effort between the u.s. and pakistan to simply safeguard those materials so they do not fall into the hands of terrorists. that the u.s. policy goals is not to denuclearize pakistan, it is simply to make sure that the nuclear material stays out of the hands of terrorists. >> thank you. >> my name is jonathan from -- strategies. my question would go primarily to mr. cully stimson. in specific regards to senator lieberman's shield act, just to show if it actually goes to the heart of the problem, if congress is acting too quickly may be legislating on the issue. i would like to hear your thoughts on that. >> as a 501 c3, tax-exempt legislation -- organization, we did not endorse this -- specific

aspects of legislation or a piece of legislation itself. but let me, it generally on it. i read it and i have it right here. it is a short act. the espionage act has been held to cover non-citizens. the shield act as currently drafted, at least the draft i have, does not. it is questionable whether or not it is -- the shall act would reach assange people associated with wikileaks. i believe -- this is tangentially related to a question -- the extent to which the investigation is thorough could shout out, based on actual facts, communications between wikileaks, assan himself,ge --

assange himself, and the mannings of the world, that wikileaks is not at all like a media organization. the more likely it is that either assange or wikileaks itself can be brought under existing criminal law of the united states, the further away it looks like a media organization. more likely, the first amendment entanglement's we touched on will come to pass as a viable defense and the more likely it is that the prosecutors will be able to move toward traditional criminal charges. there would involve the shall act as currently drafted -- that would involve the shield act as currently drafted. >> i tend to agree with all that. i also attended think that the section of the espionage act was

very carefully drawn regard to cryptographic information. it as been moderately affected in its own right. it seems to me that if we are going to go down the road of trying to fix our as dni lawss to -- or sb not lost to address issues like assange, the ways not to find shoehorned change, but actually it's pretty effective under the terms that is. i'm not go to abdicate in favor of not amending the sb na -- espionage laws. i would be an advocate of taking a little more time and looking at all the categories of information, all the different means by which the information is disclosed, and see if there is not a way of drawing

distinctions between mainstream media organizations report news and add value and wikileaks, nd to pick up as more of a means of communication as a telephone directly. no one would say that a telephone directories in use organization. no one would say that a telephone directory is a news organization. i would urge it the more time i'm thinking about it before going off. >> one of the reasons paul and i -- one of the things we agreed on with this memo -- well, i think one of the things we had to wrestle with was what it be too late to address the wikileaks-assange scenario?

given that we have read that he has a lot more information that he has yet to disclose, thought through in a timely manner and properly debated in our open society, it could potentially cause for -- it could potentially cover future disclosures in a way that does not affect the first amendment. >> thanks. we have a question down here. >> retired foreign service officer. i continue to work for the state department part-time, and i'm not speaking for or on behalf of the state department. one other thing i have done recently is teach a course on cable writing, and yes, i have updated by powerpoint. paul mentioned a couple of things that are spot on.

first, how can you download a quarter of a million documents and a huge alarm bell does not go off? i have to assume they are fixing bad as we speak. -- fixing that as we speak. that is an incredible oversight. the other thing is access. you need embassy cables from baghdad, but venezuela does not make sense. i think that system is already in place. but i would check into a new place and set up my account, i would tell technicians that i need access to certain kinds of cables certain areas of the world. that one is going to work, too. the one i don't think will work is the idea that we could have a revised security clearance procedure which would identify people like pfc manning.

i was a counterintelligence officer and netted thousands of security clearances -- i did thousands of security clearances. you will never catch a person like that in the security clearance process. it does not work that way. finally, at the suggestion -- i have a suggestion. one of the things that might mitigate the damage, and i am speaking as a person who has written thousands of cables for the state department -- we use names. not all of the agencies and the government use names. for example, the cia and other intelligence agencies do not come on purpose, use names -- do not, on purpose, use names but they refer to something like a government official, or some way of fudging that. maybe the state department should go that route. i don't like it myself, because it does not read about to begin

with, but what do you think of that? >> i think it could work in some cases, particularly the second or third secretary talking to somebody did you could not identify by name but it's a characterization and descriptions. but when it comes to high-level discussions, it matters who you are talking to. there are differences between high levels of the government. you have to know what the individual is thinking and saying. maybe it could be separated out, the local level diplomats are meeting with human rights workers and journalists, democracy rights advocates, sure. but you will not be able to do it in all cases. but there are other channels for reporting sensitive conversation that does not appear are going to turn out what wikileaks,

which is good. there are other channels even within the state department reporting for very sensitive information. perhaps that will be relied on more now. we can only speculate. i just wanted to raise something related to thelly access issue. i agree with both sides here. august, information sharing has done very good things for protecting the homeland, but i think it is inevitable that we will go back to a little bit of this strict need to know basis for sharing. but also, i have a bit of a onference with thterry archiving. i think it is extremely important to keep archives of information. if you don't know history, you are doomed to repeat it. we have a lot of declassification if projects

now, george washington university, and the classifications -- de classifications are done every 25 years. i think it is very useful. it helps to define public policy, and people like myself and others on the panel that have more informed backgrounds in understanding how u.s. policy was conducted in years past. the problem with wikileaks is that is so recent and we at the same people working in the embassy trying to meet with the same people it was released to, which makes more difficult operational and for other reasons. but i still think that archiving of information is extremely important. >> i would like to add a comment to that. i agree completely that there have been systems in place, there are systems in place al,

that should have prevented the downloading of 250,000 documents. we do have systems that aimed at restricting information on the basis of need-to-know within the u.s. government. if somebody in iraq is not necessarily, or should raise eyebrows if they start accessing cables from venezuela -- my concern would be the advancement of technology, partly through things like the internet, has resulted in a degrading of the checks and balances that we had in place to control the information, or control access to that information. i think we're going to need to have procedures within the u.s. government evolves, and involve a very quickly -- evolve very quickly, to account for changes to technology. there is a tension between the need of the public access to

information and our desire for the greatest possible freedom of information. i would remind people that the model of the heritage foundation is building an america where freedom and opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourished. clearly we have an interest in the desire to forward access by the public to as wide a range of information as possible. yet we are talking in the wikileaks case about dissemination of information that come to me, goes beyond freedom and really gets into the sphere of anarchy, where you have someone that is trying to bring down the orderly processes of government and diplomacy. i think obviously our legal system of free fall in a deliberate manner, and that is what to take time -- our legal system will have to evolves in a deliberate manner, and that is going to take time did but the

executive branch and the immediate future makes significant efforts to tighten up and reform our processes. >> one of the concerns i have as a military officer, and i said this on one of the cable news network's right after the first one came out at least that referred to, is the real need -- that lisa referred to, is the real need for people in a battle to proceed real-time, accurate intelligence information with respect to targeting or other information that is helpful in their mission. i worry at times, and i still have this concern pro, but we he grown accustomed to fighting wars this way. the advent of technology has -- in war, more information is better than less. to be able to push for information that is accurate, timely, and focused on the war

fighter has been invaluable i can tell you, having been in the joint special operations task force exercise, being a lawyer for the seals, be able to relay information from over here to the seal on the ground and getting a lot of heat from the seal on the ground to a commission, the mission would not get done if we could not do that. i worry about the degradation of the ability to do that, but i equally worry about some pfc having access to stuff he should never have access to personally, or if he does, downloading 2000 cables without a ball going of -- bell going off it would

fundamentally change the way we do more in the modern military. god forbid wikileaks get a hold of that information in the extreme and push it forward. i think that you could make the case even stronger that there is specific intent to injure somebody in charge for something like manslaughter. that puts a person in real danger. >> more questions? >> i think it was paul let me the comment -- call that made the comment about the press. sps notch -- espionage is espionage and the shield of the press should not change that. i could see members of congress saying that we need to license members of the press and only they would be able to report on

information. i could see that happening. that would concern me greatly. >> i guess i am more optimistic than you. doingot see congress something that ignited, and i cannot imagine courts of america letting that stand. what we might see is an attempt to construct the definition of what constitutes press activities that tries to distinguish between traditional mainstream press or even press on the web. i have a blog. am i a press person? i don't think so. i think there is a difference between me, even though my blog has my opinions, and george will, because he is in "the washington post" and a lot more people listen to his opinions. it is a hard line to draw. it is not a big we will get right the first time.

-- it is not something we will get right the first time. on the other hand, there is a way to get right the differences that encompasses and legitimate distinction between press activities we have all come to rightly rely upon as a bulwark of freedom in america, and the nihilistic, almost, activities of those who would use it to destroy the system. i will go on a limb and say that congress will not go for a press-licensing scheme in the next five years. >> let's hope not. any other questions? yes? >> going back to liability, have we established that a pure government mess up -- could we find out that whoever supply the technology has some fault here,

doing something they did not end up doing? >> let me be annoying and play law professor. maybe. i doubt it, because that would be a difficult defense to now. you are charged under your job as pfc or whatever you are in the military was not disclosing information -- with not disclosing information. you sign non-disclosure documents. there are general orders in place. you don't have the ability as a member of the military to distinguish between whether something is properly classified or not. it is or isn't. you cannot be half pregnant. just because of vendor created a product with some sort of sieve

or local or something, if the document says "classified" or not supposed to be disclosed, you are in violation of the law or general order. you have a hard time making that offense, just as a practical matter. c-span.or -- a hard time making that defense, just as a practical matter. >> somewhere along the line, something in the system's architecture went wrong, whether it was the rights put in because of the speed at which the classified information system was constructed, possible, or that the vendors to not -- did not put in so that was supposed to -- there are any number of places where the particular technical flaw, or this happen without anybody noticing,

occurred. in my world, for example, none of the top-secret level computers that i have had addressable cd-rom drives. it was physically impossible, and it had a plug-in. one of the things that happened is that we were using equipment that had the harbor capabilities. i assumed that because we were trying to build something that was necessary in a theatre of war and getting the bill is special equipment out from the united states is more challenging than by get off the shelf and making do. somewhere along the line, some systems assurance process failed. i have absolutely no idea which it was agreed weather was a hardware failure, software failure, management failure, but some are in the process it

failed. >> we have got just a few minutes left. it is obvious in our discussion that we have raised a lot of issues that are technical, -- procedural,le moral, process questions. i want to give our panel a chance to offer final thoughts. lisa? >> i guess, you know, just to reiterate that, you know, governments, not only the u.s., required and bill -- require an ability to have protected conversations, not only with foreign individuals, but people in-country to advance democracy and human rights. there has to be a way to protect those conversations, and in any business, you have requirements

to be able to protect information. that is something that many people have overlooked in this whole process. like you said, we have yet to see the full impact of the wikileaks phenomenon, but we have to go back and reiterate some of the traditions. you take an oath when you accept the public service. it is important to keep those standards of taking your commitment as a public servanti. that is one of the issues that we need to keep first and foremost in our minds as we move forward on the wikileaks case. >> i will make two points and try to go from wikileaks to bigger pieces, keeping with my

team that this incident is a reflection of a fundamentally -- fundamental nature of the internet. one piece we did not discuss much today, the internet makes it possible for people to exercise asymmetric power, which empowers individuals act to the detriment of big nation states. the biggest example of that in this story here is the apparent fact that assange has released an encrypted insurance file that supposedly contains some of the most secret things, that he threatens to uppeallow the encryption key for if he is ever charged. nobody is going to break any time soon. that gives him an almost unassailable refuge against

maybe even prosecution, if what is in that file is enough to scare the united states government from going after him. not knowing what is in it, you cannot make that prediction. but it put him on a level playing field, more of a level playing field, then you expect an individual to be in a position to do. the second, more fundamental thing that is happening is that the reaction that activists on the web to the arrest of assange demonstrates the same principle of asymmetry in interesting hyway. government did not really realize how important it was going to be. the first response to the misuse of the internet by government in the wake of wikileaks was to

mobilize what they considered to be their normal avenues of power -- they put pressures on paypal to shut down financing, pressure on mastercard and amazon to cut off service. that is out sovereign -- how sovereigns exercise power, influence a real world actors to take on the cyber world. it is interesting to watch the hacktivists fight back, and they are not fighting back in the kinetic world, they are fighting back in the cyber-world. what we are seeing through the prism of wikileaks is the fascinating effort by sovereigns -- the united states government, but you could think of china with its great fire wall and all the countries that are trying to control the internet -- try to

reclaim control over cyberspace, and the denizens of cyberspace fighting back in an anonymous, organized way. it is fascinating. i don't know how it will turn out, but lifting up trouble from wikileaks to something bigger. >> i am going to try to stay in my lane i suggest that -- and suggest that if we passed for six months to a year from now -- fast forward six months to a year from now, the laws as currently written are completely adequate to the task. assuming a thorough investigation to place -- took place, we will not have to

update the espionage act. but there is a point we should know, something that jim said that, thinking -- that got me thinking for the remainder of the panel -- if you believe that the press reports, manning was starting to exhibit troubling behavior. major hasan, the fort hood shooter, was exhibiting troubling behavior. if you peel back the onion and a bit and look at some of the bad actors who commit grcriminal acts -- of course, they're presumed innocent until proven guilty -- there are reasons that are troubling within themselves, political correctness among the. we did not do the right thing and sought the access that -- stop access that hasan had to

patients, manning had to classified information. maybe there is a systemic need to look at things -- it is the individual we need to look at, who has declared its and the access to xyz that we need to be mindful of, that everyone is an autonomous person. people sometimes abuse that power. it is a greek tragedy in a way. it goes back to a story that was around for years before we were alive. it is the individual we need to focus on as much, if not more, within the system. >> please join me in thanking all of our panelists. [applause]

>> coming up at 1:00 eastern, we will be live on c-span with the discussion of the health-care law. the director of the white house office on health reform will begin a discussion on implementing the law. once again, live coverage at 1:00 eastern. >> tonight on "the communicators," with the holiday season in full swing, a discussion on the internet sales tax with scott peterson of the streamlined sales tax governing board, and jerry cerasale the direct marketing association. that is at 8:00 eastern on c- span2. >> today on the floor, the senate continues debate on the start treaty. a number of amendments are

pending. any changes to the measure could send the treaty after negotiations with russia. you can see that debate live on c-span2. house return for legislative work they are waiting for the senate to act on temporary control spending a deal being considered now would increase spending more than $1 billion over the next four months. those agencies would see no increase. most the additional funds would go to veterans programs and low- income heating assistance. also, continuing science education programs. last week, congress passed a tax cut bill, and president obama cited this morning, "washington journal" looked into the provisions. we will leave this discussion at 1:00 eastern for a panel discussion on the new health- care law. ellis, vice president of taxpayers for common sense, welcome. guest: thanks for having me.

host: what is the most common provision in the tax bill that was just past? guest: when you think of the tax bill, you think of these really major provision, the 2001, 2003 tax cuts, the state tax relief, which was heavily debated, unemployment insurance. what we call focus on where these extenders and writers that caught a ride on this larger tax package, that really were not debated at all. you are looking at things like a $6 billion provision to benefit ethanol producers. you have billions of dollars but are going to go for other provisions like state sales-tax deductions and things along these lines, and things all the way down to $40 million that will benefit owners of race tracs and around the country. host: what counts as a special interest?

guest: is really micro targeted at that is going to go to a particular and to your interest. for instance, in one of these -- it is a little complicated, but essentially come on rum that is imported from the u.s. virgin islands or puerto rico, they pay an excise tax. under permanent law they get -- the two territories get money back, $10.50 a, but the last little bit of it, every year they do a cover over to rebate the $2 of new presence back to the territories. it really does go to benefit the poor mary rum producers to do marketing. to some extent, our tax dollars are going to teach us to mosquito or -- to mojito or that

we've got a little capt. in us. those dollars are going to help captain morgan build a new warehouse. it is money from territory to u.s. territory -- from u.s. territory to u.s. territory and it is tax dollars. host: and it will cover the from excise tax of $235 million. guest: right, just for a year. host: and let's talk about these racetracks. guest: certainly, nascar is of interest to millions of americans, no doubt about it. but nascar does not own the

tracks. there are corporations like the national speed with corporations and one other one as well that own all of these racetracks, whether it is talladega or daytona, watsons, glenn, those are old -- all owned by the same company that has spent the last several years lobbying for this provision. the irs made a decision a few years ago that these were not entertainment complexes like going to disneyland. a track is not the same scene. they were going to be able to depreciate their assets over a longer period of time, which is obviously less valuable. the quicker you can write off when you have invested, the better it is for your tax burden. they have been doing in seven years, which is what is the man gets to do it. the irs interpretation was going to push it to 15, even after 30 years in some cases for doing grandstands, patronage, track of

greats. -- grandstands, bathrooms, tracker rates. the irs came in and said, no matter what they will be able to depreciate in seven years. this has been extended each year for several years. it costs about $40 million a year. it is not a huge amount of money, but it is one of the problems in our tax code and the fact that we have these rifle shot provisions really do not make sense in the overall tax code. president bush and the tax commission said that we should be reforming these special provisions. host: do these provisions get into the tax bill? -- how do these provisions get into the tax bill? are they the in the original language or in a marked? guest: -- in a marked up? guest: the nascar provision, the

rahm provision, none of these are related to one another. but they have all been patched together and for years, they have been packaged as extenders. you may have a log rolling were your -- were you care about this provision, but not that one, but it almost forward. what has happened in the last two years is that because it is pay-as-you-go accounting, the fact that you have to offset any tax increase with a decrease, essentially, nobody was willing to pay for it. $6 billion for ethanol was fine when nobody was having to pay. but actually, now you have to find an offset, that is going to pay for. it did not go. what happened is when we did the major tax bill, the one that everybody knows about, they

caught a ride. waived paygo and they caught a ride. host: are these items that members of congress are proud of, that they tell their constituents about how they manage to get it because it benefits their part of the country? or are they under the radar and not necessarily tied to one person? guest: one of the things about the tax code is that it is a stealth the way to benefit people. when you do the spending of actual dollars, there is a check, a ribbon cutting, something is billing -- being built or something is being done, it is very hard to understand. it is complicated. the people know about it, the people who advocated for it, they know the lawmaker credit for them or that it was extended. there are millions of dollars being spent every year on campaign contributions and lobbying. certainly, something as high-

profile like the ethanol excise tax credit that god extended for almost $6 billion for another year, -- that got extended for almost $6 billion for another year, the core producers know who did this. in some respects -- the corn producers know who did this. host: here is a story by matthew murray. it talks about the last-minute campaign to reduce the industry's funds in the hundred $50 billion tax package. there is this effort that is going through and people are trying to call attention to it. senator dianne feinstein told will call that she is attempting to lower the ethanol subsidies by 20%. she called a bad policy and said it must be fixed. guest: and you have senator feinstein, a democrat from california, joining with the

senator kyl. it shows some of the breadth of the extension of the tax credits. you had some groups that were concerned about gertrude prices. you have some groups that are -- a grocery prices. you have some groups that are concerned about the prices of this across the world. if you have the free-market groups that are all concerned about the issue. we have a broad coalition, but yet, lawmakers were willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of taxpayer victory on this particular issue. one of the things about ethanol is that here is a provision -- you know, the government has many ways to provide -- to support an industry. weekend -- we can use taxpayer dollars, mandated to use, or

have a tariff. with ethanol we actually have all three. we have a tariff against foreign ethanol and we have this excise tax credit. the mandate, the 12 billion gallons, that is what drives the market for ethanol. that is what the sides that we are when to use it. this tax credit is just a subsidy essentially saying that we are lining the pockets of companies like shell oil that are landing, rather than actually making any changes in policies. host: from this reason roll-call peace -- roll call piecewill cal --

guest: and there is no doubt that he is right. he is the ranking member on the finance committee. it also people like senator conrad, the budget committee chairman from north dakota. basically, if you grow corn, you like ethanol. if you live anywhere else, it is a bad deal for you. host: our guest steve ellis. , the numbers are on the screen. we are talking about a special interest, -- we started out special interests, provisions in the recent tax bill. cliff goodrich role -- let's go to control. caller: how is it that democrats are deciding whether a crawl as a food or drug? alcohol is a food or a drug?

guest: that is a good question. they're having this debate over whether to give this a tax credit back to these jurisdictions, back to the virgin islands and puerto rico. basically, they were using the funds to build roads and like i said, some advertising funds in pr. but in this case they are actually building this distillery. it is unclear to me of congress make that distinction. host: looking at what was noted , $162 million for u.s. film and television production. guest: that is essentially to try to promote that for many years people would go to canada, for instance, to film in the united states. in reality, the question is, do

they really have an effect? the fact that these get extended year after year after year is that nobody is really looking to see if it is promoting production in the united states. what would happen otherwise? almost 40 states have provisions to try to promote television and film production in their states. and if everybody is doing it, it does not really matter. it becomes a subsidy that they were just going to pocket and they were already going to film in alabama or detroit or wherever. host: is there anything new in this? guest: there is not a lot new. it essentially became an end of the years sort of thing and it was things that were already debated. there were things that were kind of new to us. we looked into one thing that sounds really good for food inventory. essentially, if you have food that you want to donate to food banks that appears to be -- by

and trying to remember the word, that was not helpful. host: wholesome. guest: yes, and it could be past its expiration date, it could be not marketable because it does not look good. basically, you could just a pure food and get a tax credit ordaz- dump your food and get a tax credit for it. host: and that is $92 million for taxpayers. next call, go ahead from ohio. caller: is it true that this could cost taxpayers $6 billion? guest: is true from the perspective that being held

from a lower tax rate. there's also the estate tax. host: let's go to our next call in florida. will the democrats line. -- will, on the democrats line. caller: thanks for taking my call. the question i have, and it is kind of bothering me, i live down on the coast and i spend a lot of time on my boat. the problem with a tunnel that has been documented so much with the marine industry, the motors with small engines, we keep subsidizing ethanol and it has been written up in a lot of voting books and stuff. corn is so destructive to our soil is going to be like the dust bowl because we have to

read fertilize -- we have to be fertilized and -- refertilize and it is not only is so destructive to our agriculture, but the cost in the marine industry, the equipment, it has gone to the place where we are going to destroy ourselves. i cannot afford a new engine. wehrli going such a destructive way? -- why are we going such a destructive way? guest: that is a very good point. one of the issues is small engines. essentially, there is an issue with the attractiveness of ethanol. it is the same reason why it cannot go in the same pipelines and as our oil as well. it is essentially destroying

these small engines. epa is talking are making it in 85/15 planned. but the dollar also made a good point in that it goes into even our farm policy it is promoted over others. when you go into corn, there is used to be -- it used to be that they will allwould alternate wih other crops. corn requires using nitrogen and other things that are not so good for the soil. there are some unintended consequences that come out of our subsidies policies, whether it is the ethanol or two are our cultural policies and the farm bill.

robert ins go to oregon, independent color. caller: good morning. excuse me, i have something in my throat. but i guess it's all right now. i carry the title -- i do not use it often, but i am a professor emeritus. as far as ethanol is concern, it produces less mileage then gasoline, by far, and it is also destructive to rubber tubing of any kind on your engines. and as the previous caller said, using corn to produce ethanol deprives it of the feed for cattle and raises the price of beef. since we have made -- an abundance of gasoline, it seems to me that the use of ethanol,

which produces less mileage than gasoline, is ridiculous. and the subsidies for farmers to grow corn that we can i use for other things is observed. guest: he is absolutely right. it is absurd in a lot of ways. his point about the rubber tubing is correct as well. and all of this produces less btu's. they gallon of ethanol is less -- a gallon of ethanol is less explosive than a gallon of gasoline. but also, going to will's, and as well, why is it still going on, part of this goes to senator grassley in iowa and it is a

huge producer of ethanol. where do we have the first caucus? is in iowa. every president has to been a need to the ethanol industry and talk about how great it is. some people lose the iowa caucus because they were so against the use of ethanol, like john mccain. or there was another candidate that joked about having a glass of ethanol every morning with breakfast. how host: are the special provisions in the tax code different than his remarks? guest: they're not that much different than the remarks. obviously, in -- and your mark goes to one particular -- and here mark herean earmark those

to one particular entity, a clear address. but these are definitely for just a few entities. beside the fact that they distort the tax code to certain areas and to promote certain businesses or even industry, they are siblings, if not the same. host: last week of my organization released this fiscal year 2010 ranking by a member. this got scuttled over the weekend, but still, this is where things are going. some of the biggest year markers are are actually republicans. -- some of the biggest earmark ers are actually republicans. guest: and if you look at the

top five, the next three are democrats. and you have a pretty big thing here. clearly, they start with themselves. i always think about the tower of champagne glasses at a wedding. the first one gets fall and then everybody else and the youngest congressman get their little drops finally. but they were, by our count, there were $638 billion in the remarks that did get scuttled. -- in earmarks that did get scuttled. host: how did this compare with previous years?

the guest: is down a little bit from -- guest: it is down a little bit from -- when we do an analysis we look at about seven years of bills. we tried to make that information available on our website. last year there were disclosed earmarks. we have a slightly different definition. compared to last year, there were $10 billion in disclosed earmarks in fiscal year 2010 and there were $3 billion in disclosed their marks in fiscal year 2011. one of the reasons for that is that many of the republicans have a moratorium on your marks. there were only four republicans that did not go along with that.

who: let's hear from donna, joins us from newcastle, pa.. caller: could morning. -- good morning. i am really concerned about this. and i'm seeing, like with senator grassley, for example, you know, with this ethanol thing in the whole cornyn thing and all of that. and him bragging about it. -- the whole corn and of that. and him bragging about it. it is the poor people that are going to suffer. and i am one of them myself. when the new house members come in and the republican senators coming in, what is actually going to happen? they are already talking about

screen social security out. -- is growing social security up. cutting spending. clean some of this crop up. please. guest: she is right. you need to cut everywhere. and certainly, there has got to be a lot of targeting across the board. the commission report really did look at everything. they looked at entitlements. they looked at spending and i taxes. things like the ethanol excise tax credit, they did not target it. they may have started it in a specifically, but generically, -- targeted at it this was of a good, but generically, we need to be looking at these provisions and the tax code, sort of like what we did in 1986 with the last tax reform.

when we need to look at how to make social security more sustainable and how to get discretionary spending under control. those are all things that congress is going to have to -- congress is going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time. the only way to do it as to tackle them all at the same time. host: pat on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. the comment that i have is considered in the tea party. i was amazed at how much impact they had and they hired all of these new republicans in congress. and they hired them because they were under the impression that the verbal genser were going to actually -- the republicans were actually going to cut out all of these earmarks and spending and what not. how does the tea party feel now, because they are not marching on

washington and we are not hearing from them as much -- but how do they feel about the republicans allowing these special provisions and these tax bills to go through? it is just shameless luxury. guest: pat is on to something in the fact that once you get them elected, you have to hold these people accountable. most of the people with the tea party, or that were elected in the 2010 elections have not taken office. at least the newly elected people. we will have to see how that shapes up in the house with the new republican majority. but clearly, in the senate, i would argue that people who are going to go along as -- business as usual have their knees shanks.

democrats were going to go along with the omnibus and they turned at the end. even the republicans that were going to vote against it for being criticized because they had earmarks worth billions of dollars. the senator from kentucky talked about how he was going to vote against it and it was a bad bill, but he had $112 million worth of the remarks in the spending bill and has long been a proponent of them. he was for them before he was against them. people are starting to call people -- lawmakers are on that. there was a press conference where two congressmen were questioned about why they were not announcing -- not renouncing their earmarks. senator hatch actually did renounce his earmarks. the proof will be in the pudding. once we get into january and there are these newly elected

theicials, strengthening piozz majority, we will have to see whether they deliver the goods. host: you have been with the taxpayers for common sense for 10 years. how poplin you is -- how palpable and new is this issue of frustration oover earmarks? a guest: i think the public has a recognition of that and it has culminated over time. the democrats won the majority, in part, on running against jack abramoff, duke cunningham -- the former congressman who is now in prison -- the highway bill.

those things all sort of resonated and they came in and made the remarks more transparent. they absolutely did. -- they made earmarks more transparent. they absolutely did. but when you look at the deficit situation, people picked up on that as well. from our organization's point of view, it is not just about earmarks. they are a small percentage of the overall federal budget, but it is one of the areas that congress puts a disproportionate amount of attention. and i think if people have been in washington too long they just start to say it is just $10 billion. it does not really resonate with the public. if we can look a projects on their merit, then we can start setting funding priorities and we can have merit based systems to award funding. that will cause a ripple effect

across government beyond earmarks. also, we want to see congress hold the executive branch more accountable. your marks have been eight giving away for -- earmarks have been a convenient way for the executive branch to engage. we want to see them holding the executive branch to account on how they spend on new priorities and how they meet the various -- those various formula in other programs. host: taxpayers for common sense has completed an initial database of over 6700 earmarks with over $8.3 billion in the failed spending bill. let's go to a caller, santa barbara, california. hi, linda. caller: i want to comment that the tax code is a major source

of power for -- i would say, all politicians who have the ability to tinker with it. and that is why they resist anything that resembles a flat tax and the code is increasingly more complicated. maybe 50% of the people who do not pay taxes, is there any chance that we could get real tax reform to stop this abuse of the tax code? guest: linda brings up a good point. this is actually a state-federal issue. chief justice john marshall talked about the power to tax and the power to destroy. it is an enormously powerful tool for congress to do good or and a lot of times it is unclear what they are accomplishing. the caller mentioned that about

50% of people do not pay tax. it is actually to income tax. they do not paid in -- they do not pay payroll tax like social security and medicare. in reality, the issue here is very clear that these micro targeted provisions, like some of which are in this extended package, but others are literally across the code and even others that were in how the 2001 or the 2003 tax bills, things like, the marriage penalty relief or the child care tax credit, these are targeting -- for instance, there is a tax credit for having a kid. is someone going to have a kid based on the tax credit? i certainly hope not. but the question of why we are doing targeted provisions throughout the code, supposedly

we are promoting home ownership through the home mortgage interest deduction, but really can't have a little higher interest rate than the united states does and does not have that provision. we had a major reform in 1986 where we eliminated many of these targeted provisions and to lower the overall tax rate. expand the base, lower the rate. what happens is, it is sort of like a forest. you have a forest fire and clear out all of the underbrush and the underbrush starts growing and building up. we are really due for another brush fire. one of these things in the extended package was a deduction for the state's sales income tax. that was eliminated in the 1986 tax.

it is really something that was going to target benefits -- a benefit states that do not have income tax. states like texas, florida, north dakota and alaska, these are all states that have no income tax. they therefore gave real benefit out of the provision. host: the estimated cost to taxpayers, $2.8 billion. let's go to john in now kicking in mexico. -- in albuquerque, new mexico. caller: this is a great conversation you're having, but for years i could never understand, how companies can claim a sporting event tickets and claim that they are a deduction. for years i had -- i saw that happen. that is not a business expense. they deduct their ranches, everything they buy. baited up their ski boats and

their trips. then they deduct all the ball tickets. -- they deduct their ski boats and their trips. they deduct all of their ball tickets. the will never watched a ballgame the same way again. -- you will never watch a ballgame the same way again >> we will need this segment now as the director of the white house office for health care reform, nancy and deparle, will discuss health care reform. we are live at the center for american progress here in washington. >> welcome to the center for american progress. i am neera tanden, the chief operating officer. i was thinking of for coming. today's events and how to make health care organizations to make more rigid work more effectively have kicked off the

center's work on lowering costs and discussions about payment reform. we believe strongly that to fulfill the profit -- to restore the process of the affordable health care act, we need to ensure we are lowering costs over the long term. that is why we have today's panel as well as a series of discussions taking place of the next several months and the year to really illustrate how we can talk about the promise of payment reform most effectively. howy's panel will discuss to make the affordable care act work in terms of accountable care organizations. we have a great panel. leading off the panel is nancy- ann deparle. we are honored to have her as the president's counselor and the director of the white house office of health-care reform. she really led the effort.

when i worked in the obama administration, i served on the health-care team under nancy- ann. she was a fantastic general leading the efforts and we are glad to have her. most importantly, she has a history of reform in these efforts because she was, as many of you know, the director of cms. she brought that expertise to the discussion of lowering costs, increasing quality, and making care better for all americans in the lead up to the legislation. we are honored to have her here today, my friend nancy-ann deparle. [applause] >> thank you, neera. i am glad to be here today and i would think the center for american progress to bring this together to talk about the implementation of the affordable health care act and

in particular affordable care organizations. neera and her team have been busy working on some of these issues including how to really make sure we are lowering costs in a way that makes health care more efficient and effective for patients. that includes the work you have done on collapse and other areas -- on co-ops. i want to think many of the people here today including some of those on the panel and my colleague john blum. they have created ideas to make this more efficient and effective for patients. our goal is to make sure that health care is high quality and high value. the affordable care -- the affordable health care act have deliver the provisions. this is the nine month anniversary of president obama signing the affordable health care act. it seems like just yesterday in some ways.

2010 has been a remarkable nine months. on sunday morning before the bill passed in the house, president obama was already focused on implementation and made clear that he wanted the process to be careful and expeditious. our administration team has tried to achieve his vision. it is an incredible honor to work with many of you in this room on the president's vision making health care more affordable and accessible for americans. as we approach the waning days of 2010, we are finishing up the last pieces of what i call phase one of the implementation of the affordable health care act which really has two parts. one is setting new rules of the road for insurance companies and gives consumers more control over their health insurance and, more importantly, more transparency over what is happening in the health insurance market. secondly is expanding in stabilizing coverage for some americans, especially early retirees, people with pre-

existing conditions, and young people have been most at risk losing coverage. it has been a very busy nine months working on those two areas of phase one. we have implemented a patient's bill of rights that will give consumers an unprecedented protections. under the new law, americans in the new insurance plans of preventive services without additional out-of-pocket costs. nine adults will be able to stay on their parents plans until they turn 26. already, this change has brought relief to americans and their parents used to worry about how they would get coverage first starting out. consumers in new plans will have the freedom to choose their primary-care providers within their network without having to get a referral. patients in the new plan to receive less services in an emergency room of a hospital -- who receive services in the emergency room of a hospital who are not covered. insurance companies will not be able to discriminate against children with pre-existing

conditions. insurers cannot impose a lifetime limit on the care and annual limits are restricted until 2014 when they will be eliminated. consumers will have the right to appeal a decision made by their insurance company to an independent third party. these are just some of the new rights that americans have received and consumers have received as a result of the affordable care act that we have been rolling out over the course of the last nine months. importantly, we are also easing the burden on seniors by providing medicare enrollees have hit the construction drug coverage, called the doughnut hole, a $250 rebate to help defray costs. by 2020, we intend to close the hole completely. starting this january, the prescription drugs that seniors purchase will give a 50% discount. over time, the doughnut hole will close.

in 2014, the law will not only prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre- existing conditions, but it will ban insurers from charging people more based on their gender or healthcare status. i do not need it to you what news is that change will bring to the marketplace. all of these protections are key to ensuring that americans have access to quality coverage and can take advantage of the delivery system along with the private sector efforts helped to boost. if you look forward to 2011, we are now beginning to work in earnest on phase two of the implementation. again, this has two pieces as well. one, working with the state's deceptive changes for marketplaces where there will be affordable health care choices for consumers and small businesses to have not had them before. we just had a meeting at hhs last week were 44 states and the district of columbia came to washington to work on the planning for setting up these exchanges.

the second piece of the work we are beginning now is what we call a delivery system reforms, working with employers, hospitals, doctors, nurses, consumers, leaders in the health-care community and system to implement reform to our delivery system to make the health care system work better for patients and over the long run lower-cost. this is crucial work and it is why the timing of this conference and discussion today are sold important. i think everyone in this room agrees that while we have a very good health care system in the united states that we can improve it. we can improve the quality of care we provide. in a paper released today from the center of american progress points out, our health care system does not reward doctors and hospitals today to keep patients healthy. in fact, it does the opposite. we pay more for more care regardless of the outcome which does not make sense. we all know that delivery system

reforms need to happen to recruit patients safety and quality, to save lives, lower costs. in many instances, the good news is there are proven strategies we can implement to improve the strategies. that is why the affordable health care act makes delivery system reform that will take critical steps in keeping patients healthier and better preventing and manage elises. one delivery system reform is accountable care organizations. glenn hackbarth, i remember the discussion we had when we served together on medpac. it is kind of a wonky name. it can make it easier for doctors, nurses, and other members to coordinate provided care. the council care organization program goes beyond the direct provision of care. it is a shared savings incentives aligned so the medicare accountable care

organization program will encourage investment in the health information technology and innovative ways of delivering care that will improve the quality of care for patients. caner the new law, aco's deliver all the care beneficiaries need in a court did way to provide value to the medicare program and deliver improved quality of care to the patients. another aspect of the reform implementation efforts of interest to the people here today is a national pilot program on payment bundling. the law calls for a national volunteer pilot program that will encourage providers and hospitals to better coordinate patient care and paper of the health-care services a patient receives during hospitalization in a bundle the payment. in makes a lot of sense but it is a significant departure from the existing medicare payment methods right now. under the rules of this pilot, providers of able to distribute payments they deem fit among members of the team instead of

in compliance with medicare's existing administrative pricing system. there are a number of other provisions in the affordable care at that are excellent opportunities to innovate and provide care more efficiently. the payment changes to address hospital-acquired ellises and unnecessary. missions. two areas of unnecessary expense that are so costly to patients as well as the medicare cost medicare, patience, and payers millions of dollars each year and these avoidable situations where people get an infection in the hospital or they are readmitted just because the care the first time was not what was needed, they lead to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and illnesses that are a real burden on the parents that we're supposed -- the patience with her supposed to be serving. through the newly established cms innovation center, we have both the authority and resources to take bold,

innovative steps right now. the innovation center will test models and include establishing an open innovation community that serves as an innovation clearing house for best practices in the health-care renovation. as i said, there are lots of things going on that can show you can serve patients effectively, save money, and also create a better, high- quality health care systems for the patients. we need to get that information out of the places around the country. the innovation center will work with stakeholders to create learning communities to help other clinicians, doctors, and nurses to rapidly implement these new care models. i am proud of what we have accomplished so far and what we have in the pipeline, especially many of the delivery system reforms which we believe will make patient care safer, improve quality, efficiency come and save money for employers, the government, everyone. as you know, as we convene here in washington, some people want to go back to the days when insurance companies, instead of

patients and their providers were in control of our health- care system. frankly, on the of the defenders of the status quo can produce a plan that will meaningfully help people and meaningfully improve the health care system the way the affordable health care act does. repealing the law would mean that 32 million americans who would have gained coverage and the affordable care act would remain uninsured. it would mean insurance companies can once again in pose double-digit premium increases on americans that we've been seeing for the past decade with no real oversight, transparency, or accountability. all of the landmark consumer protections i mentioned in the new bill of rights will evaporate. these new promising efforts to help doctors and hospitals improve the way they deliver care, such as the council care organizations we will talk about today would come to a screeching halt the law were to be

appealed. it would eliminate a significant debt reductions and over $1 trillion over the following decade of the affordable care act were to be brought about. digester feeling some of the key cost-saving measures in the medicare, medicaid, and schip would it reduce the deficit. i could go on and on about the countless benefits that the law has already, and will continue, to deliver to americans in this country that will go out the window at this is repealed. i think all of you here get the picture. one thing that you can all do it helps is to educate your patience, friends, and neighbors about what is in the affordable care act and how can benefit them. there has been enormous disinformation and the public has been evenly split four months about those who favor maintaining the affordable care act, expanding it, strengthening and, as opposed to those who think that the law should go away.

there is a lot of cognitive dissonance. people hear one thing, here that the law is bad, then they experience getting a very different thing. a friend who is helped by the pre-existing condition insurance plan, a person who has not been able to get insurance on their home -- on their own and then they are assisted. a child who does not have coverage and graduated from college, has an internship that does not provide health insurance, and now they can stay on their parents' plan. it is not surprising that a lot of people do not quite know what to think. you can help them. many of the people here today have played and continue to play a vital role in the successful implementation of the affordable care act. that does not mean that we all agree. people are playing a successful role by helping us address the questions that they have and work on the regulations that we need to implement lot and make sure that we do so in a way that

is not disruptive. i want to thank them as well. moving forward, the president and their team in the administration is focused on implementing this new law to me this and make it able to all americans. thank you for having me here today, and again, good luck on your discussion and overlooking forward to hearing your ideas. thank you. [applause] >> the afternoon, everyone. i am judy feder from the center for american progress and a fellow at georgetown. i am very pleased that nancy-ann was able to join us. i am sure this will be an

interesting discussion on payment reform in a particular the affordable health care act. we know that whether the issue is a success of health reform, the sustainability of our existing coverage, or the fiscal health of the nation that the key to future success is slowing the growth in health-care costs. key to our success in that effort are decisions that hhs and the center for medicaid /medicare services is now making in implementing the tools provided by the affordable care act. it is these decisions that we are here to discuss today in will belar how aco's defined. broadly speaking, they are i'm -- date delivering coordinate care needed by a specific set of patience. under terms, and allows them to benefit financially as long as

they inshore and improve the quality of care that patients get. when these will really be in practice and whether they will truly deliberate from the emphasis on volume to the emphasis on value, as we typically same, depends on the kind of decisions we turn to now. i will give you a quick overview of recommendations that my senior fellow, a harvard economics professor, who is not able to be here today, made in a paper that we have just put out and we will discuss the issue we raised along with other issues that will come up. glenn heart -- glenn hackbarth, steven lieberman, and debra ness, leader of the consumer coalition campaign for better care.

first, my two cents with david, the paper is available to you and available online and i will start with the issue of who becomes an accountable health care organizations. the law allows many to form and hospitals seem to be leading the charge. they are actively engaged in connecting to other providers, acquiring physicians, practices, or hiring physicians hopefully to work with the broad set of providers engaged in in the delivery of care to better coordinate. more needed is a reduction of hospital years. hospitals working with ever providers can and have achieved that goal. and hand, they can share in the savings. what they actually do is an open question. it raises some concerns about

whether instead hospitals can use this as an opportunity to enhance their domination of local markets and use their market power to protect existing patterns of care rather than promote change. if, alternatively, physicians take the lead, they can gain rather than lose revenue in the process in making hospitals compete for a set of count on the referrals they provide in order -- compete for instead of counting on the referrals they provide. john, i will keep looking at you, on this recommendation to recommend that cms works alongside hospital-led aco's to emphasize when it takes good physician care to deliver. for example, reductions in

preventable we admissions and emergency room years -- readmissions and emergency room use. managing in coordinating patient care and to the range of tools made available to the affordable care act, encouraging better primary care especially if your innovations. the second issue is how to pay account will care organizations, which we hope will also be affordable. the aco concept aimed to entice physicians and hospitals to produce a paid in the new behavior primarily by offering financial benefits if they reduce spending relative to projections while achieving benchmarks for quality of care. in a section of the law that establishes accountable care organizations, it is called the

shared savings provision. it's specifically allows the secretary t as other payment models to improve quality and efficiency -- to use other payment models. first asto offer aco's a choice and after three years, payment share with the aco's some of the risks. we give them the option of saying it -- taking some of their payments in a lump sum rather than a fee-for-service to give them up front support to invest in technology, staff, and other mechanisms to truly to be able to manage the care they provide. so why a share of risks as well as savings? evidence suggests simply allowing rewards to lower savings without some responsibility in our over- spending is likely to be too

limited of an incentive to overcome the benefit of providing more and more services under the fee-for-service system and is unlikely to be as effective as we help in changing provider behavior. from the get go, we want providers to not only participate in the arrangements aimed at better delivery, but we want to make sure the arrangements will achieve the delivery reforms that we want to produce which requires an alternative payment arrangement simultaneous and on the same scale as the shared savings approach. also is the role of consumers. the emphasis in aco development on measuring and assuring patient-centered care as a position for financial benefits and on sharing risk and not delegating to the providers, we show a strong commitment to truly changing patterns of care and not generating the backlash

that met hmos years ago. to that and the coming in even more importantly, to promote the shared decision making that leads to better care, we recommend a strong focus on consumers in implementation, specifically that consumers know the rules through which their positions are playing in have a choice to participate as well as a choice to continue to use providers as they see fit, that they get a share in the financial rewards derived from using care more efficiently as their providers recommend, they have someplace to go for recourse if they question their aco. and physician-led aco's consumer engagement and protection, david and i argued that cms cannot launch the medical care system that the

affordable care act has in mind. that is our defense for the administration and it is food for thought. i am delighted to have the others with expertise. john should go first, but as we discussed, we will have others speak first then we will turn to john to discuss a little a monster ourselves that we will open the floor for conversation. -- to discuss a little amongst ourselves. as nancy-and referred to, we have been working on this at medpac for some time. you have offered comments to cms on the issues we addressed as well as other issues. i was wondering if you would speak on where the commission is and what they recommend. >> thank you, judy. i appreciate the opportunity.

the point there recommend will overlap with what judy and david presented in their paper. i will try to add in a few different things as well. let me begin by saying that we are an organization that agrees with the basic premise of the aco provision and many others namely that if we are going to have a better performing, high- value health-care system we need to change how we pay for services, and encourage more effective forms of health care delivery. of course, the aco is one such provision but it is not the only one in the law. nancy-ann mentioned the following provision, and the

like, which we think are also very important. the provision with the basic sharron model, we think it is a good starting point towards creating organizations that and great care across the full range of services. we are concerned that the gain- sharing a model may be too weak and model, but it is an inviting starting model for new organizations that are just beginning to coalesce, having a model where they can gain without being at risk i think will attract people who may otherwise be discouraged from for dissipation. in that sense, it is a good thing. -- otherwise would be discouraged from participation.

it would be good to see the gain-sharing model as the starting model from which organizations must eventually graduate. this does not provide for graduation. it is viewed as an enduring model. if we were to seek to require organizations to move on from gain-sharing, at some point that would require a legislative change. that is not something john could be expected to do on his own. something that cms may be able to do on their own is think about adding other models, two- sided models, that have but the gain-sharing and downsize risk and create incentives for organizations to move down the continue on overtime as the gaining experience in better managing care. one variable that may be used to encourage that migration is the

percentage of savings that the organization gets to keep the. as i read the statute, there is much in that dimension. you could say if you go into a two-sided model where the organization, they would get a higher percentage of the savings on the upside if they are successful. another issue we have spent time talking about is how to set the targets. specifically whether the targets and the aggressiveness should vary based on the historical cost level of the organization. let's take the example of an organization that has been a very efficient in the past but it is a market that has a low per-capita medicare costs.

if you set the target based on the historical experience, it becomes more difficult for them to achieve additional gains and rewards them for reorganization that is created in a very high cost area where there is a lot of wasted to be eliminated. on the face of it, that seems inequitable. having said that, it is a tricky issue once we start to think about it. the natural instincts may be to say to set more generous targets for their organizations operating in low-cost areas and set more aggressive targets for those who operate in and high- cost areas. the rescue reinecke go too far down that path is now one participates in the high cost areas -- the risk you run if you go too far down that path is that the risks are too aggressive. everyone is participating in the low-cost areas because they offer more money than what has

historically been in the area. then you have the aco's were you do not need them and none of where you need them in the historically high cost areas. make -- you have a potential tensions situation between equity and what makes sense in encouraging the long-term evolution of the medicare program. >> you came out where on that one? >> we came out on encouraging cms to make modest changes in the name of equity to make targets more generous in the lower cost areas and a little bit more aggressive in the high cost areas but do not go too far. >> a balancing of participation? >> yes. my last point to emphasize is one that judy has already mentioned which is the role of beneficiaries.

it seems to us very important that beneficiaries been notified, at a minimum, that the providers caring for them are adopting the new payment model. indeed it to the extent that we are moving away from gain- sharing to a more aggressive modeled that have upside and downside risks, the importance of the notification, we think, gets more important. we are very concerned that if we are not careful that we could end up with a replay of the managed care backlash of the 1990's which seems to have resulted from patients feeling like their care was being changed without their consent and that others were benefiting from the change, providers, insurers, employers, and they were not. it was the carsten aspect of it

that caused concern -- it was deemed the coercive aspect. there were more than happy to be that concerned. the same set of ingredients could exist if we are not careful. it is critically important that patients buy into this, be informed, be educated, and now with the benefits of aco's are for them. >> thank you and we will turn to deborah to talk about the patient's side. first, i want to turn to steve it is working on the delivery system is provided on the ground trying to build new organizations. what are you hearing? what do you want to tell cms to do? >> thank you, judy. a pleasure to be here. i congratulate you and david on

a really terrific paper that captures in a nice way some of the critical issues and some of the issues that need to be grappled with. i think that i am struck by not only the thoughtfulness of glenn's comments but a lot of the trade-offs. there are a lot of nuanced choices. it is important to differentiate points where people have agreements of being left of the decimal point and how best to deal with the deficit. they are important issues, but they are to the right to the decimal point. in exploring this concept, it is important to distinguish when we are talking about alternative ways to improve the concept of

verses fundamental questions of principle and how to design aco's and how they should work. my second introductory comment is i want to apologize and recognize how hard the job that john and his colleagues have at the cms. they are being asked to regulate something that is basically never existed. we have analogues, but we do not have aco's. there are two dozen sections where it says there is a discussion with the secretary of how to implement these things. there is a lot of punting the ball down the road a little bit and hoping cms figures it out. i think it is a very challenging task for them, and this is a bit obama article

coming out, but i would like to cover four quick topics. aco's are creating systems of care. the fundamental belief is systems are better than non- systems. the empirical literature shows that and partially because we do not have systems of care than you cannot have a large enough to lift patients to either do meaningful projections of budget and a measurement of financial performance. equally importantly, you cannot do meaningful measures of quality and outcomes. the need to have size and someone saying, i, as a provider, and taking -- "i, as a provider, and taking responsibility." you mostly to bundle the payments anyways.

building systems is important. try to think about howaco's -- how aco's differ from hmo's, they have structural features to lock people and leaving the you have to be enrolled, part of a prison that work, there are benefits differentials if you got out of network, them prior authorization and relatively strong ability to influence what patients a day. the second mention of hmo's what type of the delivery systems, but what systems of care? how do i improve care? disciplinary teams, mrsa mines, going through a list of things that people have done. -- disciplinary teams, nurse hotlines, going through a list. i look forward to debra's

comments on how best to engage the beneficiary. the second point i want to go to be on the importance of systems is the notion of shared savings. glenn and judy both covered that well. it is somewhere between fee-for- service and as an anti-and said it is a system, from an economist's perspective, that says you are a revenue center. the more you do, the more you get paid, and the incentive is maximize revenue. providers become cost centers. therefore, what we want to do with share savings is to have a moderate balance between the two. jim house suggested the idea of payment system was to pay on average and to have equal margin, marginal cost. they had an incentive to do one thing or the other, what would drive them would be what is clinically appropriate.

as the lead noted, and as you noted in your paper -- as you and glenn noted, it has very weak incentives. as we start to move towards an arrangement where providers will get more of the rewards if they do better than budget but will be financially responsible with lower fees, if they exceed budget, there is partial capitation to build stronger incentives so the requirements on a system in terms of fiscal solvency, licensure, beneficiary protections, becomes very important. i just want to take a minute to follow the money. if an aco has a 5% savings, which many people would say is a significant reduction, and would be 5% net savings and it typically it costs a fair amount

of money to achieve these things in the upfront investment. just for the purposes of this discussion, my target is 100 and i achieve 95. the first 2% and the formulations would go to the pair because the statistical matter of projecting budgets is very noisy and there will be random winnings were people win by chance. if i go from 100% down to 98%, the remaining 3% in many formulations would get split 50% to the pair and 50% to the provider. for every $5 i caut, the aco ges which is 15%-20% of what you would normally spend on primary care. it is more like 4%-5% spent on

physician care and a 2% on what is spent on physician and hospital care. the savings start to get watered. that is one of the reasons that i think i agree with your recommendation to build in a ladder of escalation said the system can start with training wheels where it is a bonus on the system and then progress -- bonus only system. as they get licensed and then can move to partial capitation. one of the ways we would suggest cms use its authority is to limit the number of initially type ofaco's, not the but the number, but this is an explicitly experimental system where we do not know what works and this is somewhat unorthodox in a medical context.

use the secretary's discretion to limit the numbers of providers to make sure that we get a real representative sampling because what is possible in california, where there is lots of experience with delegated experience, is very different than what would be possible in parts of the country without that infrastructure. just to quickly windup, the last thing is who forms aco's? this is a critically important issue. if i am a hospital cfo, most of the low hanging fruit in terms of the 5% of savings will come out of the hospitals. if i have high fixed costs, that means a reduction in my top line revenue translates into a worse off the bottom line which means as a responsible hospitals cfo that i want to avoid that. you say hospitals are already a major force that will be likely

to be forming systems. unfortunately, that may undermine the degree of competitiveness in many markets. physicians had shown themselves historically to not be very good at either organizing or having capital to fund the organizations. the returns to not look attractive enough for venture- capital money. where i think that leaves us are with two non-hospital alternatives which are existing systems of care where you have delivery systems that have the infrastructure that can expand from capitated patients to a fee-for-service patients or pco's. it is an interesting question of trying to a line and short sentences with delivery system incentives. let me stop there. how that gets done is a really interesting question. i will just leave as a conclusion the point that, which i think is consistent with what

you were saying, that if the problem will just be a lack of capital at least to start these things, working capital, the question is whether this is an attractive play for insurers and try to avoid hospital-dominated aco's. >> thank you. a lot of food for thought. i want to turn to you, debra, because you are engaged actively in this discussion. we talked about not wanting to receive a backlash about deliberate and operating responsibly there. we also talked about the initiative of payments--- patient-centered care. we look to you to tell us how best to have patience engaged in the process and the public engaged in its success. >> a great. thank you very much. i want to add my compliments to you and david for your wonderful

paper. let me say a word about the campaign for better care. it is a growing coalition of more than 160 organizations, state and national, that of come together to work on payment and delivery system reformed in ways that will make care more coordinated, patient-centered, comprehensive for those who need it the most especially older adults and people with multiple chronic conditions, those who are the most vulnerable, highest users, highest risk, and generating the highest costs in the system. your paper is actually quite exciting and quite in sync with the consumer coalition is. he asked me to talk about specifically about our reaction to the payment recommendation and the patient recommendation. first, i will say i could not agree more that this is an evolutionary process and we are walking a careful line for both

providers and patients. at the end of the day, we need them both to make very significant changes in their behavior. at the same time, we needed to work so we needed to build aniline enough accountability -- we need to build in and accountability and incentive to participate to patients see enough in and to feel like they are betting -- they are getting better care, better costs. given that, i think your proposal that we need to transition from a system of that yearly bonus or share the savings to one which would include a share risk and moves away from fee-for-service is absolutely essential. the people who are getting hurt the most by fee-for-service our patients who suffer from the fragmented and overly expensive care that it produces. there are a few things i want to

add. the accountability issue is critical. at the end of the day, whenever the payments incentives are, we need to make sure we are holding this accountable at the end. you propose in your paper one of the most powerful measures of accountability, one of the major cost centers, which is reducing unnecessary hospitalizations, preventing unnecessary readmissions and e.r. use. we agree with that. we think most of the costs in the system are generated by people with multiple chronic conditions. we need to look hard and good coordination measures. it seems -- and things like medication management as well which can cause a huge problem for the elderly and those with multiple chronic conditions. finally, the law does a pretty good job of saying this and we will do everything we can to push the fact that one of the

major ways to hold these models accountable has to be with patient-centered metrics. that means coming to me, collecting patients reported data about their experience of care and their outcomes of care. at the end of the day, whether the care is better, better coordinated, whether you are getting better is proceed through the eyes of the patient rather than through the eyes of the provider. strong accountability for both cost and quality is critical. the second thing i want to say is when it comes to the financial incentives and the protections we build in is that we need to make sure that these models really serve our highest risk population. when a deep worries that the consumer community has is that to get these savings -- one of the deep worries the consumers have is that they will either skimp on care or cherry pick

their populations. we need to build in payments incentives and support to not allow that to happen. one thing that is very important is to make sure we have risk- adjusted payment to that complement's the complexity of the patients that are being carob. we need to make sure there are adequate resources for those providing the care management for those manage patients. finally, we need to make sure that we are monitoring this populations that are most at risk. i mean making sure that we are not exacerbating but rather that we are reducing the disparities that riddle the system today. to do that, we need, from the ghetto -- get go, built into the language these types of things so we can track the population and now at the end of the day if we are making care better for those who are the most expensive and hardest to cure or making it

worse. it is also another safeguard against stinting on care. i agree very much with one plan had to say about looking at baseline targets -- agree with what glenn had to say. on the payment front, some of those shared savings going back to the consumers. this is about getting consumers to engage differently and they need to seek care getting better and costs getting lower. one way to do that is to give them a share of the savings just like we are talking about giving the payers and providers a share of the savings. there are many ways to do that. now, you asked me to talk about the patient's engagement peacie. you talk about about patient protections and engagement. they are related, but they are different.

from the get go, if you want patience to embrace this new model of care, than patients and consumers need to be at the table from the beginning helping to shape, implement, monitor, assess, and determine what should and should not be expanded. too often we make the mistake of thinking, "if we build it, they will come." what we really need to do is build this the way patients needed to be built to meet their needs. that takes me to a major paradigm shift that needs to happen across the board which is that we really have to start believing that it is important to listen to what patients say they need and want. one of the reasons we think it is so important to do patients experience surveys and get patient-reported data is that the work we have done when we ask patients what they need and

want from these new models of care, they tell us the very things that will help us to get the better outcomes. they tell us the very things that will help them be more engaged in their care, to be better partners, to be more adherents in their medication years, better manage their chronic conditions. it is not just patient satisfaction. it is not just the nice thing to do. and it is an essential thing to do if we want to build these new ways that results in better care for patients and get us to better clinical outcomes. plus, again, if we're talking about people with multiple chronic conditions, if we are not talking about asking them about their experience with care coordination then my guess is that we will not, for a very long time, have condition- specific clinical measures to ever tell us if someone has five different clinical conditions is getting good care. we will never get to that population if we did not take seriously asking patients to

report on their experience and outcomes. finally, on the patient protection front, i think we are all in agreement from what i have heard that the idea of not telling patients they are enrolled in these things up front makes no sense. if we want patient engagement, they have to know and they have to be clear about what it is, have a clear understanding, clear expectations, clear in creating and buying and to those expectations. there needs to be complete transparency about financial incentives that the providers are operating under. patients need that because they have had a bad experience in the past and because this model does have a risk of cherry picking and skimping on care. we need to make sure that there will be experimentation that there needs to be network adequacy. we need to figure out what that looks like.

until we know what that looks like, how could you not have that choice is and flexibility for beneficiaries? the idea of the lock-ins or requiring people to stay in an aco, not one of us would want that arrangement foisted on us. network adequacy, flexibility, choice, we needed to build these systems into something that consumers embrace and want to be a part of. finally, you mentioned in your paper an omnibus or an appeals process. again, during this evolutionary time, we are trying to figure out what works and what does not, how could we not build that in? patients need to know that this will be something, the part of patients engagement where they feel if they are not getting the care that they need, that have somewhere to go.

>> i think you are, in large part, determining what this is and how it will go forward. i would love >> thank you for the opportunity and the paper. the one thing we need to think about with the atl program is how it ties into other changes that are happening to the overall medicaid program. the affordable care act puts in place tremendous changes to the medicare program to help we think about paying for and financing services. the aco program only applies to the fee-for-service program which applies to the -- applies to the 80% of people today. at the same time, cms is putting in place a stronger pension program trout -- for the private

side of managed care and a five- start bonus payment system that will start in 2012. we are putting in other pimmit reforms for hospital services, physician services, the full gamut. while we think about the aco program , we're putting in other delivery reforms to approve the overall system. it is important to keep in mind that the aco program is to demonstrate something better than regular fee-for-service medicare it needs to be on top of the other pension reform changes that are going into place, payment pressures that are going into place to the affordable care act. we are seeing the aco program as the overall baseline of service when all of these changes take effect. the statute contemplates a very flexible model to the aco

program. we are going into this notion with the premise that we have to create a program that can serve multiple aco models, meaning hospital-based models, physician-based models, and a combination of the two. clearly, the statute does not have a one size fits all model. that is very much our premise. right now, we are in a phase of the kind of pre-decisionmaking for aco. we anticipate having proposed rules sometime out next year. the notion is that we are all starting from scratch. we are trying to figure out the program together. cms will go in with a true proposal wanting comments back from all perspectives. consumers, providers, physicians, health plans will help inform our decision making.

the statute requires that the program starts january 1, 2012 very we are very much committed to seeing this program up and running. as all cms leadership talks about talksthe aco program has the promise to think about how we think of patients and health- care journey. today we have physician, hospital, a post-acute -- if this works well, patients will have journeys of care with a well coordinated handoffs. it will be very well coordinated handoffs of care, not the current solo approach that we have within the medicare program. we are grappling with hard decisions that have been raised here today. several hard decisions that we are grappling with, is how we think about risk. do we think about -- we as

organizations to take upon these risks. some organizations have come to cms and have said they are ready to stick on more risk. they want two-sided rest are we have to think carefully because some organizations are coming to us with clear intent to roads to dominate market places. those who are coming to attend to the organization's that currently dominate the marketplace or want to dominate their health care marketplace. we have to think carefully what it does it means to take on risk and what the implications are when organizations asked to take on risk. the second part issue we are grappling with is how do you assign patients to an aco model? this is not where the beneficiary chooses to sign up with an aco. rather, the cms pass to a side benefit to n aco model.

do we do it after the factor before? we have heard arguments on both sides of the issue. that will be a hard decision that cms has to make. how do we think about data? organizations that come to cms wanting to be in aco talk about payment data that cms holds. physician organizations come to cms and said they don't have data on hospital use or drug use and for us to be able to manage patient care, we have to have access to the data that you have within your fee-for-service payment systems. that is very protected, confidential the data. we are thinking about what it means to provide more organizations than organizations currently have.

it is a very hard issue. how you notify beneficiaries that they are being signed to a aco? the private side of medicare, cms has a tremendous oversight capability to see how plants market and communicate to beneficiaries. do we have to think about those process ceased to ensure that aco organizations do not mislead beneficiaries and over- promise. ? they have to understand their physician might be part of than aco and might have incentives to change care hopefully to best manage care. a real tricky issue is how we think about communicating and informing beneficiaries that there is a physician or hospital is part of an aco organization.

with that, i will stop. let me say in conclusion that cms believes they aco program has a way to better manage care. all things go well, the aco's will do better on cost and clinical management for beneficiaries. we are going into this notion with a full understanding that we need to hear from the community to help inform our roules. this will be best response and best ideas. we will not go into this having all the answers but we expect lots of comments coming to us that will inform our final rules. we will issue them sometime next summer. thank you for the opportunity and i am happy to answer any >> >> thank you.

you write that the issue of market dominance which we have been talking about and did talk about the concerns of who is coming in. does somebody want to -- go ahead >> i think this is a very important issue. i think the decisions that cms makes, at the margin, could make the problem worse. it is worth remembering that there is a problem regardless of what cms does. we have many markets where today already, there is an extreme concentration of market power and it is having a large impact on the rates paid by private pay yours. --payers. the implication is not just high rates relative to others but variation within the markets for

the exact same service. there are huge variations for the price of a given service within a single market. that is an indication that you do not have a competitive marketplace. all that the exists today regardless of what happens on aco's. one of the risks when you say we will factor this in and do our decision making process -- for example, cms could say you ifnot qualify if yoas an aco you already have a certain share of the marketplace. if they are negotiating with private insurers or exists under medicare advantage, to say that you can't do it in aco but you can do it in the private marketplace could end up having a distorting effect on the mark of a different sort.

i think we need to deal with the market power issue. will notdo on aco's solve the problem and it will not create a problem where one does not exist today. i think we need to be careful and put it in context. >> that is very helpful. let me pick up on one other issue which talks about informing consumers. what do you think about whether consumers know in advance or find out after the fact? should we let them know in advance? john is raising issues about how we ensure that consumers are getting appropriate information about what they are getting into. >> obviously, you can't expect consumers to engage effectively and change their behavior is to come -- to become more involved and better partners in their care if they are not informed.

it is not impossible to imagine creating upfront information that makes clear what being in means.an aco that would probably be best delivered by their individual provider in the context of a trusted relationship. it is almost a two-way agreement. here is what you can expect from me in terms of better care, and here is what we hope you will do to support us in providing better care. that is not impossible to do. there are examples of programs out there that have done it with great success. soft social contract -- i think it starts with us making sure

that the thing we are offering actually response to what patients say they want and need. building in the right thing, patients what the things we actually believe will make for better care for the one whole person care, they want better communication, they want their information at their fingertips, if they want their doctors to talk to each other. those are the very things that we think will make for better care. those are also extremely compelling to patients. understanding that is what this is about should not be impossible to convey. let me go on for one more second -- this points up something else which is that, for this to really work particularly for the most high-risk patients, we have to build this on a basis of primary care, on a strong primary care foundation. it is only with a strong primary care foundation that you can have that kind of trusted

relationship, that kind of coordination, that kind of communication, that kind of engagement of patience, shared a decision making, linking people to the right support services in their community. none of that can happen without a real strong foundation of primary care of. >> which takes us back to what john was saying that this was one of the tools in blog and one of the areas where we also need attention to make sure that we have a stronger primary care. thank you. let me open the floor for questions. yes? >> i am with a politico. you have talked about the importance of physician- organizer aco's. could you speak about how you would best to encourage those? >> we talk about that a little.

others were indicating that it is a challenge. we do have examples of a physician organizations particularly in california that can successfully and have demonstrated their ability to deliver care and take responsibility for all the patient care. as we move from a system in which we have many, many small practices of the physicians to a system more integrated, we see lots of physicians being hired by hospitals which is one way to go. we suggested that there are alternatives in terms of providing organizational support perhaps with certified management organizations which does exist in the real world. it would be a new initiative for cms to take on to provide an external support to physicians' organizations and not expect them to take this on themselves

all the patient management tasks and health information technology that they would need to manage patient care. we want them to work with other organizations to bring them together. we talked about providing them loans up front to be able to invest themselves in the kind of practices or the kind of practice redesign that enables them to have battle -- better management systems to achieve their goals. we also recommend that we think about the criteria for aco certification so there is an emphasis on being able to demonstrate that these organizations can do what we need physicians to do which is to provide the appropriate care and the coordination to really manage their care. we think it is a challenge but

we are calling attention to addressing that challenge so the we don't exacerbate concentration that already eggs zests. we don't want to fall into a situation in which we cede the ground to hospitals. >> i will echo what you said it emphasize what glenn saidif aco's are a revolutionary change with incentives, in this sea of the very 15-year, maybe 20-year provider consolidation, it has to be seen in that context. when i worry about the caloric effect of meat eating a hot fudge sundae and eating the cherry on top. --that is what i think about.

[laughter] one of the key questions is trying too's are improve the delivery system but there is a statutory requirement which is they have to save money or not increase costs. as far as i can tell, i spend most of my career doing but it's tough, there are multiple payments for every dollar of savings. the question of creating an up- front care management fee that cms pays to be recovered from future savings? there is a pretty basic bookkeeping question. this requires up-front money. the question of what a source of that money is becomes a very important question and it becomes a difficult policy call for cms.

the last quick point about this is diversity. there is enormous heterogeneity within every market was certainly across markets. the way care is delivered in bend, oregon is different than salem which is different than phoenix which is vastly different than this area. about letting 1000 flowers bloom, letter later it is tougher regulator to create a program good things happen but it is difficult not to have bad things happen. this has to do with allowing for diversity while still having suncor is essential protections. that is an extraordinarily tough balancing act. >> sure. one thing that has not come up is that over time, one of our objectives should be to move

toward multi-payer models and alignment of the public and private sector. i don't know how we can expect to transform the way care is delivered in individual practices if there are a million different kind of incentives programs, etc. we need to move to a place where you cannot have the kind of cost shifting but goes on between the public and the private sector and all the incentives and the measures and data collection gets aligned. that will make it so much easier for these primary care and physician practices to actually make the transformation that they need. >> yes, sir? >> mike miller, i'm a public consultant.airs

i want to talk about dealing with market-dominating organizations. areseems that the wayaco's implemented could be to get a changing the dominant nature of those organizations particularly since there is a provision law that is supposed to give preference, i think, for private payers. from my experience, the employers like nothing better than partnering with medicare to say that they are market- dominating organization and we will not go against you. a toolthink there's there? >> with the medicare context, we don't have to worry about market

consolidation. for hospital and physician services, cms as ic-schedule. there also were about private payers. they have to worry about consolidation. it is easy for cms to say to bring in organizations and we don't care whether they consult it marketplaces. doesre mindful of the cmjs downstream to private payers. they don't want to have to negotiate their own payment rates. we are mindful of what cms does could have downstream and back to private payers such as market consolidation and higher price points. it is not as big of a worry for cms/medicare but we have to know that we are saving the entire

health-care system, not just cms. >> you'll also want to be protected on the price side. >> i agree what -- with what a democrat has said. our goal is to change health care as delivered. we are using payment policies leveraged to change in the care delivery. the power of lever will be a function of how many papers you choose to use this particular lever and whether they do and a well synchronized way. i am all in favor of the idea that would need be great if we could get medicare to aco's but also get important private payers using the same tool. it is easy to say that and hard to do because of the diversity

of u.s. healthcare in different markets and how many different players. it would drive john crazy to try to coordinate with all the idiosyncrasies of different players and a different markets. i don't think it has to be the exact same payment system to have some of the synergistic effect we seek. if there was coordination at a higher level in terms of payment methods and the metric, i think we can get considerable benefit from that. there are two distinct issues here. one is coordination of the payment methods and the other is the payment rates. you can imagine a system where we coordinated the methods and matrix with private payers but still continue to pay markedly different rates. or you can imagine a system whereby over time you reduce the

differential in payment rates but when you start to do the latter, you have implications in terms of budget impact whether you are leveling off on the rights or down on the red. ates. short run, i would say let's focus on trying to get coordination on the payment methods and leave the more difficult task of synchronizing rates somehow down the road. let's walk before we run. >> that is helpful. yes, sir? >> cq health beat. what difficulties do you anticipate under the pen ding cr?

>> i haven't had a chance to read cr yet. we are a c rightms regulations -- we are writing cms regulations at the moment. the aco program is one of our highest priorities. as the program has been spoken about, it as one of the biggest potentials in the affordable care act to improve quality, to reduce costs. it is one of our highest priorities. we are very much committed to the program. >> questions? >> i am a primary-care physician.

if you want to know how an aco looks to a primary-care physician because we are on the bottom, they will publish something of ahealth fair website in a couple of weeks. in europe, they deliver better care to more people for a lower price with a outco's. aco's. this will be very disruptive and expensive. complication breeds transition -- makes for transaction costs. >> to you want to take that? >> our observation with cms is the greatest faults we have within the service of the medicare system is that we have a system that gives a strong incentives to sometimes provide

more services than necessary or are under-provide services that focus on prevention or focus unwellness. if the aco program is done well and rights, that will change the incentive isth. e aco statute as primary care meaning an aco has to demonstrate they are a primary- care based organization and have the capacity to serve at least 5000 medicare beneficiaries. the aco program transforms the mindset of how we think about the fee-for-service medicare program by being focused on services, focused on primary- care wellness and -- prevention. how we set the target and clinical requirements, we will be very aggressive. babel said strong incentives and

better -- better patient care. handoffs will be well afford it and not just left to the position to navigate by himself or herself. >> which takes us back to the patients and this is about the patients. we have to the -- we have to use the tools we have to move this system forward. i think everybody knew before we had this conversation that you have an extremely challenging job. it is not easy to change the inefficiencies and shortcomings of the american health-care system. i have long talk c aboutms -- i've long talk about cms as the engine of reform the white house

is committed to moving this forward. we very much value your participation, all our panelists, in this conversation. thank you all for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> today on the floor, the senate continues debate on the start treaty. this is to reduce nuclear arms. a number of amendments are pending for any changes to the measure could send the treaty back to negotiations with russia.

you can see that debate live on c-span 2. the house returns for legislative or tomorrow. they are waiting for the senate to act on temporary federal spending. the deal being considered now would increase spending more than $1 billion over the next four months. most agencies would see no increase. much of the additional funds would go to veterans programs and low-income heating assistance. >> it is hard to get here and it is also hard to leave here. all of us do leave and the senate always continues. >> saw arch for farewell speeches and --search for farewell speeches in the cspan video library. more than 160,000 hours on line, all free, washington, your way. thune >> on the communicators, with the holiday season in full

swing, the discussion on internet sales tax. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. the main topics at the white house briefing or the senate's debate of the start nuclear treaty with russia and the votes in congress to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law and the military. robert gibbs announced the president would sign the repeal into law on wednesday.

>> unfortunately, we are having technical issues of coverage of the white house press room. we hope to bring that to you later. former u.s. ambassador to the un, john bolton and former home of its security head spoke at a two-hour each event.

>> welcome to you all. i have been involved with the issue that we will be discussing today. i will be moderating this panel. to our panel members, you are welcome to address the audience from the see you are in or here at the podium, whichever you like. i am tom tancredo. thank you for being here today. let me say that the timing of the symposium, it is a very appropriate that we be here today discussing the issues before us. this comes on the heels of the failure of the talks earlier this month that were designed to reduce the nuclear threat posed by the regime in tehran. they were indeed a failure.

to no one's great surprise who has been around this situation for any length of time. also, over the past few days, the world is once again witnessing how the iranian population is marking assura, islam's holiest holiday but with protest against the government. they are very brave people on the streets of -- streets of tehran expressing themselves in a way that is very dangerous for them to do so. it is in deep, and a program that we bring together a distinguished panel of speakers to bring -- to understand the nature of the threat posed by the theocratic dictatorship in teheran and propose viable policy options in dealing with that regime. without any further ado, let's get right to those bakers. the first will be the hon.

michael mukasey. he is the 81st attorney general. he was appointed the u.s. district court in the southern district of york by president ronald reagan in 1988 and served until 2006 and the last six years as the chief judge. mr. mukasey? >> thank you for that and production. a -- for that introduction this is one of those moments in history when we know that future generations will ask what we did to advance good at what we did to resist evil. they will ask that because this is a time when the islamism threatens to destroy

civilization as we know it. at the very center of that threat is the regime now in control in tehran. they threaten their own people and neighbors and the world at large by pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons which it has said repeatedly it will not hesitate to use. we have to ask ourselves what we have done and what are we doing to bring about the only end to this threat that can be prominent and that can be a regime change in iran. sadly, the united states, which abraham lincoln called the last best hope of earth, has not done all its good and is not doing all it can. what it has done and what it is doing can be said to be a stain on the united states. it is our job to make sure that stain is removed. what is the case that supports that harsh conclusion? i am a lawyer and lawyers make their cases with fact and

policies. the history of the relationship between the united states and the iranian regime since the 1979 revolution can be summed up as a series of attempts to engage the iranian regime. each attempt was less successful than the one before. i will mud go through that entire history. an important part of it begins in the 1990's, during the clinton administration, when the people of the moves a riding in iran -- of the mujajadeen were designated. i don't have to review in detail the whole sorry history of the government's attempts to engage the regime in tehran, i don't have to review the entire history of the mek, but what are

they and what have they been in recent years? the mek is the only organization of iranians that opposes the current regime, that favors the government in iran that is democratic, secular, non- nuclear, and republic. this is not one of the few organizations that fits this description, it is the old one. there are about 3500 members who now lives at a place on the border of iran in iraq. it is referred to as a camp or a city would be a better description. these people fled iran and set themselves up on the border so they can live and support efforts to free their country. in 2003 when the united states invaded iraq, the residents surrender the weapons they had available to defend themself and accepted a written confirmation from the then deputy commander

of the forces in iran on behalf of the united states that they were protected persons under the geneva convention. in 2003-2009, the united states protected the residents there and fulfilled a solemn obligation. in january, 2009, as some of you may be aware, the united states turned over the responsibility for security to iraqi security forces. before the transfer took place, general david petraeus said explicitly that the united states had been assured by the government of iraq that the residents would be protected and he was proceeding with the transfer of security responsibility. obviously, the residence there have been a great source of anxiety for iran which would not like nothing better than to see that community repatriated to iran or crippled. iran has brought increasing

pressure on the iraqi government. in june of 2009, nouri al mulally, visited tehran supposedly for private reasons. the next month, iraqi security forces attacked the residence of the camp. to add insult to the united states to the injuries suffered by the citizens there, that attack took place during a visit to iraq by defense secretary robert gates. in spite of this obvious slap in the face, and in spite of a solemn assurances given by the american military when the residents of the camp surrender their weapons in 2003, our secretary of state, when she was questioned about it, said the attacks were an internal matter for the government of iraq, not a concern for us. the mek has the potential to

undermine the iranian regime. they have been much more than that. it has helped the united state'' affirmatively by providing enormously valuable intelligence from its own sources within iran about the iranian nuclear program. it is fair to say the united states would not have known a great deal of what it knows now about the iranian nuclear program without information furnished by the mek including the existence of a nuclear facility in iraq. the disclosure of which led to the beginning of pressure on iran arising from what is a nuclear weapons development program. i think it also bears mention that mek was remote for any list of terrorist organizations in the u.s. and the european union. if they have renounced violence and they present no threat to any u.s. personnel are interest and presents no such threat and

the affirmative assistance they have offered is not regarded as a terrorist organization in the united kingdom or the european union, why was applies on that list and why does it continue to remain on the list of such organizations kept by the secretary of state to? it is openly acknowledged that the reason they mek was placed on that list during the clinton administration was to court favor with iran but wanted to enter into dialogue with the iranian regime. during the administration i served in, is reported -- is reported that mek remained on the list for the same misguided reasons. it is a list that includes the iranian revolutionary guard corps reporte. that is a sari and cynical reason for branding terrorists a

group of people who are only interested in bringing to their country the blessing of the kind of liberty that we enjoy in this country. it is pretty obvious that it does not work. the iranian regime is now in the enviable position of having the united states designate as a terrorist organization, a group of iranians who was a threat to that regime and limiting their activities. what is the practical effect under the law of an organization being on that list? an organization on that list is subject to having funds in the united states seize power they cannot raise money in this country because anyone who contributes can be prosecuted for providing material assistance. beyond that and particularly in the united states, people are concerned that even appearing at a rally sponsored by an

organization that is called a foreign terrorist organization are giving them any help all can tainted them guarded people not aware of the details of the case including many iranians feel reluctant to support mek. the continued designation as a terrorist organization gives great comfort and legitimacy to the iranian regime by putting on the sidelines an organization that is potentially a great threat to the regime. what is to be done? as many of you know, there's an ongoing case in which mek has challenged the designation. in july, the u.s. court of appeals issued an opinion sending the matter back to the state department and to the secretary of state and asking her to reevaluate whether mek should be on alleged recorded something more than that. they expressed a good deal of skepticism about the non- classified information that was put before them and shared with mek.

without getting into detail, the secretary of state to a major choice based entirely on classified as term -- information. nobody denies -- no in this case, she said she based her determination on the classified and non-classified information. the court said a lot of it consisted of unsubstantiated rumor whose reliability was on known and could not be tested. all we can say is that of the classified part of the record which mek has not been allowed to see and cannot respond to directly consists of the same kind of the information as the non-classified part, the secretary of state's position would be based on nothing substantial. time will tell. this is about more than a case the district of columbia and more than mek. this is about the posture of the

united states toward the iranian regime. when ronald reagan took office, he was asked what his strategic approach would be to the cold war. he said his strategic approach would be that we win, they lose. at the time, there were people who dismissed that as empty and dangerous and rhetoric. in the end, that vision prevail because it was supported by sound understanding of this country's influence -- interests. those interests were made strong as when our policies are allied with our ideals. i have talked about law and fact in policy and what case emerges from that. the case that emerges is that when iranians go into the street and put their lives on the line for freedom as they are doing now and they did after the fraudulent election in june of 2009, our response for those in our government to speak for us must be more than to remind the mullahs that the world is watching.

the world has watched frequently while cars were committed and done nothing. the world was watching when the germans committed genocide a murder 6 million of my co- religionists during corkboard to. world war two. the worldwatch genocide in rwanda. the world is watching is not enough. what is necessary is to make it clear in both word and deed that we offer more than condolences when things go wrong to people who are willing to book airline is on the line for freedom. we should offer support and encouragement. for one thing, we should take off the list of terrorist organizations the one group devoted to restoring freedom in iran. for another, we should make it clear even without being explicit that we will offer all possible tactical and covert support in those fighting to end repression in iran. it has been said that that is

not a favor to organizations like mek because they can be accused by the iranian government as acting as tools of the united states. any organization or group of people that acts in that fashion whether or not they receive assistance from the united states is going to be attacked as a tool of the united states so i might as well get the help. second, i think was to let organizations like mek decide what is best for themselves. at the beginning of these remarks, i pointed out that abraham lincoln referred to the united states as the last best hope of earth. those words are to work today than they were when he first spoke in the middle of the 19th century. i think it is time we start talking and behaving as if we believe them. when succeeding generations consider the question i presented at the beginning of these remarks of what we did to advance what is good and resist what is evil, they will find an answer that we and they can live

with. i thank you again for the privilege of speaking here. [applause] >> it is indeed, for someone who has participated in things like this over a number of years, it is great. i cannot tell you how refreshing it is to hear statement so cogent and clear about this issue in washington, d.c. it is unique sometimes. i think that is just the beginning of what you will be here in the rest of the dead. next up is tom ridge. he is the former and first united states secretary of homeland security in the president george bush administration. he was the 43rd governor of pennsylvania from 1995-2001 and served as a member of the united states house of representatives

1983-1985. he is the founder and ceo of ridge global, a washington, d.c.-based securities firm and serves on the board of home depot, hershey, and a host of others. welcome. >> let me express my appreciation for being invited to participate in such a distinguished group of panelists. i am grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts that i have with regard to the topic at hand with you. in thinking about the conversation we might have today, i thought back to january, 2002, when the president talked about certain states and their terrorist allies and being part of an axis of evil are you remember the speech. it was about iraq and iran and north the thought has occurred to me in the intervening eight years, if we go back and take a

look at what this country has done and what the world has done, an effort to contain and frankly to disrupt and perhaps even replace, ultimately, a repressive theocracy, one included in the intervening eight years, we have not been very successful no matter what we have tried to do. hamas is stronger. has a lot stronger. the palestinian-islamic jihad a stronger. you talk to soldiers in the field in afghanistan and iraq and they will tell you that they truly believe that iran has been supporting al-qaida but also militants. since 2002, are they, frankly, stronger? clark a greater source of instability in the region?

had they continued to ignore with greater and greater impunity efforts unilateral, think theand? i answer is yes. it is a timely discussion for many reasons. we are running out of time. it is timely because if you take a look at the political environment in washington, d.c. and frankly the broader world today, the fiscal crisis, political unrest seems to be driving the headlines and capturing the attention of political figures generally around the world we are concerned about health care, deficit reduction, the effect of the last election and we are starting to look toward 2012 even though we are two years away. when is the last time you saw a headline dealing with america's foreign policy for a new effort, a new undertaking to deal with

iran? i dare say you have not seen many of those. think back during the past eight years, there have been multiple resolutions from the united nations. condemning its human rights abuses. i dare say that there is no international organization that has concluded that those un resolutions have had an impact on this repressive regime. somebody needs to convince me that the imprisonments are down, the executions have been reduced and they are no longer to ordering a political opposition. the answer is no, it is probably worse not better in the past eight years. so much for un resolutions vis a vis human rights. let's look at nuclear enrichment. they have their fourth round i will refer to my distinguished colleague. i think that organization is in

their fourth round of economic senate sanctions. -- of economic sanctions. somehow that has worked out? -- tell me how that has worked out. are they further down the road to peaceful nuclear energy? are they further down the road or further removed from it? one -- it is reasonable to conclude that i believe among rational people around the world that if you have repressed loyal opposition, if you in prison, torture, and execute, you are hardly a peaceful regime and if you are promised that if and when you do get a nuclear power that you will only as a peaceful way, seems to be an inconsistency that most people can see through rather quickly.

we know that the un resolutions have not worked very well. at one point in time, we talked about and we put mek on the terrorist list because we thought it might enhance and improve the dialogue, change the dialogue. there might be some noticeable improvement in our relationship with iran. i think history concluded so far in the past several years since we put that organization, which, by the way, disarmed itself, consolidated itself, and has been the source of some very important intelligence for this country's use and the rest of the world's knowledge -- if the goal was to improve engagements and solicit a different response from the iranian government, that has not worked out very well either. you say to yourself at the end

of the day, these efforts during the past several years have been fruitless and not terribly effective. what happens if they become even further emboldened by having nuclear capability? we know what it says about iran. if you think that part of the world's unstable now, we can only imagine what the consequences will be banned. i remember going to my last visit to the middle east and talking to some high-ranking public officials. one said to me in a private conversations that there are three challenges in that part of the world. he said the first is iran, the second is iran, and the third is iran. later, i talked to a woman involved in the platts likes -- politics in a different part of area and she said she would

rather respect iran than like the president. we have gone down and well- intentioned engagement, attempted engagement of the iranian government. today, it does not appear that any of these efforts been fruitful. it is probably even more alarming is that we are starting to see more and more analysts accept in their ridings -- writings the appearance of a nuclear iran and how we would deal with it. think about that. 10 years ago, we were worried and try to figure out how that did not happen and now we have some pundits and analysts say it is almost eight fait accompli. what we going to do now?

let's think for a moment what that means to the rest of the world and america. what does it say about our ability to employ as geopolitical events? how to our allies and friends in this region look to us? what about our ability to affect change that affects their lives and security of that particular region? some might call a fait accompli or appeasement strategy. there is not much we can do about it. there is always the military option. i don't know of anyone who truly thinks that as an option that would ever be executed. perhaps in the back of some people's minds, it is still realistic but i think to be more realistic, it is on likely, possible, but unlikely. god forbid, we know what the consequences would be of this

country or in concert with others or an independent country or two took it upon themselves what that would mean to the region and the rest of the world. we are running out of time and running out of options. that is the reason that we convey in this particular session today to remind ourselves of both of those guns are -- unfortunate circumstances. how do we go forward? what do we do next? the attorney general identified one of the most important things we can do. as the u.k. has done and the european union has done, mek. they consolidated, they did disarm. if we are to look for a peaceful means of encouraging a regime change, it seems to me that one of the most significant steps that we can take, and i guess this is under review right now

by the state department, but as you know in january of this year, the d.c. circuit court -- circuit court said based on the information, and you have to go to court, to get them delisted from the state department, the state said that the information we insured in accord does not warrant them being listed as a "terrorist organization." the consequences of that particular decision, the state department as i understand it, and perhaps this panel can give us a more enlightened point of view, that they are honestly, actively, considering that. what is the benefit of that outcome? first of all, it is the strongest possible signal that our approach towards iran is changing. it says that 30 years of peaceful engagement has not been

effective. i think ever won a round world knows that. i will give you a different perspective, if i may, because i think this has as much to do with how we're viewed around the world and why i think we should do this as soon as possible. i have always thought that if america was considered to be a product that we lifted to sell around the world than our brand is based on our values system. think about that for a moment. more recently, we have tried to promote the notion of a civil society and similar institutions and believing that in the heart of all men and women everywhere around the world that there is a desire to be free, a desire to control your own destiny, to raise your own family, to share in the opportunities that your side

your government would provide for you. in hearing all of that, we have had many of those discussions as it relates to how we are engaged in our efforts against terrorism around the world. we challenge ourselves around guantanamo, due process, and we know what we stand for. we are our strongest allies, and we are our strongest critics. we know what we believe in. when we seem to deviate in some lists seem to think we deviate from the brand, which a close look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves, "what are we doing"? part of that is being consistent with our values overseas as well. when we see a repressive theocracy day in and day out of imprisoning, torturing, executing men and women, entire families, because they have been

brave enough, courageous enough to stand in opposition to the theocracy and in their hearts not necessarily looking to the institutions of government like america but to the value system of freedom, liberty, speech, assembly, peaceful opposition, so i frankly think one of the most important things that this country can do, and hopefully we will do this as soon as possible, is to delist the people of iran as not a terrorist organization and after that be part of a sustained,

public, rhetorical, diplomatic embrace of our brand with the help of convincing the rest of the world that the loyal opposition, those pro-democracy warriors coming individuals, families in iran can look to the united states not with casual and occasional -- casual and occasional criticism of the iranian government and how it treats its citizens, but a sustained environment for change, aggressive diplomatic efforts, to the least hold some of our friends and allies into the chorus of opposition. time is running out.

there are not too many options left. i think while we continue to work with the u.n. and the home, we cannot be too optimistic, we do not have too many friends that are willing to step along with us and sing from the same song sheet, but it is imperative that we try and we will have to take the lead in that regard. let's delisted they've -- delist begin a and let's sustained public and diplomatic effort around the brand that we believe aniline as america, a brand and a set of values, liberties that the majority of the people in iran cherish in their hearts and would love to see reflected in their society and country. we have strong, strong philosophical allies in that

country and we need to be much more aggressive in supporting them. i think that is probably the last best hope in this. public diplomacy, public embrace of the opposition and the listing of the -- and teh delisting of the mek. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. secretary. next was the assistant to president george w. bush for homeland security and counter terrorism. she had previously served as the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism. ms. townsend came to the white house from the coast guard where

she's served as the assistant commandant for intelligence. prior to that, 13 years at the department of justice. she began her prosecutorial career in 1985 in brooklyn, new york. ms. townsend. >> thank you. following these two gentlemen is a tough act, but let me start by picking up on a theme that secretary rigid made so eloquently. -- secretary ridge made. our policy choices must be a reflection of our values. it must be consistent and fundamental to how we build the policy process. you know, it struck me that when you go back and look at the sanctions regime, we can debate the efficacy, we can debate its impact, but the statement of the

goal right now as we sit here today in washington, the goal of sanctions, sanctions which have not yet been successful, is to get the regime to the bargaining table. is that really all? to describe that as humble and modest in terms of an objective, that is not enough. when you look at all of the other things we have talked about so far this morning, the mek, all of that stems from what are we trying to achieve? if you are not clear and you are not ambitious and your goals tonight represent your values, you are doomed to failure. i think that explains a lot about why we have not had a horribly affected, frankly ineffective, foreign policy goals and objectives of vis-a- vis iran. we have all the knowledge, and i

put myself with them, that the effort to support freedom in iran has been ineffective and has failed. the effort has been weak, inconsistent at its very best. i mentioned sanctions policy. tom made the point very well. you see the counter- proliferation, the sanctions targeting nuclear process. he seen the designation, economic sanctions, and we talk about these individual issues in the policy world as though they are silos, as though one does not really touch of the other. the greatest source of frustration for me as a policymaker as i have had grave and serious concerns about the counter-proliferation. i also understood very well because of my responsibilities that iran is a state-sponsored terrorism. they are the single largest funder of military organizations

that trains, arms, and deploys around the world and until 9/11 we were clear that they had a greater capability that our qaeda -- than al qaeda. we do not treat them that way, do we? when you talk about the threat to the entire free world, why is that we talk about it as a counter proliferation issue without telling the american people about how they would feel about a states-sponsored terrorist organization about having a nuclear capability in that they would transfer to that nuclear organization which is already deployed around the world. i do not understand why come as a country, that we are not perfectly clear that these are separate issues that iran is a state sponsor and the

proliferation of nuclear capabilities. the real argument, if we are going to be clear about the threat, is the nexus between the two. i think of we make that argument is an argument the american people understand. this, all of a sudden, is no longer a far away problem, a problem in a part of the world had never been to. it now becomes our problem, as it should be. the fto designation, as you can imagine when i was in the justice department, the white house, monitoring the fto designation process working with the state department was among responsibilities. i must tell you that having traveled throughout the middle east and around the world talking to our allies that the designation process, we should just be honest, is this respected by our allies, it is

ineffective, is corrupted by politics, and i do not mean in the criminal sense, but it has been pervaded by political debate which is part and parcel of the form policy discussion when you are setting foreign policy goals. the fact that we permit domestic policy concerns to come into what is supposed to be an objective practice, the designation of a foreign terrorist organization, it undermines credibility. the mek are not the only people that have been abused. sometimes it is to take people off of the list as a diplomatic award. i would go one step further than my colleagues not only having this armed and assisted the united states should they come off the list, but the u.s. congress should abolish the list.

i think in many respects the because of how it is operated that it does more to undermine our credibility on the subjects and so i would both take them off the list and ask congress to abolish it. i had to smile when judge mukasey said that often the argument is when you say "commit publicly that you will provide support covert and as required to opposition groups" that they are accused of being a tool. we have men and women around the world in uniform and out of uniform, in law enforcement organizations that do this every single day. both to promote the product -- but the broad democratic movement and our allies around the world. they are very good at this. frankly, again, consistent with our valleys -- our values, we

take what our resources are. when you see the timeline that judge mukasey described of going to tehran and shortly thereafter the absolute despicable violence upon those democratic freedom-loving people, you cannot not be effected by it. frank lloyd, you feel a sense of responsibility after those same people surrendered their arms to us and renounce violence, for us not to take a very strong position, for us not to go to our allies in i rockets and demand an explanation, on -- allies in iraq and demand an explanation, it makes me embarrassed. i'm embarrassed for my country and former government.

the other thing that i would say and one thing that has not been spoken about, and i'm sensitive to this because of responsibilities to the white house is, i frankly think that as part of the delisting process, one thing this will open the process for is permitting leaders outside of iran to get visas to come to the united states. this is, again, a separate process. if it would be treated separately. delisting does not necessarily mean they would be able to apply and get such a visa. that ought to be part of this process. those people ought to be able to come here, speak about the atrocities, speak about the human rights abuses and what is happening inside iran to the advocates of democracy and freedom and they are to be able to be there on advocates.

right now, we are their advocates, but they are entitled to make their own case before the american congress, the american people, to raise money, to raise support, and to raise awareness. for me, take them off of the best, abolish the list, and grants exiles and expatriates' basis of they can come make their own case. before i close, with your indulgence, i'm not sure everyone realizes, you see cameras in the back that we will eventually be broadcast inside iran with translations. i've been like, just for a moment, if you will indulge me, to speak to those who watch us there. i would like to talk to the women who are there, especially to the young women in the speak to your mother's and speak to your grandmother's.

women my age understood and lived in and around that was free where they could make choices -- live in and iran that was free and metro's is about where they needed to go and they needed no religious approval. they made up their own minds. your mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cannot tell me what that was like. in many societies going back to the ancient greek and smarter, they were "-- they relied on women to carry this message. there are wonderfully strong women there. they will pass these stores on to their children, but talk about it. you will be inspired by the stories and the history that your mothers and grandmothers can tell you. thank you. [applause]

>> this is the time of year that celebrates, in the west anyway, a time of hope, a time of rejuvenation, and i cannot imagine a better message to be sent than the one mr. townshend just delivered the reflects that hope and rejuvenation. next is a colleague and a gentleman with whom might have shared the stage over the summer in paris at a rally in support of the people.

he has always done an excellent job. i'm positive he will do so here. the hon. john bolton. he is a diplomat and a lawyer, sometimes a challenging and somewhat schizophrenic task to be both a diplomat and a lawyer. he has spent many years in public service from august 2005-2006 he served as the u.s. permanent representative to the united nations. from 2001-2005 from he was the under secretary of state for arms control. he is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. his articles have appeared regularly in "the new york times," cote the wall street journal," and "the london times." >> thank you. i would like to think any of and executiveaction for inviting us all here today.

primarily from the perspective of the nuclear weapons threat that the regime poses. this has been an active program for over 20 years in their effort to get both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capability to deliver those weapons. it is a really frightening prospect. it is the principal reason, in my case while looking at the various options that the united states and their friends and allies have around the world that i came to the conclusion that the ongoing really long term, permanent answer to this threat was to eliminate the regime in tehran. mylan has become popular in recent years to talk about a regime change, in fact, it

should be the declared policy of the united states, proudly declared, to change the regime, and replace it with one that is responsive to the people of iran. i think the world would be a lot safer place once that happened. i think the people of iran would be in a better place if that happened. i do not seem why we should shrink from not only helping to make it happen, but to say it plainly. now, let me go back to the nuclear weapons question because i think it is important here to understand exactly how severe this threat is, not simply just to the united states, not simply to israel, but to all of the regimes in the region and ultimately internationally.

first, many people in a lean europe and many even in this country by the line that comes out of tehran on a regular basis that the activities in our rhenium -- uranium enrichment are purely for peaceful purposes. it is just for generating electrical power, there is nothing to worry about. when i was doing the arms control job at the state department, i asked our department of energy to estimate how long it would take iran to use of their supplies of oil and natural gas assuming a relatively constant level of exports and consumption or reasonable economic estimates. how long would it take to use up those resources because that was the justification that they were using, that they needed an alternative to their oil and

natural gas. our department of energy concluded that the best projections they could make that the regime was correct that they were running out of oil and natural gas. they would run out probably in three or 400 years. of course is only prudent for any government to plan against that which is why they were undoubtedly develop. nuclear capabilities. other people have said that the united states was wrong on intelligence estimates about saddam hussein and weapons of mass destruction and that we are probably wrong here, too. i will avoid a long discussion about why our concerns with saddam hussein were based on his own declarations of weapons of mass destruction in 1991 than on intelligence, but i think it is important to take this on as well and to point out that there is more than enough evidence that the objective of the

regime has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence. it is all in the public domain. just to give two examples, two of my favorite examples, the international atomic agency has documents they have inadvertently from the regime in tehran that shell work being done there about how to shake plutonium into hollow hemispheres. the only purpose of shipping uranium or plutonium into hollow hemisphere's is to create the core of a nuclear weapon. you do not use this in reactors to make electricity. there is simply no explanation other than idle curiosity by would-be physics professors to do this unless there is a nuclear weapons purpose. second was the report back in fall 2004 about work going on in

a regime armor and artillery facility that does explosives research about how to shape charges in a hemisphere that can go around the hollow hemispheres of uranium and plutonium. the purpose of which is to be detonated to compress the uranium or plutonium to form a critical mass. again, these are publicly available pieces of information that show what the regime is up to. i could go on with a long list of what is now publicly available information, much of which has come from the mek and i have seen in other documents that even wikileaks have not gotten their hands on yet. much of it was made public by the mek and it shows the extent

of the contribution that they have made to the public understanding of the regime's nuclear weapons programs and, frankly, to enhancing the understanding of the united states government as we try to deal with this. the problem with the iranian nuclear weapons program is that after two decades of an adequate response from the united states and others, the regime is very close to achieving nuclear weapons. the obama administration itself admits that tehran could have nuclear weapons within one year. this prospect means that our options really are extraordinarily limited. make no mistake that iran's possession of nuclear weapons does not constitute a military threat to the united states.

possession of nuclear weapons in the hands of the regime is a terrorist threat. these weapons would be targeted against and three in four years for innocent civilian populations weather in the united states, israel, the broader middle east, around the world, by giving them to terrorist groups. there is simply no doubt that the targeted these nuclear weapons will be civilians. that is something that i have worried about these last 10 years ago as i am convinced that unless we stop the regime from getting nuclear weapons in the first place that there's simply no adequate way to contain the threat that those weapons would face. the regime does now respond to the same calculus of deterrent that the soviet union did during the cold war and also, whether

or not they get ballistic missiles capable of delivering these weapons on a worldwide basis, its connection with terrorist groups around the world, hamas, hezbollah, they are in equal opportunity supporter of terrorists. it would be the perfect storm of a confluence of terrorism and nuclear perforation. it is a mistake to assume that there are ways of containing and deterring iran, and i fear that is where the imam administration is. i think the only answer is to prevent them from getting the nuclear capability in the first place which is why we have made a mistake these last 31 years by not taking a more active role in supporting the iranian opposition. it is never too late.

the reality that i think we face in the middle east today is that there are only two options. one is that the regime gets nuclear weapons and, as i said, sooner rather than later, or that someone takes pre-emptive military action to prevent that from happening. now, i see absolutely zero possibility that the obama administration will do that. i think ministration even in the face of continuing evidence of the unambiguously weapons oriented purpose of their nuclear activity remains convinced that diplomacy will somehow persuade tehran to give up something they have been pursuing aggressively for 20 years. i can only describe this as a religious faith in the power of negotiation. it is a face -- is a faith that

will be disappointed inevitably, but with a consequence that more time will be wasted, to get more opportunities will be lost, and yet more progress will be made towards getting not only a nuclear device by progressing to fit that nuclear device onto ballistic missile vehicle that will indeed give the regime the power to blackmail regimes all over the world. the focus, i think, shifts inevitably toward brother israel will use military force against the nuclear weapons program of the regime as they have twice before, once again saddam hussein in 1981 and more recently in september 2007 against a reactor being built by, of all people, north korea, in syria. where did syria get the

resources to build a nuclear reactor? i think we will certainly learned that the answer to that is from the regime in tehran. why? the regime and north korea but have a common interest in hiding their illicit nuclear activities from a curious international community. where better to hide them than in the country no one was looking in before? very assume that this unattractive option, very unattractive option of military force is used against the nuclear weapons program, an option that is attractive only because the other alternative, a regime of nuclear weapons, is even more unattractive, what happens then? they say that this would rally the iranian people to the regime and that, therefore, it is better not to have that happen, presumably because people believe that somehow we

will be able to contain and deter a nuclear capable regime in tehran. i think there really does not give the people of iran enough credit. i do think that it will take an extensive campaign of public diplomacy to explain that the iranian people are not the target of this attack. and fact, it is the activities of the regime itself and their determination to pursue nuclear weapons that have caused this problem. beverly brings us inevitably to the next question which is, if in the next year there is a pre- emptive strike against the nuclear weapons program, what follows? there is no doubt that a pre- emptive strike would not be a permanent answer. it may already be too late as the mek's the commission has

shown that there are multiple sites that the regime as construction -- constructing, or may have in the operation that we do not even know about yet. we do not know what they are up to, and therefore they would not be subject to scrutiny or evaluation. i think that is why in this very unhappy environment that we have to return to what has to be the long term solution which is replacing the regime in tehran not by moderates within the regime. this is the hunt for the great white whale that has consumed american diplomacy for three decades. within this regime, there are no moderates on the question of nuclear weapons. they are all in favor. there are no moderates went comes to a future for the people of iran to have a democratic say in their own government. it becomes all the more important for the united states to insist that the regime itself

needs to be replaced and that the iranian people should take the opportunity that would be presented to get rid of the regime that is causing this fundamental isolation from the rest of the world because of the policies that the regime has been pursuing in support of international terrorism and the support of weapons of mass destruction. that is the opportunity for fundamental change in iran that we need. that is why is so and portent that the mek has renounced nuclear weapons. i hope anyone else opposed to the regime would do this. we come to the point where we find out who was really popular inside iran to the tried and true mechanism of a really free and fair election there sooner rather than later. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, john, and thank you to all of the panelists for being accurate in sticking to all the time allotments. next is a professor ruth wedgwood. she is director of the international law program at johns hopkins school of international law where she is at the professor of international law and diplomacy. she is the price -- vice chair and has served on the u.n. committee in geneva, the committee on international law, and the u.s. policy board. a member of the editorial board for international law and we have seen her many times one of the d.c., national public radio , and the jim lehrer news hour.

>> i will not our venue which is the willard hotel, a very elegant place for drinks. if you look at the plaque on the arts and the building, this was the site in 1861 to prevent the ultimate outbreak of the american civil war. this is one last attempt to dissuade this house from seceding from the union. i think it is quite appropriate that this be the kind of last venue for the discussion about iran. i married into the wedgwood family about 30 years ago. the reason i was pleased to do so was not simply because i like my husband, even though i did, and not just because of the pottery, but because there was this marvelous fellow who stood

with churchill in 1938, 1939 warning that the policies of appeasement toward nazi germany -- not to germany were extremely dangerous and you could not make this partial peace and that hitler had a non downed appetite that he would not stay with just the jerk republic or the poland's. he was considered to key for saying so. it is terribly important to be deadly serious about what the clear ambitions of the ahmadinejad. he is the emulation of persia. anyone who has seen how he has effectively, almost like adolf, managed to psychologically humiliate every audience that he speaks to at the u.n., the general assembly, whether he is

giving a friendly conversation to some ngo's, they were diluted with him they were dealing with. while he uses his irrational rants as a prelude to the intimidation of the middle east and europe, which have all become break with the acquisition of nuclear weapons, he is not a rational actor. no one has claimed that the ordinary doctrines of nuclear deterrence would succeed with a fellow who wakes up every morning thinking that the end of days have,. this is not someone with whom you can reason with him when he is going to greet the and the problem of nuclear weapons. if iran does no clear, there is grave worry among all analysts that egypt, saudi arabia, turkey, why not libya? they will all been acquiring

nuclear weapons and the difficulty of stability in that kind of a said. will be an early grave even if ahmadinejad was not a madman. i have been asked to stay on topic, and i will try to. i did want to add the preludin that this is not simply a human rights issue in the immediate sense of the democratic opposition in iran or the believer in inhabitants, but also a human rights issue that it is a responsibility to protect and includes not simply the people who are simply persecuted by iran but did physical safety, the physical future, the possibility of a continued history that is not interrupted by nuclear war. all this depends on what we do today. now, as i mentioned in brussels

, regimes that are hegemonic, a town bullies, have a way of creating their own symbols in opposition. just as the young iranian woman who were shot to the heart on the streets of tehran, when she was simply spectating, looking at the democratic parade that was protesting the death of the elections, just as she became a great symbol, said the camp to the field calculation of the regime in now the had a kind of alum a situation where people are surrounded and up until now the u.s. has not been making good on the promise where our

own honor is at stake. there has been a kind of medical embargo and there have been acoustic harassments of a kind that some have objected to at guantanamo were there are threats of death and violence, and where there is a threat to take them to the carter perimeter of the desert and dump them in a maximum security penitentiary were any ideals of the geneva convention are disrupted with the law of war, the law of human rights, the guarantee against non-racial law which is about being returned to a regime that will tour tree. all of those regimes are mistakes and perhaps inadvertently by access. ahmadinejad influence and the threats against ashraf have created a symbol of those who

are brave enough to stick to their guns or beliefs in defiance of the spreading influence of iran in the region. anybody who cares about the region should obviously be concerned because this will make impossible any solution to the palestinian-israeli dispute, the issue with lebanon, syria. any chance on getting him to turn away would be to strike at the power of iran. and a bank to vindicate the honor of his father in the assassination of his father has been disrupted by syria and iran, and certainly any possibility of the two-state solution for the israeli- palestinian solution has been disrupted by the spread of radicalism for iran. if you believe in human rights and believe in the fact that the tenants the u.s. has

propounded by the committee. this head-on, the human rights committee, or even the council, then it is utterly important to make sure that the ashraf residents are not returned to a regime that will kill them or to the desert were they will have conditions of confinement that are far harder than any american and may in fact we make good on our promise to provide protection to the people of ashraf. the meaning of the human rights conventions are at stake. the meeting in geneva is at stake. i remember another small surrounded enclave from the 1990's in which the u.n. had pledged it as safe, and the u.s., too, because we were supportive, but that the civilians would be protected against any horror in the safe area. of course, they were not. when the serbs came, the dutch

departed. and the muslim men and boys were akinen to the forest and murdered. we should take great now that this bears resemblance in all manners. i share the views of my colleagues. i have not been deeply involved in the listing of alleged terrorist organizations. i did take seriously the problems of terror and terrorism. but at the same time, organizations that have committed themselves to be democratic, peaceful, and have borne witness in a way that was almost like the quakers, i think they are a very funny fed for that category of designated terrorism.

even if we have with that are listening public some people who are skeptical of the intervention in iraq, he thought the -- if you thought the de- nuclearization was important, it will roll back the entire stated purpose of the iraq war. you do not need saddam hussein to be nuclear again. finally, as spending a lot of my time in geneva looking at what affect the politics of all the countries that gather there. it is a misguided syndicalism that they may need something from each other someday with the g-77. they vote en masse. if you think people are intimidated by the p tradition

of the u.n., once iran has nuclear weapons, you will not see it. you will not see the absence of action were european countries are afraid to take independent views, and certainly all the countries in the middle east. i think it is naive of us to suppose that is a smart power to use the phrase of the obama administration, simply to neglect this "smart our" -- "smart power { to use the levers and instruments to have at hand. -- simply to neglect the "s mart powers." europe is far ahead of us. the european left are in alliance on this, strangely enough. both see the same threat. currently, the world view of

americans who are used to an effortless happiness and did not have to 54 world war ii -- have ii inght for world war o the face of this destabilizing power run by a madman. we should take their cues from europe for once. they may be right. thank you. [applause] >> next is dr. kenneth katzman. he is a senior middle east analyst for the congressional research service, the federal legislators non-partisan think tank. dr. katz man has served in

government and private sector as an analyst in the persian gulf affairs was set -- with special interest on iran and iraq. he also has a book about the iranian revolutionary guard. he holds a doctorate in political science. dr. katz men. >> thank you, congressman, and thank you to neil and executiveaction. i am speaking in a personal capacity today, not from any entity of congress. i was big today about an obvious passion of my life which is the islamic revolutionary guard, or just the guard. it is probably the one entity that is standing between the people and the regime of. it is the one entity keeping the regime in power. it is the one thing standing between the armenian people achieving their desires as

expressed last year in the green movement uprising. the revolutionary guard, however, is facing their around challenges. it is not monolithic. it is not unchallengeable. it is facing internal challenges. they are not necessarily an external challenges. the u.s. is not necessarily pressuring the islamic revolutionary guard in the gulf or anywhere. the guard was formed to defend the regime, defend the new regime, it exports to revolution and it is a key instrument of the revolutionary guard. it is a discreet unit of the revolutionary guard that has about 5000 officers. they do not serve in a strictly military capacity, but they are

foreign agents sort of. they arrange weapons deliveries to hamas, hezbollah, taliban militants. this is dean -- the striking arm in supplying pro-iranian movements abroad. they are the recipients of most of the weaponry that iran buys. most of the new weaponry has not gone into the regular military. it goes to the revolutionary guard. however, the resolution in 1929 that was passed in june essentially imposes a worldwide embargo on the sale of big- ticket military items to iran. aircraft, big ships, and now any exports to iran of such items would be a contravention of u.n. resolutions.

it would remain to be seen how that might affect the iranian arsenal going forward. some quick units have been recovered, even this year in kuwait where there is 25% shi'ite population. others are active in bahrain. there were possibly going to take place in the october election. it did not happen. 18 outs still won with of 40. they do not have appeared to have interfered that much. they also believed to be operating in the united arab emirates. it is a barber marketplace for anything technology, components. this is where iran tries to circumvent international

sanctions that could force this which is part and parcel of their efforts to circumvent u.s. and other stations -- sanctions by setting up purchasing agents, persian -- purchasing with suitcases of cash and certainly the forces involved in that. the revolutionary guard has also become a big business entity. is no longer just a military and no longer just a striking force to export the evolution force. it is a big corporation. irg, inc., so to speak. they have used their political muscle within the system to win contracts, particularly big contracts. the kohmeni airport, iran telecom, any kind of construction, oil and gas interests, the gas fields which

the guard had to pull out of because of deflection. they cannot get partners. it is now against sanctions to partner or give assistance to the revolutionary guard said they had to get out of the gas projects. the u.s. sanctions are really focusing now on targeting the revolutionary guard and their business interests. again, as i said, with the guard has done is there really pushed down a lot of the traditional merchants like a basic contacting companies, construction firms. small oil and gas firms. they have been using their political context to ahmadinejad to win the business. this is the start of the iranian economy because now the smaller companies are not winning as much business.

the guard does get, obviously, a big share of the military budget of the regime every year. the profits they earn from these covert activities give them more money to pay bonuses, increase salaries. there's a lot of corruption here and to procure technology, as i said, in the uae. the guard is not monolithic, you know? all lot of the guard voted for a different president in 1997. it was very an expected. it is expected that the guard would vote for and support only [inaudible] the guard has been supporting ahmadinejad. he was not a high commander, but he was a low-level in the guard during the iran-iran war.

-- iran-iraq war. it's the look of the 2009 demonstrations over the green movement, and various points during the uprising, about one year ago last december, many police surrendered or were captured by the green movement demonstrators. some guardsmen, i understand, had to intervene to get the police out of their clutches, but some of the guard even surrendered or withdrew. the green movement comments -- contacts of mine tell me that there were a lot of guard reaching a to people in the green movement, particularly the younger people saying that we see the direction this is going in that this regime may not last much longer. if that happens, they do not wish to be prosecuted, they do not want to be executed, we will not go against you, but we won

the favor in return if indeed the regime would collapse. there's a lot of unrest going on right now. the newspapers make it sound as if the grain movement and the opposition is dead. they are not on the streets, which is quite true. they could be on the streets this afternoon. they could get there tomorrow. they're not there today. they were there last year and they are still very active. there will be an opposition conference january 22nd-24. there are very active and they're reaching a to various political factions, labor, older generations, rural areas, people they did not have contact with last year. had they done this political work last year, perhaps they would have been more successful in their uprising. they did under the political work and are doing a noun and

catching up. perhaps there waiting for another opportunity to stage another uprising. the grain movement and the opposition more broadly is very active and we are seeing some signs of violence. we saw it yesterday. sque, the grenade attack on ahmadinejad. the main body of the green movement is at least peaceful. there is a lot of unrest and activity going on. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, dr. katzman. next is dr. neal livingstone, the host and organizer of the this symposium today. he has served on numerous in

rise records including its super homeland security and international institute for homeland security. mr. livingstone is the author of nine books including, "and cited the -- "inside the plo." he has written opinion pieces for a host of newspapers. dr. livingstone. >> thank you very much, tom. members of the distinguished panel, ladies and gentleman, is good to see so many friends over the years in this audience today. my compliments are to you because you continue to work on behalf of freedom, democracy in iran, and you are trying to help the rest of us in the united states see the error around policies today.

our conclusion was not only know, but it was a resounding hell no. once on the list, it was prohibited to support such organizations, as you well know, either politically or financially. in a transparent and patently craven effort to pander to the islamic extremist regime in tehran, president bill clinton's administration designated the mek terrorist organization in

1997.er 200 former assistant secretary of state martin indyk, and otherwise sensible fellow, and he said, "we hope it would be perceived in tehran as a goodwill gesture." and so began the listing of the mekpoi as a terrorist organization. it started as an expedient political gesture for the al law regime in tehran. george w. bush called the regime part of the axis of evil.

in many respects, it crippled the effectiveness of one of the leading members of the iranian opposition, an organization that supports democracy and human rights in iran. the bush administration should be ashamed of its record on this issue. going back to the october 1983 bombing of a u.s. marine barracks in lebanon, iran has killed more americans than any other state-sponsored terrorism. it is a fact and is in your -- and it isct inexcusable and immoral. those in the state department and the other parts of the u.s.

government support accommodation with the the regime in tehran and engaged in it at any price must be purged from the government. even prosecuted under some circumstances. we are at war with the extremists in iran and those and our u.s. government for composite. -- who are complice ite. it is time to undo the errors of the past. hillary, we thought you supported human rights and democracy. if so, delist the mekpoi and do

so now. hillary, we thought you believed in a sound effort to be -- to depoliticize terrorist efforts. hillary, with thought that you supported the state of israel and our arab allies in the middle east. mekpoi now.st the it has not engaged in acts of terrorism in decades. and we concluded in a previous report that we turned out to years ago, the acts that were originally attributed to them may have been falsely attributed

to them because of propaganda from saw blob and because of propaganda from the current regime in tehran today. every day that it remains on the terrorism list as shameful. some could say this treasonous. i say this to members of the department of state. cannot hide behind classified information to justify maintaining -- do not hide behind classified and for information to justify maintaining the mekpoi on the terrorist list. to the apologist and the appeasers in the government, give us your best shot, make your best case for leaving them on the terrorist list, but give us a fair opportunity to rebut your innuendo, false claims.

if you are wrong, get the hell out of the way and let us get on with the business of protecting our nation, containing the evil regime in tehran, and supporting our friends here and abroad who share common values, goals, and aspirations. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for that forceful statement. much of a classified information that was referred to and used as a result of the department --

used at the state department was reviewed by those courts and determined to be without merit. it is a fascinating aspect of the entire debate. here we are looking at europe and saying that they got it right and we should, too. finally, we have and it was our next guest.t in 2005, he will serve as the president of the iran committee.

he is the co-author of appeasing the ayatollah suppress in democracy, u.s. policy and the iranian opposition. [applause] >> thank you. i am standing up not to be long, but to be short. [laughter] i have been a consultant with the cbs network radio and i have gone several calls lately concerning the terrorist attack that might be planned around the holidays. a colleagues have set the stage to wrapup the former presentations in order to segue into what i predict will be a very productive discussion.

if i mentioned the cbs network radio because the focus on the iraqi diriment concerning the state of iraq -- iraqi government concerning the state of iraq. the foreign minister, when he was at the one, did not say that iran was about to extend its terror attacks from year to the united states. but when the iraqis want to curry the favor of the iranian regime, their neighbors next door, they say we cannot have the people on the territory of iraq because it is unconstitutional for a terrorist group to be in iraq.

one of the things that i discovered along with my colleagues is that there is a perverse connection between the american designation of it as a terrorist or a position on the one hand and, on the other hand, the status of the people of ash ashrab. if it were to fall -- it is very important that the people be collected in some kind of an umbilical cord, if you will, to this olhole designation. once it ends, it undercuts the

iraqi argument that it can do anything to these people. i would like to focus on one case in a four-month study that the iran policy committee has done. it is the case of karbala. the evidence on which secretary rice relied was mainly classified, but the unclassified portion was spotty, based on rumor. it was some of the slot used intermission -- six -- it was some of the smoggiessloppiest

information. and we wondered if the classified portion could be also as bad as the on classified information. we looked at the card and discovered that the origins -- we looked at the karbala case and discover that the origins or a festival part of the tail. but it became part of a classified part of the record of which secretary rice made her decision to continue the

designation. we found that the carvel the case originated with the rate -- that the karbala case originated with the iranian regime and begin classified in the american intelligence community. when the case came before the appeals court, the appeals court did declassify the information. the regime than said that the pmoi were dictating women to classifkill themselves which was completely false. there is something about the information that the iranian regime produces and then is classified by the american intelligence community and then the regime uses that information against the pmoi.

we engaged in a four-month study in which we looked at four major databases, the worldwide in since tracking system of the u.s. government, the iran database, and the database that homeland security funded at the university maryland. we found no references in any of these data bases to any military action by the pmoi after 2001. we did find four or five references in the database that mentioned the pmoi, but other groups, al qaeda, islamic state of iraq, other groups in iraq claimed to be perpetrators. mek denied it.

we interviewed people who did the cutting at the source. -- did the coding at the source. we found that they had no confidence in those padilla findings. there have been no military incidents perpetrated since 2001. what does that matter? because you need to have been responsible for currently being involved in terrorist activity, terrorism capability or intent. but there is no current involvement. therefore, the designation should fall. just as the people referred to people of ashrab, i'll let the said to them -- i would like to

say to them that we are all iraqis today. thank you. [applause] >> thank you to the panel again. i want to thank you very much for your very important and cogent remarks on this incredibly important topic and for providing them in a timely manner so that we can spend some time now on questions. the questions i will judge to identify and take verses from the media. please identify yourself first and the organization your wit.

let's go to questions. sir. >> last week, we heard from someone from the administration, gary fell more, that suggested that they will be -- not only the united states were working with u.s. allies for tempered sanctions, also some in congress, particularly congressman sherman, talk then about pursuing tougher sanctions. with a change in congress, are you expecting or what are we going to see from congress on other than sanctions?

>> cannot take it. i am sorry. >> let me mention the question about sanctions. it is perfectly apparent that the sanctions have failed to stop the regime's continuing efforts to get a nuclear-weapons capability. there is no realistic prospect that any additional sanctions will be any more effective. the fact is that there are a number of countries that are already determined to not allow either the u.n. sanctions or the sanctions that are congress -- that our congress passed last summer to a pair iran's ability to continue its program. -- to impair iran possibly to continue its program. russia and china will not do

anything to impede the shipment of refined products or the production of the natural gas fields. we have seen other countries do the same thing. somebody ought us someday why one of iran's biggest and disease is in venezuela. -- biggest embassies is in venezuela. i support all sanctions because i think it weakens the regime and makes what is already an unpopular -- and even more unpopular. even morelar regime and eve unpopular. north korea is one of the most

heavily sanctions regimes in the world, facing sanctions far more onerous than which is currently in place on iran. are 4 inches to 6 inches shorter than the people that live in south korea. i am not waiting for sanctions anytime soon to have any impact on the nuclear issue. >> does anyone else on the panel wish to address it? >> if you take a look at the extra near a bipartisan support, you will see members of congress, from the most liberal to the most conservative, united in support of that resolution. we can be hopeful that the numbers will increase in terms

of co-sponsors ship. the administration picks up on that very notion. perhaps there would be some comfort as well as some appreciation the there would be tremendous legislative support on both sides of the aisle, not mek, but more. >> there is a widespread view that the sanctions are extremely effective. iran's's economy -- economy works on import export. they buy from europe, market up at a profit, and selig.

-- and sell it. the profit margin has gone way down and the big trading families -- the iranian economy is a big trading family. the revolutionary guard is big, but compared to the trading infrastructure, it is small. the big trading families are having tremendous trouble making money and the economy is in very difficult shape. that is the very wide consensus on this. let me add to the congressional reaction to this. 10 years ago, i signed a letter that was asking the state department to remove the mek from the list of terrorist organizations. on the front page of my hometown newspaper, the headline was "why

is he supporting a terrorist organization?" the resulting kind of reaction to that, not necessarily just the way the paper portrayed my involvement, but the response of the media in general was to significantly cool the ardor of many of my colleagues in congress for this particular issue and for the any casmek. that was then. mr. rich mentioned the resolution that is now developed and seeking co-sponsors shipped in this congress. it essentially does the same thing. it has 114 co-sponsors today.

this is a tremendous advance in this issue within the congress of the united states and as a result of so many people's work, on the stage and in this audience. your role to be credited for your determination and tenacity -- you are all to be credited for your determination and tenacity. next question. >> i am washington counsel to the families of the people of ashrab. before i ask my question, i would like to say one thing. i would like to make one remark. it is something that is completely obvious or should be. this expression, this collective expression of support that we heard this morning from former members of the president's cabinet, from senior members of the president's staff, from

academics and ambassadors, is support for an organization that they stood department has declared has the capability and intent to engage in terrorism. we know that that's a position is absurd. i want to make one comment in response to her extraordinary personal conclusion to her remarks. i have been there twice. i have met a lot of people from there. i have had meals with them, spoken with them, and taking two hours with them. your market that -- your remark that they can see you and you cannot see them, let me tell you what happened when those people heard your remarks. they stood as one and chanted applause for you and for these

panelists for supporting their lonely existence and their support for the goals that they share with the united states. on their behalf, thank you very much for that. [applause] >> let me say one thing. i have never been to camp ashrab. i have never, in my lifetime -- because i was a child prior to the revolution -- had the privilege of traveling to iran. one of the places that my passion comes from is, room given the rich culture and the historical significance of persia and iran, i hope, in my lifetime, that if we are successful in delisting the mek, that i will have the opportunity

to travel to iran and bring my children so they can learn their as well. -- learn there as well. >> the team has given a deadline of december 29. the brief is almost finished. we hope to submit it right around christmas time. we will be entitled to a hearing with the secretary of state's delegate, some time presumably in january or february. but what else should we be doing? when i say "we," i do not only mean the legal team, but what should the iranian-american community be doing? what should other non-rain and supporters be doing to -- non- iranian supporters be doing to maintain that this organization

is not of support of terrorism. >> when you are an official in the state department, there's nothing like going to congress and having a hearing where one member after another insist on asking you about the same thing over and over again. i remember seeing tom niles come back after a six-hour hearing on bosnia. when i read -- when i saw him in the late afternoon, i asked him how it went. he could not even answer. for those state department officials who deal with this question of the designation of foreign terrorist organizations, i think that when the new congress convenes, they will have a lot on their plan, but there are a lot of days and be in january for hearings.

that would be a good place to start. >> there are many examples of very positive particular specific interest in groups, doing and lobbying for good public policy. the american and israeli political action committee is extraordinarily effective. it is grass roots. if is some -- it is something s need to do,te' pick up a pan and right their request for. you need allies. you need people to take a beer cause with you. the public attention, a full- page ad in "the new york times"

or "the washington post" on the day of these hearings, to educate the public, how many people really and stand in this country that the only other country that lists the mek as a terrorist organization is iran. i do not want to be on-line with them on anything, much less that. but you need people who can speak passionately and in uneducated way publicly to help bring attention to it. >> one small point. as you know, particularly in the house of representatives, the gavel will pass in january. it would not hurt to get a list of the members, in particular of the house foreign affairs committee, and have correspondence to them and on them so that they understand

that one of the things ought to be a priority is the holding of hearings. when to get a public hearing on this, it will do tremendous. >> i should emphasize the and headers and 80 -- the hetergen eity of ashrab. this is not about one religion and one of the city. >> perhaps -- this is not about one religion and one ethnicity. >> the state department's budget comes in front of the international relations committee. certainly, we will have a friendly person in the chairman

of the committee next time around, i think. the letter that i mentioned earlier that i signed 10 years ago was one that she was circulating. this is good news, certainly. we have time for probably one other question. yes, ma'am. >> thank you for the distinguished panel. i really appreciate it. i am a human rights activist. one question that i have is how long will the state department put aside for changing a policy? in 1997, this policy has been coming in. it has been through two

administrations, both republican and democrat, and still we are fighting for delisting moderate gaimek. iran has been the only group that has been using them on the list. >> who wants to look in their crystal ball? >> i do not know of the timetable is, but they are free to delist at any point. when the responses to the

information on which the designation has been made is in hand, it is within their discretion to do it, sooner rather than later. as i said before, the most distressing thing about this to me is that the mek was unquestionably put on the list in the clinton administration in hopes of mollifying the regime in tehran and getting negotiations started. every indication is that there were kept on the list at the end of the bush administration for exactly the same reason. so you have a bracket of 10 years of reasons remaining the same and the objective reasons it sought to achieve were failing. what we need is a decision based on facts, not based on political considerations. let the facts fall where they may. >> thank you very much. it has been a pleasure listening today to this distinguished

panel. their observations are profound an extremely important. as we all know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome. this policy that we have been operating under for many years now is insane. it needs to be changed. i have never heard perhaps before and more forceful reason and set of reasons for doing so than those presented by the panel today. earlier, it was mr. mukasey who said that we keep listening to the international community

telling us that they are watching. no doubt, they're watching. are they listening? will lay act? people's lives are -- will they act? people's lives are at stake. the security of the world is at stake. what could be a more important cause? what could be more important reason for all members of the international community's to be focused on the problems that are developing and have developed in and around iran as a result of the regime there? i hope that what we have provided today is in deep exactly what is identified in the description of this symposium, a set of policy options that have not here to fore been applied. thank you to the panel.

a merry christmas and happy holidays to you all. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> russia has warned the u.s. that no changes can be made to a proposed nuclear arms treaty. the senate has been debating the start treaty. but the russian foreign minister said today that the draft "cannot be opened up and be the subject of negotiations." president barack obama has been telephoning senators today to

one of support for the new arms treaty with russia. the house returns for legislative work tomorrow. they're waiting for the senate to act on temporary federal spending. congressional quarterly reports are still being considered with increased spending of $1 billion over the next several months. most agencies would see no increase. the additional funds would go to veterans programs and low-income heating assistance. also, continuing science and technology programs. live house coverages here on c- span. >> tonight, with the holiday season in full sprinswing, a conversation about the sales tax. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> you're watching c-span, bringing you politics and public affairs. every morning, it is "washington

journal." during the week, watch the u.s. house and are continuing coverage of the transitioning congress. also, supreme court oral arguments. on the weekends, you can see your signature interview programs. you can also watch our programming any time at c- span.org. it is all searchable at our suspended the library. c-span, washington your way, i public-service greeted by america's cable companies. -- a public service created by america's cable companies. >> at this 45-minute briefing, robert gibbs announced that the

president would sign the repeal of don't ask/don't tell into law on wednesday. >> can you give us your updated sense on where we stand? >> the white house believes that congress will approve the new start treaty before leaving town. you heard last week a pretty

compelling endorsement from speaking tooratcartwright one of the misconceptions about the preamble language on our missile defense posture. that has been dealt with rather effectively. we were asked over the weekend whether senator kyl or senator mcauliffes opposition impacted passage. i have not talked to anybody here who had those votes in this process anyway. in my mind, they do not impacted. >> we're still hearing from senators at this point or not committed. -- at this point who are not

committed. >> there have been 18 committee hearings on this, a thousand questions asked and answered, a treaty that has been on the internet for eight months. if there are senators with substantive questions, we can have anybody that they want to speak with them about those questions. all of their questions have good answers. cartwright, when he says there are no concerns with preamble language, that is an endorsement for what is in the treaty.

>> can you give us an update on the president's week ahead as best as you can? specifically, the don't ask/don't tell signing. >> without having a specific time at this point, don't ask/don't tell, the repeal will be signed by the president likely on wednesday morning. that gives you a sense of the parameters of our week ahead. i anticipate -- i do not know the size of the event, but i think there are a lot of people who are interested in seeing it .ppeared >> >> senator kyl, you are not worried that he will the endorse other republicans who want to vote against it? >> those aspects of the treaty

have been very well known. the expert in the u.s. government on those issues is general corporatcartwright. he was very clear. the amendment of the weekend to strike some of the language in the preamble lost fairly convincingly. if there are those with questions about the impact of any aspect of the policy on the treaty, there are many people in this government who can answer those questions. it is our strong belief -- when we were in lisbon, as nato endorsed our missile defense

policy, at the same time, they are arguing for the ratification of the start treaty. it is clear that the treaty and missile defense are not in competition with each other. >> bill richardson is in north korea. will you get a report -- >> he is on a private trip. it is not one that is in any way sanctioned by the u.s. government. >> with the move on don't ask/don't tell, what is the white house's message to service members who may be serving right now who may be in the closet, who may be gay or lesbian, or service members who may bhave been discharged for being gay or

lesbian. as of wednesday morning, people who are gay and lesbian in the service can be open about who they are? will people will have been discharged be able to reapply? >> lawyers in this building and in the department of defense and in the department of justice are working through a long round larger implementation policy process. once the president signs the repeal into law. i would not want to be in the position at this point to give out legal advice. >> connie rice has come out in favor of the start treaty, but with a caveat. the government should make clear that the preamble in which that some think links missile defense

with this treaty should be made even more clear in the resolution. she says, sometimes, in her experience, the russians have taken language and used it to justify an argument or a point of view. does the administration intends to take the sort of step? >> our view and the view of implimentors ofable mentor the policy do not feel that it in any way inhibits our action. >> is there any concern that they may interpret it differently? >> our policy on missile

defenses protecting europe -- a policy on missile defense protecting europe and the u.s. is not done with russian sign off. at lisbon, it became a realistic missile defense shield constructed by general cartwright. that is the policy that our government thinks is best for our partners and allies in europe and for the protection of the people of the united states. >> regarding a letter that the president sent to senators over the weekend, on saturday, about elaborating on missile defense,

one response from republican is that it is prepared telling us. but have they told the russians? >> yes, absolutely. >> the president and the vice president of providing up-to- date information to lawmakers. why did this and the tax cuts and of being in the final minutes of the fourth quarter? all of this is jam been a short time. >> -- all of this is jammed into a short time. has beenask/don't tell argued for a long time. maybe you are an eagle's and then you have a different fourth quarter analogy.

-- and eagles fan and you have a different fourth quarter analogy. >> so much as trying to be crammed into -- i am sorry. >> where you from? >> new england. >> go ahead. >> why did it come down to this? so much is getting done in such a short time. >> i guess i do not understand. the tax agreement, there was no resolution to it before congress left for the elections. the start treaty did not get a vote before we went to the

elections. perhaps i am not understanding the point that you're trying to get me to respond to. >> we will move on. how does the president feel -- after the election, there were so many questions over the president to get some many of these things done that he wanted to get done or any of them. the fact that he was able to get the tax deal, you seem very confident about start, what is the president feeling now? >> first and foremost, the president believed that each of these things -- also, the

president was disappointed grimly that we had yet to get the dream act passed. -- was disappointed that we had yet to get the dream act passed. you will see strong bipartisan majorities in support of issues that are important to the american people. reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, insuring that taxes for middle-class families do not go up -- i think there is a lesson of the importance that these issues have with not just those on capitol hill, but with the american people. the two parties can and should work together to get those things done. whether it is in december at the

end of a two-year congress or in january, the first month of a two-year congress. >> is there a sense of vindication that he was able to defy the critics? >> no. he is focused on getting our remaining priorities finished before the end of this session. >> as a former eagles fan, were you suggesting that giving start through the senate is kind of like scoring four touchdowns? >> no. i was not understanding the fourth quarter analogy. >> why is the president behaving like a college kid in waiting until the last minute to get anything done. >> when you do your two-year retrospective, you will see that we got a lot done prior to the end of the session. very proud of what

we have accomplished in the past two weeks or three weeks. the notion that somehow all of what we have accomplished in the last two years is in the last get major is to for ge accomplishments. is anyone here redskins fan? [laughter] >> he has actually changed minds on the -- >> the president has made calls over the weekend on start, on don't ask/don't tell, on the dream act. that goes back more than just the past weekend. the president believes that he can make a set of arguments around those issues, why they are important for countries to get them done now. obviously, if there are issues

in which people have questions, we are certainly happy to provide answers. >> are there any republican said he has spoken to that said, ok, you have my vote? >> willmington to that. -- i will not get into that. >> who is he calling on starred today? >> senators. >> how do you respond to lindsay grams suggestion that the entire lame duck has been poisoned. >> i think each person should make up their mind and base

their vote on the merit of each individual issues. whether it is the tax agreement, the repeal of don't ask/don't tell, the ratification of the start treaty, you can see that there are enormously compelling arguments for them. obviously, the tax agreement preserves tax rates for middle- class families. don't ask/don't tell, we have talked about this on a number of occasions. the argument that you heard from the joint chiefs and the secretary of defense, the notion that either congress or the courts, one of those institutions was going to overturn this policy. the question of how it would be overturned and the implementation of that new policy was very much determined by who overturned it. that is what the president and

the secretary of defense and the chair of the joint chiefs believe that doing that through legislative body rather than through the court was enormously important. as it relates to the start treaty, the secretaries of state, the last five secretaries of state for republican presidents have come out in support of it. people across the political spectrum believe that this is the right thing to do. everybody will make determinations on each of these issues individually and on the merits. >> do you think republicans are trying to run out the clock until they have more members in the senate to deal with start? >> start will be voted on before congress leaves town. this is a treaty that has --

that was negotiated over the course of many months, signed in april in prague by the two presidents, and up for review and inspection since then. not to mention the debate that has been have on the floor exceeds the time of debate for many trees in the past. because of the importance of getting this done