i shifted from recruitment to i am going to fix the r.h. system. as we were doing that, we realized you could just fix the h.r. system. the entire school district is broken. that is when i took on this challenge in washington, d.c. i said i am going to fix the school district and show that it can work. for three and a half years the mayor and i went at it and said we are going to put everything towards this. he gave me all the support in the world and we actually took what was largely known as the most underperforming district in the country and made it

functional. we were in the absolute bottom in the gold standard examination, and after two years, we were leading the nation in gains in 4th and 8th grade. it was the only one where every single subgroup of kids were improving their academics. i knee evely thought if we -- naively thought if we reproduced the results. people would want it. i started hearing people say things like well, student achievement isn't everything. i was saying really? what else is there when you are in education? and a lot of people have now -- monday morning quarterbacking have said to us. could you have done it differently? if you were nicer, a little more collaborative or giving, could you have been -- could

you have stayed another term? i think it is so hard to imagine that because i think that if we would have compromised along the way, we would not have actually seen the results that we did. and just to give you one example, we put in place a new teacher evaluation system last school year which finally actually linked how a teacher was evaluated to how much their student grew academically. at the end of the first year we identified about 250 teachers who were rated as infective, and so they were subject to termination. so i went to my boss in august, and i said here is where we are. these 250 people are subject to termination. i said however, i realize that you have an election right around the corner, so tell me what you want to do. he looked at me and said well, when it comes to kids and making decisions about

children, we don't look at the poll numbers. we look at the faces of the kids and doing what is right for them. if fire teachers means we have more grade kids come fall. then we do it and let the chips fall where they may. we did it, and the next day people are going nuts. they said are you crazy? you cannot fire people three weeks before an election. this is political suicide. right? but for us it was really easy because it was our true north. we had always made those decisions based on what we believed was in the best interests of kids regardless of the push-back we knew we were going to get from adults. i think part of what i would say to the next person coming into this sort of role is you can't waiver from your true north. you have to to always make those tough decisions. the question, i think, is, is there a way to change the

political calculus so that politicians who are courageous enough to make those calls can actually get the support that they need to continue that work along? i talk to education reformers across the country who, after my boss lost, said that's too bad. i didn't realize that that election might have gone the wrong way, and we should have gotten involved. from the teacher's union, they put a million dollars into the challenger's campaign. they had advance all up a and down the east coast driving people to the polls to make sure my boss was not re-elected. and all the do-gooder education reformers across the country were looking, watching and hoping he would do ok. i think for any future leaders who are taking this on, it has to be how can we change the political calculus for those folks. >> teddy, can you change the political calculus?

>> can i? >> can leaders? >> yeah, you can change -- the primary thing here to me is a philosophical thing called first things. if you don't get first things right, you have no chance of getting anything right. so if politicians have to be elected by holding their hands out by the system we have today, by elections essentially never stopping, i think it mandates mediocrity. i have been saying that a long time. i think your story, michelle, proves a couple of points. first of all, what you were trying to do was do things -- you had a moral compass. you were trying to do things and succeed in doing things the right way and actually had a lot of success.

now you have to switch over to what the general knows about. you have to know your enemy. you shouldn't have been shocked that these people didn't like what you were doing. it is the same thing as the union guy calling me an unamerican bozo, which radicalized me, and i have an idea this is in the process of radicalizing you also. there you go. [laughter] >> yes, you have to get first things right, and first things are not right in our country now. >> can i butt in with a question? >> now that i think about it, quite a large number of people on this stage lost their jobs through doing the right thing but not being cynical enough. who has read "the prince" when they got into this leadership business? no, no. the trouble about being a leader is you do have to be

nasty as well as being nice. you have to have the nasty bit right. otherwise, your enemies screw you. everybody i meet in the leadership business seems to be adrift. i say read "the prince" and then see how things look. a little bit of cynicism doesn't seem to do any harm here. >> i want to answer your checks. for myself, i solved the how can you not be fired problem by not having a boss. i solved that 30 years ago. >> beat it with tenure. [laughter] >> which she hates, by the way. >> i hate it, too, but what are you going to do? >> at least you're good. >> fire me any time, michelle, tenure or not. >> it is not so much checks, niall as i don't think a great leader thinks he has all the answers. you probably know much more about commufrpbl than i do, but

i have read a lot of books about him. he was very opinionated. he had some great ideas. he certainly had his north star. one of the interesting things he said, not that chamberlain was a bad guy, but he was a banker, and he kind of thought in terms of doing business with hitler instead of what was right and wrong. i think a real leader wants all the good advice he can get. then as a leader, he can do what he wants, and he has to be responsible for it. i don't think it's a question of checks. i think it's a question of anybody who is leading an organization who doesn't want all the quality around around him or her he can possibly get i don't think is a great leader. >> teddy, when i went to brazil to start the airline, i have brazilian citizen because i was born in brazil.

my dad was a foreign correspondent there. they said you can get american investors, but you have to have voting control. i said that is how it works for me. i have voting control and own 15% of the company. but this notion -- so you have to be able to have -- so the check i have against my investors if i do a bad job, and i blow the money, they won't give me anymore money, and we go out of business. that's my check. your comment about the czar of education, things have gotten really so bad that it is almost like you would like to give somebody you knew who would have the credentials and do the good job, knowing that at the end of four years if you didn't do the good job, you could be taken out. that is what is wrong with this country. it is all about getting elected. the teacher's union gets

advance, takes people around, and they basically lose an election, and things wrill revert back, and those 250 teachers could come back. who knows what they will reverse. but we really have to change things. maybe we will go from 26th to 30th, or we will drop into the second echelon. but we really have to change things. things have to get bad enough. we saturday around on this panel this morning, and they talked about how bad things are, and showed us the graphs. what is the solution? well, the solution is education, number one. someone has to lead us there. the best thing that michelle can do at this point in time, and i will close with this. she could become the greatest martyr of all time when it comes to education reform. i think someone should pay her to go around the country and tell that story. 6% to 10% of the teachers, if

you get rid of them, we go to number one. she did an evaluation to determine if someone could actually teach. they determined 250 people that weren't. the boss made the decision to fire them. he lost the election, and education reform stopped, and they reverted back. if that isn't a powerful story in this country, and maybe some great thing will come from that. you can keep telling the story, because then we will get it in this country. this is there vocal minority that can get a van and put up a sign is winning, and the rest of us are suffering. it is a shame. >> i would like to go back to all the panel members one more time and ask about a thought for the future. go forward 10 years, and you are going to counsel a person who 10 years from now is going to be in your relative seniority and responsibility, and you had a very short sound

bite, what would you tell them? >> i would say the most important thing is to study history. the leaders that have done best have been the ones who have understood past leadership. the leaders who have done the most harm have had a theory. usually a utopian theory. my advice would be before you get into this business of leadership, study the past and learn from both the great successes and the heroic failures. because in many ways the heroic failures who are most admirable and you can learn the most. >> only seven or eight books you recommend? >> i will give you a reading list. >> michelle? >> one of the things that i am doing right now, when i talk to education reformers across the country is to talk to them about our experience in d.c. and to say, as my good friend joe klein, low is out in the audience says, the teacher's

union has controlled the agenda, the educational agenda in this nation for the last three decades very well. why? because they have millions of dollars and millions of people, and they use those dollars and people to get the politicians that they want lankied and the laws that they want passed and the laws that they don't want blocked. they are playing this game over here. education reformers, the do-gooders are playing an entirely different game, and it is the wrong game. we are trying to appeal to a politician's sense of what is good and right for kids. but these folks over here are getting them reelected and financing their campaigns. you can't compete when you are trying to talk about what is morally right versus what is keeping you in office. what i would tell reformers is we have to start playing the right game. we have to understand what's at stake, and we have to understood the strategies that are going to motivate the leaders in this country to actually start acting in different ways, and i think

what we have going for us is that we have right on our side. so it should make it easier for these folks. >> all right. teddy? >> i would say you have to find out where zarkawi is hiding. that is the most important lesson of this panel. you have to know where he is hiding. so you are right, you have to know who the enemy is and what to do about it. i have taught a lot as well, and i used to get rushed by these kids saying how did you make that, how did you do that, how did i make all that money? i used to say -- first of all, i don't want to talk about money at all because i don't think that is success. the only bit of advice i would give you is figure out something to do on your own. these kids would say to me what

should i do to be a success in private equity? i would say forget that. come up with something on your own in business or something else. that is the best advice i could give a younger person. >> i lecture a lot on college campuses. i ask people when i am talking to them and say can you think of five companies that you adore, that you absolutely worship, that you wouldn't even think of going to one of the competitors to buy another product? you log on to their website, go right to that store, get that cup of coffee, that computer or that ipod, that you are completely assured to that brand. >> what besides gulfstream did they come up with some >> hardly anyone could come up with five companies, and i think that is good. that is great. i say if you can't come up with five, then go create one.

that means there is an enormous amount of opportunity. you don't need to start something completely new. take something like the airline industry and say this industry is broken. the customer service isn't good, the economy isn't good. a lot of people aren't traveling that could travel. become the best customer service company. do that so that people adore you so that people say i am only going to fly with those guys from here on out. you have to have great focus, and you have to have great people and pay them well, and you could become one of those great companies that people write about and teach about. it is hard, and it is a focus, but it can be done. that is the message i give them. it takes that leer, that vision of leadership and getting it done, and you can create something awesome. >> that is great. i will like to conclude by thanking the panel.

i was taken by michelle's idea of firing mediocre teachers, but since i am a mediocre teacher -- >> do you have tenure? >> i do not. people say you get together on leadership, and you talk about it. sometimes you do need to talk about it. sometimes you need to read about it, talk about it and do it. you have to do, but you have to get together with people who have done and listen, too. i would like to thank everybody very much for your time tonight. [applause] >> i would like to thank everybody here. hey, i am out here, and i want to thank general mcchrystal, who is an astonishing leader and so generous with his team. a really great class. wonderful. wonderful, david. excellent. well, everybody now, i hope that -- i am wrapping this up now. we are all going to now

adjourn. do what you like to do. freshen up, have a shower. we are going to regroup for cocktails in the street, jazz, dinner, 7:00 p.m. see you later and thank you very much for today's attendance. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> here is our schedule. next, colorado senate debate between michael bennett and particular buck. after that, a news conference on the release of nearly 400,000 classified military documents by the website, weeks leaks. and another chance to see general stanley mcchrystal and the chancellor of d.c. schools on the importance of leadership. >> sunday on news makers. the chairman of the financial crisis inyearry commission

talking about the commission's report on what went wrong and give possible relyations on how to avoid future economic downturns. interviewing him is a reporter from the "washington post" and dan wagner of the associated press. watch news makers sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> one of the great features of the c-span video library is the ability to clip and share our programs with your friend. during this campaign season, that includes more than 100 debates we have aired on c-span. watch the tutorial and how to clip and share on our website. search, find and share with the c-span video loish. >> c-span, bringing you politics and public fares. every day, it is "washington journal," a live-call in about the news of the day, connecting you with journalists, elected officials and policy makers. week nights, congressional

hearings and pox forums. look for the communicators on saturday evening, news makers on sundays and "q & a" on sunday night. all the "prime minister's questions" from the british house of commons. our programming is also available at any time at c-span.org and searchable at the c-span video library eable. crap, created by cable, provided as a public service. >> c-span's campaign 2010 coverage continues now with a colorado senate debate held earlier this evening in denver. michael bennett was appoint to his seat following the appointment of former senator ken salazar. they have listed this race as a toss-up.

from cbs four studios in denver, this is an hour. 2010, the senate debate for colorado. >> thank you for joining us this evening. for the next hour we be quizzing the candidates running for u.s. senate re in colorado. this is the first time that they have faced state-wide general elections. senator michael bennett was appointed to the seat. he has worked with the denver public schools and in the private sector. he is 45-years old. he is married with three children. his opponent is republican ken buck. he has worked as a prosecutor for the u.s. department of justice and in the colorado

attorney's office. he is married and has two children. someone. beack beat this is one of the most hotly contested senate races in the country and could tip the balance of power in d.c. has anything about this race been what you expected? mr. but we'll start with you. >> it is a hard-fought race. there is a lot of outside money in the race. this is a key race in the united states. i think the issues are pretty ch what i expecd the issues to be. we are talking about the jobs, the economy, and spending. those are the issues that i think are imported or, rather. >> senator bennett?

>> i have travelled around this state. we have had serious conversations about what is happening to our working families, our middle class families who are going through the most savage economy since the great depression. i am surprised at all of the outside money that has been spent on this race. i have to go back to washington and make sure that we can get these advertisements with disclosures on them. >> now that we have set the scene for this race, let's get to the issues. we are joined by a political specialist and analyst. let's talk about the economy is affecting this race. >> it seems like every candidate running this year is promising to create new jobs.

other bad shape policy, my question to you is what can you do specifically to put people back to work with these new unemployment figures in colorado around 8%. >> it is higher than 8%. it is 8.2%. unemployment in the country is far too high. if you look at the last period of economic growth, it is the first time our economy has grown. we have not created enough new jobs in the united states since 1998. we need to give small businesses access to credit so they can hire people. we have to commit ourselves to an energyolicy that breaks our reliance on foreign oil, quit spendi -- quit sending money to the persian gulf -- to regimes that give that money to

terrorists. we need to invest in energy here in the united states. colorado has sn 20% job growth in clean energy jobs and natural gas jobs as well. that is what we need to fit for. >> night 4% of the businesses in colorado or small businesses -- 94% of the businesse in colorado are small businesses. they will not expand right now because they do not have the certainty they need. they do not know what their health care bills will be in threyears. they do not know what their tax bill will be. they do not know what their energy bill will be. at the very moment when we went into this recession, we had a dramatic lurched to the left government. it has caused uncertainty in the marketplace. we need to develop an intelligent energy policy, not cap and trade.

that way we do not overtaxed by puttin his syntaxes -- by putting hidden taxes in other places. they need to be able to grow and create jobs. >> there is some certainty out there. the economy is what is really uncertain. every small business in the state will see a tax credits if they give -- will see a tax credit if they give health insurance to their employees. opponent proposed that -- opposed that legislation. the erepreneurs and elevators in colorado -- and not the special interest in washington. about tax policy specifically. we will start with mr. ken buck.

what changes to tax policy would you support to promote certainty, investment, job growth, and deficit reduction? >> i would absolutely do away with the 1099 provisions that were hidden in the health-care bill. i'd think they were incredibly onerous on our small busesses. they place a burden on the small businesses when they need to expand. what we need to do it ultimately is habitats code that is simple and efficient. -- a tax code that is simple and in addition. we need to reduce the burden on businesses who need to find out exactly what their tax that is going to be. >> we need a tax code and regulatory code that supports job creation in the united states and does not inspire companies to ship jobs ovseas. i agree with what mypponent ju said.

for 18 months he ran a campaign that said we should get rid of our corporate taxes altogetr, cut income taxes altogether, and instead have a national sales tax that will increase taxes on people by 23%. as we think about how to innovate in the 21st century, we have a tax cut that is full o special interest giveaways to all kinds of interest of one kind or another. we need tax policies that will support color other businesses. >> you have made it much more complicated with your health care legislation. i am not opposed to corporate tax. i am not opposed to and contacts. i am opposed to having the second highest corporate income tax in the world. it undermines our ability to compete in a global manufacturing world. we need to reduce our corporate tax rate. japan is already producing bears. that will make us at the highest

corporate tax rate in the world. >> the next question is yours. >> take you will agree the country is still divided over president obama's health-care reform. we know it will be more expensive than we were led to be initially. senator bennett, you cast one of the deciding votes. what do you say to the lawmakers who are trying to repeal it? >> ken buck says he wants to repeal it. there is a woman who came up to me and said her daughter had a tight-1 diabetes. she now knows you have insurance going forward. -- she now knows she will have insurance going forward. she no longer has to worry about that. ken buck has said that -- ken buck is accusing me of cutting medicare.

it is despicable. i wish you get your advertisements all the air. that is the heart of the health care reform bill. i have fought hard for amendments to reduce cost and have made sure that the administration promises the savings will actually materialize. we are making get better with common-sense approach. that is the right idea. >> senator bennett cast the deciding vote for health care. without his vote, health care would not have passed. we need to repeal it for two reasons. it would past -- it was passed in a fundamentally corrupt way. some senators were coerced into voting for the health care bill based on goodies they got to bring back to their state. that is fundamentally wrong. americans do not believe that this health car bill was voted on based on its merits.

we need to get rid of it. this health care bill on the nepheleifted the mark -- fundamentally lifted the marked. we made a bad health care bill a bigger bad health care bill. >> i fundamentally disagree that repealing this is the right idea. what we should be doing is stopped screening each other and pointing fingers. we should be making it better. our government cannot afford to consume the amount of money we are consuming on health care. it is 18% of our gross domestic product. every other country in the world spends halfhat on health care. it seems to me that if we take the business approach to providing what is there, the people of colorado and across the country will be better off. >> next question. >> our question for ken buck, does the country have a moral

obligation to provide coverage for the 51 million americans who currently lack insurance and, for mr. bennett, had you assess the witnesses or shortcomings of the health-care bill and why was there so much emphasis on coverage rher than cost? >> i think we have a compassionate country and we need to do everything we can to give health care to every person. that does not mean that we had a top-down model of health-care presented by the federal government. it means that we lowered the cost of health care and create a system where everyone can afford health care. those who cannot, we have medicaid and other programs for them. we have to encourage people based -- encourage peop to get on health care. we do not do that with the government top-down model. we do it by coming together as a community and developing a model

from the bottom up. >> i appreciate that observation. these are colorado ideas. they are now in the health-care bill that ken buck has demonized and said we should repeal. what we had before and what we continue to have endless ander unsustainable path. i have always maintained from the very beginning of the debate that we ought to be focused on costs. whether people are covered are not covered, cost is destroying -- whether people are covered or not covered, cost is destroying us. that is an incredibly expensive way to deal with this. it is a tax we are all paying. that is an unfunded mandate. we can do better than that as a countrif we set partisan politics aside and work

together in a business-type action. >> the reality is the costs are going to rise at a faster rate. i read recently that at the government did nothing, cost would go up last that they are going up under this health care bill. that is a disgrace. again, it is a top-down model. senator bennett was the deciding vote on it. it is not the kind of health care we need in this country. >> if i do not know what you read, but that is certainly not true. >> thank you for your questions. your campaign advertisements have created a lot of attention. >> is it not a shame, we have two seasons, smart hardworking men here and he would not know it from the advertisements. out of staters have spent more

money than any other state in the country. attack advertisements work and the candidates know it. of what to thank you both for being here. i have spent the last several months researching these ads and breaking down the claims. i want to give you a chance to respond to some of the more provocative charges. each of you had boarded by seconds for a response and a rebuttal. we will start within at the adjusted the air last week. it attacks can but for his handling of a rape case as district attorney. >> conducting see is more qualified because he does not wear high heels, becau he i not a woman. he refused to prosecute a convicted rapist. >> the ad would both have less believe you are a sexist. >> there is a line even in politics that you do not cross. that line has been crossed in this case.

this ad was called an ad of idiotic political malice. my office has a huge success rate. we have 192 year sentence against a rapist. we have five life sentences in rape cases. this case is abnormal. to use this story for political game is a sad commenta. >> senator bennett, rebuttal? >> in what is causing the line is being across the cuter in describing a victim in a rape case -- i think what is crossing the line is dcribing a victim in a rape case. i think ken buck is out of touch

predicted as the father of three little girls, he has advocated a constitutional amendment that will ban abortion including in cases of rape and incest. it is just wrong. i believe it is an appropriate discussion to have a. >> i am not out of touch. senator bennett advertisements have been called deceitful, false, and misleading. for senator bennett to question my office or my entire jury -- or my integrity is just empty. >> that is just wrong. i am been a -- i have been a prosecutor. once again, you are wrong. i have a lot of sympathy for the fact checkers. >> let's turn to an ad that

attacks you, senator bennett. it regards comments about the national deficit. >> the tragedy of is all we have nothing to show for it. >> voters have sent an average $2.50 million on the stimulus and obama care. now than it is outraged -- anow bennett is outraged. >> it was taken completely out of context. i have said exactly the same thing all acrs the state in read parts of the states and blue parts of the state. most people belie this has saved us from having a great depression. we have had a recession. as a father of three little girls, i do not think it is

necessary to save us from the great depression. we have a failed to fix our roads, our bridges, our waste water systems. we have not had the decency to maintain the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us. transportation, transit, and energy -- this is a consequence largely of the policies that can but has endorsed -- that ken buck has endorsed. >> it is one thing to say that somebody else accumulated 13 trillion dollars of debt. mr. bennett has been in washington d.c.. he refuses to take responsibility for three trillion dollars in debt. it sounds as if he is going to -- the has been in d.c. and has not done anything to clean it up. >> quite the contrary.

what am doing as a member of the generation that has been given more than any other generation is saying that we as a generation has done this and that we do not clean it up, the next generation wi pay a heavy price. my daughter has made it clear to me that she is not willing to pay it back. we need to make the hard decisions to pay this debt. i have had a lot of experience in the private sector. i have had a lot of experience reructuring very difficult budgets at the local level. i bring a lifetime of experience to this job doing exactly that. >> thank you. and there are some clients that i have found misleading at best. >> what is unfair to colorado is the record of overspending, under regulating, and under taxing. >> it said that senator bennett

favorehigher taxes 24 times. i looked up these votes and i felt most of them to be procedural motions, for example to kill health care reform or the stimulus. is a disingenuous to say that he voted to favor higher taxes 24 times? how exactly do you legislate on employment? >> i tell you how you legislate unemployment. you do not do anything about unemployment. what senator bennett did was act is a rubber stamp for president obama, harry reid, and nancy pelosi. he focused on financial reform. he focused on other issues, but he did not focus on unemployment. they put 10 tax increases in the health-care bill. >> senator bennett? >> i appreciate the cnce to respond to this.

i have contacted 98% of people in colorado. this is for everybody. it is for small businesses as well. i imagine the $12 million in tax cuts in the small-business bill weassed two months ago. he is saying i am raising taxes. that is totally false. i believe we need to have a tax policy and regulatory policy that drives innovation. we do not need one that protects the largest insurers, but one that supports our working and middle-class families. >> mr. buck? >> i understand you did not read the stimulus bill before you voted on it. you must not have read the health care bi before you voted on it either. it has 10 tax increases. they have not kicked in yet.

when they do kick i colorado residents will be mad. >> time is up. senator bennett, there was a pattern to your ads. they frame your oonent as an extremist. i felt some of the claims to be a bit extreme. we'll take a look at a couple that were in heavy rotation. >> ken buck waso privatize social security. he even questioned if social security should exist at all. >> you talked about having your comments taken out of context. you used as a backup for the basis of these claims some of comments.s he suggested that we should be able to will our benefits should we die before collecting them. ontudent loans, he was not opposed to the loans. he was opposed to a lot that put

them in the hands of the federal gornment. >> i have great sympathy for you and the jobou are doing. every time i come to a debate i feel like i am debating ken buck 1.0 and 2.0. he said that he likes the idea of privatizing social security. he believes that the government and called the was fundamentally against what he believes. those are his words. those are not my words. he said he believed the founding fathers did not believe we should have stood all. he said americans would have to wean themselves all of these loans. it is the consequence of his having run an entirely different race in the republican primary that he is tried to run in the general election. that is what is wrong with washington, d.c. >> he says he wanted to go to

washington, d.c., to clean up washington, d.c. you had the opportunity to look at those ads and look at the tape. i did not say the things they said i said. what i talked about when i talked about stallone's was they took the guaranteed student loan program and put it in the health-care bill to try to reduce the cost the health care bill. that is not what i want. i do not want the federal government running this program. on what the banks running this program so we can have some up capability. >> even if you- even if what you were saying was true, it is not a true reflection of what you said ithe republican primary. the idea that we wld take the student loan program and put it in the hands of banks which charged credit card rates to our students tried to go to college, i think it is a tolerable --

students trying to go to college, i think it is horrible. >> it created a huge subsidy for private companieat the expense of our kids. we are in the worst economy since the great depression. they are taking refuge in our community colleges and dark four-year colleges. >> did he say do away with student loans? >> he said the american people will have to wean themselves off of student loans. >> the reality is the federal government will not run this program as efficiently as banks run this program. it has been runhe right way for years. nator bennett believes in big government. he says one thing in washington, d.c., and he says another thing when he is in colorado. >> that is not true. we should be giving our kids the most efficient all possible.

the government is more efficient. there is only one of us has ever worked a reform bill. that is me. we made huge strides toward denver public schools. >> pal is that pension fund doing, michael? >> do not make up your own packs. -- make up your own facts. >> there is a actuarial report. i will be happy to show it to you. >> i want to get to this final question. it is for both the deep. we have had a lot of comments from our viewers disgustedy how ugly this race has been. i cannohelp but notice that the most recent ads that both of you have paid for are both

positive. they both have your families in them. had gotten the message? as our viewers have said, this race has gotten too negative. why? why has it gotten so ugly? >> i do not know why it is so ugly. we have control of our ads, but we do not have control over the outside ads. our kids or a whole lot better looking than we are. we will get more votes by putting our kids on air that we would by putting ourselves out there. people should know that i care deeply about my family. i love my daughter and i care very much about the rights that she has in this country. >> senator bennett? >> i regret nothing more than the fact that the two of us are paying the salaries of everybody at channel 4. you deserve a raise.

i believe very strongly that we have to reform our campaign system and the way we approach this advertising. o thatd twice said it, bro coloradans can know who is paying for these ads. >> many of your assets have been negative. >> many of my assets have been positive. many of them talk about the economy. many of them talk about the issues that are facing caidates. whoever represents the people of colorado days to say the same thing wherever they are, wherever -- whether they are in a red part of the state or a blue part of the sta. >> i have to cut you off. a tough job doing the reality checks. we want to move on to the next segment of our debate. we asked our viewers to send

questions to our web site and it took her. -- and twitter. >> in addition to lots of complaints about the negative advertisements, we received lots of questions about the "meet the press" debate. a lot of viewers want to know kent health care about's -- reflect on the gay rights. >> we are seeing some states decide they want to move ahead withay marriage and others that are not. i do not think these questions of merit -- of marriage should be left up to t federal government. >> i am opposed to gay marriages. i believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. i do not believe the federal

government has a role in any way in making these marriages of legal or legal. i believe it is a state issue. i would vote for the defense of marriage act. i think it is a state issue to regulate marriages. >> senator bennett, let's go back one second. you say that is a question for the federal government to answer. are you not that? or you try to be that? >> i ashley said the opposite of that. i was not clear. i do not believe that the federal government should be making decisions about marriage. >> you do not have an opinion on that. i mean, you are basically saying it is for the federal government. >> the question was would gay marriage go forward in d.c. i'd think there will be some aspects that will moved lower.

others will try not to. i do not take it is a question the federal government should be dealing with. >> let's move onto the next question dealing with illegal immigration. it is a hot topic in colorado and much of the nation. what are you willing to do to secure the southern border? how'd you feel about amnesty for the people the are already here. .e'll start with you mr. buck >> i am oppos to amnesty for those already in the united states. we need to sure our borders. i voted against a plan that would have been important to imement a guest worke program in the state. he has voted against sending border patrol agents to the southern border. while he agreed to vote -- he vote against border patrol agents. if we do not enact a guest

worker program that makes sense and make it a much shorter period of time to get people into this country, we will continue to have this issue and handed down to the next generation. >> senator bennett? >> my vote with john mccain to increase the numbe of national guardsmen on the boiler -- on the border. i do not support amnesty. i support a path to citizenship in the united states. my opponent has said he would like to have a plan to ship 12 million people back across the border. that would be over $300 billion not including the difficulties it would cause for local law enforment all across the country. we do not need 50ifferent states with 50 different immigration policies. we need for washington to start screaming at each other and approach this problem in a

pragmatic way. >> let's move on to abortion. it has prompted plenty of questions from viewers. some say that government is becoming too interested in their lives. will you really make a gat woman carrying a child to full term? others ask about abortion in the case of incest. give me your stance onhe abortion issue. >> i am pro-choice. i do not think the government has any business telling my three daughters out to make the incredibly painful decision that ought to be made by a woman with her family, or clergy, and her doctor. i find it amazing that people talk about getting government out of our hair, but want to give government the most intimate decisions that could possibly be made. i support -- >> i am." li.

i can tell you that there -- i am pro life. federal funding for abortions, mr. bnett voted for it. i would have voted against it. there was also a bill on funding for organizations that perform abortions with u.s. funds. i would have voted against it. mr. bennett voted for it. >> just to be clear, with respect to the viewer, the question you're asking was with u force a rape victim to carry her baby to term. >> i was going to follow up with that. >> i have answered the question. we get caught on these social issues. the voters want to know about jobs. they want to know about unemployment. they want to know about spending. we get caught on social issues.

the story today is on social issues. we need to stay focused on the issues that the voters care about. >> hold on just a second. social issues are iortant to the voters in this state. i need you to answer that question. abortion is very important when you start talking about rape and incest. that is important to the voters. >> i am pro-life and i do not believe in exceptions for rape or incest. we need to stay focused on the issues that are important to the voters in this state. if you look at any polling data, in over 800 meetings i have had with voters, i have been asked five or six times about gay marriage or abortion. people want to know about jobs. >> iran on those issues in the

republican primary. i think it is cynical. if you want to talk about economic issues, we have to talk about those two. your positions are as far out of the mainstream as your positions on these issues. this is about, in his view, protecting oil companies and others. it has nothing to do with colorado. what it is not about is supporting our economy here in colorado -- >> let me talk. but the respond to that. -- let me respond to that. i am not the one that has accumulated three trillio dollars of debt in the united states senate. that is senator bennett. that is out of touch with all the broader values. when you rubberstamp a health- care bill, that is wrong. we can talk about economic

issues. >> we are out of time. we can keep this going. >> it is always great to give the voters a chance to ask the questions. we also give our candidates a chance to ask some as well. this is the head-to-head portion of our debate. senator bennett lost a coin toss giving him the choice to answer the first question. he chose to answer the first question. >> senator, you have four months said that you will not take a position on the employee's rejoice at. -- employee the free choice act. he said he disagreed with the language in the house bill. you did not explain what you meant by disagreeing with the language in the house bill. do you disagree or agree with

certain provisions? i want to know what you like about that bill. do you like the ability to ke away the right to secret ballot, or are you in favor of mandatory arbitration with the federal government decides the conditions in the workplace? >> it is great to take questions from viewers, but we should give them the dignity of answering the questions they ask. one thing i like about the bill is shortening the time frame between a first book and a second book. that is where intimidation can happen. what i really would like to see is labor and management working together to make sure that we can solve the economic issues that we face. i believe this is a very divisive issue. think more time should be spent on how we are going to create jobs in this country and stop exporting them overseas.

we need to build them right he in colorado. cret ballots at arbitration -- that was the question. you ask me what i liked. i think that a secret ballot rules should not change. i think it is the american way to have a secret ballot. being the only person up here that has ever conducted collective bargaining, i am skeptical of the provision. it is important to keep collective bargaining negotiations in the hands of parties. >> the next question is mine. thank you. you have said you do not support a renewable energy standards did you do not support tax credits for renewable and clean energy. weave seemed more job growth in that part of theorld that we have anything else. 20,000 jobs already. 30,000 more js coming.

i would like to know three things you do to suprt this important issue in colorado. >> if you made a great point on your previous debate, senator. we have to import solar panels into this country because we cannot make them in this country. the reason is because our corporate tax rate is too high. our energy costs are too high. we hav overregulated our energy production in this country. we need to make sure we have an energy policy that is based on good science, and energy policy that encourages energy groh so we can do the sorts of things you are talking about -- make the windmills' appear, make the solar panels here, and create the kinds of jobs that manufacture those in the private sector. i would decrease the corporate tax rate. i would buy sustainable and low- cost energy sources. i would make sure we do not impose a health care bill on our

employers of the cannot manufacture. >> the next question issuers. >> senator bennett, you've talked about the importance of social security and you have not yet put a plan on the table for how we makes it -- social security sustainable. you have been on the committee on aging. the committee on aging has oversight for social security. you have missed a 92% of the meetings. why are you missing 70 meetings? >> i do not accept your map of the number of meetings i have missed. i am one of only 12 senators that has a 1% voting record. i have not missed a single vote. i have traveled 30,000 miles having tell all meetings where i have not made up a new facts or said new things based on how receptive the audience was. it is hard to take that

question from somebody who has missed 113 days of work in the d a's office wh you are campaigning on the taxpayer's dime. no one has ever questioned my work ethic before. i think my record speaks for itself. >> i wrotehe amendment in the health-care bill that says that our senior's medicare will be protected. it was the most bipartisan piece of legislation passed in the senate. i do not think our seniors want to see the privatization of social security. i am glad to give you a specific plan of social security. >> i have turned back to much of my salary to the taxpayers since i have been campaigning. you have turned back nothing. the senate has been in session 39 days in the last 140 days. you have little ground to stand on to criticize me for where i haveeen in relationship to the taxpayer.

we have decrease crime in our county bite 50%. you had nothing to show from your time in the senate. >> i would like to go back to the viewer's question from a minute ago. my question is, who is going to go to jail? >> to is going to go to jail? >> we decriminalize abortion in the ce of rape and incest, too is going to jail? >> i do not think abortion will decriminalized any time soon. you have once again tried to take this debate off topic. we are talking about issues that are important to colorado voters. we are talking about jobs. we're talking about your vote on health care. we are talking about these colorado voters want to know about. answering the

question that i have asked you. this is the time when you need to answer just as i did. >> finis please. >> once again, i am going to focus my campaign on the issues colorado voters care about. i have said that i am pro-life. i do not believe in exceptions for rape or incest. i am hopeful we can work together as a country and reduce abortions. that is the key. the votes in the united states senate have been two. one is for federal funding, and the other was for foreign organizations that conduct abortions. >> we will end it right there. thank you r your questions. it is a great way to find out what is on our candidate's might this evening. we have a question about four policy. >> with all the focus on the

economy, the war in afghanistan is not getting as much attention. mr. buck, i know you oppose announcing timetables for afghanistan. would each of you outlined what would be the best course? >> i believe we need to define our mission -- very nearly. the pakistani military -- we need to give them time to secure e nuclear weapons in pakistan. it is a concern -- it is a worldwide concern that those weapons be secured. the pakistan governmt cannot be counted on to do it and we cannot do it. i think we need to start coming home in the middle of next year.

this is the largest shooting war in our country's history. we simply cannot afford it anymore. i believe the troops that have come back to colorado's share that view. i do not think they want to state their longer than that. >> i think we have the wrong policy in afghanistan. i do not think we should be in the business of nation-building in afghanistan. we set certain goals and we accomplished those goals. we need to draw down our forces and bring them home. i think we need to do three things. the first thing we need to do is make sure that afghanistan is not a safe-haven for terrorists. i am saying that when you look at other countries that afghanistan is at least as safe

as those countries. the second thing we need to do is to disrupt and dismantle the drug trade coming out of afghanistan. the third thing we need to do is support stability in central ia. we cannot lose more lives and we cannot spend billions and billions of dollars more to rebuild afghanistan. >> we have lost 81 colorado residents in iraq and afghanistan. there was a role for nation- building. he has changed his position so many times on afghanistan. it makes it on possible -- it makes it on possible to understand what it is. we need to make sure there is military stability there. that region cannot be stabilized by the united states of america's military forces. >> mike turner?

-- might turn here? -- my turn here? do you believe the patriot act has served our country weldon? where are you on closing the debate -- closing the base at guantanamo? mr. bott, i think you are up. >> my son is in his last year of west point. this is a personal issue. i think we have been well served by the patriot act. i think we need to look at it every single year and make sure that law enforcement and other security agencies are using it in a way that is responsible given our love for liberty in this country. i would not close guantanamo. i think the idea of treating

terrorist as committing and the unlawful acts as opposed to a terrorist or military act is wrong. i think this country is giving terrorist too many rights we bring them to this natn and try them in this nation. my opponent voted for fding the trials to be held in new york city of very serious terrorists. that is a mistake. we should not give them our constitutional rights. >> thank you. >> i think one of the things that brought my family to this country as survivors of the holocaust was commitment to the role of law. the terrorist threat that we face is evolving and is incredibly dangerous. i agree with my opponent, we need to make sure that we are vigilant in balancing our

important civil liberties. we should not give them up either. i support closing guantanamo bay, but to answer the answer -- but to answer the question directly, a number book did against the administration tried to close it because they did not have an adequate plan for what to do with the people that were there. until the administration comes up with an adequate plan, iill continue to vote that way. it is in the long-term national interest of the united states close guantanamo bay. >> thank you both. we wl take a moment to ask a few questions. you each have 20 seconds to answer. in every campaign, and mistakes are made. what mistakes do you wish you could take back? >> i do not wish that i could take it back, but i would say it is a time to explain the $13 trillion contract. i clearly i am not responsible

for 13 trillion dollars in debt. --13 trillion in debt. i am comfortable with the miss stakes in may. -- with the mistakes i have made. >> i recently made a statement about global warming. i was trying to "someone. i think the science is unproven in global warming. i think, unfortunately, it was attributed to me in a way that is not my belief. >> by this time you knowour opponent as well as you know yourself. which comedy you think he wishes he could take back? >> while. i think all of his commercials. i am short senator bennett is an honorable man. i am sure he uld like to take back those commercials.

with the colorado springs gazette says that you are running a sleazy campaign, i am short senator bennett does not want to face his three daughters and explain why he is doing that. >> here is what i would like to do. i will post every bit of evidence for every advertisement on our website. you can take a look at that and make the decision of whether these advertisements or -- are credible or not. i am sorry that politics has gotten this way. >> we know the time has been all consuming for your campaigns and has taken a toll on your families. how big of an impt has it taken on your families? >> it has taken an impact on my family. fortunately both the my children are out to state and do not have to watch the ads that have been run.

unfortunately, my wife is in state and has seen them. i think that my wife and i have grown closer i get a lot of ways. campaigning with my children was a great experience. >> everybody should understand that there have been far more negative advertisements run against me in this race. second, it has been a delight to be with my wife and three little girls traveling around the state. this has given them a chance to see the butiful state we have. also, how much bigger a world that we live in. the struggles that other people are having across the state. >> we have reached the closing segment of our debate. we would give each can get one minute to make your case. mr. buck won the coin toss.

>> all like to thank you for putting thisebate on. i am very grateful. it is important for your viewers to be able to see it. we are facing enormously difficult economic times in this country. we have a run rate deficit and runaway debt. i believe we can come together, roll up r sleeves. we need to forget about ideologies and focus on pragmatic problem-solving. that is what i have done my entire career. i think that having experienced in the private sector and working in tough government situations at the local level give me a totally different perspective than 99% of the senators in d.c. i will do absolutely everything to make sure we are notart of

the first generation of america to left these problems for our kids and grandkids. >> we have a great opportunity to choose between repeating our mistakes and creating a state and a country that our kids and grandkids would not want to live in. we all protested when the congress ran up more and more debt. as taxpayers we have to face the pre of that debt at some point. we set e-mail's to our senators and representatives when they're going to pass the health care bill because we knew the burdens it would place on us. we told our progress that we did not want them to stymie growth and to get off the backs of small business. they did not listen to us. they ignored us. on november 2, will have the opportunity to make sure that the people in washington, d.c.,

do not ignore us anymore. go to my web site and click on the advertising section and see what other news organizations have said about those advertisements. >> we appreciate you being with us this evening. we hope we have helped voters prepare for campaign 2010. it will be a very interesting election day. our partner, colorado public television, will be rearing this debate. next friday will bring you the gubernatorial debate life. we will be aired the same evening on channel 12. for complete election night coverage, join us on cl lot of public television -- on colorado public television [lauter] [applause] you can also find our debates on line. we will have complete coverage campaign 2010. thank you for being with us this

evening. we know we have helped to make an informed decision this election year. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioncopyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> voters head to the polls in less than two weeks. follow the candidates on c-span right up until election day. archives at the c-span library and our politics page, candidates twitter feeds, upcampaign ads and other helpful resources. cover c-span's election coverage up until election day. >> in a moment, a news conference on the release of nearly 400,000 classified military documents by the website wikileaks. later, a former commander of

the forces, general mcchrystal and the chancellor of d.c. schools on the importance of leadership. then a discussion with four former u.s. congressmen on the current political climate in washington and the overall state of congress. >> sunday michael jordan discusses the latest release of documents from wikileaks detailing reports from iraq. and then patricia murphy and vaughn ververs talk politics. after that, author and fox news correspondent charlie gasparino on his latest book "bought and paid for" the unholy alliance between barack obama and wall street. because your emails and phone calls. >> this week on q and a.

one british and the debate between parliament and congress. sunday night on "q&a." earlier today the website wikileaks released nearly 400,000 classified military documents on the iraq war and reportedly revealed details on house thousands of previously unreported civilian deaths, alleged torture of detainees by iraqi authorities. its founder was among a panel that spoke at a news conference in london to talk about his group's findings. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> i'll be attempting to moderate this morning. the press conference, as you know, is dedicated to the release of the iraq war logs this morning, and these releases are based on 400,000 classified documents that were received and published by

wikileaks. you will have seen the print and television coverage this morning. those speaking this morning are julian asang, the editor of wikileaks he founded in 2006. it's won a number of awards including the index on sensorships, 2008 economist new media award and award from distinction of the prearts electronica. in june of 2009, wikileaks won amnesty national u.k. media award and july this year he won the sam adams award for integrity. he's joined with a colleague who traveled to baghdad on a fact findings mission and has 20 experience of an investigative journalist with channel 2 news which is a private broadcaster in the islandic public state broadcaster and awarded twice

iceland's highest journalism award. after wikileaks is john svoboda. since 2003 he's been coordinator of the iraq body count project, an ongoing human security project maintaining and updating the world's largest public database of violent civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion. he is a consultant and director of the oxford research groups recording casualties, and chairs the international advisory group. he's america's professor of psychology at the university of field and honorary professor at the school of international relations at the university of london. the iraq body count data, i should mention, has been used by an extraordinary group of people, "the new york times," "washington times," al jazeera, open democracy, the independent, the guardian, the world health organization, the international criminal court, "the new england journal of medicine" and the european

union joint research center and the brookings institute in washington. and at 10:25 we'll also be hearing from phil shunner who leads the team in public interest lawyers and has been practicing as a solicitor in the u.k. since 1981 and written extensively on international and human rights law. in recent years he's acted in some of the most important judicial review cases to be brought in his area of expertise and in march of 2010 he led the team to success in the european court of human rights in a particularly important case. he was made a solicitor of the >> he was made sew lit tore of the year in 2008 and was one of the top 10 in the following year. i think we can now start with julian asaj. s ce 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 . . 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 >> next, general stanley marcus do not and the former of d.c. schools on leadership. the stanley >> crysta-- next, gd the former head of d.c. schools on leadership. we will spend the afternoon the console and the closest senate race in the country on sunday. stunning and noon, the final

meeting between candidates vying for the pennsylvania senate. after that, the incumbent democratic senator russ feingold and republican ron johnson. then, the debates here in the florida senate race. >> time to get your camera rolling for this year's student campus and tell him make a five- 8 minute video on this year's theme. tell us about an issue, as end, or your topic that helps you better understand the role of the federal government in your life or community. the deadline is january 20th and you will have a chance to win a grand prize of $5,000. there is $50,000 in total

crisis. this is open to middle and high school students' grades 6 through 12. >> one of the great pictures of the seized a video library is the ability to quit and share our videos with your friends. that includes more than 100 debates. if you are new, watch the tutorial. search on the video library. >> next, a panel discussion with the former commander of the afghanistan forces on the importance of leadership. he is joined by francis townsend. later, the washington d.c. school chancellor. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> general mccrystal, he is

called stan the man. 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 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 t