investing more in case through 12th -- k-12 education. we're getting some entrepreneurial activity going. when you get in an elevator with a venture capitalist, you have less than 30 seconds to talk about what you were doomed. i like to pass the ball for our first quick pitch. [applause] >> it is and honor to be here. i met brad at berkeley and he had a long ponytail at the time. he has been a huge supporter from the beginning. i am the child of immigrants. i myself >> i grew up not too far from here in silver spring, maryland. my dad drove a taxicab here and

my mom clean hotel rooms to start out our lives in america. it was a key moment for me, my father working night and day because i ask for an apple computer when i was in the seventh grade. he did that. i woke up one day with the computer and i learned how to code initially and that changed my life. out of berkeley, i decided to start up my first company, the first web operating system. that's how i met brad and received the support of great entrepreneurs. i will tell a quick story. i read a story about a guy named jamie dimon in fortune magazine and it said he had left the city. i said, i'm going to call him.

i called him. i called 411 in new york and someone picked up the phone. i was expecting a secretary or an assistant. i said, is jamie dimon there? and he said, this is him. he invited me to new york. somehow i mustered up the courage to say the right things. today i've started four companies and i'm blessed to be able to invest in 30 different start up companies myself, starting to give back and work with great people here on entrepreneurship globally. it is an amazing thing to be here. start up america is not just going to change america, but above world, by showing the potential to be my own daughter is 10 years old and has her own

company called ipillow. i need to get you on the board of her company. [laughter] thank you very much. [applause] >> in the state of the union address, president obama said very clearly that entrepreneurs do big things and go after big ideas. i think it was very exciting to all the entrepreneurs listening that this administration is really focusing a bright light on entrepreneurship as a key to where we're going as a country and in economy. with that, i would like to introduce jennifer. jennifer, where are you? >> right here. hello. i'm the founder of a company called scout labs out of san francisco, california. it's basically a way to index social media and we analyze it for companies, france,

governments, to what it is consumers are saying in -- on the internet in real time. i'm an entrepreneur through and through, as a few of us are. we are kind of bizarre. we are kind of crazy. we are a strange breed. we live and breathe and worked around the clock. when we cannot work anymore, we often sleep on the floor. usually, even while we are dreaming, we are dreaming about our startups. most of us make little or next to nothing. what makes us go? i think about this all lot. think about us as sled dogs. we are just chomping at the bit. we are born to run with the new ideas. it is not totally logical. we do not wait for people to create jobs for us. we are job creators.

we skilled the company to 25. we were acquired by another slightly bigger startup. now the combined group has 160 employees and we are growing rapidly. more than just the number of jobs and more importantly than the number of jobs that we create is the kind of jobs that we create in the kind of work that we do. the work that we do is passionate work. we love what we do and i'm so happy to be raising kids to get to see their mommy loves going to work every day because she loves what she does. the jobs that we create in the work that we create is very productive work. if you want to increase the productivity of america, you should walk the halls of our company. it is astonishing to see what we do on a daily basis. we create really connected work.

when you start a start of, you basically forge a new family. there are bonds that will last often a lifetime. we are connected to an idea and we are connected to each other. that's the kind of work that is what this country really needs. we are entrepreneurs. we are sled dogs. let us run. we will help pull america forward. thank you. [applause] >> next is kimberly brown. >> hello. my name is kimberly brown. i'm a ceo of the biotech company located in baltimore, maryland. i purchased the contract rights to a government contract in 2007. we started with one employee and one client.

we invested in training. we invested in people. today we have 23 employees. we support 15 u.s. army divisions -- the military program, the hiv program, and the emerging an infectious disease program. we are integrating innovation with fda compliance. we have created green jobs and labs and we now have a nonprofit delivery -- nonprofits affiliate's. thank you. [applause] >> brent is next. brent? >> entrepreneurs create jobs. in 2010, i won the global student entrepreneur award and graduated from texas christian university.

the program teaches entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. in 2009, in two businesses and 12 employees. in 2011, three businesses and 36 employees. the entrepreneurs organization, with support of the kauffman foundation, foster's relationships between entrepreneurs and mentors. it makes sense for people to learn from each other. access to resources is always a challenge. i spent two years in 200 -- connecting entrepreneurs with the resources increases jobs. i'm excited to announce my next start up, yummy.com, the largest data base of restaurant nutritional information. access to information gives us all a choice.

these choices make us healthier individuals and improve our time. as we begin our second month in 2011, we have an opportunity to invest in america to convert ideas into jobs. let's do what we do best -- write our own destiny. thank you very much. [applause] >> i would like to wrap up by thanking everybody for participating in the launch of this new startup, start of america of. i would also like to thank you, steve, and carl, in your perspective organizations for providing leadership. things like this are critically important to do. the people who take that leadership effort are really appreciated. we are going to have a closed brainstorming session for everybody except the media.

probably a 5 minute or 10 minute break. we will be back in here. for folks in the press, thank you for coming. for everybody, please think everybody in the -- thank everybody in the administration for their support. [applause] >> we will leave coverage of this event at this point and watch the remainder of it on our website, c-span.org. "the washington post" is reporting that pakistan has doubled its nuclear stockpile over the last several years.

this afternoon, the u.s. institute of peace is holding a discussion on pakistan's future at 12:30 p.m. eastern on c- span2. >> the white house press secretary works for vice- president biden and as a correspondent for "time" magazine. watch more online at the c-span library. it is washington, your way. >> coming up at 1:00 p.m. eastern, we will be live with a review of terrorism incidents during last year. the panelists include charles allen as well as ambassadors from spain and morocco. at 8:00 eastern tonight, an

inside look at "the new york times." we will bring you live coverage on c-span. >> tonight, with the use of social media in the troubled areas of the world, like egypt and tunisia, we will talk about the state department's role with philip verveer and edward felton on his role. tonight on c-span2. >> a look now at the situation in egypt with the potential diplomatic fallout for the united states and what other middle east governments might

also be -- do in the curtis situation. -- in the current situation. "washington journal" continues. host: steve had a man is here to talk about the situation in egypt. -- steve heidamen. egypt opposition unites. guest: i am not sure they expect to replace mubarak the short term. what is the board that an opposition coalition come together that could serve as a negotiating partner for the regime.

that would serve to divide the transition terms. until now these protests we have seen have been remarkable because they have been so spontaneous that they have not had a clear identifiable leadership. he is trying to secure his own role as the leader of this coalition it. what makes the participation of the muslim brotherhood so interesting is they are a very powerful organized political force in egypt, and yet the relationship with the receiver has been so at the cereal is that if they were to assert themselves as the leader of the opposition, i think the military would respond very quickly to crack down. they're being very strategic and stepping back. he ithey want to be involved because they know if they're not

participating in the process they could find themselves shut out later. we're seeing this coalition emerge, and i think it is a very positive sign. the egyptian government cannot say they have no one to negotiate with about a transition period . host: you say you do not think this coalition that is emerging is one that thinks it will take over in the short-term. guest: the first step is to negotiate the terms of the transition. what will that transition look like? we know what house to of all the elections. we know it has to be inclusive, so that all of the relevant political actors are part of the discussions, but those negotiations are not themselves want to define who takes power in egypt. i think what all of the opposition once is close to what secretary clinton called for, which is the democratic process

for determining egypt's political future. what we're seeing now is this. the first up is talk, the final framework, but the framework play out, and the result will be the opposition hopes, a new more representative government for egypt. host: joining us on the phone is jim michaels. he is a military writer in cairo. i want to go to him. if you have a question for him, please feel free to jump in. let me begin with the reaction in egypt today to the obama administration to secretary of state hillary clinton on all talk shows saying there needs to be an orderly transition, we do not want chaos. guest: the reaction has been pretty much the same all along. if you talk to people on the street, there is a sense that the united states is hypocritical sometimes in its

approach in the sense that they have been advocating a democracy and talking about the importance of democracy, but they want a stronger position against president mubarak. you have a lot of gathering of anchoger in the streets here, ad they are really are only seeing one objection in their mind, and as becoming increasingly the case that they want the president to step down. guest: tto be administered -- do they realize the language has been evolving over the couple of days and the president -- the secretary is saying that the u.s. no longer views the current

egyptian government as acceptable, or legitimate and wants to support as it to something different? do the people get that? guest: i am not sure they understand the new ones. i do not think there is very strong anti-u.s. sentiment or anything like that. i think they are clearly focused on the immediate objective, which is the removal of the president. to answer your question, i am not sure they have completely absorbed the nuance of the evolution of the american position over time. host: give us the latest in cairo. what is happening? guest: there is another day of protest. the numbers are increasing as they go along. the army has continued to act with restraint. just now we're starting to see

some police come back out on the street. remember they were present early on firing tear gas at demonstrators. there is a lot of antagonism toward the police from the people. whereas the army is more respected. they stood back from the crowds and have been welcomed and respected. at any rate, at the numbers are continuing to grow. they say the president's intent is to ignore it and let this thing dissipate, and they will counter the move by increasing the crowds every day. tomorrow they are calling for a general strike and even more people. host: we saw one call for a

million man march. what do you think of that? we're showing our viewers some footage from earlier this morning. guest: it is very hard to predict. they are calling for the million man march. it would be a fairly crowded square if they got 1 million people there. it is this real sense that they are keeping order themselves, but underlying it all is a lot of tension. you know, how long will the regime continue its current policy, and will they ask the army to crack down? there is a lot of tension. no one knows what is going to happen, and they realize things could change in a nanosecond. >

host: what about the alliance between the muslim brotherhood and the government? guest: there is a lot of that going on. there is a sense that this is a guy that has been outside the country for a long time and does not have a good sense of what is going on within the country and so forth. host: so his support is not deep? guest: no, i do not know if anyone support is deep. if you ask the protesters who would they like, they say there are many qualified candidates, but no one can name one of them. guest: i think it is very important to recognize the atelbaradei is an unknown

quantity for many egyptians. -- that elbaradei is an unknown quantity for many egyptians. he is a bit of a deficit yes overcome now. that is very important to be aware of as he tries to assert his leadership over the opposition. host: before we let you go, what is it like to report there and have you had internet access, a telephone? what is it like? guest: i do not have internet access, nor does anyone in egypt for the most part. it is a throwback to what it was like reporting a few decades ago. there're a lot fewer distractions when i am writing now because i cannot serve the internet at the same time. the cell phones were in tomentum but they are back on. -- were intermountain but their

back on now. host: jim michaels joining us from cairo this morning. thank you very much. steve hydemmen let me turn to you about his comments. who are the qualified people? guest: frankly i am not sure. there is a very weak, fragmented sector of political parties in egypt. they have sucksuffered under decades of intense political pressure of the regime. it was always the goal to create a context in which they could say to washington that we are the only barrier between stability in egypt and the emergence of an extremist and

thomas movement. part of the effort to make that case was to close atthat other opposition parties might have to mobilize and become mature. but we have right now is a constellation of small, secular opposition parties. they do not have broad based public support. they are generally divided internally, and the notion that any of these could really become effective in leading an opposition, i think is a bit of a long shot. host: let's go to a democrat in atlanta, georgia. your on the air. caller: they need to work within themselves and try somehow to manage to move the united states

and israeli people out of the picture. the united states did not try to bring democracy in the united east, but also prevented that. the revolution was one of them. the question i iranians will ask is that they did not like bringing the communist or socialist party with the help of the soviet union. they did not like the democratic movement. the question is, what do they want from us? the question is honestly as americans, which i love this country so much, is that america is an imperial government. wherever they go, they look at their interest. host: we will leave it there. guest: what is so interesting about the developments in egypt is the u.s. has not played an

interest role. either in sparking the protests that have forced the government to think very carefully about its future and whether in fact it has a future, but in addition, the u.s. government has been very cautious about identifying a very particular outcome as its preferred direction of change for egypt. the government, secretary clinton, has never indicated anything in particular about the future of the president. the u.s. government has not expressed a view about the kind of outcome it would prefer in this case. it seems to me that it is trying to step back from inserting itself into this process, into this very messy process of popular protest in a way that might create opportunities for egypt since to view of the u.s. as seeking to directly influence the course of events.

you might in fact say that one of the lessons that the u.s. learned from earlier experience in the middle east, including perhaps in thiran, is that sometimes we perhaps insert more influence when we do not take a position. it is one at the end of the day that we are not able to control. host: we of a special line set aside for egyptian americans. an egyptian american is joining us from new york. you are on the air. caller: good morning. when i speak to my family right early, they say enough time for mubarak. when he assigned the vice- president, after 30 years it looks that he wants to leave

someone in his place that he trusts will continue the same policies, especially towards policy with the u.s. and israel. the problem with that is he is considered connected to mubarak. he seems like ihe jump with a parachute just a few hours ago to take over. i read "the guardian" from london that he is on the same board with george soros and a foundation that deals with crisis and stuff like that. there is some doubt about his motives and direction. host: let's talk about the new vice president named.

guest: he is one of the closest confidants of president mubarak. they have been allies for decades, but became particularly close in 1995. the president made a trip to ethiopia. general suleiman insisted he right in an armored limousine and there was an attempted assassination against president mubarak. he survived and thank him for having saved his life. as a result, he moved more closely into the inner circle. he is the chief of military intelligence in egypt. he is known in the united states as close to president mubarak himself. what we see is an effort on the part of the regime to position itself to survive the movement

that transitions to a new political order. the regime understands the military, which supports and surround mubarak, understands that a change of leadership is not the same as a change of regime. they are hoping to be participants in what ever new political order emerges in egypt as this uprising unfolds. his appointment is very much a part of that. just to speak to one part of the caller's comments, which i agreed with completely, it is not only a question of mubarak been in government for 30 years. it has been in office for almost 60 years. it has been in office almost only a decade less than the soviet union. during that time it has had only three presidents. they all eat emerged from the military to assume the position

-- they all emerged from the military to assume the position. now we have the president himself lining up a group of senior insiders in order to continue the legacy of the regime and remain in power over an extended amount of time. essentially not even a matter of 30 years, almost 60 years that this regime has been in power. host: anthony, another a ditch an american ihe egyptian americn miami, florida. when did you leave egypt and why? caller: 25 years ago. i left for business reasons. my comment is egypt is a very poor country. the only interest is two things. oil and israel. nothing else.

before we implement changes, we have to be very careful. guest: i think it is true, no one knows where this is going to lead. that is one of the challenges that the administration and washington has been wrestling with. this is a very-fast fast-moving situation on the ground. we do not know what is good to happen. that uncertainty is deeply unsettling for any government that once predictability in its relationships in a region that it views as strategically very important. i have to say i think that u.s. interests in the arab world go beyond oil and israel. during the cold war we recognize that networks of alliances were important in maintaining a balance of power in the international system and in checking the influence of the soviet union.

i think subsequently in the struggle against extremism we have recognized that the u.s. has interest in maintaining relationships and parts of the world where those kinds of trends have been an exceptionally powerful force, and in addition, i think if we take a slightly less cynical view there are interests of the united states in economic and social development that will elevate the living standards of citizens of countries in the arab world and provide them with opportunities for a future that we hope would equip them to participate as active citizens in democratic politics in ways that they have not had the opportunity over the past several decades. i agree that oil and israel do tend to be prominent priorities of the u.s. in the region. i would be reluctant to define

them as our only priorities. host: "the new york times" reports that there were identical headlines. it says the events of the past five years, the takeover of gods gaza and the shift of turkey by iran and turkey have turned many against them.

just want to know one other thing. guest: i think there is significant concern in israel about the events unfolding in egypt. they are focused very directly on the fate of the egyptian and israeli peace treaty. the muslim brotherhood in egypt has indicated that if they were to participate in a future government, it would work towards a revocation of the egyptian israeli peace treaty, and that would transform the strategic peace treaty in a way that the united states would regard as troubling. it has been one of the underlying principles of the middle east strategic thinking, that without egypt and their

participation in any kind of unified arab strategic alliance or relationship, war against israel is essentially impossible. if egypt were to shift its strategic focus and distance itself from that peace treaty, it could revive a lot of concerns about the possibilities of some kind of confrontation on a scale we have not seen since 1973. host: here is the former jordanian prime minister saying that hthe administration has ben way behind the curve on this and so far they're just reacting. cincinnati, democratic line. good morning. caller: mr. heydemmen, how do

we really know that the money that the united states contributes to egypt, how do we know that this president really uses the funds that are given to egypt, how do we know he does not use them for his own good instead of using them for what they are given to? host: the newspapers are reporting that figure is around 1.5 billion per year. guest: egypt is the largest recipient of foreign military. they receive less support than israel, but significant amount of money. it is an important question. there are high levels of corruption and egypt. it is a relevant question. one thing to be aware of is that much of the money that we offer to egypt through foreign

military assistance programs is actually spent in the united states. it is intended to support the purchase of u.s. equipment. it is intended to support the collaboration between the u.s. and the egyptian military through training exercises and other kinds of activities. a big share of the funds never arrived in egypt. they are in the united states to support firms engaged in supply of military equipment to egypt. that is one thing to be aware of. beyond that, i think there is good reason to be concerned about the way our resources and egypt have been, even if they have not themselves been siphoned off by regime figures but for purposes other than which there were intended, we have to ask ourselves if this kind of support for egypt has really worked to america's long- term advantage?

whether it has really sustain our interest or supported our interest in egypt. you could argue that it was critical for egypt's continued commitment to the israeli peace process. i think that is the view the administration has been taking. if that is the case, we've may well do it as a bargain. -- we may view it as a bargain. there is no question that that support has established very close ties between the egyptian and u.s.. and the u.s. standing has probably suffered as a result. this is one of the complex questions where we have made some trade-offs. we have sought to use funds to move egypt in a direction that were supported of u.s. interest in the region and paid a price in the process. host: let's go to independent in virginia.

you are on the air. go ahead. caller: i want to point out some of the similarities i saw between iraq and egypt. some people would say that iraq did not want the form of government, but they felt they were being treated unfairly. i would like to think that we help them achieve to be treated more fairly and have a chance at electing their president or what have you. and in egypt i would like to see that the people there accomplishing this on their own to show the rest of the world that they do not necessarily need the u.s. to achieve the same goals. i think that would be a good thing, just the whole movement, i would like to see the people do that for themselves. . .

guest: it is always going to be more legitimate and more credible, and i would suspect more sustainable than if it were to arise through external intervention. this is really exciting, in large part because we are seeing egyptians themselves taking to the streets to try to determine their own political future. they are demanding change. they are demanding democracy. we have not heard slogans demanding an islamic republic. we haven't heard a lot of slogans against the united states. we have seen people mobilizing and protesting to try to bring about a process of democratic political change.

that is very exciting. i think we will be more sustainable in the long run. in the long run. host: this person is talking about the rising food prices, the political crisis driving the political protests. guest: there are quite extraordinary levels of youth unemployment, growing poverty, a growing inequality, rising prices for basic commodities. and all of these are drivers the conflict. even as many egyptians and many arabs in other countries are struggling to make ends meet and are living in conditions of poverty, they look around and see these enormous skyscrapers going up along the nile. they see these luxury hotels being built. they see their own wealthy living lives that are vastly ostentatious. they cannot help but be a corrosive force when you encounter that day to day and have your face kind of read into

the vast gap that separates you from those who have benefited from egypt's system. host: given that then and the protests that have been happening for six days, how much longer can the protesters continue? the economy has been impacted by these protests. the trade has been stopped. people have to have food on the table. guest: that is important. what we're hearing from protesters is interesting. there say yes, these protests are hurting the economy, but decades correct -- corrupt rule by the mubarak regime have heard them even more. and if it requires a short time of sacrifice and economic disruption in order to put egypt on the right track, it is worthwhile. i am sure that bankers around the world to not agree. i am sure that stock markets around the world disagree. we saw that in the u.s. on friday. we saw it in asia overnight.

but i think the egyptian people feel that if this is one of the costs of securing their political freedom, it is a price that is worth paying. host: clear water florida, an egyptian american. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. sir, are you familiar with abrahuim? guest: yes, i know him quite well. caller: it says that mubarak has the power to use aid and give city way he likes, no questions asked. is that correct. >> i do not know whether that is correct or not. would you do know is that the mubarak family over the past 30 year has accumulated quite extraordinary wealth. i can assure you that the balances in the mubarak family bank account do not look anything like the salary of the

presidents of egypt. wherever that money comes from, whether it comes from contributions from domestic supporters, whether it comes from the kinds of opportunities that have been available to his family because of his political position, i could not tell you. but it is very clear that this is the case, in which a family of rather modest means with no legitimate access to the kinds of resources that they have been able to accumulate has become exceptionally rich. at the end of the day, this is only possible because of one form of corruption or another. was the judge read referring to. guest: he is a wonderful man, a political scientist at top of the university of cairo for many years. he founded a research center for civil society in egypt. he became a target of the regime. his center was investigated on

trumped up grounds by the egyptian regime. he was thrown into prison for several years, and he now lives in exile. he was a long shot, a dark horse candidate for the presidency in egypt in 2005. of course, he did not prevail. but he is a man of tremendous political courage and has been, i think, a real inspiration to many egyptians who had been looking for authentic egyptian voices will speak out against the regime. host: steve heydemann is the vice president of the u.s. institute for peace. talk about your background and your experience. host: i spend a summer in egypt at the american university of cairo in 1981. it is right in the square were these demonstrations are taking place. i study arabic. i have the right to get a teaching, and research about the arab world for almost 30 years now, which is hard to think

about. my focus has been on authoritarian governments in the arab world. and how it is that these regimes have been able to keep themselves in power during decades in which democratic transitions that took place in almost every other region of the world. host: does president mubarak have it within him to leave? guest: that is not the question. i think president mubarak basically is finished. i think we are seeing an effort to negotiate a process of transition that will permit them to leave on terms other than those of the tunisian president. if i could take a moment, that is very important. this process of change in egypt is being watched by arab leaders around the region. and if it is possible to engineer a soft departure for mubarak and the process of

transition that provides space for the old order to participate in some new political arrangement, and might actually offer some kind of reassurance to other arab autocrats that they have choices, that they have an exit strategy, that it is not only power or humiliating exile. so the way this unfolds in egypt could actually be very important to run the region. it is one of the reasons why i hope that this unfolds in a way that is a bit perhaps softer or more inclusive than what we saw happen in tunisia. host: east rutherford, new jersey, an egyptian american. welcome to the conversation. go ahead. caller: i have a common to any question. the comment is an egyptian american in the u.s. have gone against the regime in egypt with

all kinds of questions. but still, the u.s. administration has not listened to the concern of the egyptian people's in the u.s. until the administration here will keep itself isolated from the egyptian people in the u.s. -- also, we have seen that the uprising and egypt came from the middle class. the and people are very well educated. and these are not islamists. these are not what ever we call it every other day. so why feel they administration is not taking a position to support this change of power. and by waiting and waiting, egyptian people will suffer more. it will be very effective in radicalizing the next generation against our interests. thank you.

host: do you have family in egypt? what they saying? caller: yes, i do. they're very frustrated. the young people will be very easily influenced in the future, showing what is happening in the u.s. unless they make a fast movement in supporting the people in egypt. host: do you have family that are protesting? are they out there i liberation square and other places? caller: i have a family who say they're willing to die to get it right this time. they are sick and tired of what has been going on for years and years. host: ok. guest: i would hope that egyptian protesters 80 egyptian americans have been listening carefully to the language coming out of the administration over

the past couple of weeks. i think it took in time for the state department said the white house to find their footing. i think initially there were quite concerned about how serious these protests were and were reluctant to express statements for strongly in support of the protesters in strongly in support of a political transition in egypt. but we have begun to see the administration's shift. i think it has found its footing. i think some of the statements that we heard from secretary clinton over the weekend were actually much, much closer to what our caller hoped he would hear that he might have recognized. we heard our secretary of state say that the u.s. endorses a transition to a new democratic political order in egypt, that it supports the aspirations of the protesters. that is a significant shift from the kinds of comments we were hearing from secretary clinton only a week prior to that.

if we look to the way the administration has been moving, i think they have been perhaps a little bit slow, but they're living in the right direction but they're responding to what they are seeing on the streets of cairo and other egyptian cities. it seems to me that the gaps between the u.s. administration and what the protesters are lobbying for are really narrowly. >host: we were showing our viewers from the el jazeera network, a live shot of what is happening in cairo as protesters continuing to gather. it looked like there were a lot more people. they are defying the nighttime curfew. also, i saw a banner from colleges 0 saying that a journalist had been freed, but the camera equipment still remains seized. that is the headline. six algeciras journalists released, but the equipment remains seized. chicago, you're on the air.

caller: i have two cards. when it, i think president obama is doing the correct thing as far as trying to support the people in egypt. i also think that is the way it should be all over the countries. we should not be the one to go in and dictate to the people how they're supposed to run their government. and they think he is doing a great job. my second comment is this, i think that over the radio -- i think that people should start respecting the president and stop calling him obama. i think they should call him president obama, just like they did for all the other presidents. host: all right, an independent caller from chicago. caller: i was watching c-span book review last weekend, and

there was a book writer, edwin black, and he wrote a book, and i would like to know if it is a possibility, god forbid, and i have finally found someone on c- span this morning, mr. steve heydemann -- i really appreciate you being on. i do not ever want to think that could ever happen again. guest: i am not familiar with the book, so i am not sure i can directed directly. say a little more about what the challenge was that he writes about. host: unfortunately, we lost the caller. i apologize. guest: and i apologize for not be able to respond more directly. host: the ap is reporting that hundreds of foreigners have been evacuated from egypt. they are expected to arrive soon

in cyprus. countries are scrambling to get their citizens out of egypt, which is in its seventh day of political unrest. the previous caller mentioned president obama, and "usa today" front page, "pressure rises on a mubarak." the cover story continues on to the back page this morning with a lot of questions about how this impacts the united states. with the uprising means for the u.s., if you're interested in that. that's got to roseburg, oregon, democratic line. caller: good morning. i appreciate your expertise on this matter. i have a comment and question. hello? host: yes, we're listening. caller: the holstein, in my estimation, of why israel is so concerned is that it is

universally understood that is fundamentally wrong when you deny the person's right to subsist. my question is my concern really over the key of jordan. -- the king of jordan. i find the man to be extremely honorable. i agree with just about everything and have heard the men say. host: we will get to jordan in a moment. let me read the front-page story from "usa today." it's as the 1979 peace treaty with israel ended --

host: steve heydemann, do you want to talk about jordan? guest: i think the context in jordan is quite different from what we have seen in tunisia and now in egypt. it is true that jordan shares many of these general attributes that are driving protests across the arab world. large numbers of unemployed youth, increasing levels of inequality, rising commodity prices, the kinds of conditions that are just ripe for these sorts of protest to develop. but at the same time, the system of governance is quite different. it is a monarchy. society is split between palestinians and jordanians of east bank origin. there is a long history of east dominance in the political system and the military. because of protests we have seen

in jordan have tended to focus very heavily on social economic issues. and the king is responding to those concerns. it is not clear whether the kinds of changes he has been proposing in economic policy and social policy are going to be efficient, but he is making a concerted effort. his response in in casting the protests in jordan as incurred in a set of economic grievances that there regime can address without necessarily in digit and bigger political question that we have seen in a merger in egypt and indonesia and in yemen and perhaps in some other settings as well, algeria. host: we will try to get a couple more phone calls in. hartford, connecticut, you're on the air. caller: hello. the u.s. calls for fair and free elections, and we should not be afraid of the muslim brotherhood, per say. host: what is the prospect of free and fair elections?

an earlier caller said the sale of a day. there's nothing to fear from the muslim brotherhood. -- an earlier caller said the same thing. guest: in november, there were perhaps the most corrupt and unfettered elections in egypt's recent history. before then 400 parliamentary seats, the party to more than a handful of them. responding to the protests in the streets across egypt today, the egyptian government has said that it would reopen claims of electoral fraud following those elections in november. but that is really not going to satisfy the concerns of the egyptians. the question of whether we can anticipate free and fair elections in the future really hinges on this process of negotiation that we should expect will begin to unfold over the weeks and months ahead

between the regime and a coalition of opposition leaders. thus, an outcome that has clear and explicit support for the united states. secretary clinton has indicated that free, fair, democratic elections and one of the criteria that the u.s. will use to judge whether this process is moving in the right direction or not. so my hope is that as we see this unfolds, the goal of inclusive democratic, free, fair elections will actually materialize in egypt around september, which is when presidential elections were due to be held. i hope we can see that emerge as one of the outcomes of this process. i think the caller is correct, that we have far less to fear from the muslim brotherhood then we have often heard from the mubarak regime itself. the muslim brothers have been

participating in the political process in egypt now for a very long time. they have moderated many positions that have caused so much concern in the past. they have been very strategic in very savvy in how they position themselves at this moment a political uprising in egypt. the have not tried to push themselves into the center of the political arena. the have not tried to seize the leadership of these protests. they have agreed to work with mr. el-baradei in a coalition of opposition forces during a negotiated transition. and i think they recognize that their leadership of this, if they were to assert their leadership of this protest movement, that it could actually pose risks of a military reaction. so they have responded quite strategically, in a way that suggests that if this plays out

through a transition to elections, that they will compete in elections. they will no doubt emerge as one of the important political players in egypt in the future. but i am not sure there will be the dominant political player in egypt in the future. host: you have studied how autocratic regimes to stay in power. did it surprise you that this type of headline from the "new york times" that we have seen over the past few days "protests old-guard falls in behind the young." people under 30 that were able to organize this movement. >> it does does apprise me at all. we have seen a generation of opposition figures in egypt who struggled to figure out how to navigate in place for themselves in a very repressive of authoritarian, political arena. many of them have worked over the years to reach some kind of accommodation with the rashid,

to bargain with the rashid a run egime, to of -- the rati to bargain withh them. >> tonight, for the use of social media in troubled areas of the world, we will talk about the state department's role in freedom of expression matters across. then, the federal trade commission's very first chief technologist on his role on privacy matters. tonight on c-span2. >> jay kearney will be the new

white house press secretary. learn more about him and watch c-span coverage of his other appearances on line at the c- span video library with every c- span program since 1987, more than 160,000 hours, all searchable and free. it is washington your way. >> live pictures now from the potomac institute this afternoon for a look at terrorism in 2010 and for the future. this is an effort the organization has taken up for about 13 years. this year, the ambassadors from spain and morocco to the u.s. are joining former intelligence professionals and scholars to discuss the events of last year and with the moscow airport bombing and the unrest in tunisia, egypt, and lebanon could mean for this year. this is expected to get under way in just a moment. live coverage here on c-span.

>> again, standing by live at the potomac institute for a discussion on the future of terrorism, which is set to start in just a couple of moments. live coverage again here on c-

span.

>> ladies and gentlemen, if i could have your attention please. i'm ceo and chairman of the potomac institute for policy studies, and it is my privilege to welcome you here today, which is unfortunately another gathering to talk about terrorism. for more than a decade, the

potomac institute has been privileged to host these sessions, reviewing terrorist acts and the status of terrorism over the past year. unfortunately, it appears that the skirts of terrorism continues to grow and spread around the world, and unfortunately, we will probably be having these meetings for many more years to come. it is, as i said, the privilege of the potomac institute to be one of the hosts for this session. at the potomac institute, we have the international center for terrorism studies, headed by professor alexander, who i'm sure most of you know has been responsible for studying and writing about terrorism academically for more than 40 years and is the author of more than 100 books on almost all subjects of terrorism. cosponsoring today's event is the into university center for terrorism studies, also directed by professor alexander. we are very privileged once

again to have our partner, the into university center for legal studies at the international law institute as a cosponsor, and we will have closing remarks from prof. richard professor wallace, chairman of the institute, told us join us here today. they've been a longtime partner and friend in the study of these very important issues. as i mentioned at the outset, unfortunately, terrorism as an act of as someone said political discourse, continues to grow. you will find in one of our more recent publications outlining the facts and consequences of terrorism through 2010 in northwestern and central africa, and i just this part of the world alone, the number of events that have occurred over the last year has continued to soar and the exact death and carnage in its wake. this is, as we witness on tv

today, different forms of expressing political and social will of the people throughout the world. it is important to note the differences between that and what some would claim is a legitimate way of expressing their political desires and most of us considered to be criminal, illegal acts of violence against humanity, but most of us would term as terrorism. we have today with us -- we are fortunate to have today with us some of the world's experts on these issues, and they will -- starting from charlie allen, who has had many decades, as you know, looking at these issues from the intelligence community, ambassadors from two of the countries who have dealt with these issues for many lifetimes and many decades, and their experience will be of great value to us today. all of this, all the way through to our legal representatives at

the end of the table from the international law institute and banned from the potomac institute of policy studies to talk about the illegality or legality of these types of acts. with that, i would like to turn the program over to professor alexander, who, as most people will recognize, is a man who does not need much introduction. he quite literally has studied almost every aspect of terrorism for more than 40 years and is a world authority on the topic. we are privileged to have him at the potomac institute. we're privileged to have him heading up the sessions every year. professor. >> thank you, very much, mike, for your generous introduction. clearly, we are grateful to you and to the potomac institute for hosting this particular event to

review the terrorist acts the year before and the outlook for the next year, and mike is very modest. we worked together on a number of studies, al qaeda before 9/11, and also other terrorist groups, and fortunately, we do have the ambassador to spain, who will discuss also the issue, and we are dealing also with the issue of cyber terrorism as well and strategic communications. first of all, let me welcome again the panel, and we are going to introduce you in a few minutes. i would like to welcome the audience. if i may, i would like to introduce two people from the potomac -- vice president

clifford, would you stand up? in the general right here, was working the cyber issues. i would like to also introduce ,ur young people, the intern's the next generation of scholars and experts in the field. where are you? we have three in the back. there are some more in the back. in general, we would like to welcome all of you. just one technical word -- please turn off your cell phones because this session is being broadcast by c-span. we want to thank c-span and also the voices of america and others for covering this event. now, i would like to say that in particular, this stage of

strategic development -- of course, we see the reason the effects of, for example, in moscow and afghanistan and so forth. what has emerged as the so- called new middle east. some people call it the 9/11 of the middle east. clearly, all these events are interconnected with the problem of terrorism because it might trigger some terrorist attacks worldwide. again, we have to watch the situation very carefully in the coming months and years, and the panel is going to deal with some of these issues. now, as far as the presenters, each will have about 15 minutes to make their remarks, and then, we will have q&a discussion. before we introduce our panel, i

would like to make two remarks. one, on a personal level, i would like to report to you that a colleague of ours just died, prof. edgar brenner, who cooperated with us for the first 30 years of the potomac, and i had the privilege of working with him for the past 35 years. we are going to have a special memorial service to celebrate his many contributions next month, and we will keep you posted. if i may, i would like to mention three publications that we worked on the past year. one has to do with for an affinity to terrorists in our midst, basically focusing on the crisis of identifying the question of loyalty to home

american citizens and others will somehow become members of the terrorist groups, and i'm sure we are going to deal with that. this was one publication we had last year. the other publication is a new nato interdisciplinary journal that we are publishing in cooperation with nato, and a particularly, with the nato center of excellence and the partnership for peace. this publication will be available to you. third, the publication that might just mentioned -- that might -- that mike just mentioned. i was able to look at the situation earlier this month in the region. just a few words about some of

the findings. it seems to me that unless we see this strategic map in a way that we do not miss the quarters, then i think we are going to be in a good situation to realistically assess the nature of the threat and what can be done to deal with the problem. if you take, for example, this issue of north africa, and we can see the developments in the past month -- for example, in geneva. we have to look at the situation in algeria and libya, mauritania, morocco, tunisia, chad, mali, and niger. on the basis of our studies since 9/11, we recorded an increase of some 558% of the number of terrorist attacks in

the region. but my friends, it is not just the number of bad tax. it is the impact, and i'm afraid that with the new developments, we are going to have an increase. clearly, it will look at the various open sources, there is no question that al qaeda and the moderate, together, jointly, with various al qaeda affiliate's, for example, the arabian peninsula -- they represent the most dangerous threat, both regionally and globally. the problem of fail-safe -- the terrorists are exploiting the open spaces in order to recruit,

in order to be involved in narcotics trafficking, in human trafficking. it is unbelievable. if you go to the region and see what is going on, the links. now, what can be done? we now have quite a number of recommendations. i would like to mention at least two. one of them is on the intelligence level, and we do have experts on intelligence who can discuss it today. intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. and sharing of intelligence is really the key. number two, a political solution to some of the problems in the region and beyond. in the region, particularly, the conflict between algeria and morocco. it does require a solution.

if we are not going to have it, we are not going to have stability in europe and elsewhere. i would suggest that all of us, meaning governments, the civil society has to participate in this effort. in the interest of time, i would like to just mention that these people who need no introduction have contributed to the national security concerns of the united states and the international community for many years, and, fortunately, they supported the academic work of the potomac and other institutions in the past 30 years as well as before that, so i'm delighted to participate in this panel, again, with our

friends and colleagues. >> thank you, very much, professor. it is great to be here with you once again and with this distinguished company we have. i'm going to speak primarily about al qaeda, not talking about other terrorist groups like hamas or hezbollah. my focus will be almost entirely al qaeda and where we stand. professor alexander just talked about the events on the 24th of january at moscow's busiest airports. demonstrates how certainly these events can occur and the damage

that can be done to the entire psyche of a nation, as what happened to the united states, as you know, on september 11. this fall, on 11 september, if the current situation prevails, will be 10 years since we had a successful al qaeda attack directly against the united states, inbound. i think this is pretty remarkable. given the fact that we have engaged in two multi-year wars in afghanistan and iraq. we have had a global intelligence-led offensive against al qaeda in all dark corners of the world, not just iraq and afghanistan. and given the complexity of the attacks that occurred back on september 11, the intelligence community forecasts there will likely be future attacks of equal if not greater intensity than what occurred on september

11. part of the reason for this pessimistic forecast was that the intelligence community's lack of understanding of the full capacities of al qaeda and its ability to conduct intercontinental attacks against the united states. while i was never quite that pessimistic and never quite believed that, i did believe there would be additional attacks, small, violent attacks in this country, and we now know there would have been successful attacks, repeatedly, had not united states gone on the offensive to disrupt a whole series of plots that would have resulted in serious loss of american life, damage to her critical structure, and also to our national psyche. i only have to cite the aviation plot of august 2006, just to illustrate that. that was disrupted because of exquisite british intelligence.

intelligence, intelligence, intelligence, as the professor said. the same can be said of the events that occurred back on the 26 and 30 of october last year where we had al qaeda in the arabian peninsula attempt to bring down airliners using a low pressure vapor explosive disguised in hewlett-packard laser desktop printers. again, this was it intelligence, this time, from the saudis, prevented that from occurring. i've learned through my long career in intelligence, that there will be abrupt discontinuities. today, they are sort of called black swans, where there will be profound events that will change history, and we may be seeing that today in tunisia and egypt. we have all been aware of the

political, economic, ethnic, religious, and geographical lines, and some of these are certain to cause conflict. it just will not be avoided. camilla events are occurring in lebanon that i think illustrates that very much. we will be fortunate to come out of that without real conflict. we also have a great youth balch around the world. part of that is reflective of what has occurred in indonesia, where we have the enormous percentages of the national population under 25 who are unemployed or underemployed. combined with the fault lines in the middle east center of the arab/israeli dispute, i think we can see a witch's brew developing over the next decade, which will test this country in particular. for this reason, i think we have a look at terrorism in a much broader context, and i think we also have to look at the global

threat from al qaeda, which stands apart from its predecessor organizations. develop a technology means some of the world's most dangerous capabilities can be placed in the hands of a few. the recipes on the internet that anyone can study appeared al qaeda in the arabian peninsula just issued in english the new explosive manual that contains some highly accurate information on how to make explosives. it is out there for all of you to see. global communications and mass media provide a mechanism that can be used to fuel terrorism internationally. communications today provide terrorists and terrorist groups with the ability to cross national boundaries and sustain a, ideology and narrative. they permit groups to recruit new members, train them, and coordinate attacks virtually.

let's look back at what happened in 2010. little has changed when it comes to the objectives of al qaeda. their goal is to attack the united states, in flint massive casualties, damage critical u.s. infrastructure, and cause permanent psychological damage to the u.s. psyche. al qaeda takes the long view. osama bin laden has written about this. does not believe that the united states has the resiliency to remain steadfast, to take heavy losses and resist over the long term. al qaeda leaders have taken pleasure in viewing the united states as a society that recoils when there is a threat or even when there is a blame game that occurs when there is unsuccessful attempts to attack this country. i have read some interesting material over time. the united states and global

alice in 2010 continued its relentless attack to disrupt, dismantle, defeat, and destroy al qaeda leadership in the federally administered tribal area. that is john brennan's phrases, special assistant to the president. according to the press, we launched 115 so-called drone strikes in 2010 against al qaeda leaders, offered its, propagandists, and trainers. the strike still reportedly a number of al qaeda leaders. al qaeda acknowledges that the number 3 man with an al qaeda and general manager died may 2010. al qaeda central is not entirely cohesive. the nctc says there are perhaps 300 al qaeda members active, and it estimates that may be less than 100 are active inside afghanistan.

contrary to popular thought, and i read this in the press and do not believe it, al qaeda leaders are not easily replaced. it takes a long time to replace good leaders. al qaeda's diminished strength in the fattah however offset, as it tribally based pakistani group, has deep links into al qaeda central and is involved in supporting cross-border operations into afghanistan. and it has vowed to take vengeance on the united states, which it blames for the death of mature love sued back in 2009. august. you will recall that faisal sha hzad, the times square bomber,

allegedly was trained by the ttp before he made his own attempt last may. it is challenged, however, i believe, extending its threat transcontinental lead to the united states. it is a tribally based hushed tone movement, primarily. the other regional supporter is the harkani network. he was minister of trouble affairs in the taliban government. the networks provide the manpower to al qaeda for cross border operations into afghanistan, and the al qaeda network allegedly, according to the press, made room extremists for suicide operations. we could always spend time talking about the kashmiri-based group focus primarily on

conducting attacks in india, but none of these affiliated groups really are the type that have the intent and objective of really attacking here in this country. al qaeda affiliate's, affiliated networks continued to decline in 2010. the one decimated back in 2007, 2008, 2009 remains dormant. in the philippines, the leaders are killed or captured. as you recall, this was more of a thuggish group than a purveyor of islamic extremism, but i do have, as professor alexander manchin, concerns about north africa and east africa. let's look at al qaeda and the islamic mahgreb. it functions as a umbrella organization for a collection of organizations determined to

attack what they see as apostate regimes. the bulk of the forces are located in southern algeria, no. bali, and mauritania. they have rated archaeological sites and tourist areas. they specialize in kidnapping. and extracting significant ransom in order to fuel their operations. as you know, they have kidnapped a significant number of westerners, including a number of frenchmen, which they still hold. i think we have not seen them attack into western europe, but i think they may become more emboldened as the kind of disturbances occur as occurred in geneva. i think we have to watch aqim closely, and i'm thankful to professor alexander for studying this initiative.

we know that al qaeda and tunisian merge with al qaeda in saudi arabia in 2009. it is very much an insurgent group, resurgent in its effort to attack the united states in the west. it thrives in the in government areas of yemen. it conducted numerous attacks in 2010 in south yemen, particularly in the government's. most prominence extremists we know well. a u.s. citizen who provide spiritual sanction for those who may wish to commit suicide in the name of al qaeda. it also -- it also continues to provide propaganda efforts against the west. although didn't and under pressure, the voice is still heard. on the ninth of november 2010, he issued a of a new video. if you read it, which i did, it could be summed in two words --

kill americans. we have already addressed the hewlett-packard laserjet cartridges, but it has done something else. a published last year its first edition of a web-based journal of propaganda directed at inciting violence acts, especially young muslims, living in the united states, the united kingdom, and other western states. this is an electronic magazine, potential to trigger young and alienated muslims to commit acts of violence in the united states and canada in particular because there are many canadians that really follow al aki. there is no question about that.

it is directly linked to al qaeda central, operating in somalia, and it continues to wage a fairly successful insurgency against the transition of national government, backed by the united nations, certainly backed by united states. several thousand young americans of somali descent have travel to somalia to fight for them. at least a couple have murdered themselves, committed suicide operations in that fight. our concern is not about an inbound threat directly from central, but from those who have gone to somalia, train, by in military operations, and return. many still radicalized and capable of committing terrorist acts. al shabab remains a fertile

ground for recruiting extremists not only in united states but also in western europe. one of the things that has occurred in the last year, i believe, is a greater prominence of radicalization, especially among young, muslim youth in the west. in europe as well as in north america. according to a study that was published in 2010, there were only 46 publicly reported cases of radicalization and recruitment to g hottest terrorism in the united states between september 11, 2001 and the end of 2009. only 125 people were identified as part of these 46 cases. 13 of those cases, however, occurred in 2009, which is a very sharp uptick. as you know, in 2010, the number of cases has increased. we had the case back on november

26 where we had someone in portland oregon trying to detonate a car bomb at a christmas tree lighting. we also had an arrest of antonio martinez in baltimore, who was going to attack with a bomb at an armed forces recruiting center. the individuals involved were self-inspired and self- motivated. they were not directed from al qaeda central or from aqap over in yemen. they were u.s. citizens or held legal immigration status. the central theme of each plot involves placing explosives in areas that were murdered innocent americans who were attending very benign evens. western europe, and i know perhaps we will hear more from our ambassador from spain, is also a focus of al qaeda

plotting, and there have been a number of arrests across a number of countries in europe, including spain. there are reports involving radicalized individuals, some of whom were allegedly preparing to stage a mom by -- a mumbai-type attack. the threat was so severe that the department of state issued an intelligence advisory warning americans going to europe of possible attacks on europe's public transport system or tourist attractions. british authorities recently arrested in december 9 men on terrorism charges. the state of the individuals found -- they stated individuals found bomb making instructions on the internet journal. if you have not read it, i recommend all of you do.

the electronic journal is in an easy to understand english. it is not heavy on ideology like a lot of the old homes -- teh old -- the old tomes that used to come out of the propaganda arm. it is a lot more clever, a lot more persuasive but there is something there. we must keep our perspective on radicalization here in this country. the pier research study of may 2007 still stands, i think, alone, i am pointing out that american muslims are overwhelmingly, decidedly american in outlook, values, and attitudes. hard work pays off in society. they have high income levels, a good education. most american muslims, by a two to one margin do not see a conflict between being a devout

muslim and living in a modern society. my concerns were only over a tiny minority of muslims, a number of whom are converts, and some who remain strongly linked with islamic countries overseas where extremist groups are flourishing. many of these new immigrants have arrived in the united states in the last 15 to 20 years as refugees and asylum seekers. some have become strongly attracted to the anti-western, especially anti-u.s. forces in their countries of origin. political, religious, and social tensions that exist in a particular community in the united states may mirror tensions in these other countries. these tensions may be reflected in the belief held by many muslim countries that the united states is at war with islam. this affinity with violent

groups abroad is reflected again in the somalia case. somali immigrants coming to this country -- and i spent a lot of time working this when i was the undersecretary at homeland security. they found assimilation difficult. they felt alienated. many retain this clan affinity back to somalia with the civil war. and they felt attracted to the radical imams in this country. as i said, the first generation of those fighters, some of them have returned, and others will. i think we have just as much concern about the second generation. these are not naturalize like the first generation, but they are naturalized americans, young men in their teens who are still influence. to date, the self-radicalized sells detected in the united

states and canada have lacked a level of sophistication, experience, and access to resources of terrorist cells overseas. their efforts have been in the nascent stages, and many of their efforts have been amateurish, but it is not the success. it is the intent, and eventually, they will get it right. given what i have outlined, i believe we have every reason to be concerned about terrorism in 2011 and beyond. as we know how quickly al qaeda metastasized after 911. al qaeda central may be slowly dying, but its tentacles around the world live on in very remote areas, and those tentacles will remain alive for years to come, and i cannot overstate the power of the internet, for fueling the growth of radicalization in this country and obviously in western europe as well. many of the extremists recruited

in the united states began their journey on the internet where they readily found resonance and reinforcement of their own this committed use and people who with legitimate and direct their answer. so the outlook for al qaeda and its objective in inflicting major damage to the united states and western countries has not changed, and the threat is very much with us and will remain so in 2011 and beyond. i look forward to your questions. thank you. >> thank you very much, charlie, for this overview of the past year and outlook for next year. no wonder that you are considered a legend and extraordinary senior official working in the field for over 40

years. our next speaker is also a official who had an opportunity to work in this area for the past four decades as a senior diplomat, ambassador in a number of countries -- for example, more of go he served, also, and malta, montevideo, more recently in new york, but in addition to his diplomatic background, he was also the director of spain's national center of intelligence, and we appreciate very much, mr. ambassador, for participating in this event. we have the honor to hosting you as well as your colleagues. i recall the prime minister

spoke at one of our seminars, and i found one of the interesting quotations i think the best describes what is the nature of the terrorist, and he said, "whoever murders in the name of a country, a guide, for a social and economic system is neither a patriot, a believer, or an idealist, just a murderer ." mr. ambassador. >> thank you very much indeed. thank you very much. i would like to thank michael, the potomac institute, and my

friend who was instrumental in bringing me here today, and for thinking that my remarks might be of interest to you. i will do my best. i will try to say something practical and direct. i remember a long time ago, i was traveling with by foreign minister at the time. traveling with the irish minister at the time. we were waiting one morning in madrid airport for a plane to come down from paris to pick us up and go to tunis. i remember the prime minister called that morning to the foreign minister and ask where we were. i said i was at the airport, saying that we were going to to the ship, and he asked if we're going the wrong direction, because that same night, the

regime had fallen. today, we talk about terrorism, which is important, but the center of attention is in the arab world, happening in those countries, so close to spain, too. but charles bowen is giving us, i think, an excellent overview of the current situation, the current threats that we face, the situation of terrorism in the world, the different factions, what they are trying to do, and my conclusion would be the we had better be worried. do not be at ease because a terrorist attack is possible. they keep on trying all the time. sometimes, we have been able to prevent them from carrying out their purposes. i can tell you that during my experience heading of the

intelligence service in spain, we boarded some terrorist attempts in my country. i know because president obama has said in a public the you have done the same here in the united states, all the security forces keep on working day and night, as you say here, 24/7, working on that. but at the same time, as i say, they keep on trying, and they have all the advantages in their favor because they can choose the wind, the house, the moment. bake at -- they learn all the time. -- they can choose the when, the moment.e we learn from each other all the time, and the more we cottbus make our tactics better to combat them, the better prepared they are. sometimes, we are just lucky, as

happened with the terrorist that tried to blow up a plane one year ago and ended up burning himself. or in the case of times square more recently. so they keep on trying. i can see different types of terrorist. on one hand, you have the ethnic national terrorist. then, you have those who try to use religion as an excuse, a preferred form of religion, to suit their interests and to use in their benefit. then, we have some sort of

anarchists or -- i think anarchism belongs more to the past, if you wish, but badly adapted people carrying out their frustrations. then, we have a more organized sort of terrorism in the case of narco-terrorism. we are having it in mexico nowadays. it is very sad, but we have terrorism of the service of the state, states using terrorism to foster their objectives. let me say a few words because i was not going to talk about that because i do not think it is clearly looking for oxygen, you know. it is my belief that they are

reliving their last moments, and i'm very happy to say so. it is very easy to kill one person, and they might do it again, but it is becoming expensive to kill. people do not condone that any longer. eta has killed over 900 people -- members of the military, members of the police force, judges, journalists, politicians. i'm on their list, but it is not an honor, which i can tell you. i do not know how many truces they have declared. and all of them have ended when one has been coming for them. it is my sincere belief they are looking for oxygen and trying to internationalize their cause because they know it is the last

possibility they really have. i do not think that the policy followed by the prime minister was very effective. what he tried to do was isolate eta from its social base and declared the new political party. that decision was declared just unfair by the european court of justice. so there are ways -- they are cutting their ways of obtaining money, cutting their ways of obtaining weapons, and isolating them, and i think it has been pretty successful. we do think that is the last attempt to get some oxygen in order to reorganize themselves. we are not going to give them oxygen. we are going to keep combating them and trying to take advantage of these moments of weakness.

the best country has its government, its parliament, its police force, its television in the local language, including those who are -- want independence from spain. there is a very small group that are illegal because they are pushing that objective through peaceful means. the only thing we ask is to lead the weapons inside and, and they will not explain because we will not give them any possibility to take political advantages of killing political components. that is a line we will not cross. i think finally, we will realize that it is better to push whatever political objectives they understand through peaceful, political means.

i would say that intelligence services on police forces nowadays have a lot of information, and are drawn on information, be it through intelligence -- how do you call it? intelligence of signals, being human intelligence, open sources. there is a lot of information. the problem is connecting the dots. that is the main problem, and the most -- connecting the dots in different ways. on the one hand, among agencies. what happened here september 11 -- that is what happened in spain march 11. different services in charge of the police and intelligence services. had we put all the information

on the table that we had at the time, probably, something would have come out. and i think the same happened here. it is also important to be able to connect the dots. sometimes it does not happen. it is important to connect the dots with all the services because sometimes, there's almost nothing you can do. if you steal a credit card, or you rent a car with false documents, or you take a bus from one place to the other, you put all of those things together, you have a terrorist plot, but if you consider them in an isolated way, if you only have minor crimes, very difficult, and we were experiencing that in europe. i do not think that great progress has been made in this

field over the last year's because it was very frustrating. we've got everything together. it was impossible to hide that. so, connect the dots, i think, is the main objective. and i think we have to have our priorities clear. i mean to combat terrorism and reduce our vulnerabilities. we have to protect our critical network. we have to protect our border. we have to be clear on immigration. we have to be able to change data and to incorporate it into passports from documents or id's period change information on banking.

the european parliament has approved the agreement, and now, we have a passenger name record. we expect that that will be solved in the near future. but because of the limits and protection of personal data, but at the same time, we not only have to combat terrorism immediately, but we have to have a longer term vision, and we have to fight against the reasons, the causes, which are sometimes the frustration in the lack of political channels, participation, or the inequality, poverty, failure, in the process of modernization of

certain societies. for example, they have copied the models imported from the west and have produced political corruption and economic inefficiency sometimes. we have to fight against double standards, and we have to look at ourselves. we bridge one thing, and sometimes, the other. we are bridging democracy, but when it comes out that hamas is the outcome of that democracy, we take a step backwards for -- i mean, you know what i'm talking about. at the same time, a global approach and cultural dialogue, religion dialogue. .

you have topped off a couple of heads and then let us go through our own process, and made people will have to chop some heads off. we have to get to know each other, and sometimes in still

our system of values, which is good for us. sometimes they are based on our experience in years of evolution. i would say we're worried about what might happen in europe and the moon by attack -- the mumbai attack. we have interest in africa and we are at war with what is happening in the city into the atlantic, which ideas, weapons. everything is a you know running out of control. with all of this, well, in the case of the cyber attacked is

the name of the game nowadays. it is something very new, and i do not know if we are well prepared to protect our essential lines in this field, at the banking, stock exchange common defense. it happened here, it happened in the subway in tokyo. then we worry by what is the greatest nightmare, which is the lone wolf. what happened in [inaudible] recently. it is a very interesting program in the framework of the european union. copra was salvaged back in 2008.

14 countries are working in participating in that. it tries to work on the early detection of these velone wolves terrorists. apparently they follow the same pattern of evolution. in any case, what is very important is that anything to combat terrorism has to be done within the rule of law, creating a balance between security, pprofessional freedoms.

our world is more secure than 50 years ago, but it is more than certain on a private and personal level, the risk is overreacting. security is impossible -=- the other day i was listening to radio attack talking about the program talking about a terrorist attack. we should do something in order to go through security at the airport. we have to go through security outside there. moscow has 20 million passengers per year. you know, my impression is that

it can be done, but then you find the attack difficult and could they will go somewhere else. you cannot protect everything over time. then it will make flights terribly uncomfortable. we have been accepted more and more things every day on the basis of security. i think that we have to learn to live a certain degree of vulnerability. we're crumble and that is part of our freedom of the same time. -- we are honorable and that is part of our freedom of the same time. any restrictions of personal freedom has to be clearly defined to avoid abuses, taken only when absolutely necessary, always of the minimal possible level, always temporarily limited, and always under the

law and parliament control. because otherwise we will give a victory to the terrorists. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, mr. ambassador, for your great insight and extensive experience. the bottom line is to strike a balance between security and considerations -- between security considerations and human-rights. clearly this will be on the agenda in the coming months and years, and only in the united states but throughout the world. our next distinguishing kidder ispeaker is an ambassador who also has an extensive

background of diplomatic serving in italy and moscow and elsewhere. we have the honor and pleasure to have the ambassador speak at the number of times, and one of the most learning lessons that you gave us i remember when you send that we are all in the same boat -- you said we are all in the same boat. so either we are going to sail the sea and be safe on land or sink. >> thank you.

it is a pleasure to be here at the potomac institute. we have been working together for a number of years, and this is another opportunity for me to speak about what is going on in the region and how we work on terrorism. i am very honored to be with this panel, especially with my friend and colleagues. you know that we have been working quite strongly, the united states and morocco, but also spain and morocco. spain and morocco are neighbors and we are threatened by common threats, especially terrorism, and we have been working very closely together. morocco has suffered terrorism a few years ago. we have the terrorist attack in 2003 and some others in 2007,

although in 2007 i think that that was what my friend sen called the solitary are lower tariffs. some borrow them up and what part of an organization. -- someone blew them up and was not part of an organization. we never thought that something like that could happen in morocco, especially from the doings of moroccans. we immediately had huge demonstrations. 1 million people in the street against terrorism. this is something i would like to underline, which is important purita. here in the united states and europe people find that muslim

people cannot stand against terrorism it is very opposite of the press and tv is that terrorist attacks, it is never what the reaction is. in morocco we have brought reaction from the people, 1,500,000 people in the streets against terrorism. that was news. and that is torn to know. -- important to know. in 2003 we found ourselves in a terrorist attack, and we seriously thought morocco was immune. no country is immune as i said a few years ago. we are on the same boat and everyone can be struck by terrorism. it can happen here and anywhere. in let me give you an example of what has been happening in morocco for the last few years and how we counter and try to

counter the terrorism. well, through many ways. first, security. in the wake of the 2003 attack the parliament passed an anti- terrorist law and our security forces are working 24/7. every now and then, every few months, you hear statements from terrorists saying we have dismantled a cell here or there. it has been working pretty well. that is the security part of it. i think that the security services have been working pretty well with good results. we have not had any terrorist attacks in the last few years. that is good. we hope not to have any.

lately, months ago we dismantled a cell where we found some -- sl in the the stuff rf -- a cell in the samara. that shows we have to be always aware that anything can happen, and the security forces in morocco work pretty well and have had some very good results. so that is the security part of it, but we also felt there were many other things to do, and particularly make sure that the terrorist groups will not find easily people to highere to organized terrorist attacks.

we thought that through democracy, opening up social reforms through poverty reduction through also reorganizing the religious field was very important. lately we have heard about terrorism and mainly islamic terrorism. this is where among the most of the terrorist attacks in the world are coming from so-called islamic groups. well, it is important that people know exactly what religion is. as long, like every religion is against violence. -- is lonlam, like every religi, is against violence.

iyou know the famous first that says killing one person is like killing the whole humanity. so people have to know -- that was very important. we reorganize the religious field and morocco. you cannot -- you have to talk about religion and go through many years of studies. this is how we use to be before. suddenly we found ourselves in the beginning of the 90's just because someone had read two pages of the car rokoran. in morocco we have the council religious scholars, and only then cam can give opinions on

islam. we went through the textbooks. we are teaching islam in schools the right way with very precise way of what it is come of the real islam. that is important. we also created a tv network, and interactive tv network where people can put questions and have answers on religious issues, and it is very important because rock fans are very religious. 99 percent son of moroccans are muslims, and probably 99% are believers. in religion is a very important part of life in morocco.

we also trained women who are working in places like mosques, hospitals, prisons, schools, because it is easier for women and families to interact with women. that is a very important thing that we have done. we tried to restructure and make sure the religious field is what it should be in morocco. people are more aware. going to making sure that having less and less people -- the moroccan people thinking that the whole country, that they have a stake in the future of the country, that is very important and what we try to do. the level of poverty, the number of people living under party --

poverty, and i think we have had some success -- the number of people living under the line of poverty is around 9%. that is a result of what was called the national human development initiative that was announced a few years ago. the initiative was to make sure that the economic development that we have had in the past few years would trickle down to everyone and make sure that everybody in the country would have a stake in the future of the country. that is also something very important that you have to do in order to make sure that the terrorist groups will not find a place to hire people. iagain a something that i say

very often, the best place to find terrorism is security, the services, but the best way is also to review the people themselves. they're often we dismantled cells because the people called the police and security forces and told them there was something strange happening and this is how often we dismantle cells and we prevented some terrorist attacks. so again, reorganizing the religious field, making sure the economy, making sure the country is business friendly to have a strong economy, making sure that the benefits of the economy trickle-down to the lowest levels of the population, those

are the measures that the country has taken in the last few years also, opening up of the political field, meaning that we have had since the late 1990's a political system opened up in the sense that we have had free and fair elections, political parties. we have a very brighvibrant political society. we make sure that everyone has a part in the future of the country. of course not everything is rosy, and we have many challenges that are detailed in a report that was written by a commission that was appointed by the king and the report is

called h.d.r. 50. i think the same people are going to write another report in publish another report in the next few months to say what is the status and what has happened in the last five years after the first report was written. the report was h.d.r. 50, meaning what happened in morocco in the last 50 years. the good decisions, the bad decisions. the good thing that has happened in morocco is the debate is there. everyone talks. the press is pretty free. the government has its share of attacks from the press, but the debate is there, and that is important. and this commission that was appointed by the king states and does exactly what the problems and the challenges are and how

and what will happen if we do not address the challenges and what should be done to address those challenges. that is important, and you can find that on the internet. that is the good thing about internet. and let me talk about what we have been doing internationally. we have been working with all the countries around the world to defeat the threat of terrorism and intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. i think that is the most important thing. we believe in morocco there is no other way. that if there is not the cooperation between all the countries in the world globally but also regionally, we will never be able to address the challenges that we ar have in ft of us. this leads me to talk about what is going on in the south. let me tell you we're very worried about what is going on in the south.

it goes from the atlantic to the south sea. in it is a huge area. it goes from morocco to somalia. it is morocco, chad, and other countries in the region. we are worried because as you have read and heard, there have been a lot of -- al qaeda has been more active lately. al qaeda was started by -- a change of name from the terrorist group and algerian terrorist group that is trying to get as many people in the

region as they can. they're very difficult to control, and this is a place where they can do what ever they want and they are very mobile. and we are seriously worried about what is going on there. then we have seen many kidnappings, and probably they will prepare a tax and countries of the region. in the kidnapped atourists, and have killed people, but another thing that is really worrying is basically we are seeing people -- the drug traffickers are using these places, this huge enormous places that are very

difficult to control to convey drugs to europe, which has become and i heard a few days ago that europe now is a bigger market for drugs in the united states for the first time in history. so we see the drug traffickers using west africa to convey drugs to the market in europe. that is very dangerous. you will see in the future this combination at of al qaeda drug trafficking and human trafficking. basically what was happening in columbia a few years ago.

this is very dangerous and very difficult to address. they will have the drug money coming into the countries, which are really poor. it will be very difficult to defeat that. because then everything is a libel an. if we do not address those issues immediately, we will have serious problems in the future. to address those issues, there is no other way than regional cooperation. cooperation between all countries of the region. all the countries in the region talking about the country's one by one, countries of the south, but also europeans and of course the united states. all of this is very dangerous. this is just across the atlantic from the united states. it can be a really serious threat. i think that we should address

that. the only way to do is to work altogether and countries of the region should releasereally exce information and work together. that is the only way. that is the message i am going to send here. and when i say regional corporation, i am talking about regional cooperation in security, but also regional cooperation between the countries of the region in terms of economy, development, and that will lead -- let's say that what we did in morocco and what we're trying to do and rocker to address the terrorist threat should be done regionally, but through development addressing all of the issues and trying to address the issue through the security cooperation. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, mr. ambassador, for alerting us to the nature of the threat in the region and what must be done in order to reduce the risks. as you know, my recent trip to the region confirmed that some of your concerns, which is not only concerns of morocco and the region but the international community and we see the writing on the walls. what i would suggest is we open up some discussion for about 15 minutes and then we're going to

have some closing remarks. i would be very grateful if you identify yourself just for the record, and keep your question very short periot. >> [inaudible] i would like to ask, regarding egypt, where there could be risks of more radical groups. have you see that current situation in egypt? how you see the events unfolding there? -- how do you see the events unfolding there? >> i think it is very difficult to say how it will unfold. i think that' i am not on the

ground and have no information, so i cannot comment on that. i am sorry. >> i would just like to say that we are obviously concerned about radical elements taking advantage of this serious national unrest, which i think is -- has spread broadly throughout the country. how far this will go is much too early to say. there are radical elements that we have seen in the past and egypt and the muslim brotherhood and we have to just wait and assess. >> ok, stand up, please. >> what you did in your country,

why is it not done in other countries in the region? thank you. . .

the only liquidity available for international markets was for the flow of drug money. since several of the ambassadors and others have talked about the narcoterrorism factor, i would like to get a sense why it seems like there there's such an impediment to reaching a clear international consensus and strategy for tackling this dimension, when it is so obvious 95% of the world's opium and heroin is coming out of afghanistan. i understand there are disagreements in nato over how to address this drug and drug money aspect of terrorism. >> i can tell you -- i was the ambassador to morocco.

there is a lot of cocaine traffic from colombia, for example, reaching europe through western africa and spain. in the case of morocco, corp. between security forces of both countries seized about 300,000 tons of marijuana in a single year, for example. if that is seized, how much goes through? i do not know. it is difficult to know. cooperation is pretty good. these agreements -- in the case of both countries.

corporations are extremely good. when you're talking about poppet coming out of afghanistan, i do not know. but you are probably right. one of the things that we have seen lately is the cocaine flow into europe. until now, it was paid in money. now part of the price is in cocaine itself. so cocaine consumption is growing in northern africa this is a new development. we have to find out how to fight against that. i can tell you, and that worries a lot of the security services in the world. we have not been able to come to an agreement on exactly what is terrorism what is not terrorism. i know what it is, but try to define it.

>> kimberly dozier, ap. a question for the ambassador and 14 charles allen. charles, the revolt that we are seeing in egypt, indonesia, was it a failure of the intelligence community to see it coming? to the ambassadors, you both spoke about applying that is to decrease radicalization in your country that leads to militancy. many methods that could be applied here? >> let me answer the first question. there had been a series of assessments over the years which spoke about problems that could develop, certainly in north african countries, like tunisia,

which was up or tearing and had corrupt elements. there were also concerns about egypt and its long-term ability to last under an authoritarian leader of 30 years. on a strategic bases, the intelligence community has done well. for 10 years, i sat on the national intelligence board and pass judgment on many assessments. on the technical front, it is extremely hard to say what will set off this and dry tinder that exists in certain countries. >> ok. anyone else? >> metz's to decrease realization -- radical -- methods to decrease

radicalization in our own country? >> it is difficult to give advice to american officials. i think on the is on the side, it is teaching the right is long. people know exactly what their religion is. -- right islam. we have to make sure people are not disenfranchised. of course, security is an important component of addressing the issue. >> something which it astonishes me, as a european, is the facility by which you can get weapons. i know the first amendment and everything but it is difficult to understand. >> voice of america television.

al-qaeda and other extremists have been taking a advantage of unemployed youth, taking advantage of the inequalities and oppression. in this situation, do you believe al-qaeda and other extremists will take advantage of this tinderbox? >> al qaeda worked very hard through its affiliates, as you know, hundreds of affiliated extremist websites. they have continuously argued there are apostate regimes in the middle east that need to be overthrown, violently, in some cases, and they have been able to continue. weather is in yemen, north

africa. -- whether it is in yemen, north africa. this is a long standard in the logical campaign that has been relatively unaffected. in this country, it is not so much the poverty, but the conflict that has attracted somalis. pakistanis who may see america at war with islam, which is not the, but reportedl, incessant made month after month without counter from the countries in the region helping to counter this, it does take a toll and people to become radicalized. young people, in particular,

where you have some people using hip-hop, speaking english, not using the traditional al qaeda chance, which we know are wrong about his long. those are very enticing to the youths. -- about islam. >> the u.s. has been supporting president mubarak for the past 20 years. do you think and this anti-u.s. feeling can be exporteexploitedl qaeda? >> statistics, polls indicate that there has been a problem of perception. as we know, president mubarak

has been pivotal in the middle east. he has helped to move toward a palestinian-israeli settlement. many a great contribution he has made over the years. so we need balance between security and independent expression. >> my question is for charles allen. are you expressing concern over use of the internet by terrorist groups to transmit their doctrine, instructions to blogs and social networks? intelligence agencies, with all of their means, are they not able to use this information and analyze it to find out information about these terrorist organizations? isn't this a two-way street in

some ways? >> you are absolutely right. intelligence agencies do assess the ecological propaganda and look at trends, clusters, groups of individuals who may be engaging in some kind of nefarious activity through the internet. we have a very good ability to look across the most apparent websites and interpret and analyze and provide quality assessments to our policy makers. but it is also a means of turning those arguments against them. it is a two-way street.

we work to exploit and send messages the other way affectively. >> we are going to take one more question. >> voa news and broadcasting in pakistan. you talked about al qaeda. in the past couple of years, we have seen pockets of radical organizations showing up in pakistan. do you think they have the potential to become as in cities as al qaeda? what would you advice to intelligence officials in pakistan -- not that they need help -- i do not want to offend them. but is there any help that you might give them in terms of handling these pockets of new radical organizations? >> the taliban has been around

in pakistan for a few years. these are regional, tribal-based organizations. i do not believe they have the global vision or interest that canada usama bin laden -- an usama bin laden has. are there dangers organizations there? we saw what happened in mumbai, and horrific event that occurred on november 31. but their primary interests relate to india, disputes over kashmir. their goals are not to become an

extremist organization. there is an old minister, the head of tribes in taliban, he is now running the network. again, that is directly linked with al qaeda. it does take opportunities to train operatives, and make room operatives for future operations for al qaeda. but again, it is tribally and regionally based. it is not al qaeda. >> the former general counsel to the senate committee on intelligence and former deputy head of the intelligence agency.

he is going to make some brief remarks. >> thank you, yonah. my job here at this stage in the proceeding is to throw a bomb or two at the audience, intellectually, and get people thinking about more fundamental issues. i am a veteran of the cold war. i not only served in the senate as counsel for the intelligence committee. i spent 15 years of my life overseas as well. i was on the start delegation for four, five years. i retired couple of times and was called back to serve in the transition in 2001. i was in the pentagon but it was hit by the airplane. that is an experience i have written about personally.

i served in a bunch of jobs there before retiring and coming to work here at this organization. so my views are not going to be legalistic here. i am going to be talking essentially about policy-kinds of issues. and also, i am not talking about all kinds of terrorism. i appreciate the ambassadors articulation of the different categories of terrorism. i will not talk about all categories. i will be talking about the big ones. it is scary. we all know what is coming. we had a congressional panel last year that said, it is not a

matter of if, but a matter of when we are going to have another large attack in this country which is going to be characterized by the use of wmd's of some kind. so my comments are aimed in that vein. as a veteran of the cold war, the cold war was long, arduous. we spent a ton of money on it but we had some really smart people writing our policy doctrine. that guided us to deal with the cold war and ultimately wind iw. the war on terrorism, or whatever you want to call it,

has not been characterized that way. we do not have the same kind of thoughtful headwork that should be guiding our policies and doctrines. we just do not have that. i could tell you the reasons for it, and that is another subject, and it is essentially a jurisdictional issue in the u.s. government for us not having cold war-types of policies. that has been a central theme of the writings i have done. i have been critical of our government's policy, or lack there of, for the past 10 years, and it has remained consistent through the bush administration, now into the

obama administration. all this reminds me of a story. i like to tell stories that illustrate basic points. my dad once told me about the pig with the wooden leg. i sort of put us into a category where we are the pig with the wooden leg. the farmer was prosperous, but all his friends asked him, you are doing well, so why you have a pig with a wooden leg? he said, that is my most voluble take. i do not want to eat it all at once. so we are in a position of sawing off our interests one piece at a time when we do not have the kind of basic policies we need. i want to talk about three things we need to talk about.

attribution, deterrence, and targeting. the first of these, attribution, probably is applicable to the early stages of a terrorist threat as it begins to manifest itself. we need to be thinking really hard about when we attribute acts to a particular terrorist organization, or more particularly, a state sponsor. and we need to feel comfortable doing that with circumstantial evidence. we do not need smoking guns here. we are talking about risks over measure the benefits here. what so when do we and how do

we the tribute acts, and who do we attribute them to? in my assessment, we need to be prepared to say that we are going to do it on the best judgments of our intelligence community, legal community, political community -- whoever else -- but we ought not to be afraid to make a state sponsorship attribution early on when a terrorist threat manifests itself. secondly, deterrence. a lot of people say, well, you cannot deter these crazy guys. they are going to kill themselves. you cannot deter someone like that. possibly true, not that guy, but you have to find out who you can deter and come up with policies that deter that person or group or entity. part of it deals with

attribution, but you have to come up with ways to deter. is it that you cannot deter terrorism, or is it that we have not figured out how to do it? >> we have to think hard about that. there are some smart guys in the room that have to come up with some of the things we have to deter. targeting. again, sort of a pig with a wooden leg story. i went to geneva in 1985 when we were to resume talks with the soviet union. this was after president reagan announced the star wars initiative, which got the soviets attention and got them to call us back to the start negotiations that they walked out of in 1982. you might remember that.

i was asked to be the secretary representative on defense and space talks. we went over there and expected to get all kinds of propaganda, political messages on the evils of strategic defense, that sort of thing. we got some of that, but you know what we got more than anything else? i may have gotten it more than anyone else because i was representing mr. weinberger there. what we got was, tell us about pd59? that?do you mean by if you do not know what that is, pd59 was written by leon/enter. perhaps not known for his aggressive stance toward the soviets.

he wrote a targeting doctrine. it was quite intricate and it was hotly debated. but it was signed off on by the president. the targeting doctrine was, look, leaders in the soviet union, in the event of a war, you are all going to die. we are going to kill you. we are going to target you and here is how we are going to do it. it went through that in graphic detail. if you are interested in pd59, i encourage you to go on line and read the declassified parts. that is what they asked me about. they wanted to know why that doctrine came out under jimmy carter. it seemed different from his approach in general u.s.-soviet

negotiations. and whether it was real. soviets believed at the time that everything was a conspiracy. is it really the doctrine? i had so many people asking me, i knew they must have been testing and asking all members of the delegation. it was later transitioned -- when ronald reagan came in -- but the concept really got their attention. it is the kind of thinking we need to be doing to put teeth into state sponsorship of terrorists. we need to be thinking about targeting leaderships. i am not talking about drone attacks. i am talking about the

strategic-kind of thinking that goes into the kind of war i began talking about. that is what will bring a weapon of mass destruction to this country, as the panel says, before 2013, not a matter of if, but when. so attribution, deterrence, and targeting. we need that kind of thinking, basic, strategic thinking that will control our doctrine and political responses to the terrorism that threatens our bibles. thank you very much. -- vitals. [applause] >> thank you for your analysis.

as i was thinking -- when you spoke -- i was thinking, we just marked the release of american hostages from iran. you trigger a lot of questions, whether we should have similar policies with the iranians continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction. now i am going to call on my friend and colleague, the chairman of the international law. >> i would rather sit here if you can hear me. i am not an expert. this is going to be a different kind of closing from the last one. i have listened carefully to our

speakers and have just a few thoughts. it was clear, today's discussion was going to be bright and energetic. i am grateful for the review we have had on intelligence. a few words on perspective. one, the importance of the rule of law. i am a law professor. the rule of law is very important. in every society -- thinking now it is the u.s. n-- important for us to balance our values and our liberties. i once worked for a law professor that said we cannot afford the luxury of civil liberty. i thought it was a stupid observation when i was younger. the second observation is, yes, we have to deal with the issues of security, but there are

greater security is there. the security of an open dynamic. we must never lose sight of the overwhelming portion of open society. when you think of security, you kind of close down, so that will be an important tradeoff. egypt reminds us that maybe the greatest security issue is having a highly intelligent foreign policy. the u.s. is so entangled with some of the interests, the trade-offs and balances are awfully hard to get right. it is so easy to criticize and so much harder to do. i think the american psyche also remains important. i have heard that expression used. i think of the u.s. as the greatest shows will experiment in history -- social experiment in history.

as a society, we all have to grapple with these things. . >> thing to for coming to the 13th annual review. please join me in coming \ / \ / \ giving another round of

applause to the speakers. thank you very much. please come again next year. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

coming up tonight, marvin powell takes an inside look at "the new york times." live coverage at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. tonight on "the communicator's" with the use of social media we will talk about the state department's role in freedom of expression matters around the globe. then the federal trade commission's barry first chief technologist on his role at the ftc on privacy matters. that is tonight on c-span2. you are watching c-span, bringing you politics and public affairs. every morning it is "washington journal." weekdays watch live coverage of the u.s. house and weeknights congressional hearings and policy forums. also, the supreme court oral

arguments. on the weekend you can hear our signature interview programs. you can also watch our programming any time at a c- span.org, and it is all searchable oat our cspan video library. we get the latest now on the white house's response to the anti-government protests in egypt. here is spokesman robert gibbs.

>> since the crisis began there have been a couple of questions, whether president mubarak stays in power and whether he can put into reforms? can you explain why the white house is not taking a position? >> it is not up to us to determine when the grievances of the egyptian people have been met by the egyptian government. we have said all along that there are, as i mentioned, legitimate concerns and grievances had by the egyptian people for a long time. the need for freedom to associate, freedom to communicate over the internet, freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, and that those must be

addressed in a substantive way by the egyptian government. we are not picking between those on the street in those in government. the secretary of state said yesterday we have enumerated our concern for the people of egypt. >> you say it is up to the egyptian people. is it fair and accurate to say it is the stance of the white house that you do not want any kind of transition between the heads of states? >> let me be clear, i will not int get int oao a series of hypothetical spirited you heard the secretary of state say there must be an orderly transition, that a whole range of issues have to be addressed. that there has to be meaningful negotiations with a broad cross-

section of the egyptian people, including opposition groups, the good to answering the very core of the freedoms that people desire. we have talked about those and you have heard the president speak about those. free and fair elections. and for the parliament. constitutional changes that facilitate and open and more democratic process. these are some of the things that i know we have spoken directly with the egyptians about. >> to the preference that president mubarak does not run again? take of the united states does

not determine who was on the ballot. -- >> the united states does not determine who is on the ballot here yen >. >> can you give us more details about what the government is doing to make it happen? pickfo >> i will let you report on that. i will say this as you know, the president was briefed on the very latest, including read out from our embassy and from our passenger yesterday. our national security advisor held a call from principles this morning. the president was briefed on the latest developments as a part of his daily intelligence briefing. the deputies committee, there is now standing morning meeting on

the situation that was had later this morning and the president is receiving updates rate nearly out of that. this is not about appointments, this is about action. that is what people here in people around the world need to see from the egyptian government. >> can you define what you mean by an orderly transition? >> meeting the things i just talked about. -- meaning the things i just alketalked about. an orderly transition house to include a process with negotiations with a broad spectrum of the egyptian people, including those that are in the political opposition at the moment -- >> with the current government?

>> i do not think the grievances will be met unless there is some measure of that involved. they have to address the freedoms that the people of egypt speak, and i said a minute ago, many of the things that we have outlined over the course of the past few days have to be included. free and fair elections, we talked about the emergency law. changes in the constitution that facilitate more open and democratic process. all of those things are what must happen in the country in order to transition to something that is more democratic. >> do you believe president mubarak is doing that now? >> i do not believe it is about

appointments, i believe it is about action. i think it is obvious there is more work to be done. i think that is obvious in the pictures that we continue to see from cairo. >> what role could the military be playing in this? >> there is obviously a number of context that happened between our governments and counterparts in the egyptian government. we have thus far been pleased that the restraint that has taken place and anchorage that even as we see reports of increased participation tomorrow by protesters that calm and non-violence once again carry the day on both sides. again, it is our belief that first and foremost this has to be something that is conducted

through non-violence. >> has anyone in the administration did in contact with mohammad elbaredi? >> i think he is somebody along with the whole host of people in the non-governmental voices, whether they are apposition -- opposition political parties or whether they are heads of business or banks that we are rarely in touch with. i believed that they will continue to reach out people like him into a whole host of figures, again, non-government the figures in civil society figures to have a discussion about what egypt must do and

must look like. >> have you been in touch with him in the last week? >> not that i am aware of, at least when i came in here. >> would it make sense for someone to be in contact with him? >> not that i am aware of. >> this democracy push might result in something along the lines of what we have seen an gaza, and that is an islamist group gaining power. how much does the obama administration agree with that assessment? >> as i said to you last week, i think it is from what we can see, it is not accurate to say that those protesting are made up of one particular group or one ideology.

and i think it is clear that that increase in democratic representation has to include a a whole host of important non- secular actors that give egypt a strong chance to continue to be the stable and reliable partners that the world sees in the middle east. >> mohamed elbaradei said the muslim brotherhood is not an extremist organization and is no different from orthodox jews in israel or evoked -- evangelical christians and the united states. does the obama administration agree with that? to go without getting into a discussion about them, there are

certain standards we believe everyone should adhere to as being part of this process. one that is to participate in this ongoing democratic process, one has to take part in it but not use it as a way of simply becoming or taking over that process simply to put themselves in power. we believe that any group should strongly way and on the side of non-violence, and adhere to the law. >> orderly transition means change. by using those rules, is the administration and meetiadmittig mohamed elbaradei to lead? >> i do believe it means change. what we have advocated from the very beginning is the way that the way each of books and

operates must change. that is why we believe we should increase the amount of freedom that is held by the egyptian people on association, on the assembly, on speech, on internet and open communication. but that is not for us to determine what the parameters and limits of those are. but undoubtedly tradition in this case means change. there is no doubt about it. >> the leaders are saying he should be removed from office right now. >> that is not for our country or our government to determine. i do not think that people that see greater freedom are looking for somebody else to pick what and how that change looks like. that is quite frankly -- that does not appear in any way to would open democratic process that allows for a full discussion and negotiation about

what that freedom looks like. the greater economic opportunity. that is not for us to determine. >> the white house has really been ramping up its focus on innovation in jobs. does what is happening in egypt distracted all from that post? >> not at all. weather permitting the president is planning to go livlater this week to pennsylvania and continue to push on innovation. we will continue to work through all of that. even happen that any administration that has to respond to but at the same time, as much as we have dealt with over the previous year's, you have to deal with many things

happening at once. that is what this administration continues to do. >> the president is obviously getting a lot updates from his national security team, but is he also bringing in outside advice to help him? >> the national security council has a regular our reach to experts around the country -- regular our reach to experts around the country. -- regular outreach to experts around the country. we're talking to many people with insights into egypt. we can give you a list. >> the president's schedule is clear today. did he cleared the schedule so that he could deal with this? >> no, as far as i know, as of

right now there has been -- he has been briefe andd on what has happened at principles and deputies level, but there is nothing that i know that has been added to his schedule as a result of what is gone on over the weekend. >> i am monitoring this constantly. he is working on a lot of stuff. >> we give him updates as the situation dictates. >> do expect we will hear from him again in the next few days? >> i think that depends on what happens on the ground. >> you set the transition does not mean mubarak would have to go. >> i want to be very clear --

that is not for me to determine. that is not for our government to determine. that is for the people of egypt to determine. i have not weighed in on anything on this side of the people of egypt to determine what each of looks like in their future. >> my question is are you categorically saying that at no time the president has ever said is time for him to go? >> i am not going to stand up here and look that far into the future -- >> it may be it few days into the future. >> i appreciate the game we're playing. i would rather you not put answers into my mouth. >> are there discussantdiscussig on about the worry that this could spread in the middle east? >> i think it is safe to say that what we saw happen

indonestunisia certainly have te capabilities to go in other countries. i would not generalize this across the spectrum of countries in this region or outside this region because each country is at different stages of the political spectrum. >> without feeling you have to, do you feel that the u.s. could work with the muslim brotherhood? >> i think it is important that the government -- but we do not have contacts with them. and we have, as we have throughout the world, standards for that contact. those are, as i have dictated a minute ago, adherence to the law, adherence to non-violence, and a willingness to be part of

a democratic process, but not use the democratic process as simply instilling yourself into power. >> i am not the current ambassador. i would think that before we had any further contact we would want assurances on that. >> on the level of contact between the president's deputies and their counterparts in egypt. we know admiral mullen has had contact. secretary clinton as well. >> throughout the ranks of the military and that the pentagon and the secretary of state and foreign ministry, our ambassador who we get updates from in the regular meetings about the security situation on the ground, she is obviously in contact with all whole host of

entities inside of egypt. obviously one of the big focus is right now is on unauthorized departure. on getting non-essential embassy personnel, their family and others to lead the country -- leave the country on any number of planes and cairo. earlier this morning two of the planes had left intending for greece and turkey. that continues, despite government curfews. we have clearance to get personnel on to those plans and to their destinations regardless of the curfew. >> only two planes? >> that was at 11:00 this morning. as soon as the plains are

loaded, they will lift off. to go the israelis -- >> the israelis gave each of permission to secure the area. does the u.s. as the israel-2- >> not that i am aware of. i think that was a direct contact between those zero governments. >> the president has not been in contact with mubarak, correct? >> obviously there are contacts that are happening throughout the region and the world. some of which we have not here yet to go has there been no contact with the king of jordan? >> some of the context we have discussed and some we have not.

-- some of the contacts we have discussed and some we have not. >> is that a fair characterization? >> i think each of the readouts are put out based on which each government says on their end of the bone. -- their end of the phone. >> not anyone in [inaudible] you should read our read out if you would like to know what we said on our end. i will be happy to forward the readout that reflects what we said. >> as far as mubarak is

concerned, when you say orderly transition, why is it your hesitating? it is clear the united states position is you want an orderly regime change. is that correct? >> i want to be careful, because i do not want you to put words in my mouth. >> it seems your calling for a change in government. >> we are calling for rope change in the way the country works. -- for a change in the way the country works. it will not be determined or dictated by our country no more than i am going to determine what the freedom of speech means for you or nbc. why would anybody who seeks greater freedom in egypt be looking for my sign off on what that means? >> it seems to be that many of the protesters are upset that

the -- >> i do not think that the protesters would be persuaded by the notion that someone in a series of buildings several thousands of miles away have determined to what the extent means for them. that is for the people of egypt to decide and determined. >> our military infatuations complicated -- our military evacuations contemplated? >> i did not believe so. i would refer you to state on that. i think those are government charters. >> you said the white house and the u.s. government does not want to choose a leadership of egypt. when there was a tweet after the speech on friday night saying

rearranging the cabinet is not what he is talking about. a lot of people interpreted that meeting that the nomination of the vice president was not an acceptable change. >> i would reconcile that with exactly the way i have said it today, i do not think anybody is looking at the pictures in cairo and believes that's the actions that have been taken so far have met that test. the secretary of state was asked in each of her five interviews whether or not what has been done it is all that needs to be done, and i think everyone never answers included the phrase of course not. i think that is -- is largely

speak for themselves. >> tomorrow if there is a large demonstration plant in cairo. -- planned in cario? . is there a message being delivered on what should be expected? >> without getting into great specifics about each of the context, wendell mentioned admiral mullen and others at the pentagon that are in touch with their counterparts, that is not just the leadership of the pentagon, but that his military to military context. we have been clear from the outset that grievances will not and cannot be addressed through violence. i think that message remains

clear to the government of egypt. >> can you assure us that any back channel messages to mubarak in the egyptian government are what you're saying publicly? >> yes without getting into what a private back channel would look like. >> i do not think the message would be quite clear or have a lot of impact if what i set up here transmitted to people throughout the region was different than what people heard in the region. >> is that because of the press? >> it has not been in this case. >> it any of these conversations or briefings you are talking about, how much does the price of oil crept into it? are there concerns it could have broader implications on the economy? to go there are folks obviously

that are monitoring any impact that uncertainty or unrest has in the financial markets. you know, we have thus far to my knowledge not seen disruptions in the suez, which obviously is tremendously important to the movement of goods around. egypt is not an oil exporter, which should not greatly impact that obviously, but we obviously are monitoring the unrest and uncertainty to see what impact that might cause. >> that is true for china to markets and the broader economic recovery -- that is true for

market in the broader economic recovery? >> yes. let me see, i do not know if that is tax reform. before i surmise that, let me check. let me just check on that. sometimes the bubble box appears audibly. i will check on that right away. >> you said on friday that egypt was under review. can you talk about that? to go i said friday that -- >> i said friday and i will reiterate that we are watching actions of

the government in response to the unrest and would make determinations based on some of their actions. that is ongoing. >> your messaging has been done very carefully. can you talk a little bit about -- >> as opposed to haphazard briefing > [laughter] >> can you talk about special accommodations that you are making to pick your words in this crisis and also follow up the extent to which you guys have been focusing on the economy and what ever. >> yack, i do not think -- i will do this answer slowly. i think obviously we understand

that this is a volatile region of the world. that it is -- that we have equities and strong partnership with egypt in the egyptian people, as they have been a steady force for peace in the region. i think we have seen that since the camp david accords, and that has been a cornerstone for stability in the region since that time. obviously it is a volatile time. events are moving quickly, and it is always a portiimportant tr words not contribute to a greater volatility. in terms of -- i do not think that the president's schedule

has changed as a result of what is happening. obviously he continues to be kept up to date throughout the process. our travel has not changed for later in the week in terms of talking about the issue that americans have for most on their mind, and that is the state of the economy. we will continue to do that. >> how long does the president have to move? could he take months and months? >> that is determined by the people of egypt. i think obviously you heard the president say clearly on friday it, he said that's on the phone with president mubarak that this was an opportunity that should be seized to make significant change and to bring about significant democratic change. i think, again, the reason that

we talk about the fact that this will be determined by the people of egypt is because this is not something that is where the people of egypt are going to be satisfied it there is some mystical third party that determines when enough has been done. i said this on friday, the government in this country and governments around the world has to be responsive to their citizens. >> it has been reported that the new press secretary will report to the communications director. will there be a change in the way the press operation works? will the new press secretary be reporting to a communications director, not accessed directly to the president? >> the modelling we set up when we came in was set up like the previous administration in some ways.

in some different branches of the bush administration there was a communications operations that was the press conferences within and sometimes when it is a separate office. dan can stick his head out of the door and i can hear it pretty clearly in my office and vice versa. i do not think anybody has to worry that operation of the press operation will act differently simply by combining the efforts of press and communications largely because quite honestly i think if you look at it and dan and others that have discussed it, there is a marriott of roles that every duplicative. we have an assistant press secretary that have split up a series of issues and you all interact with them.

there is a separate group of people in communications that works that are regional. they have the country split up, but they're asking many of the same questions. i do not think you have to fear that things are going to ask it differently. >> will the press secretary have your office? >> i have not been told otherwise. >> i want to follow up on the issue of marriage. i favor legalizing same-sex marriages. why has the president abandoned this position? >> i was not with the president in 1996. and i was young there in center back then. same still shihoe size.

0-- i was younger adnd thinner then. >> was their political support to drop the favor of same-sex marriage? >> i would refer you to my previous answer. >> will the president reclaimed his support for same-sex marriage in the 2012 election? >> i am not in the business of predicting. and i think you have seen this president be clearly committed to issues of equality and justice. i cannot speak to 2012, i can speak to 2011 as the year in which a policy like do not ask do not tell. >> what is the indication for this administration that the egyptian people are satisfied

with the degree of change that they have received? willoughby when the protests and in the street? -- will it be when the protests end in the streets? >> i think you will see broad agreement that the care and concerns of those that have manifest themselves in these protest, that some of those grievances have been met. i think that is why many people throughout the world think that we have not reached that level yet. >> a separate question about the ambassador of china. there has been a lot of reporting over the weekend for [inaudible] . is there any potential that that would affect the work he will be doing for major ally issues? >> the ambassador has told many

people inside the building that he plans to leave in the first part of this year. when the president picked him in 2009 it was because we believed in continue to believe he brings ar broad range of experience to an extremely important post with one of our most important relationships in the world. the president continues to believe that. and i have seen reporting on this today, and i want to be clear on this from up here, i have talked to several people in the building, and i have not heard anybody say they know what the future holds for him. except to say, as i said earlier, that he will leave sometime in the first part of the year. the president, and i think the american people expect, that

somebody that holds the post of ambassador from the united states to china would dedicate their full energy and time to that position, and we believe that ambassador huntsman believes that as well. it is safe to assume that when you start telling people in the building that he would step down that that is the process that has begun. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >>i it is not. i can take him off the list. >> you said that egypt has been a cornerstone of the region since the camp david accord. what did -- what is the administration's greatest fear? >> let me rephrase some of what

you said. i think they have been a valuable partner in the region in bringing about stability. i think the camp david accords have provided the cornerstone for the stability. it is our hope and our strong belief that that is rollee that egypt will continue to play going forward. takeov>> this is a country thatu have helped and greatly rely on peer [inaudible] ye>> [inaudible] >> also, about what hans asked about with a crisis of oil. what is the rationale especially since they are not

involved in oil and other countries that do export oil and gas prices go up, why now? what is the rationale? >> i think there is a certain amount of volatility that is always built into oil prices, and we know oil prices, and i will not surmise deeply on this, that -- that we watch for uncertainty and instability and whatever the impact might be on prices for our range of different commodities. so again, i do not think they have come to any strong determinations except that it is something that we are, as you can imagine, for our economy and recover of the global economy, watching quite closely. >> is there a fear of

transportation getting oil back and forth? >> we have not received reports, at least when i came out here, that there seem to be transportation disruptions in the area of the suez. again, that is among the many concerns that we will continue to monitor. >> i also have a couple of follow-up questions. who is actually managing this in the white house? is it john brennan? >> john has certainly been part of these meetings. it is tom donnellnalen it was the principal on this. he has been in virtually every one of these meetings and updated the president.

dennis run some of the deputy committimeetings. >> can you give me an idea of how many staff are full time on this right now? >> the nsc is largely divided into regional issues. when we go into these meetings you see the same people that are dealing with issues throughout the middle east in these meetings. >> president biden was really involved in iraq. and in the picture when the president was on the phone, what is vice-president role in this? >> obviously the vice president brings decades of experience in dealing with issues in foreign policy, and knows many of the actors in the region well.

he was in the oval office during the call to president mubarak on friday afternoon. he has been a regular participant in all of the meetings. >> "the associated press" today says officials talking about the terms that we talked at the top of the briefing. the election in september. my question is did the president personally urge mubarak on their call to proceed on both of those fronts or are these recommendations that are occurring -- >> without getting myself into reading out the precise words their use in the diplomatic calls, i would refer due largely back to the answer that i gave mark in that the public messaging and private messaging on changes that need to take

place are remarkably similar. >> obviously this would be a choice that the president would have to calculate, do i want to get involved at this level and make a personal recommendations? >> again, i am very reticent to read my notes from the call. but again, i think when i outlined appear many of the things the president has talked about throughout the many meetings he has had over the course of the past couple of years and in a speech in cairo, things anlike free and fair elections, constitutional change, the elections we have enumerated are very consistent with messaging that is being

delivered at all levels of our government throughout all levels of the egyptian government. >> what would you say to the egyptian demonstration -- demonstrators watching you now and the support for mubarak to stay in office? >> i think first and foremost what i would say to anybody watching is that the united states and the obama administration are fully supportive of your universal rights. this country was founded on the principle of grievances with government and having bring about a constitution that address is a process for those

grievances to be heard. we believe that has to happen in this instance as well. and it is not for anybody in this government or anybody at this podium to determine how were when those grievances have been met. as i said earlier, i do not think anybody listening in cairo or anywhere else in egypt wants someone in this country determining what the definition in egypt for freedom of assembly is. i do not think anybody in this country would want that from egypt, and i do not think anybody from egypt one step from this country. what we want is a meaningful dialogue to happen that results in significant democratic changes. when those changes and when

those grievances have been met through those changes, then we will know that from the people of egypt. >> [inaudible] >> this has to be determined by the people in egypt. again, if we determine who sits at the table, but we by definition are making decisions about the extent to which freedom looks like in that country. >> obviously we have a lot of experts that are -- >> that has to include many of the people that the embassy and other stock to regularly in egypt. i think it is important to understand that certainly there

are political actors that are currently not members of the government'. some level of opposition groups meeting the standards that we've laid out earlier about adherence to democratic principles, but i think obviously that that cannot simply include political leaders. it has to include those in business, banking, commerce. there has to be a broad enough cross-section of the egyptian people to weigh in on the extent to which these grievances are held and that they will be addressed. >> to follow up on that point, has there been conversations between people in the administration or the embassy and anyone in the government about zero way to proceed. it was likely involved in the

conversations? >> i think that we have weighed in on the broader notion of what that need to look like. i do not think, and i will double check to see if there's any more clarity, largely because i was not in each and every one of those conversations, but again, i think this is -- i think it has to include a broad cross- section. it has to include people that represent those that have those grievances. i think whenever you begin to narrow cast only this and not this, you are restricting that lens in a way that is not a determination that this government will make.

>> [inaudible] if you could just where the context. anat the same time you just described a variety of changes that have to be made in egypt, including the emergency lobbying being lifted, which sounds exactly like the u.s. is meddling or weighing in on -- >> let's be clear, and i think the secretary of state was clear on a number of these things over the weekend. the position of this government through democratic and republican administrations that greater freedoms, it greater democratic reforms, greater adherence to human-rights needed to be part of what egypt looks

like. we as a government, democrats and republican tom advocated for the position of vice president for the length of president mubarak's term because up until saturday for the 31 years there never have been. we spoke out in september of this year as the emergency law was extended, something that has been several decades been in place, that we believed democratic and republican administrations believed that that provided the government judicial powers that were unnecessary. those are in accordance with the values that we hold in the universal rights of the people of egypt that we support. but it is not again of for us to delineate that the only thing

that has to happen is x, y, and z. i think it is important that we not make that determination on behalf of people half way across the world. mark? >> the vice president appointment presides over intelligence apparatus in egypt that has had a reputation for torturing people. but also has had a reputation for being a close intelligence ally of the u.s. it helps the u.s. with rendering suspects during the last administration. as part of the communication about changes that the west would like to see include a reform of the security service, a declaration against torture.

>> i know obviously as you mentioned, it is the position of our government not to torture. it is our strong belief that that goes managainst many of the universal rights we have discussed. i know many discussions have taken place at different levels of government since the vice- president was sworn in. i can just begin again broadly to those universal rights and what they must look like. >> mayor bloomberg has sent undercover investigators to

arizona where they were illegally allowed to buy [inaudible] this morning he said there was a dangerous gap between this. which is the administration doing about this gap and the fact that investigators were allowed to buy these? . .

he will be the new white house press secretary. learn more about him at d.c.'s ban video library. -- learn more about 10 at d.c.'s ban video library. >> the ticket inside look at "the new york times with the executive editor. we will bring you live coverage starting at 8:00. tonight, with the use of social media in troubled areas of the

world, we will talk about the state department possible in freedom of expression matters across the globe. the federal trade commission very first chief technologist on privacy matters. >> this week, we come from the campus of southern methodist university. a library will house the official records of the bush presidency. a model of the three-story building is currently on display at the university. groundbreaking occurred last fall. it is expected to be completed in 2013. the former president sat down with students to take their questions. he discussed his best selling memoir. >> what was writing this book

like? the book gave me a focus and a project to keep me occupied. after the presidency, there was no intelligence briefings, no crisis to deal with. the book gave me a focus. i started writing the book the first day of my first presidency. >> when do decide to do the decisions. ? >> the summer of 2008. i called a group of historians

and. they all suggested that i write the book, they suggested that i read grandpa's memoirs. i needed to structure -- i knew i needed a structure. i thought it was boring to do a light history. playfully, -- played little league for the calls. i did not think it was an exciting book. i thought it would be interesting for people to know how i made the decisions. >> give us a little bit more about how you put the but. book together. who helped you out? lot of the seen a presidency. i knew that the reader might be interested in what it was like to set to in the oval office.

in the last year of my presidency, i had chris go around and take notes of the different brands in different settings so that when it came down for descriptions in the book, we have that are ready to go. once i made up my mind, i started thinking about it, but at the product -- but the problem was the financial crisis at the end of my presidency. i did not get to ease out of office. i really did not focus on the book until after the presidency. i started thinking about the and adults. i knew the style had to be -- it is really important that this book sound like you. not some hired gun. that is why the sentences are short. [laughter] and the prince is baked -- print is big.

>> you were not afraid to say when you were angry. you're not afraid to say, i made a mistake. when the press would stand up and say, did you make any mistakes? he would push them off. >> they would say, did you make a mistake in the middle of war? it is very important for the president to be resolved during the war. they were asking, did i make a mistake in the liberation of iraq? and the answer is, no, i did not. i thought it was important for the reader to know that if i could do some things differently, i would do them. but you do not give due overs when you are the president. >> one of the words that you used was that you have to discipline yourself. you know you go through the drinking fang. when did you decide that you

wanted to discipline yourself? >> about the time i quit drinking. when i was drinking too much, it reflected an undisciplined person. i make the case and there that i was falling in love with alcohol, what i wanted to be in love with my wife and my children and god. i realized that alcohol was competing for my affection. i was pretty disciplined up until then. i started running to get rid of the alcohol as opposed to running to ease stress. >> when you were president, what kind of discipline did you put on yourself? >> i was at morning -- i was at work every morning at 6:45.

you have to be disciplined in your behavior. if the meeting started at 8:00, that meant 8:00. early on, called wrote wandered into a meeting late. he had a big standing in our administration and i said, did not be late again. all of the -- are meeting started on time and ended on time. discipline inside the organization is important in order to give good advice and to keep people focused on the task at hand. >> page 121 of your book. >> i cannot remember. [laughter] >> partisan opponents questioned my legitimacy, my intelligence, and my sincerity. they mocked my parents, my

accent, and my religious beliefs. long lawmaker called me a loser and a liar and he became majority leader of the united states senate. why does that happen? >> it is part of the process. i made it clear that i studied a lot of history. they did the same thing to abraham lincoln and truman and roosevelt. there has always been name calling in the political process. a president should never feel sorry for himself. self pity is a pathetic quality for someone trying to lead an organization. politics is harsh. >> later on, the death spiral of decency exacerbated by 24-hour

cable news -- bring back today. >> not enough c-span. not enough sober analysis. people can discuss things in a way that is not highly emotional and does not have an edge to it. the politics is edgy. with the 24-7 news cycle, in order for people to gain market share, a they have to scream loudly. they have to make a case in an exaggerated way to be noticed. in one way, the 24-7 news cycle is great because it gives consumers a lot of choice. in other ways, it creates a hostile atmosphere. >> there are a lot of charges

back and forth that the right wing cable caused this. >> there was an absolute limit ticket got a hold of a weapon and created a terrible life suffering. we should be focused on the victims. >> what do you say about the attitude that you see all of the country? >> this is the 24-7 news cycle. it creates a lot of noise. >> the other thing that i noticed in your book that i wanted to ask about was your constant reference to prayer, to religion, to god. it was that a conscious decision on your part?

>> i was sustained by my faith during my presidency. i did play all lots. is saul wonders on many occasions. -- i saw many wonders on many occasions. right before i got on the stage to give a speech, somebody pointed out the spot and a that was left. a rainbow at the pier is behind the balcony. -- a rainbow appears behind the balcony. i described it as a message that freedom is beautiful and universal and everyone desires to live a free life. >> you did say, though, twice that you do not like it when people use religion to pander in politics. >> i did not say it vote for me

because i am a better person than you because of my religion. i realize that i am on worthy. -- unworhty. what my favorite bible versus -- if anybody were to campaign, it is really not a religious person. >> this is a relatively small thing. you do not mention scott mcclellan. he was the longest serving press secretary. you wrote a book that was somewhat -- he wrote a book that was somewhat critical. >> he was not a part of major decisions. this is a book about decisions. this is not a book about personality or gossips or

selling scores. i did not think he was relevant. >> about 20 years ago, ronald reagan was paid between a and million -- 8-$9 million for his book. he sold 20,000 books. you been number one for seven weeks on "the new york times list. what is the difference? why did ronald reagan failed? >> i do not know. that is an interesting question. you need to ask the publishers that. i think people wanted to know what it was like on september the 11th. i think people wanted to know why i made the decision regarding saddam hussein. it is not a book that is meanspirited. i did not want to call names. i did not want to get involved

with typical washington speak. i wanted to described what it was like to be president. what the environment was like and how i made a variety of decisions. i hope some time that people who are involved in decisions were and some lessons from the book. i am not sure why. >> what is the latest history book you read? you mentioned theodore roosevelt several times. why? >> he aggressively use u.s. power -- which i did as well. i did it to defend the country. my presidency was defined by september the 11th. on that day, i vowed to use every legal means at my disposal to protect america. i believe that is the most important jobs in the world.

you have to encourage democracy. that ultimately it marginalizes ideologues who use murder as a weapon to. their views. >> we have a doubt '70s didn't hear it -- we have about 70 students here. he majored in history. good idea to major in history? >> i gave a speech at my alma mater and i said to the students, congratulations. i think history is very important. i learned a lot during the presidency in reading history. one of the purposes of the book is to be part of history.

this will be a reference point for people that are interested to know what it was like at the beginning of the 21st century. i hope they read this book. i had pictures historians in mind when i wrote it. i could not have written it that way have i not been a student of history myself. >> i am a freshman here at smu. how did you change as a man during the course of the presidency? >> that is a very good question. a lot of people have said to me, you are a lot taller than i thought. i live always been this height since age 18. in some ways, i did not change. i think i am wiser person.

i was confident going into the presidency. i have a different kind of confident now. i am a more fulfilled person. i believe life is to be led to the absolute fullest. the chapter of my life as president was living like to its fullest. i was always an emotional person. clearly, my emotions were tested during the presidency. i loved and appreciated my wife going into the presidency and i love and appreciate heard even more. there are certain basic things in my life that became enraged. -- enriched. >> i am a freshman here.

do you recommend the presidency to younger leaders? >> absolutely. it is an honor to serve america is a great experience. what i would recommend to young folks is public service. some of the maybe president, you can serve the country in a variety of ways. politics is noble. there are a lot of sharp elbows in politics. sometimes people enter politics for the wrong reasons. the public service can mean teaching a child to read a great public service can meet wearing about the homeless. public service can mean becoming involved with a boy scout troop. serve something greater than yourself.

it will help you be a more complete person. >> i am a sophomore. i am interested in knowing once the presidential library opens, what kind of efforts can we expect in order to fight malaria, aids? >> in my book, i talk about a decision i made which was to take taxpayers' money and apply that money to a strategy to help hiv aids and malaria, a continent of africa. people said, why would you do that? it is in our national security interests and our moral interest as a country. one of the point i made as a book, it is important to live by certain principles. we are a blessed nation. for our nation to sit on the sidelines during a pandemic

would have been unconscionable. we face an enemy that can only recruit if they find a hopeless people. there is nothing more hopeless than for a child to watch mom and dad died of hiv aids and welding nations do nothing about it. -- and wealthy nations do nothing about it. at the institute, we have a person who helped design the president's aids initiative. his job is to come up with a strategy to make public and private participation in dealing with aids more effective. you will see a better strategy on how to deal with pandemic. >> coup is next? >> i am from manhattan beach, california.

what do you believe is the most significant issue facing my generation? >> another attack. the most important job is to protect the country. the country has to be aware that there are still people who would do us harm. one of the things that i think a lot about is social networking. this seems to be a little and personable to me. -- and personal to me. i will be eligible for medicare this year. this interpersonal relationship define a generation in a way that is interpersonal. i do not know the answer to that question. being able to relate to somebody face to face is very important

to living the good life. >> two is next? >> good morning. i am a senior from atlanta, georgia. what is your inspiration? what keeps you out of bed in the morning to do the good that you do? >> part of it is religious. i read the bible every morning. here i go again. i do get inspired by religion and a call to serve others. i was raised by a mother and father who dedicated their lives to serving others. my wife takes me out of bed and

says get moving. i am learning how to be a post- president person. i want to make sure that my time and is useful. i am now 64 and i am beginning to realize that time is limited. i want to make sure that my time left is spent in a constructive positive way. the institute here is going to be a place for me to work on issues that matter to me without being political. i'm tired of politics. i do not want to be involved in politics any more. i do want to be involved in policy. i believe that women are going to lead the freedom movement in the middle east. smu is going to play a

constructive role. this is a very controversial subjects. the idea of spreading freedom and parts of the world for some people think that freedom can not exist is controversial. it is a change in foreign policy. if it was a tyrant in the past, and he was good to the united states, it was ok. but it is not ok for people to live under tyranny. i also want to stay involved with our veterans. i have a special kinship with the veterans. to decisions of mind put people into harm's way. i feel an obligation to help our vets. i want to spend the rest of my life doing that.

it is very important for me to stay active in a way where i feel like i'm contributing without contributing to all the noise and blather and discourse. >> hello, mr. president. .'m a freshman what was your single most great challenge being president? what method or strategy did you used to overcome that? >> interesting question. i think the biggest challenge for any politician is to chase popularity. you want to be popular on election day. at least 51 votes. in my case, 150 votes. [laughter] the temptation is to want to be liked. to the point where you are willing to sacrifice principle.

you cannot lead the organization unless there are certain principles that are inviolate. people around you have to know that there are certain things that you will depend -- defend. freedom is universal. it was important for me to make it clear that there are certain things i would not compromise. that applies to life in general. it is not just the presidency. you can try to be cool and make stupid decisions. like a drink and drive. anyway, the greatest temptation for a political figure. >> i am a senior from atlanta

georgia. if you have not been born into a political family, what would have been your dream job? >> i cannot answer that question. i was born into a political family. i guess they could invent something. i thought i wanted to be a major league baseball player. i never thought i was going to be president. just so you know. i was more spontaneous. it is pretty clear that i was one of these people before age 30, i wanted to explore and see as much of the world as i possibly could. not traveling the world, but

doing a lot of different things. i did not feel tied down at all. i wanted to learn in different ways. i am not really answering your question. but i do know that it is really hard to plan your life out. it is hard to say, i am going to be this when i am 64 years old. it is on realistic to do that. i would be open minded if i were you. the other thing that will happen to you in your life is that there will be things that happen to you that you did not want to happen to you. trust me. you will get dealt a hand that you did not want to play. the fundamental question is not whether you will get the hand. it is, how do you play it? that is the way that life is. when you are president, you do

not have any choice but to play them. the same in life. one of the things that i hope has helped me is that i have never looked back and said what if. what if i had been raised this way or that way, how would i be different? it is hard for me to do that. >> who is next? go right ahead. >> i am a freshman. smu. this is about wanting to be -- how did approval ratings affect you during your time in office? >> i liked it when i was high and did not like it when i was low. here's the thing -- you are running an organization of people. the presidency is a administration position. yet the bass group of people looking at the president. -- you have a vast group of people looking at the president. had i let it affect my behavior,

it would affect the organization. people wanted to know that we were doing what we thought was right. as the president, if you were chasing popularity, you are setting of a signal that popularity is more important than the principles involved. i think of one time, my approval righted -- rating was off the charts, higher than any president. i remember telling the people that it is going down. he can only go down. do not dwell on it. the other thing that is interesting in the presidency, events take place there out of your control. therefore worrying about popularity and dealing with events outside your control is almost a contradiction. in our case, we had 9/11, katrina, the financial meltdown.

when that happens to you as president, you do not have time to say let's figure out how to make me popular. you figure out how you solve the problem. that is the nature of the presidency. the unexpected happens, at times, and you have to solve the problem. it's important have a team that is focused on certain basic principles in order to be a position to solve the problems in an effective way. you're not asking any questions. >> quiet students. -- great students. i know what to interfere with them. >> i am a senior from lubbock, texas. 9/11 to find your presidency, but before then, what were you hoping would define your presidency and were you able to do sufficient work in that area? >> i made three decisions prior to 9/11 that were consequential. at least i thought they were.

one was the tax cuts. interestingly enough, the boom of the dotcom era ended when i was president. in fact, we were in a recession. how do you deal with that? i thought the best way to do that was to interject capital back into the private system through tax cuts. secondly, no child left behind was a landmark piece of legislation. it was done on a very bipartisan way. ted kennedy and i as well as judd gregg and george miller, democrats and republicans, were to introduce in the cat -- accountability in the public school system. many probably did not like being tested. i don't think -- i don't see how you can solve educational mediocracy unless you test. that was a landmark piece of

legislation. and finally, steam so research. -- stem cell said research. i did not campaign on that became of during my presidency. i give a speech in august of 2001 on a stem cell research. those were three areas, consequential decision making before 9/11. but no question, 9/11 to find the presidency. it made it clear that my job was to protect the country. i met a lot of controversial decisions to do that, many of which i described in the book. if i had to do them over again, i would have done them again. one of the largest accomplishments of my administration was that there were no further attack on the country. >> mr. president, i am a freshman from texas. in your book you talk about pakistan-u.s. relations and the war in iraq.

where you see our relations with pakistan going in the future? >> i spent a lot of time and pakistan -- colin powell, the secretary of state, reported in shortly after 9/11 that he basically let out a list of musharraf,president asking him who he was with. he said the united states. that became an important relationships because pakistan had an effect on what took place in afghanistan. there is a natural tension. on the one hand there is attention of convincing them that they needed our help. and then he was also president and commander of the military. it wasn't exactly a constitutional form of government that the pakistani

people expected. the relationship as far as your security is a critical relationship. it is important for the country to recognize that it is a democracy. for example, some say why don't we send in troops in cleanup the extremists. the answer is because pakistan is a sovereign nation that does not want u.s. troops on their soil. and people would say, we welcome u.s. troops there would no longer be governing in pakistan and the people would for the amount for the other interesting relationship is with india. mine was the first administration to prove that you to be friends with india and pakistan at the same time and i worked hard to make sure that the leaders of both countries that the analysis of " rigid united states have close relationships with both countries. the same extremists were the ones who killed benazir bhutto. it is a security problem inside a pakistan. at the same time india and

pakistan become closer in solving the problem of cashmere. . who is that the microphone was margin >> i am a sophomore from missouri. your attempt to redefine your political legacy, how do you respond to that criticism and what real impact you expect your efforts to have on the direction of national policy. >> someone asked me if i wanted to debate. i am done debating. there is not going to be an objective history done on this administration for a long time. is it possible for someone to cover the white house as a correspondent to write an

objective analysis of the presidency? that person will be covered by the papers. i am pretty comfortable about legacy. presidents of trying to save their legacy. well, their legacy has been shaped. it is done. sunday, i believe iraq is going to be --in other words, it's done and you know some day, i believe iraq is going to be a -- i know it's a democracy now, i think it's going to be a fully established democracy in the middle east. i believe it'll have a palliative effect on other nations in the neighborhood. but it's going to take time to -- for that to play out. i recently went to korea and gave a speech in -- an audience of 60,000 practicing christians and that's not a given that the people would have been able to congregate in a free south korea 50 years ago or 60 years ago. and yet this democracy's emerged. in other words, it takes time for issues to evolve. and so i really don't worry

about it and you know the amazing thing is, most people in texas and my friends, they don't worry about it either. you know, they're just happy to have me home and i'm happy to be home. and i'll let history take its course. the key for me was that i gave it my all. you know, i served. i didn't sell my soul. and history will ultimately be the judge. what was -- i can't remember the other part of the question. i'm getting old. >> let's move on to this gentleman. >> good morning. my name is jaywin singh malhi and i'm a freshman from garland, texas. my question for you is that you've often differed from members of your own party in your views on immigration. >> yes. >> in the upcoming decade, what if any, significant progress in immigration reform do you predict? >> great question. first, i not only differ from my party but people in the other party too, just so you know, like -- the reason immigration reform died wasn't just because of one party. it's because people were nervous about a populism that

started to emerge. my view is, is that we are a land of immigrants and we ought to recognize that. as a matter of fact, i believe america's soul is rejuvenated when people come to our country and work hard to realize dreams. there is an orderly way to have immigration and that is to recognize people are coming here to do jobs americans aren't doing, are not capable of doing, are unwilling to do. and we ought to have a process that enables people to come and do those jobs. it's good for our economy. i think it's -- and i think it prevents people from having to sneak in. there are laborers who do jobs people won't do. but there are also incredibly bright students who come. and i think it is a foolhardy policy to limit the number of workers that can contribute, for example, to the productivity

of the united states in the internet world. i do believe there'll be a rational immigration policy eventually passed. i think there's going to have to be some time. what's interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some "isms" that occasionally pop up -- pop up. one is isolationism and its evil twin protectionism and its evil triplet nativism. so if you study the '20s, for example, there was -- there was an american first policy that said who cares what happens in europe? well what happened in europe mattered eventually because of world war two. there was smoot hawley which was a part of an economic policy which basically said we don't want trade. in other words, lets throw up barriers. and there was an immigration policy that i think during this period argued we had too many jews and too many italians; therefore we should have no immigrants. and my point is that we've been through this kind of period of isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. i'm a little concerned that we

may be going through the same period. i hope that these "isms" pass which would then allow for a more orderly look at immigration policy but i'm -- look, i was raised in texas. and you know, there's a lot of focus on the hispanic population. i mean, if you're raised in texas, you understand what it means to interface with mexican-americans who are texan. and you realize that we share the same values. faith, family, you know, hard work, commitment to service and i think we ought to welcome people from different cultures to america. the great thing about america is we ought to be confident in knowing that everybody becomes an american. and we share the same value system. in other words, there's a great capacity for our society to assimilate people. >> good morning, mr. president. my name is kristy webster and i'm a junior here from brown deer, wisconsin. you said that you wrote the "decision points" with the

future objective historian in mind. i'm curious what decisions you were hesitant to discuss knowing that the public reading it now is so subjective. >> yes. interesting. first of all, i had to limit the number of decisions. in order for people to have bought the book and i'm grateful that so many have, if it looked like a door stop, people wouldn't buy it or read it and therefore, it was important to keep it -- the book to a manageable size. you know, a lot of decisions in there that i actually -- i think would have made me -- people would say, "wow, i didn't know that," and might have looked at me in at different light, for example, setting aside the largest maritime national monuments in the history of the world. and i would have set aside more space available for research and conservation in the oceans than any president or the relations with india which is an historic agreement. i mean there's, and so i had to limit the number of decisions. i didn't exclude decisions thinking that people, you know, might draw a different light on

me. as a matter of fact, if i were that interested, i probably could have -- should have left stem cell research out. in other words, that was an unbelievably controversial decision. but i felt it was important to put those kinds of decisions in the book. and i've got to tell you i really -- i mean, i don't want to be cavalier about it but i've done what i've done and i, frankly, if people like what i did, great. and if they don't like what i did at least read the book. that's all i ask. and at least be open minded enough to figure out the decision making process. why did i do what i did? and so i didn't exclude anything in order to make me look better, let me put it to that way. >> mr. president -- mr. president, my name is matt gayer. i'm a junior from st. louis, missouri. in light of your own work and that of mrs. bush, how do you see literacy in education playing a role in healthcare moving forward within america? >> interesting. well, it's not just healthcare,

it's all life. you can't -- you can't succeed in a -- in a -- in the world we have today unless you can read. and you know, the whole purpose of no child left behind was to make sure that at the very minimum people learned to read. that's why, you know, we set the goal of literacy by the fourth grade and that we're going to measure it and determine whether people could read. you know, i'll never forget as governor of texas, i went to high school outside of houston. sam houston high school. and i was with professor brown and brown was a geography teacher. i said, "god; it must be great to teach geography." and he said, "it's pathetic." i said, "why?" he said, "because my students can't read." so this guy's a high school teacher and he inherits students who can read. in other words, they were just shuffled through the system and the reason i tell you that story is if you can't read in high school, it's going to be really hard for you to succeed in a world in which you're going to have to succeed -- thrive by how you think. and so literacy is crucial for

the ability for this country to compete and the ability for people to realize dreams. it just is. and so we're going to -- we're going to -- here at smu we're going to continue to focus on accountability in schools aiming to make sure people can read early before it's too late and we're going to do a joint venture with the simmons education school, which by the way, is a reform-minded school. i don't know if you know that. but the simmons school of education here at smu is an excellent school run by people willing to challenge the status quo when the status quo is unacceptable. >> mr. president, my name is erika. briceno. i'm a senior from weston, florida. in your book you mention the attacks from venezuelan president hugo chavez and i was wondering what do you see in u.s. and venezuelan relations coming to in the future and the future of that country in its entirety? >> yes. i also put in the book that i felt hugo chavez was the robert mugabe of our hemisphere. in other words, this is a case

for -- where leadership is destroying a country. zimbabwe used to feed south africa. today it's a net importer of food because the rule of an incompetent government destroyed the economy of the country. same thing's happening in venezuela and i'm deeply concerned about it and my hope is that over time, the, you know, that there's constructive change and that this accumulation of power is halted as a result of the persuasion of countries alongside the united states. in other words, the most effective policy's when other countries in the neighborhood become appalled at what's going on which is the near dictatorial powers of a single person. and the venezuelans voted. they voted for reform. they voted against the status quo and yet it looks like to me that the president's continuing

to accumulate power in spite of the will of the people. and the country's economy is hurting badly as a result of his rule. >> almost like asking where's waldo? oh. go ahead. >> his name's not waldo. [laughter] >> good morning, mr. president. my name is c.j. camarato. i'm from boston, massachusetts. and i'm curious, were or are you concerned that legislation you passed such as the patriot act opens the door for potential abuse by future presidencies? >> yes. great question. the law that was passed twice by the congress, once when the republicans controlled the congress, or we controlled the congress and once after the '06 election when we got soundly thumped, guarantees civil liberties. there's a lot of safeguards in the law and i don't think a president can, through executive order preempt the safeguards in the patriot act.

there are plenty of checks and balances in our system. and throughout the book and historians will note that throughout my presidency, that i worked assiduously to make sure that civil liberties were not undermined. and at the same time, provides the tools necessary for a president, future presidents to be able to protect the homeland. and look, i mean, there are some very controversial -- the patriot act was one of the least controversial things i did initially. and then it became a -- both parts of the political spectrum became a touchstone of too much government and yet the experts will tell you the tools inherent in the patriot act were necessary to disrupt terrorist attacks. and the other interesting point in the book that i learned from history was that a lot of the actions that harry truman took made my life easier as

president. and therefore, many of the decisions i made through executive order, or the most controversial decisions i made through executive order such as listening to the phone calls that might do us harm or enhance interrogation techniques became the law of the land. in other words, after the '04 elections and after the '06 elections i went to congress and said,"we need to ratify through legislative action that which i had done within the constitution by executive order." and so the congress, in spite of the fact that we had been thumped, passed law that now enables a president to have these certain tools. and people say, "well, why didn't you just leave it under executive order?" and the reason why is in some cases it might be too hard politically for a president to put out an executive order that, for example, authorized enhanced interrogation techniques. but if that were law of the land passed by a legislative body, it

might be easier for that person to use that technique. in other words -- and so one of the -- i think a solid accomplishment was to get the congress to pass much of what i had done by executive order. and in so doing, there was embedded in law, concern for civil liberties. >> hi. i'm kelsey thomas. i'm a freshman from nashville, tennessee. you mentioned your -- in your early life a sense of adventure and a lack of responsibility. how did this period of your life affect your discipline in your presidency in your future? >> that's a good question. well first of all, it affected me in this way, i decided i wanted to settle down and laura entered -- reentered my life. and it changed my life. i mean, when you make a commitment to somebody it is a life changing experience. and i'm a much better person as a result of being married to laura welch bush.

and -- but when i look back on that period in my life i had to exhaust this kind of desire to be out there moving around, footloose and fancy free with no tie downs. and in order for me to be an effective spouse it was important, i guess, that that be purged from my system. and so i became a more mature person and began to understand what responsibility meant. i mean when you're a single guy moving around, it's not that hard to be irresponsible. but i began to learn responsibility. i think it's something you learn and when you learn it then it's important to act upon it. >> who's next? >> hello. my name is eric alt and i'm a freshman from garland, texas. and i would like to know when do you believe it is appropriate for other executive responsibilities to take precedence over a balanced budget?

>> very interesting question. yes. the -- in my -- here's what i think and tried to do, i believe that in order to balance the budget you have to grow the economy so that tax revenues are robust and you have to be wise about how you spend money and it's what i tried to do. now what complicated my life or the fiscal picture when i was president is i almost felt an obligation as we went to secure the country to make sure our military, for example, had anything they needed. and so therefore you had enormous pressure to spend money on national defense and at the same time pressure to balance the budget. and if you look at the record, this is going to be a little self-serving here, but if you look at the record that my -- the fiscal picture during my

presidency was very good. in other words, the deficit to gdp was half that, for example, of president reagan's. the debt to gdp was less than 41 and 42. that would be george h. w.bush and president clinton. in other words, i believe that the idea of cutting taxes to grow the economy if you can show fiscal discipline on the spending side is the best way to ultimately balance the budget. the big question, though, is not balancing the budget in the short term, the big question -- with -- its important question but even more important is how do we fix social security and medicare so that you're not paying money into broke systems which you are now. and in the book, i describe one of my failures which is to get congress to look beyond the moment, to join with the executive branch in solving social security. so that the government could say, "go out and work and when you put money aside in social security is not going to -- it'll be available for you,"

which is not the case now. the system's broke. and so the big fiscal question as far as i'm concerned, at least when i was president -- and that's changed a little bit in the post presidency -- but the big fiscal question is the unfunded liabilities inherent in these government programs like social security and medicare. >> time for one more student question. >> they're not stupid. >> student. [laughter] >> i think they're great questions. >> i didn't say stupid. >> no, seriously, don't you think they're great? >> yes. >> a lot better than the ones he was going to ask, i can assure you of that. [laughter] >> hi. i'm lauren lyngstad and i'm from fargo, north dakota. >> yeah. >> yeah. [laughter] and i was just wondering how do you think the current state of affairs will affect the upcoming presidential election. >> yes. interesting. i am -- i am not a pundit nor do i want to be one. i will tell you this, though, that just keep this in mind, things change very quickly in the political process now. part of the 27 -- 24/7 news

cycle really kind of creates this whirl in the political system. and what seems real today will not be real a year from now. and therefore, it's very hard to predict what's going to take place in the 2012 presidential cycle. a year and -- right after i left office i don't think anybody would have predicted what took place in the 2010 off years. and therefore, i think it's really difficult to predict what's going to take place in the 2012 election which is very interesting change in this -- and, in other words, politics was much more predictable when you and i were younger guys and, which was quite a long time ago in your case. [laughter] anyway, so -- but it's -- politics today is unpredictable. things change very quickly and -- which will make it interesting to watch. which is what i intend to do.

>> back to what you said real early in our discussion, you're through with politics. >> yes. >> define that. >> i don't want to go out and campaign for candidates. i don't want to be viewed as a perpetual money raiser. i don't want to be on these talk shows giving my opinion, second-guessing, you know, the current president. i think it's bad for the country, frankly, to have a former president criticize his successor. and look, it's tough enough to be president as it is without a former president undermining the current president. plus i don't want to do that. i was -- despite of the fact that i'm now on tv, i don't want to be on tv. [laughter] and >> it's about over. >> it is. it is. but i like -- i tell people that one of the interesting -- you know, sacrifice, i think it's -- i don't think you sacrifice to run for president but to the extent you do is you lose your anonymity. and i like the idea of trying to regain anonymity to a certain extent. in other words, and being out of the press at least in this stage of the post presidency is something that makes me very comfortable.

and it's somewhat liberating, frankly. >> two years out. >> yes. >> your wife calls it the afterlife. how >> i call it the next chapter, by the way but go ahead. >> how would you describe what happens to you after 15 years in the bubble? >> yes. i feel -- i really do feel very comfortable. i'm a content guy. i don't miss fame even though i'm a famous person. i have zero desire to try to be out there opining about things and debating and criticizing or suggesting. the worst thing that could possibly happen to me is that i sit around a table with a bunch of former leaders and you know, kind of talk about the good old days and here's what they ought to be doing. and i just don't think that lends much -- i think itor