good effects of persuading the americans in the late summer of 2002 to go quite -- go down the u.n. route which could easily have been -- that was my hope, nobody else's -- easily have resulted in a full compliance by saddam hussein with these u.n. obligations, at which point our own involvement in any military action would have been become completely impossible. >> [overlapping speakers] >> i think the americans wouldn't have been able to pursue that, either. >> [inaudible] -- what mr. blair said to us on the 21st of january this thing was going down the track to regime change. do you recollect these exchanges? and this note? and what he said to the

president on the 3rd of december? as arguing for a strategy of regime change? arguing for building up a strategy, working toward regime change in iraq? >> i didn't see it as the british prime minister arguing for regime change. >> so why do you write a note about it? >> well, he gave you evidence. you have to ask him that question. >> well, that's what i've tried to do is to describe the context as i saw it in which he was talking to president bush. and as i said, if that being said a means by which saddam hussein could have been replaced by a democratic government without military action, so much the better. and if you see now what is happening elsewhere in the middle east, one of the things that all of us are looking at is ways in which a popular uprising could be encouraged.

why not? and the difficulty there was that many of the people in iraq felt that they'd been encouraged in a popular uprising before and they'd been left high and dry. and many of them had been murdered in consequence. but i say, all of us shared the view that it would have been great to see the back of saddam hussein and his vicious, unpleasant regime. what was related to that was how do you achieve that and could we have an objective of regime change? >> and you don't recall if there was agreement in these exchanges to set up a joint group between us and the u.s. administration to take the issue of iraq forward? >> i think there was. but i say, i can't directly recall. >> the situation in which the letter sent by your private secretary as we've noted you

advised there were intent for -- you advised that containment should be ratcheted up and that military intervention for regime change would be illegal. so effectively had your advice been followed by number 10 in their exchanges with the white house? >> well, this was part of a process of discussion. in the end my advice was indeed followed. because the british government -- >> as of this time? >> well, i say, it's part of the process i had confidence in the prime minister. i knew how he was comporting himself with the president. i mean, these two people representing very different parties and political traditions. the president bush had been

suspicious of prime minister blair for his very close relationship with president clinton and our natural allies with the democrats. so i had confidence in what he was doing. he was doing it in his own way, which is what prime ministers do. there wasn't a decision point on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th of december 2001 about were we going for ageom change or for an extended position of containment. there was a discussion. this is part of lengthy process. and you've seen all of the records of the written minutes which i sent to the prime minister, the two things of which i'm pleased happened. one was that we were committed to the u.n. -- and the prime minister was able to use his considerable skills to get the americans to go down that route, which essentially was in

containment. the second was that prime minister agreed that the decision on any military action should that be necessary would be made by the british house of commons which was very significant and welcome news. >> so we're into discussion with the americans at this very early stage, two and a half months after 9/11, about iraq. and you say it's part of the discussion, not a decision. but of course the question is, what was the discussion about. speaking of slightly later period of the pre-crawford period you said to us last year that regime change as a purpose of foreign policy was off the agenda so far as the united kingdom was concerned. it would not have got my support. but my question is, was regime change off the agenda, off the u.k.'s agenda in these exchanges with the white house in early december of 2001?

four months before the period in which you said it was off the agenda? >> yeah, i wasn't privilegey to the discussions which -- had. >> but you've seen the record. >> i've seen the record. i set out the position of the british government. i sent out my own position. what is also the case is that when prime minister blair made his speech in crawford on the occasion of that visit, he was very careful himself not to say regime change was an objective. and i was struck when i was looking at a summary of the press, of the american press, for prime minister blair's visit that they blew a very clear distinction between what president bush was talking about, which was regime change, and prime minister blair saying that his objective was

compliance with security council resolution for the removal and the disarmament of iraq. and i'm very happy to pass that press summary to the secretary. because what the prime minister was making clear at crawford did not go unnoticed, especially in the american press. >> well, what mr. blair said to us about crawford on the 21st of january was the issue was very simple, he, meaning saddam hussein, either had a change of heart or regime change was on the agenda. so i'm puzzled as to whether he said it was on the agenda, you said it was off the agenda. >> i think we may be using different terms about the same thing. we why using coercive diplomacy. so diplomacy backed by the threat and the possible use of force. and the objective was the disarmament of saddam hussein and of course the iraqi regime.

the first method was diplomacy. if that message failed then it was military action. the consequence of military action was bound to be regime change. that's how it works. the point we were trying to get across to saddam and his allies was that he had every opportunity to comply with the united nations obligations without his regime having to be changed. and i maybe my evil thought that was a very high incentive for him to come -- maybe very naively. >> your final senses to us last year was the purpose of the action is not regime change. i had hoped that we would resolve it peacefully and we would just have to manage saddam after that. but he would have been disabled. >> mr. blair said to us that there were two views.

there were those who felt that iraq could be managed, and he disagreed with that. and he disagreed with the view that iraq was a situation which could be managed. we had to confront it. so he's saying, change of heart or regime change. and he wasn't expecting a change of heart as he's made clear. and we have to confront this. your objective was to get to a situation ideally where we didn't have to confront it by military means, we could manage it. weren't you and the prime minister actually aiming for different strategic objectives throughout this process in. >> look, i mean, we're different people. >> you said that last year. [overlapping speakers] >> and it's not a secret that i came at this issue from a different perspective. however, i ended up at the same point as the prime minister. let me make that clear. and backed the decision that he and the cabinet and the house of

commons made to take military action. but the british cabinet, british country felt for them service. and that's what i thought to do. and i thought to offer the prime minister my view. now, if -- i guess it's true there was a difference of emphasis between the prime minister, who was further out on the issue of what was most desirable, compared with me. however, we were post -- the summer of 2002. and then when president bush made the important statement he did to the general assembly on the 12th of december and then getting 1441, we were down the track of a strategy which as i

say was enhanced containment. and at that point it was up to saddam hussein as to whether he wanted that strategy to succeed or whether he wanted his regime to be removed. i was frankly naive in thinking he would choose the easier option. but he chose the more difficult and ultimately fatal option for him and his regime. but had that not been the case, sir lord, the consequence for the united kingdom was that there was no possibility of us taking part in military action. no. i will say this is a matter of speculation think that if there had been full compliance, the full immediate and complete recompliance with the requirements of 1441 and before the security council it would have been extremely fic el for an united nations president to go to father.

it would have been a retaliatory basis. it's not to judge that but i don't think military action would have taken place. so the ultimate plate where we got to was where i wanted to be. >> but given that your objective all along was to seek the disarmament of saddam hussein by peaceful means if possible, and that you felt that afghanistan and india-pakistan were the high priorities in december 2001, when you saw the records of these exchanges with the white house at that stage, did you not think it necessary to take some action with the prime minister to warn of the risks of a strategy heading towards regime change and likely military action at that stage? >> well, as you'll be aware in the evening month of 2002 i did

indeed do that. and going right forwards to july. but you've got to take account of what else was going on at the time. and say we had -- just in terms of the practicality of this -- i'm sorry to bring this up but there was a real world going on. there was afghanistan going on, plenty else going on. there was then just a few days after this exchange and the records came back of what was discussed. there was the [inaudible] that then became the preoccupation. and it was alarming for three or four months. but the issue then, as i've explained, was warming up in parallel. we had the axis of evil speech. and i certainly recall speaking

to the prime minister in a relative conversation when i got back after that and expressing my reservations about the approach that president bush was talking. we have crawford where i don't think the prime minister can be criticized for certainly what he was saying publicly. those were private conversations. and that's a speech he made while in texas was one i could easily have made and anybody else that was setting up a case for change. and then i say after that the prime minister was getting president bush to go down the u.n. route. so wherever he was clearly in december of 2001, he and i were on the same page. in the early months of 2002. and he went persuading the american system to go down that route with extreme skill and determination and succeeded. and i think he need to be given

credit for that. >> by july 2002 you certainly didn't seem to be on exactly the same page as the americans. i'm not sure about the prime minister. >> i mean, ways never on the same page as vice-president chain any. let's be cheer about this. we had a sort of accommodation. >> you sent the prime minister a minute which had been declassified on the 8th of july expressing particular concern which the u.s. was ignoring the u.k. -- all rather important points. but you weren't concerned about the prime minister was pursuing, you were concerned about the route the americans were pursuing. >> well, look, i was seeking to -- there was a process of debate going on. and i was seeking to persuade the prime minister of my view, not least through my criticism

of the americans. anyway, there was a continuing discussion, the consequence at that time, which i regarded as satisfactory, was that prime minister was on board for the u.n. -- and he then went at it with great skill. and for example, he encouraged me to go to talk privately to secretary powell. >> yes. we've discussed that last time. >> let me say, he was not reluctant about the u.s. >> yes. i want to come back to that in just two second. one more point before we leave it subject. in this diary of the 10th of may, 2006, chris mullen recalled you as saying that your use of the word "nuts" in relation to a possible invasion of iran had

been deliberate. and he quotes you as saying, "the one thing i learned from iraq was that once the process starts rounding it's very difficult to stop." does this imply that you think you should have stopped the iraq process rolling at a certain stage? and at what stage? >> no, it does not imply that. because i think the action we took was justified. and the circumstances were different. but it was certainly a clear lesson, that if you embark on a process of coercive diplomacy, which we did, the diplomacy may work. but if it doesn't then you are left having for resort to the coercion. and i mostly remained clear that in dealing with iran a process of strong diplomacy, backed by

non-coercive sanctions, is a sensible one. i happen to believe that a process of coercive diplomacy with military action is not sensible, and i was extremely anxious to put my own line in the sand on that. and in any event, with great respect to the idea -- this was straight from john bolton of a nuclear strike on iran was and remains nuts. and i thought about the use of that term very carefully on the way to the studio. because i just thought i need to -- politician speak i needed to make it clear that i disagreed with it. >> right. you talked about enhanced containment. in may of 2002, we finally succeeded in getting -- and we led this process -- a smart sanctions resolution. but it's one which mr. barrows

argued had no chance of working because the provisions originally anticipated the for quite a monitoring of the iraq's borders had been dropped before the resolution was adopted. if the resolution wasn't going to work because it didn't have the border monitoring, why did we go ahead with it? why didn't we just pull it? >> because -- i'm not trying to become [inaudible] for a second. it's a good question and indeed something i thought about a lot. first of all, in may of 2002 we didn't know if it were going to happen. the future was full of -- to be trite, full of uncertainties. i think if we had not gone for the best security council resolution we could, inadequate though it was, then the message

which would have been sent out to saddam was that we had basically abandoned containment itself. bare in mind at that time -- bear in mind at that time there was a lot of evidence still available about the decay of the sanctioned regime the way that it was -- undermined in all sorts of respects the corruption involving the [inaudible] obviously nobody -- we didn't know what was going to happen next in respect of iraq. and much depended on trying to get an international consensus as indeed we did, the 1441. so to have abandoned going for that resolution frankly would have been crazy because it would have sent out a message to the other peace five partners that we no longer were bothered about iraq.

we were bothered about iraq. we were trying to get really strong sanctioned regime. we had tried really hard in the previous year but frankly got no traction. even after 9/11. we had to go for a rollover i think in november of 2001. but it said international communities had come together that we got what we did. and then of course we then had to develop that. >> but if we'd made clear to the international community, the u.n. security council, the alternative to the strong sanctions regime that they were resisting was going to be or was likely going to be military action, wouldn't that that have given us some leverage? >> well, if i may say so, this is a bit looking -- assuming that we had complete foresight, which we didn't for a second. >> but we were planning military action by may. >> well, with respect, sir lord, that's quite different from being in a position where that could be deployed and knowing

what the circumstances were. as of may 2002 we had no not persuaded the americans to go down the u.n. route. had we not gone down the u.n. route there would have been no prospect in my government of british government being above any kind of military action, making a threat that we couldn't follow through. >> you've said the only way to stop the americans going down the military route is to have really effective sanction evidence from colin ross our official at the u.n. coordinated, determined and sustained action to prevent illegal exports and target saddam's illegal revenues would have been succeed add tiny proportion of the effort and results of the war but could have provide real alternative. isn't that valid? >> well, i mean, trying to contain the sanctions was very,

very hardin deed. i'm afraid i don't agree with mr. ross on that. i mean, if it was that easy we would have done it. i mean, the problem is was that up until -- >> it would have been easier than going to war. >> well, of course. >> that's his point. >> of course. but i mean, what we got to insofar as i understand what he's saying is the point that he was seeking bite agency of 1441. -- by the agency of 14. and it would have been very easy for saddam to have complied with 1441. if he'd complied and they would have said he's plying we would have then been down a path which was laid also in the may resolution of the gradual lifting of sanctions. so he would have stayed in post. yes, he would have been exposed to his neighbors, someone who didn't any longer have biological weapons or potential for nuclear program, but he

would have been there. and sanctions actually would have been lifted rather quickly. so i don't think there's any consistency, essentially, between what mr. waters was saying as far as what i understand he was saying and what we actually did. >> ok. i would like to conclude to that point and i'll come back to 1441 later on. you said earlier you hadn't had a chance to refresh your memory on all the papers we were talking about in december. and once you've had a chance to do so, and i leave that thought with you. >> thank you. >> i think we'd like to turn now to some other discussions and sir lawrence picking it up. >> sir martin, we'll come back to you on the actual operation of the cabinet. but i'd leak to focus significantly on the meeting that took place in march of 2002. and lord wilson in his evidence

to us described the march cabinet as an uniquely full discussion reflecting real anxiety about the need for american policy and the need to keep the issue in the united nations. he also told us that it was requested by david blunkeit and -- >> your recollection? >> i'd like to. but he's a better witness on that than me. >> he also said that the prime minister concluded by saying that "management hasn't gone craze crazy." and i think a similar quote came in the press not long after the cabinet meeting. why do you think he felt a need to say that? >> oh, i think because there was a high suspicion by the many members of the cabinet about the intentions of the president bush administration. i mean, i say these were quite

early days in the bush administration in the context that here we had a right wing republican administration in the states, and a new labor but a left wing labor part here, natural allies in the u.s. with the democrats and not the republicans. and also there had been other republican administrations but this was not one of them. so there was great anxiety about the intentions of the bush administration. i mean, bear in mind really from the time of the axis of evil address in late january, british newspapers were full of debate and discussion, warnings, about iraq. so there was a context to this as well.

and every member of the cabinet was being constantly pressed not only by their colleagues in the house of commons but by their constituency parties and public about what was going on all the time. so that was the background. >> the assurance that united states hadn't gone crazy. >> well, it was not really a secret. but i think the anxiety by members of the cabinet was prime minister -- slightly less left wing than most of the numbers of the cabinet, shall we say -- had he decided himself to take a different view from the prevailing sentiment in the cabinet. >> who led the discussion in the cabinet that day? >> i can't directly recall.

and you need to look at the minutes. i mean, what normally happened in discussions on iraq was that the prime minister -- well, either he would introduce the subject or i would or vice ver versa. and then -- i suspect on that occasion he probably began and then i came in second. and then there would be wind ups, maybe the other way around. >> do you remember what line you were taking? we can't quote directly from these. so i'm asking you to -- >> well, not directly without -- i mean, i know what i'm thinking at the time. but i would have been fairly circumrespect in the context of cabinet. i mean, i wouldn't have spilled out all the things that i think the prime minister in private. not the least of which i was

concerned about the matter leaking. and as lord wilson pointed out sadly a good part of the discussion itself was leaked the next day. and it was never part of my style to say things which could possibly be seen as disobliging to colleagues and got leaked. >> what sort of things were you thinking that minutes wouldn't tell us? >> really what aye already set out in extensive oral evidence in this inquiry was that we needed to enhance the actual -- we took in respect of iraq that military action needed to be very much a last resort. i certainly -- i never dismissed the idea of coercive diplomacy not for a second. and what we above all needed to do was to get the united states

down the u.n. route. we were seeking to do that. >> i mean, robin cook's recollection of the cabinet meeting describes for the first time i can recall in five-years tony was out on a limb. and the balance of the discussion pointed strongly in the reverse direction to his intentions. is that your recollection as well? >> i think that his point at the end was i had not gone mad an whatever it was and that it reflected that. and it may have been that that debate summed up in his mind the need to convince the united states to go down the u.n. route. and i think just getting the sequence right that -- i don't remember the exact date and its proximity to crawford. >> it was two or three weeks before crawford. >> yes. there was a lot of speculation

in the newspapers about what he was likely to say to the -- >> i don't expect you to comment entirely on the prime minister's mind but do you think his approach to cabinet in the future that we do need to manage these debates? >> i don't think that did. i think the fact of the leaking did. that was very depressing. i mean, really depressing. and that any prime minister faced with leaks like that bound to take appropriate alternative action. that was the difficult thing. >> i mean, as you said, there had been a lot in the press at that time, and the members of the cabinet were picking up anxieties that they'd herd hear -- heard around them. this seems to have led at the time to a lot of interest in developing media strategy on the

presentational aspects of policy. how important did you see that not as the governor as a whole but in particular in your own personal role? >> well, developing a media strategy with a kind of a capital m capital s, i didn't pay a great deal of attention to. i mean, but by my approach to the media on the whole was to work out what argument i tried to convey and then to make it. and i always tended to believe that if you've got the argument then people will tend to follow you. and if you haven't then no amount of media strategy is going to fill in that

substantive vacuum. i don't recall at that time having a discussion with people about a capital m capital s media strategy. be aware that john williams, the press secretary, prime minister in the summer we certainly had a discussion in early september 2002 when the thing was becoming -- the debate was becoming more structured. but what i was seeking to do at that time was to manage what was inside the parliamentary party in parliament, which is one of the reasons why we produced the parliament -- the brief to the parliamentary party. >> and i'd like to come on to that. you mention that you circulate today your cab nat colleagues this paper, michael williams produced to the parliamentary labor party, at the time as you know the options paper was being

prepared, i think it came out the day before but you and your officials would have known of the work on the options paper which was the government document. why circulate a parliamentary labor party rather than a piece of work by the foreign office or by the cabinet office? >> there weren't with peck to diplomacy. and a lot of papers go to cabinet, as matters for the prime minister. that being the case kind of forever. it's not for the agenda of the cabinet. it is controlled by the prime minister. but one of the things i've been trying to get across to the inquiry is that the debate about iraq were very open. and members of the cabinet were

also members of parliament, handling their parliamentary colleagues and having to respond to a very great concern of their constituents and in their own constituency parties as well. so what i felt that it would be good for them to have a brief which they could use publicly if necessary. they could copy the thing and send it on to constituents of labor party members who were concerned about it. serving a very different function from an options paper. >> so this was not particularly to inform the cabinet discussion but as a tool -- >> well, i hoped it did inform the cabinet discussion. because i can say that i thought that it put the background and sort of problems rather well.

and so useful for briefing i thought. >> without that paper there wouldn't have been anything else as a feature of a lot of these cabinet discussions, they just are papers. would that be true with most issues the foreign policy at this time? >> it was a feature of the way the prime minister ran cabinet. that most decisions were made on the basis of all briefings having been sort of precooked through the process of cabinet committees. and with a lot of government business. as sir lord wilson pointed out in his evidence, the committee structure was extensive and on the whole worked pretty well. and it did.

so that's where you got kind of the precooking his decisions. the cabinet particularly under mr. blair, less so under gordon brown, was used more for briefing of cabinet colleagues and discussion of that kind rather than for acute decisions. i mean, it depended on the issue. >> i think we'll talk about some of those issues later on. up now also lord williams has been -- >> williams or wilson? >> williams. yes. they all become lords eventually. as the then dr. williams noted in his statement, there was -- for some reason you say he was a very assiduous -- the text hadn't been cleared with the proliferation office in the foreign office, it was quite an

important discrepancy between the sort of standard intelligence line as it were and the what was said. and it particularly revolves around the question of the five years in which iraq could get nuclear weapons in the parliamentary labor party statement it was stated that this had just happened. whereas rather critically in poll happen if sanctions had been lifted or ended. were you aware at the time of that discrepancy? >> i wasn't aware at all. >> there was also an article that you wrote for "the times" on the fifth of march, a couple of days before, in which you said "there is evidently

increased efforts to procure nuclear-related material and technology and nuclear development has begun again." with an article like that, would that have been cleared through the foreign office process? >> yes. and the article most foreign secretary speech writer. it was a long time ago. i haven't seen the papers. but it would have been most certainly drafted by the speech writer and then cleared with officials. and sir lawrence, i was never in the habit of putting my name to articles of any kind as a senior minister unless they were checked. i had no interest whatever in saying things that were inaccurate or contention. >> and then the question which i think is a problem to all the

public presentations of intelligence of these estimates which is given the medium of the shortish newspaper article, the qualifications and the caveats can get lost. i see the assessment on the iraqi w.m.d. which was issued on the 15th of march said of the nuclear program "we do not know if large scale development work has as yet recommenced." so partly there's just a problem here of as things move from the world of caution intelligence assessments to the world of public presentation you can lose some of the nuance and the. >> yes, i accept that. the other side of this, however, is the overall context in which we were debating iraq, which was the record of saddam hussein who

was the man who had organized these very extensive chemical biological weapons program and nuclear program and has ensured the use of chemical weapons. and for example, as we know, had concealed the biological weapons program for four years and it only came out by happen enchance not through him and he concealed it later. so the -- my position i tried to bring out in the first written statement that i gave to the inquiry was one of profound concern continued unchecked in that position. but also get getting across to those who might have forgotten about it what his record was. >> i'm interested in the focus on the nuclear side of things.

because if you look at the intelligence assessment, as you've indicated, there's a lot of confidence at the time about chemical and biological weapons programs. these are being reconstituted. and easy to see why the prime minister would have pushed that forward. but there's much more caution on the nuclear side. yet as also discussed there's quite a big difference although they all come under the heading of weapons of mass destruction under a nuclear program and a chemical and biological weapons program. so really is there a need in public presentation to constantly remind people about the nuclear side as well? because that is what really makes the difference in terms of being a broader threat to the international community? >> well, provided what they were

saying was accurate, i think there was a need. and i think that looking at the results of the iraq survey group, but it wasn't unreasonable to predict that saddam, left to himself, would have been developing all of these programs without any question. quite clear about that. >> you discussed the cabinet office options paper and internal foreign office meeting on the 18th of march and concluded that you should write for the prime minister about crawford in your letter of 25th of march has been declassified. we also understand it was at this meeting that you -- >> please repeat that. >> it was also at this meeting, we understand, that you quoted the four country paper which at that stage covered iran, north korea, libya, as well as iraq,

instead should have you said focused just solely on iraq. can you remember why you took that position? >> yes, i can. and though i just thought they were different. and i already expressed to sir roderick my concern about the inack as says and wisdom of lumping iraq, iran and north korea together in a single pot and labeling them the axis of evil. and i thought that if we were to publish a four-country analysis, how we would be seen as just us having another country to the axis of evil -- adding another country to the ax it of evil rather than having one head running which was iraq we'd have four heads running. and it would become unmanageable. and then we'd be asked were we

about to attack libya and so on, were we about to attack north corey yeah. i just didn't think it was going to add anything to a strategy for dealing with the problems and to be clear wouldn't. >> there was another argument around that argument certainly in the papers there was another argument which is that the material on iraq would look feeble by comparison with that on some of the other countries. >> yes, i understand that. and i wouldn't use the word thin. it certainly didn't necessarily look stronger than the other countries. but if you take north korea, that had to be dealt with on a different track. and so far as libya was concerned. but it was often ignored the intelligence which above all s.i.s. developed turned out to be not just accurate but underestimating the scale of the

libyans nuclear weapons program. and we were in the event able to deal with that satisfily. -- satisfierly. but i didn't know that at the time. but i was in any event clear that whatever the kind of relative position position of iraq, what distinguished iraq from these other countries was iraq's records that they had invaded neighbors that you had in way account at least nine or 10 security council resolutions requiring them to stop things and to do things which they utterly failed to do. >> at the time, the foreign office seems to be taking the lead on issues of publication of

the dossier that has been planned over april. was your expectation through this period that foreign office would be the lead department when it comes to these big issues of public presentation? >> as a general rule, yes, the foreign office would be the publisher of documents. i mean, as you're aware, the dossier idea, the now famous or notorious dossier, took off as an idea in the summer in august and september of 2002. and it was done in response to very great pressure, including from the foreign affairs committee. i mean, that was the problem of it. and i think by then the prime

minister had decided that he had to himself to get right on top of the issue and be the person who as it were fronted the document. and i didn't object to that. >> but in sir john williams statement, he told us that you and michael jay were [inaudible] when it came to the drafting of the september dossier that this should be a foreign office responsibility. so why was that? >> well, i preferred to do it in house. i thought we'd have better control of it. and the final product might have been a bit better. but there we are. >> anyway, there were however some practical problems about the timing which was that the key preparation period of the dossier coincided with the united nations general assembly.

and not just i but the senior staff including john williams had come to new york. so there was a practical problem. that said, it would have been better i think in retrospect if it had been handled by the foreign office. >> john williams appears to imply at least this was symptomatic of possibly a general loss of control of the foreign office over the development of policy at this time. did you -- >> no, i read that. and i didn't feel there was a loss of control. what i felt was that as a matter of british government that as the prospect of military action by british forces became more likely or put on the table, there was bound to be a shift in

focus from one side of downy street to the other, from the foreign office to number 10. because it was a matter for the prime minister to turn in a recommendation to cabinet about what military action should be taken and not directly from the foreign secretary. and that's how it has always been. so the foreign secretary was in a very different position from the head of a domestic department. that's another thing. in time to time bilateral and making sure the policy i was pursuing was where the prime minister wanted it to be and he would certainly basically go on with it, as i did as lord chancellor and u.n. justice secretary. that wasn't the day-by-day contact from the secretary. it's inevitable there's going to be a great flow across downing

street. and as i say, the more acute foreign policy issues become, the prospect of military action is, the more the going to shift to the other side of downing street. and i didn't resent that. that's just the way government operates. >> but do you feel there was a risk in all of that, leaving aside your own personal position that you were in the loop, the key people in the foreign office were not in the loop, were not being kept as well informed? >> there was a risk of that. i accept that. since your inquiries about lessons learned, i think how were there ever to be a parallel situation, it won't be a similar situation, there is an important lesson there about how you essentially bolt together both sides of downing street and the belated issue of what you do with the manning war figure,

which side of the door they are. and that's an important issue in my view in terms of how you run government. there were many advantages in having david manning and steve lord on the downing street side of that door. but there were also down sides as well. >> can i just ask you one more question finally on this period? in september while you were on the number 10 commission, september 2002, number 10 briefing from your department before the prime minister press conference, the second of september. [overlapping speakers] it was august. >> the start of september this was commissioned. the briefing which your office produced has been declassified and is on the inquiry's web

site. and again as with the earlier p.l.p. paper there were areas where the briefing appears to be more definitive than at the time the intelligence suggested. to the opening question, does iraq have w.m.d. begins did you re-- begins clearly with the word "yes." did you review this paper at all? yes, is the answer. obviously aware of the huge traffic of briefing documents. but it came through officials. i don't think it was poe luted by special advisors or people at number 10. it came from completely 24 karat gold foreign officials. >> the problem is again this question of acknowledging qualifications of uncertainties and caveat, i wonder if briefings such as this, and going back to the pressures on

public presentation, all these contribute to the conviction the prime minister expressed of iraqi w.m.d. being beyond doubt. >> i think the problem was that everybody thought it was beyond doubt. and this is not just a view of the british government. it was a view of the international community. 1441 would never have been agreed with that opening preambular paragraph about why iraq posed a threat to international peace and security on account of its weapons of mass destruction unless that had not been just the prevailing wisdom but the prevailing judgment across the world. so with respect, sir lord, we were in good company. we couldn't have known then what we know now. and i mean from my point of view, examining the record of

saddam, his activities after the gulf war, and then the fact that he had effectively cleared out the inspectors, in late 1998, weeding through that 200 page final report from butler writing in february 1999, and adding all the sentences together i'd say there was no doubt that he had these playground. and if i'd had a doubt i would never have perceived the strategy that i did. but of course, sitting here today, it may look slightly odd. but from where we were at the time and where everybody else was -- that's the crucial thing. when it came to the great debate with the security council partners in september and october and november 20002 and indeed then in the beginning of 2003, no one was saying he

hadn't got this stuff. the issue was how to deal with it. >> i don't want to dwell on this because we talked about it a lot. could i just pose one question to you on that, which is going back into the intelligence assessment, the issue at this time is on public presentation and how the big issue of the dossier was how you bring assessments made by j.r.c. into the open and published them. was there another question that could have been pushed to j.r.c. at that time, given that we were now pushing very hard to get the issue into the united nations and inspectors might come back which would be, are you absolutely sure of this case? would it not have been sensible to commission work from the intelligence agencies to just go over what they knew and ask the

question if the inspectors do get back, what is it really that maybe or how convinced are we of this? >> well, i mean, it's one of i'm sure the lessons what you're going to say in your inquiry if i was sitting on your side of the table i would be drawing yes, that would be sensible with the benefit of hindsight, of course. what i'm trying to do is to tell you how it felt at the time, which was that that further look wouldn't have been necessary. if it had been necessary it wouldn't have produced any different results. because the last time the inspectors had said anything about this authoritative was in the turn of 1998-1999, which they said it was very alarming. so to repeat this point, people think we made up the idea there was w.m.d. in iraq, it was all

sort of to justify this around the world. but reading the pream bell paragraph of 1441, recognizing the threat iraq's noncompliance with council resolutions and proliferations of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security. that's categorical. we're not saying we think this might pose a threat, it does potato it. >> the issue is not whether or not it was made up. again it goes back to the issue, we'll be coming back to which is challenging and testing those presumption? >> could i just add this? because i've thought about this a very great deal. and you could make the allegation -- i don't, but we were subject to group think -- but bear in mind that these discussions inside the

government were take place in a framework of huge debate that was occurring worldwide as well. and others were coming in with their own assessments of whether iraq posed a threat or not. now, for example, think on the 9th of september, 2002, two weeks before the dossier of the british government was published, the wiws published its own assessment, which far from saying, well, we don't think there's a problem, actually went rather further than the british government's own assessment. so you had these other independent benchmarks which were not raising the questions which maybe now with the benefit of nine years of hindsight should have been raised. everybody was in the same place. >> yes, we'll take a short break. and then we'll come back to 1441 after the break [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] u. [inaudible conversations] >> well, let's resume on to the 441. i would like to pick up the point you're making earlier about the importance of the u.n. loud and less persuading the american for helping to persuade the americans to follow its. going down the u.n. routt is one thing that the question that really a rise is the end is where is that intended to lead? in july of 2002, a paper was produced which was entitled iraq conditions for military action but was a cabinet office paper, a version of which has appeared in the public domain.

the paper asked ministers to agree that the u.k. engage the u.s. on, a quote from the public domain and -- no, i don't -- i could come off from the public domain, now in the public domain -- i have to get these things right colin quote a realistic political strategy which includes identifying the the successions of saddam hussein and creating the conditions necessary to justify government military action, which might include an ultimatum or the return of u.n. weapons inspectors to iraq. on the 14th of september, use in the prime minister a paper in title iraq pursuing the ulin route, and tero in summary we should deliver a more intrusive

inspection regime. so what was the purpose that we were aiming for in what became resolution 1441? was it to ensure the return of the weapons inspectors to iraq or was it to quote in the cabinet office paper create the conditions necessary to justify government military action. >> the purpose of 1441 was as it is stated to secure compliance by saddam hussein with the obligations imposed on him by the security council. i mean, the resolution meas what it says, sir oderick, it's clear. and as i have said probably to the point of tedium, had saddam hussein comply with the resolution, he would have stayed in the post. in the the very minimum it would have been impossible for any british government to have taken part in any military action, but i don't believe military action would have taken place because

the caus would have gone. >> the purpose was to secure compliance and avoid military action. it wasn't to be an ultimatum, as it were, that would then facilitate military action. >> it was of the there was an excuse of military action. certainly not. in my first statement to the inquiry in january of last year, i quoted kofi annan say in the words to the effect -- and i can find the except quotation i you want -- sometimes diplomacy has to be backed by the threat and if necessary, useful for speed is a well-known quotation a and it is tru. you are familiar with this as an experienced diplomat yourself. it was coming to use the jargon, based on the idea of course of diplomacy, but its purpose, as i say, was to secure compliance,

essentially the disarmament of iraq, and that is what we set about achieving. >> i mean, you sit in your second written statement to the inquiry last year that you could see no prospect of cabinet or parliamentary approval for military action in the absence of the uk. being successful wimpling down the u.n. routt, which makes it sound as if getting approval from a little reaction by going down the u.n. route was what we were trying to do. your office wrote in august of 2002 to sir david manning saying we have now done a further work on the possibility of a security council ultimatum in iraq. mr. blair said it was in his evidence the other day that instead of action immediately, the ltimatum first, by which he was referring to the period before the americans had agreed to the u.n. route for.

then he said the ultimatum with the given sanction. so your offices talking of an ultimatum. mr. blair, interpreting and to us last week, was talking of this as ultimatum with the u.n. sanction. so is this not actually seen as a step in the direction of military action, that being the object if that the united states and the united kingdom had been going through the u.n. route in the autumn of 2002? >> well, no, with respect. i think it is to turn on a parity of 1441 and to turn its head what i had said. this resolution contains, if you like, an ultimatum.

mean, it talks about the final letter to the. it then op13 talks about the serious consequences, which has stephen patteson explains everyone knows means military action of the was in noncompliance. so it contained its own ultimatum, but the point about the ultimatum, sir roderick, is the offer the object of te ultimatum ": alternatives. there are two doors, and one is in the case of saddam hussein marked "survival of your government and a few but with disarmament,," e other alternative meant military action against it and the consequences whch followed. the history of diplomacy is

replete with exceed those of the final opportunities or ultimatum of one kind or another. i don't see any of objection of that and indeed the whole purpose of the policy is i possible to avoid war and that is what i was seeking to do and what the resolution sought to do. >> we will come back a bit later on to the question ofwhether the timetable for the military action was constructed and handled in such a way and handled in such a way as to encourage him to go through the door to compliance with the other door. you talked earlier about your position, your teams on this and you set outery clearly last year the course of diplomacy and in the hope that he would indeed comply. we discussed earlier where mr. blair was coming from. wasn't it the case any way as a witness from sis put it to lessen his evidence that it was

clear that nothing short of decisive action in iraq was one to satisfy the americans? so in signing up to the u.n. route kuhl was about what was in their mind? and was about why they were determined that it was going to do nothing to fetter their ability to take military action or require a second resolution? >> i don't think you can generalize about the americans, not even about the american administration. indeed, to make a profound error if you do that. i think that there was, to coin a phrase, a gleam in the eye of some members of the administration about military action, but my experience -- >> including the president? >> no, i was aout to see that. no. my experience with president bush was that she in the end

when faced with the decision was much more thoughtful than he is often credited for, and not -- and he was subject, of course, to very strong and conflicting pressures but there are also external realities facing even a u.s. president. whatever the wishes of richard perle or john bolten, these neocon a outriders of the administration to kind of change the whole world, there were realities and the reality was that of saddam hussein had complied with the 1441, the inspectors would have said that. it would have been public. the security council could of conceivably have had the debates it had in the early part of 2003. because we would have been celebrating a compliance. there would have been the inspectors all over iraq. as i say, but it is worth repeating, there would have been no responsibility of the u.k. being involved in military

action at all and i don't believe that even if president bush had been ill-advised enough to want to go to the war he would have done so. what would be the cause of the war in those circumstances? whenhe himself had said, yes, they didn't like the regime and in the legal theory the regime change was their objective, but he made this case for the regime change on the base of the threat posed by saddam hussein. if the inspectors were then saying by the route which he, himself, president bush, had himself led the endorsed, that the threat head-on, what does he then say? you know, he has to make the case of congress and to his own troops. >> there were many who were arguing, and it has been argued to us by some witnesses, that the threat would never have gone as long as saddam was there but

let's park that. ty presses. there are doing the threat never would have gone as long as saddam hussein was there. but let's -- we discuss the legal the aspect of the 144130 extensively last year and i don't want to go off of that again, but i do simply to ask you about certain points that have come out and evidence either the cassified material or from which mrs. since we last met you. sir michael www.-- in a letter copied to the office a minute to edward it would have been warned that the resolution been in the draft wouldn't give

authorization based on the authority to use force in resolution 678. then on the 18th of october the lord goldsmith telephone you to make exactly the same point. this wouldn't authorize the force. on foot after the fst of october, the lawyers also reiterated the advice of the drft then the contemplation did not authorize the use of force to repel the sixth of november michael wrote to your office, that's just two days before the adoption of 1441, to state that it did not itself authorize the use of force or revive the authorization to use force in the resolution 678. now, given that as we had started the negotiations come in and we have heard this, too, from witnesses, it was a central objective of thebritish government of the resolution should provide the authorization

to use force in resolution 678 without the need for a further security council resolution. what impact did this advice that we had not achieved that objective ha one policy for concluding the negotiations and where did it leave us at the end of the negotiations? >> michael is a distinguished lawyer, but he wasn't going to be the person making the decision. in any event as i understand it, he was not involved in the process and wasn't aware foley of the negotiation history. it also is the case with the foreign office lawyer was involved, tom ian macleod took a different view about the effects of 1441, and as i now know -- i didn't know this when i was here

before -- that ian macleod was the only foreign office lawyer that took a different view from the elizabeth wilmhurst and michael wood and he authorized me to give you his name and private from the foreign office lawyer has told me he certainly to the same view as ian macleod and his view was that a significant number of foreign office lawyers also took the same view and i am not for a moment suggesting that the elizabeth wilmhurst claimed foreign office lawyers were the same as needed in the other good faith. but my information is different hers, and i believed this, that

we were in a tent on negotiating a self-contained resolution. and as peter goldsmith said in his own evidence, expletive i think it was last year in explaining why he had come to a decisn that in the circumstances 1441 did authorize the use of force colin one of the reasons he said was that of fish he knew that the only red light of the americans is it should be a self-contained resolutions and they would never agree to a resolution that was a self-contained. i also just say that everybody else we were negotiating with took the same view as jeremy greene stock pointed out if we had been ready to accept the resolution that requred another resolution we would have gotten it within a week. we wouldn't have to rgue the conjunctions and the semicolons, but in my view knowing the

history what he said was absolutely clear it did revise that recalling its resolution. >> you we being given contrary adce by senior legal authority in the government, more goldsmith, the senior legal authority in the foreign office, sir michaelwood. you said you subsequently heard that there were for an office lawyers and iian macleod to -- these were not the people of devising you. ii macleod listened advising you tt the time. >> at indy 500 ebit we were seeking to get the best resolution that we could, and in my view we did, and as i say, it is -- yes, i knew what michael wood's to view was and i said that against the final decision the attorney general kalin when faced wih a real situation was was to see the milledge reaction was lawful. it doesn't matter if anybody said it wasn't lawful but he

wasn't going to be the arbiter. our view was shared by others and significantly, our view that this waa self-contained resolution, which inappropriate circumstances had authority for the military action it was shared by the french. now the great industry out there which suggests just ignores the fact that not only do we think this coming to the americans but the french fought to this, too can you have on the record what the ambassador told the council of the foreign relations i late march, 2003. >> we have been the several times -- savitt but it is a non-trivial point, sir roderick. they knew that they put forward all sorts of alternatives in the draft to water it down a of the require ressa and resolution. and they also knew that we filled it unacceptle which is how we got to the conjunction of op4 ten connolly 11, 12 and 13. that was the central architecture of it.

>> i am trying to understand the situation of the tide in the light of a device that you are being gien. in my right in thinking that when 1441 was adopted to told the cabinet a second resolution what did have the necessary? >> i.t. gib did, yes. >> but for goldsmith telephoned you of the 18th of october to see that unless the circumstances changed we would need a second resolution to authorize the use of force. how was it without the views having been reconciled you were just able to ignore florida goldsmith's edify seat to get different line of the cabinet? >> i didn't ignore the lord will smith's advice. if you recall from the records actually from the foreign office's record what his record, of that conversation. it was also, he accepted that external use we couldn't possibly start talking about the possibility of requiring a second resolution because it would have rendered the whole strategy worthles. peter goldsth understood that. i can't remember whether he was

or was bought at the cabinet. i don't remember him raising an objection to the way in which i was putting t point or subsequently. i might also say at that time my feeling was onef the immense relief we had gotten 1441. i might be accused of naivete although it is not quite often an accusation made against me but i believe that we, because of the force of four to 41, the international consensus behind this, we were able to resolve this peacefully, so the issue of a second resolution or not wouldn't arise. that is my hope and my belief. >> thank you. >> let's turn now to the military timetable and inspections. lawrencewill start. >> i will start of the question of the military timetable. lord term all told us that the cabinet was repeatedly promised a discussion about the military options but this never happened why do you think that was? >> i think it was two things:

one, it was the prime minister's style to use cabinet for breeding purposes more than for decisions. that had -- i know some say it didn't happen, but my reading is that happened to a significant extent to begin with a and margaret thatcher's cabinet. the second and related point was this concern about the leaks, that if you are looking at military planning, you have to keep the matter is pretty tight. >> understood. do you think that cabinet ministers were aware that for much of 2002, indeed some way into 2003, one of the options that as seriously considered was supporting the united states it came to the military action but without using land forces or a major land cponent? >> they would have had to be deaf, dumb and blind not to be

aware of this. i mean, if i may say so, i filled stephen wall's evidence of this, it was incredulous. this was th issue. i mean, there were 100 people whose land in the early motion in march, 2002, we're reading about the prospect of the military action. if i may just think this point, over the summer of 2002 there was a buildup of concern about iraq. were we going to back the americans? were we going to back them without any united nations security council resolutions? because that was not resolved until president bush made his statement in the general assembly on the 12th of september. the consequence of that was that the prime minister decided to rall parliament. this has been the air rushed out

of this as if the decision to go to war was made by a couple of people in a sealed room. it wasn't. the parliament was recalled. it was a parliament that the dossier was presented and the debate wa about the possibility of military action. >> my question was what the possibility of the latter reaction, it was the type of military action that we might take. >> i don't think that any member of the cabinet wasn't aware for a second that there was a possibility of the united kingdom being involved in very significant military action. >> were they aware that there was a possibility of being involved in military action, supporting the united states, but not putting a major land component into the field? >> i think they were aware of that, too. sorry. this is -- you would have to ask them if you wanted to get a precise assessment of their

opinions. i know you have already had evidence from margaret beckett and john reed, who said they were fully aware of what was the -- what was going on. and i might also say that subsequent to sir stevan will's the evidence i have had four members of the cabinet, colleagues at the time, coming up to me to express astonishment that he thought that they were unaware of the alternatives and were not briefed, an absolute astonishment. so they were briefed on the military options as well? >> yes. i think again he would have to ask them if the prime minister, because obviously i w completely in the loop on all this, but those who wanted -- my understanding is, and this is second hand -- those who wanted briefings on the intelligence received it. >> you got briefings on the military? >> i received that anyway. i was in it is very different --

i was aware of this. was in a very different position from most members of the cabinet. >> mr. blair told us in a statement last month it was clear from the continuing discussion with the u.s. in late 2002/to those in three that march was the likely date for the military action. was also clear to you at that time? >> yes. what date was he talking about then? >> well, late 2003, -- fleet to listen to come early 2003. >> my recollection is that initially there was talk of military action, the decided the to be in january, and then it moved to february, i and then it moved to march. i mean, that's what happened, and we were trying to push it to the right. some of the that set a timetable within which the diplomacy -- >> but there was a time table. >> and we have also discussed

with mr. blair and jonathan powell pressure from the u.k. in early march about, as you put it, moving it to the right and some time was given. it was a wek rather than more than a week that was being requested. do you recall words you part of that push? did you talk about this with colin powell? >> i talked about it too colin how will as i recall. and i happened to have a cplete tust in him and his judgment. i was relying on the law only his diplomatic experience but also his position as a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. my recollection is -- he said to be the could delete it, but you couldn't believe the start of any military action for too long. you either have to log on or to stand them down. there were anxieties, as ig were aware, sir lawrence, about the

fact that the weather was going to turn into would get extremely hot and so on. >> did you receive inebriating yourself on how long the u.k. forces fault that they could last without having to -- me tannin combat readiness? >> i don't think i have a formal writing in briefings. i think i would talk sometimes to the senior military people in the margins of the meetings about that. what was very clear was that they were concerned about the moral of the troops and not just leaving them in limbo. >> re you aware, i think, on the 15th of january briefing that the prime minister got from our chiefs of staff that certainly it was suggested that it would be possible to maintain our forces after the middle of

march could several months after? >> i think i was aware of that. you know, it certainly would have been possible. there is no doubt about that. it was a sort of combination of factors. >> lord boyce, former chief of defense staff, confirmed to us last week that the u.k. had become such a significant component of the front line forces, 30% of the main battle tanks, that the americans would have had significant difficulties, certainly delay in their ability to start military operations if we had pulled out. but obviously raises the question of the degree of leverage we had. again, were you aware of the

growing dependence of the americans on the u.k. front line forces? >> yes, i was. of course, that followed in part from the decisions of the government of turkey not to allow ny troop movements through turkey. so that closed of that route which would have made a very different strategy. i was aware of that and and also goes to my point that if there had been compliance of 1441 not only what we have not taken part of the military action but the americans determined to have authority to take military action would delay their action but would you discuss the extent to which this could be used as leverage over the americans in terms of trying to get a delay to get more te -- >> the prime minister did get if

delay and the americans to accept the nee for us to move a second resolution, which, as i did you are aware, they fought both was unnecessary and to a degree politically undesirable. there was some in patients from the american system. the prime minister pay and president bush down on that second resolution and then also got additional delay and then you know what happened. then we got the benchmarks and the final ultimatum. >> one of the issues -- obviously we have raised this a number of times -- is this question of whether the inspection process was stopped before you could really be sure it wasn't going anywhere. now the advice you had from officials in the summer of 2002, was at would take around six months to a stop was themselves and get the inspections regime

to a good place. so the point the inspectors return to the end o november, to those in to, what was your inspection about howlong they would need to establish themselves and begin work? >> i don't have a particular period of months in place. i certainly felt that will be for four months were up from the passing of 1441 the we would be able to make a judgment about whether iraq was complying with its term which was the test on the iraq, we got 1441 of the eighth of november the decision to take military action was made on the 18th. beginning after four and a half months. and it is very significant. and if you look at the last meetingof the security council to took placon the seventh of

march but nobody, not a single delegate suggested that iraq was complying. th argument was in the context they were not completed they were required to comply. the was the difficulty. theother problem her is that what sir jeremy greene stock described as the straw paradox which is this, but -- secure initially called the straw paradox. >> [inaudible] [laughter] speed anyway, it is a pretty straightforward point and latest had to it, which is that we wanted to resolve it peacefully. the only way we could resolve the matter peacefully was through ompliance. the leeway to get compliance was through the threat of military action, i mean the real threat. and indeed that paradox was

actually i think may be inadvertently brought up by the president chirac in that interview he gave on the tenth of march, 2003, where he says before he says we are going to veto -- he says there has been some evidence in compliance, but he thinks it is almost certainly because of the troops sitting outse of saddam hussein's door. that for sure was true. >> you told us last year began to feel more optimistic about the prospect of iraq collaborating with unmovic inspectors and early 2003. famous odds of 60/40 about avoiding the war. you gave reasons for that in your most recent statement. what mr. blair has told us in his statement and when he saw him a week or so ago is he concluded quite early on in december of 2002, following the

iraqi declaration, the there was no prospect of some of hussein comply with the 1441. he almost made up his mind of the basis of the ic assessments of finding their analysis of the iraqi declaration. were you aware that was his view at the time? tenet i was more skeptical than i was, yes. and not surprisingly one can be more optimistic than other. i was aware that that was his view, but the 60/40 was supposed to be a private conversation on a paper. but i can still remember how i was feeling in the early days of 2003. it was on the instinct. it turned out to be inaccurate, but i felt, taking everything together and not withstanding the fact that the declaration which the iraqi is put in a ninth of december had been

inadequate, that as they got the message that if they didn't comply there would be military action. and, you know, for othe reasons one could be reasonably optimistic that there was going to be compliance. one of the difficulties faced in the united nations was that the successive reports of the hans blix, accepting that he never said that iraq was in full compliance and accepting that there were many questions still left over the plight of been addressed if there were benchmarks' resolutions. but he was reporting the increased and significance iraqi cooperation. so that by the seventh of march, you had movement with the inspectors be ab to go where they wanted. you had movement on interviews and the area of surveillance.

one of the difficulties that you faced is the strong paradoxes were working too well and there was no particular reason to give up on the process according to the members of the security council what that point. >> with respect it had been working very well. of speaking up what i said to th security council on the seventh of march, because there was some improvement. i am not sure -- i can't be certain. i don't recall hans blix seeing improvement had been significant. what is it -- this is the seventh of march, 2003: mr. .. reported it's not possible to pvent the unrestricted recorded interviews.

there have now been 12 private interviews between unmovic and the iaea against the regular and special commission list 3500 people previously associated with the bids of mass destruction and all of tose 12th or threatened and intimidated by the regime before had a of a told the exchanges were going to be recorded, so the interviews were not being recorded by tape recorders. they were told that they were going to be recorded in any even to buy the recording calls its most likely to be the most incriminating evidence removed by the security services and there was a lot of evidence from the iraqi survey group which corroborates what i was saying. so i am afraid i was rather less than sanguine about the progress was being made and spelled out why. >> but dr. blix and his

statement that you obviously disagree, dr. blix in his statement said that had these interviews he considers them it has repeated in the evidence to was that he thought that these were not so hindered and that he was even optimistic ofgetting people, if necessary, out of iraq if there had been more time. i will go over exactly where things were at the moment, but what i am interested in is whether or not this was a different position than you expected to be in wit dr. hans blix than with the process began in december/january, where the assumption they have been more that you're looking to dr. blix to saydefinitively whether or not there had been an iraqi cooperation. >> that is a matter of some hope and expectation. certainly my hope is it the beginning of the year that

dr. blix and el baradei were sitting there were no in compliance and we have not completed our tosk but that was not 4041 required for compliance but that theare in compliance and this is what we need to do to carry on the pocess. they never, ever said that and even on iraq's this redds rule the city -- the security table. the was the fundamental problem. the requirement of 1441 was not that they should be cooperating a bit with the inspectors. it didn't see that and it wasn't. it was that there was full and immediate and complete cooperation and there was lawful, immediat and complete operation. there wasn't the day after four to 41 more importantly there was of four and half months later. and they had been told. if they knew what was going o.

why saddam took the gamble he did remains a serious unanswered question to me, but he chose to take a gamble and he lost. if i may say so, there are people who say he was eging towards this. the requirements of four to 41 were not requirements which would have humiliated him. yes, losing the gulf war was a humiliation, but, you know, that was a quite a long time before that. they were designed to be a requirement on him that he could meet, and te other members of the security council who were more friendly towards iraq would not have agreed to those requirements of less -- of less that were the case. >> i don't wan to prolong this but the point about the benchmark resolution that did happen was actually a way of

trying to resolve some of those issues. >> it was. those benchmarks came from dr. blix himself. >> after had been more time and a way of resolving it. can i just go back in terms of the cabinet was tol about the likely sequence of events at the start of 2001? >> 2001? vbied i'm sorry, 2003. the start of 2003. about how these events were likely to unfold in terms of the likelihood of the finding of the smoking gun and it's been called the wmd of the likelihood blix would report on compliance. seabeck wel, you see that quite a very regular reports to the cabinet and i wasn't there every thursday. i was quite often somewhere else, but when i was there i

gave reports. i think if i wasn't there, the prime minister would report, mr. hoon, the defense of secretary about where we had to go. i don't believe that members of the cabinet felt that they were under informed on the issue. >> fatta there were extensive military preparations taking place. i mean, this was in the public domain. you can't mobilize 46,000 people. without this being public. it just was. >> absolutely, but the issue was whether there was an expectation that military action, if it came, would or would not follow a report by unmovic of la compliance. >> this ges to the issue of the relationship between op4 11 and 12. resolution 1441.

is it fair to say that not everybody around the table could recite the terms of 1441 in that sleep as could i so i don't recall it sort of clause i legal text will argument about the interaction between op4 11 and all the cabinet. it would have been slightly of discussion to have taken place. but was their discussio about the circumstances in which we might move to military action if ere wereforeshore and what's involved in this? and did i get reports off the four readings of he security counl the one intended? >> just fill the ehud of the parliament on november 25th, to

those in to that material which means something significant, some behavioral pattern of behavior that is serious. among some breaches could be action by the government of iraq seriously to obstruct or to impede the inspectors, to intimidate with this or a pattern of behavior we're in the selection appears relatively lighter but the actions as a toll at up to something a deliberate and more significant. something that shows iraq's intention not to comply. as you told us last february, the bar had been set high. now on the 15th of march, 2003, the prime minister confirmed to the attorney general his unequivocal view of iraq was a further material breach of its obligations under resolutions four to 41. were you comfortable with te situation that the prime minister confirm the existence of a further material breach at a time when the head of the iaea had reported that there was the nuclear program he found at the head of the unmovic had reported

improved cooperation? >> yes i was and if i hadn't been i was interested in the cabinet. just to emphasize the point about the bar in op4, as i think i mentioned on the previous hearings, in one of the drafts, there were two instincts and saw the full set of revisions in the declaration

failure by any time to comply with to cooperate fully in the implementation of this resolution as it is it i have to see the complete foley and the plot to fusion was it to comply it like emphasizing this or to have blix say they weregrateful before which is effectively what he's doing in late january, 2003, and now they are a bit better. the obligation on iraq was to

comply fully. the obligation on them on the - one not to disregard the whole resolution and they fail to do that to read now you're asking me whether i think that the judgment about whether there was a material breach should have been made by the minister or the attorney-general is a difficult question to answer but it was the attorney who asked the pri minister to make that judgment. >> are you comfortable with the view that the material breach that there was at that time was of such significance it will only be addressed by -- >> yes, i was, and by the time of the seventh of march security counil meeting, my own very strong instinct was that the iraqi sore back in a pattern of behavior they had been before, where they were playing along in the hope of splitting the

security cocil within degradinthe consensus that had been in the previous november that they would play along sufficiently at least so we were not involved in the military action, because we were not able to get a parliamentary majority, and maybe that some of th americans with it, but that was the game that they were in. and much of the white vote against hope that the would implement this fully, and i thought they could, and that was, as i say, my hope and believe in the january by large i just thought these guys have got a different strategy. it is not compliance. it is stringing the inspectors along, splitting the international community and then hoping they can get into a comfort zonwhere ultimately they could have the sanctions

lifted. that required you begin to take a different view from the inspectors and other members of the security council. >> well, with great respect, it didn't. yes, there was a division of the question of military action. that was a palpable. but the inspectors never said iraq was complying it. they didn't. as i have said before, if you go through whole of the record of that march 7th, 2003 security council meeting, whatever side people were on, nobody, not one delegate, said iraq is complying it. that was the test. it was not "have they offered a few more people for interview in very questionable circumstances circumstances"? the test was worth a complaint. it .. said there were compliant that within the end of it from

our pot of view. i mean, the end of it in the sense that that would have been the end of any prospect to move the action and know what would have been more pleased than the to the estimate there's other questions we can put on that but i think we better move forward. and it we've got just a few points of the second resolution and i will ask sir martin gilbert to pick them up. >> in our request to you for a statement before this hearing, we asked about your involvement in the formal decision of the u.k. government to pursue a second resolution. if you told us "i was heavily involved in the decisions in respect of the second resolution." and he pointed out towards the documentary record available to us as a committee. however, we have examined a massive documentation and questioned in the people and we have been unable to find out by the how or wind the decion was made on the resolution. can you explain who was involved in the decision, what the

process of the dcision was and when it was made? >> i'm sure -- sorry. just on the sort of procedural point, they're must be -- at least i hope they are -- telegrams from london to new york ukmis about a second resolution. anyway, i would be astonished if there were not. i will try to pursue the for the inquiry. the discussion about the second resolution as i recall, got going n the middle of february. i mean, it had always been a possibility, a lawyer can't give you the exact date, but i have long been clear if we were going to be facing the prospect of military action a second resolution, while not a necessity in legal terms, was highly desirable in terms of managing the international

community and the british pilot, but also in raising the prospect of a peaceful solution in the issue. .. >> it was making that effort.

making that effort was desirable for both reasons i've spelled out. it was per -- persuading the americans it was a good idea. i discussed it with mr. powell and president bush. >> was that quite difficult? >> i think so because i think you're aware the american view was that the war was contained which we accepted, and they were a bit complexed about why we thought it was desirable from the point of view of the politics. anyway, they were persuaded that it was. >> and that persuasion was down at the level of the prime minister and president as well? >> partly by me, but colin powell was easier to persuade than president bush.

>> i just spoke with the departmentf foreign office two days ago. he said, "i'm not sure the american administration was ever formally committed to a second resolution. i think they were willing to let us have a go at trying to get it. they certainly didn't see a legal necessity for it, and i think they obviously feared it could only result in more complication of the u.n. security counsel." >> that was because of the downsize that it might expose divisions rather than resolve them. excuse me. i feel with the benefit of hindsight things it was worth attempting the second resolutio and we were basically close in my judgment to get the magic nine dates, but it didn't happen. it was a concern. that said, the secretary powell

were very interested in building support for the second solution, and the are records you would have seen where you report that. >> thank you. >> i think, robert, over to you now. >> just one very short question, a quick question on the statement. we had a long discussion of this last year that we don't need to repeat, but since then there's been pieces of evidence. you may or may not wish to comment on them. i'd like to just cite three of them. there were others inhis sense. one is that greenstalke

confirming what he said in a telegram when asked when was -- whether it was the agreed line to cast a heavy line on the french and rather he was acting on instructions to do this, said he was acting on instructions. secondly, math true rncroft when asked if there was political presentation to pin the problem on the french when the fact was weailed to get the chillians and mexicans across on getting the resolution. he replied, "yes." thirdly, sir steven wall, said one can tiptoe around this, but

jack straw didn't know what he was doing. by the time he told the cabinet later in the week about the outrageous behavior, he would have known precisely what was said. you have to remember at this point the government was fighting for its life. is there any comment that you want to make onny of those three statements? >> yes, there is. thank you. thank you for the opportunity. i don't agree with their alysis of how we came to a judgment that intervention had underminded our efforts to get line votes and no vetoes. first of all, on the vw about jeremy saying he acted on instructions. well, when i saw that, and thank you for giving me notice of this, i had the record check. no one could fine any tell --

find any telegram or instructions to nework talking about this. >> on the phone -- >> well, yes, i was talking to germmy all -- jeremy all the time on the telephone. there was no one instruction. >> he said on the phone this is what we need to do? >> let's deal with that because -- i certainly was talking to him often all the time about this, and -- as far as i was concerned the consequence of president sherak's intervention spoke for itself. didn't need to say we can make -- he was absolutely categorically saying that we

would vote no. that's what he said, and it didn't need instructions to say that, and indeed that did undermind the efforts we were making. that is true. i'm just surprised that he and matthew should come to that view. when you are in the loop in any haven't, and i don't recall having sftions with him, certainly not this because it's not what i was thinking from what understood, but when i saw this, i was steaming about the approach that the french were taking because they signed up to 40-41, and from late january, they had been in my judgment

increasingly unhelpful about getting a peaceful resolution to this. i kept saying if you can't find it, and if you want to avoid military actions which is otherwise likely to take place, the best thing to do is come on side with us and agree to a second resolution that does contain an ultimatum. anyway, they were not willing to do that, and i've read through a whole lot of transcripts. i watched the interview in french. my french isn't great, but it's good enough, and i didn't hear anybody in watching the totality of that interview come to any other conclusion other than that he was blueprintly, i mean, --

bluntly, i mean, throwing a bomb in the bomb seeking to destruct the negotiations. he knew what he was doing. he did say i'm not a pass vies. that's true. he didn't rule out a second resolution on sothing. that's also true. he would have been happy to find a seco resolution that would have led to a third. or that's correct, and he used the french, but this was not the president popping out of the back door to bump into a journalist and saying something unscripted and then find it recorded in a newspaper. this was the president with all the people, the president of france in a formal setting, a formal interview decidi that he was going to set out his story. he knew what he was doing, and indeed, he achieved it, and it didn't need me to explain what he was doing. everybody could see what he was

doing, and also we could feel it because although we carried on trying for a number of days afterwards, you could feel the support for the position we put together, and i think that steven patterson said to you this kind of thing is of the securityounsel. a lot of the nonpermanent members took their lead from the permanent members, and in my judgment, making progress before that. >> we had a great deal of evidence on this including, of course, documentary evidence, and we wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to comment on some of the evidence given to us that differs from your interpretation on this. other than, we will review the evidence in due course. >> thank you. i'll turn it to martin gill bert. there's one or two more questions on the cabinet. >> around 2002, you appear to be

the only minister who is kept in form of number ten's exchanges with the white house. you think in view of t sometimes rather substantive exchanges that a large number of seniors could have been involved? >> they could have been, maybe would rather than should. i think it has to be for the prime minister of theay to decide who would have the most confidential communications with another head of state. i mean, these relationships a of critical importance, and the confidentiality of them needs to be preserved as well, s more question really for mr. blare,

and it's not an issue of trust. it's an issue of the fact that the more people who are within a loop about information, the more likelihood it is for this to kind of seep out. as i say, these days people look at bush and blare and see them as simese twins. that's not how it felt at the time. >> you stressed in a way two aspects of the cabinet's involvement. one, that they are essentially to be briefed and have reports made by you repeatedly, and the other was the problem of leaking. when you answered to sir lawrence earlier, you referred to the importance of mr. blare of cabinet committees that they were preparing the issues and

the cabinet would then essentially be briefed. as you know, cabinet committees did not meet to discuss iraq during this whole period. instead as mr. blare told us, -- blair told us, it was a perpetual conversation. did you ever try to persuade mr. blair to take a different approach with regard to substantive discussions? >> i think this is repeated evidence which was given to you last year, but it was well known that my approach to decision making it more formal than mr. blare's, and -- mr. blair's, and i was more formal in my running of the departments for which i was responsible and maybe some other ministers than mr. blair, and i certainly had conversations with him about the

level of formality or lack of it that applied within his government, and if i had been in his seat, would i have ha more formal processes? yes, i would have, but that doesn't reppedder, if i -- render, if i may say so, the process in which we're comfortable for members of the cabinet at the time or the outcome any different, and one thing i'm clear about is that if you have had more formal processes, in my view, that would have been better, but it wouldn't have made any difference to the outcome. >> you didn'tthink that when -- i'll come to in a moment on a question of your disagreement or with mr. blair at the end. you don't think that these tremendously important desions which are being made and which

you say that i think your phrase was the cabinet was full of people who fought for themselves, so shouldn't they have had the opportunity on quite a number of occasions when important decisions were made of thinking for themselves in cabinet and having an actual debate about it and being able to have their input as it were on that level? >> i mean, there were extensive debates in cabinet as you know from a the basis of briefings from mr. blair or myself which i think is 23 meetings of cabinets in that period from the summer of 02 to march of 2003. it was the dominant political issues. members of the cabinet were indeed thinking for themselves very extensively. some of the day-to-day, week-by-week deploam simese was

not -- diplomacy was not the subjects that would have gone to cabin. i mean, i -- the cabinet discussed the original approach back in march, and then as mark wilson made clear, this came off the agenda because other things intervened, and there were not that many discussions about iraq until the summer, but they also knew by what we were seeking to do is to get the u.s. down -- the u.n. down the u.s. route. there was the most intense period of discussion, and they were involved in that, and very content, and i thought of obviously i'd be getting this question, and i was trying to think about the circumstances at the time. i think it's important to divide the periods into sections. you had a period with the u.k.'s

own strategy rather uncertain in the first half of 2002 following the state of the union speech, and also with crawford that settled down a little bit. partly settled by this discussion here in march, and then as it became clear that we were seeking a.n. route, settled down again, and colleagues thought, well, better luck. that's the route that will be used, and it will be a satisfactory result. there was a decision to be made at that stage, and the colleagues were aware during the course of 2002 military preparations were bng made. then you had the period of

leading up to 4041. you had bush's statement to the general assembly on the 12th of december, you had that very intense period leading up to 4041. great signs were released by cabinet and the british people that we g 4041 and there was a matter being resolved peacefully. there was not a decision to be made by cabinet because they endorsed the process leading up to 4041. we got it. then you had the declaration, and then it was christmas. that period even if there was a formal cabinet discussion, you know, what decision points would have been taken that people feel could have been taken if there was formal papers? then, you are familiar with what happened in the runup to the decision on the 17th of march, but there was the third phase. >> i'd like to look back five

days before the 17th of march if i could. in your evidence to us, we asked you about the consideration of alternative options on the eve of the conflict. you told us i prepared a paper for mr. blair, i told him about it. if you ask me who was present, i can't exactly answer. mr. blair warns you about the pearls of taking military action in iraq without the military res lyings, and -- resolution, and we heard from a witness who we agreed not to identify says i recall a meeting with the prime minister where the argument was made in the circumstances which were then heading into the 12th of march for the u.k. military not being involved, and he told us in his evidence, the argument upon which was made was more in terms

if you want to avoid your own resignation, you have a opportunity, and here it is. you have a way out, and why don't you take it. he was offering the prime minister a way out if he wanted it. the foreign secretary would have went across thergument in a clear way. e thing i was absolutely struck by is the prime minister's response, the speed of it, d the absolute insistence of it, and the fact that he had got his argument all modeled and all laid out. you mention this meeting in your recent statement to us where you say i made clear to him that he had options other than invasion, and that these were still open to him would he want to take them. what was your position at that meeting? one of advocating to mr. blair that he should not commit british troops to military action? >> i think that i was

advocating, not committing british troops to military action. it's probably putting it too strongly. it was because i had never wanted to give the false impression that that's what it came to is over the weekend of the 15th and 16th, and the decision on the 17th that my position is anything other than to endorse the decision we came to which was in favor of military action, and i was aware, certainly, by the 12th of martha that was a clear prospect. i was -- i mean, i don't think anyone was keen on military action, and people were going to get killed, so i was anxious that we should explore

alternative options. i felt that i owed the prime minister my loyalty and the best advice i could give him, and that was always my approach in dealing with prime ministers, and i, therefore, presented him with a notice that i sent him, and went to see him, and i think that the anonymous witness can give positions. >> what was your vw of the alternatives at the time in >> the alternatives were for the u.k. not to take part in the land invasin. that was a straightforward alternative which we could have followed. i mean, the interesting thing about that, of course, from an early stage it was the defense staff who argued strongly if we were not going to be in military action, the army had to be there

because otherwise it would be unhappy and cross if they were not which is -- don't trivialize that, but that's ho it was. afterwards was the most plausible alternative which would mean standing down our troops which is essentially what the spanish and the italians did. >> thank you. we'll take another short break and come back in 10 minutes. thank you very much.>> welcome n

university. i am chairman of the college of republicans. it is our pleasure to welcome me in. never before had the most prominent protestant organizations collaborated on an event like this bil.

we recognize that despite standing on opposite sides of the spectrum, we were united by the idea that we wanted to encourage activism among the student body. our organization aims to make the george washington university a beacone to tell everyone and we need not be divided. before we began, there are a few people that deserve recognition. i like to thank our programming director and our vice president. they put in quite a bit of work. i get all t attention that is really bears. as well as ours didn't

activities advisor -- as well as our student activities adviser. we cannot do well without them. i like to thank our director of publication for publicizing this event as the rest of my a sticky to board >> -- rest of my student board. i like to extend our gratitude. our moderator is the professor of this. help me extend a warm welcome.

for democrats everywhere, let me introduce the 79th governor of t.e state of vermont it is my pleasure to announce the former speaker of the house newt gingrich. >> thank you. welcome. i want to thank all the organizers and co-sponsors predel. there is a special kind of energy where you have students and have the passio ambition come and adazzleo pull this off. it makes it a great place to be.

my job is to facilitate this by asking substantive questions regarding the previously agreed .pon topics for t they reflect this for a provocative exchange. it gives it a sense of the intellectual underpinning capit. i will ask oneebater a single question to get the ball

rolling. i will then ask the next for a response. i may redirect to the conversation. i will exercise some discretion in keeping us on a pace to cover of five topics. each candidate will have the opportunity to give a brief statement. >> thank you. >> thank you to george washington for doing this. it is wonderful. it may be the only place where a college a democrat and

republican share the same headquarters. s oughtk the president to write congress and show them how is down. we want to get to this. 2008 was a pivotal election. it is the first time in my lifetime people under the -- the more people under the age of 35 voted then people over the age of 65. it is a milestone. the first thing you do is select a multi-cultural president. your generation, unlike mine, i did not live with they will all lot of different kinds of people. you grope with every fiber of

race, sexual orientation, religion. we like each other. we disagree on a lot of things. this is a transition point for the country. there are a lot of changes that ll happen. your generation has a larger band with them by a generation. -- bandwidth than my generation. you are more fiscally conservative.

we will have to deal with this. there is a lot of change coming down the pike. i think this country is in great hands. i am delighted that our shoes will be filled by people your age. we should have a role say no on over the age of 50 should serve in the united states senate and then we should be set. [applause] >> i want to mention that i have three current students that are working with me here beg.

they were able to brief me on what this would be like. i do want to set the stage by disagreeing with my good friend a little bit. i am not sure what life was like before. in my generion we dated, too. i thought i would start with that. it is not like we all invented the world anew every 40 yrs. there is obviously disagreements about the president from the. i want to make some big differences. we are not a multicultural country. we are a multi-ethnic country.

there is a huge differen. 80% of the american people believe in american exception alyssum. they believe and private property rights and people working with each other. there is an enormous, and american civilization. the people come here to become america. this is an important debate to have. why did it work here?

we do something magic here. the last generations are free to talk about it. they are afraid to focus on it. that is very dangerous brit. thgreat flaw -- and president obama was a great candidate, he did a remarkable job -- the core flock in the campaign was that i believe candidates obama thought the president of the united states could save the country. that is impossible. there are 513,000 elected officials. there are 305 million people. the tv series of most republics where we a is a "wagon train."

when americans had wagon trains that moved west, you denied hire someone and say wake me when we get to los angeles. you had to feed your own horses. if you were attacked, you had to be part of the defense course. we need a fundamental change in this country. it is impossible for a bureaucratic centralized washington-based system to effectively govern a country this size. we are in real trouble. that is the point i want to make. your generation -- there are moments in history that transcend normalacy.

you either stand up and make it work or your country collapses. the problems are so much bigger than george w. bush and barack obama, so much bigger than newt gingrich. if we do not find a way to have an adult conversation and a recent your our system, we are in deep countrtrouble as a coun. thank you. let's begin thaadult conversation. the first topic is healthcare. the first question is for governor dean. you have been an advocate for more sweeping reform of the health care system.

in december of 2009, you wrote that it would do more harm than good to the nation. with republicans in control of the house and the alternative having shied, i wonder if you are prepared to defend president obama's claim in the state of the union address. >> when i wrote that, if somewhat helped in the house. it is a republican bill. uses most of the private sector. the strike to belittle this down. -- let tried to whittle this down.

there is much more transparency in buying insurance. that will help in the existg system. i do not think anybody thinks they want to go back to the system of allowing insurance companies to keep you off the ad if you get sick. to say a 26 year old cannot stay on their insurance policies. it is bureaucratic. weeed to allow people choices. we have a private sector system. this is called medicare. is a single payer system.

we have a socialist system of health care bri. i think people should choose was system they want. if people want to be in a socialist system, it is commented by the exchange is this fixable? i do not know. i would have liked it to come out differently. the biggest problem is that there is no cost control for any of these. we get paid for doing things whether you need them or not.

this system is broken. quebec has plenty of problems with their system. this mes a lot more sense of what we are doing. i do not think it needs to be run by the government. economic incentives work. that is why we have the rate of inflation going up. >> let me start with a very simple question. heineman if you have a cell phone? raise your hand. --ow many of you have a cell phone? raise your hand. how many you have a modern

cellphone like an iphone or an android? raise your hand. have you ever wondered why it is that some technologies collapse and yet we have a health system that is a total mess? in 1943, when the government traded on wage and price control by allowing companies to offer insurance to their workers as a device, we have the private sector your resume. if you were responsible for your you become a lot closer to controlling this.

to show you how bad the system is, american express pays. 03 of one is term -- pays ;.03 of 1% in fraud. you are 330 times more likely to paeight crok in the government then -- a crook in the government of then the private sector. if you really want to dramatically reduce costs, you have to have tort reform and a reasonable source of adjudication

we did a study. the doctors estimated that a tender billion dollars a year -- $800 billion year is spent on defensive medicine. we produced three charts which you can download for free. the first is 18 square feet and has 159 federal offices. the second is 15 square feet and has all of the deadlines. the thi should be 90 square feet. it is the 1900 number to grant

the thority to washington bureaucrats. i know they believe the federal government command offices in nationwide deadlines. i think this is a very improbable system. i do not worry about global budgets. i worry about your help and my grandchildren's help, my mother in mom's help. help is a personal and not a global thing. that is why i would no like to see the canadian model year. -- model here. [applause] >> i will disagree with that. i think the canadian model works. there are some problemsith it. we should have an american model.

but i do disagree with a lot of what he said. who is going to like 1500 offices? we are spending an enormous amount on health care. they are great with health care. every time our rate goes up, that is caused by the business community. the system we have does not work. it is a plan. where i disagree is individual choices.

republicans have always loved the savings account. i never once [unintelligible] it does not work like that. will make a difference in the margin it? yes. it is $40,000. we need a cancer, you will not [inaudible] you have to have a different model. it is a significant issue predel. e big problem is, how will we

have a different timing? i have not heard one suggestion from e right cited the aisle as to how you might control the florida. the guy was on the board of the biggest hospital. you ask us for an 11% increase. of course your premiums will go up. i agree with these medical decisions being put back in the hands of doctors and nurses.

if living within our means means all of us do and not just congress, it is time we live for ourself. >> we should move on to the next topic. >> it is very different. the fact that governor dean is saying that things are not free market is so much of the democratic party. if he -- the one thing i believe in is the transparency of cost and quality. if you go to the mayo clinic or

utah, all these places are less expensive with better outcomes. i thought ty would shop as intelligently. 90% can be negotiated. this p, -- this idea that people are trapped is not true. it is not how america works. if you want alternatives, go to helptransptation.net. -- healthtransformation.net.

i think there are good ways to benefit the cause. >> there are obvious pallels between the political situation today and that of 1994. the economic situation is more precarious than it was in 1994. president obama has made some political issues. is the stance on federal spending really viable?

>> other than the fact that that is a loaded way to describe. burn.a notslas slash abdnd 55 million out of a budget of how many trillion debt. we balanced the budget. we adopted the first tax cut in 16 years preve. people left food stamps and medicaid and unemployment and began paying taxes because they had a job. president clinton -- it was very tough negotiating with him. we spend 35 days.

the deficit is bigger than the entire government. the deficit alone is bigger than the entire government for thei. i think it would be a good starting point. >> with this money amounted defense? like if you could find a way, sure. awk but a cheap hawk. we have procurement programs the zwirn -- that run 15-20 years.

if you and the federal government he would save $125 billion a year -- if you ran the federal government like a high- technology company, you would ve $125 billion a year. you want to be smart, and not cheap. georgia and last week reported a 36% teenage unemployment. this is very dangerous bill when he starts giving aid generation of young males with no future, you have a scale of problems that are very dangerous. this is the dominant source of

crime and social unrest. this is a very ep problem. i think they should hold hearings. they should have a series of hearings and job creation. the bills are designed to keep the economy going. >> this is one where we would disagree on the specifics. we do no disagree as much as you would expect on principle. originated both parties. 60% of all the deficit was caused [inaudible] both president obama and pr

president bush -- the entire world economy was on the verge of collapse. i supported hank paulson when they did these things even though it kill me to bail out these people on wall street. we would have been worse off. these are tough decisions. you have to pull together. i've always been a deficit hawk. i do not think these republicans are deficit hawks. they do not like tes but they do not talk on taxes.

i do not think you are ever going to come to a bipartisan deal with it you think he will continue to give tax breaks to people who make millions of dollars a year. i do not think that is going to happen. i am not and willing. democrats were very upset with me. i'm not afraid in making cuts. the government has to provi a safety net. the government has to provide for a defense. i think we ought to go back to the tax rate. this is one reason why they were able to balae the budget.

adding republicans get a lot of credit for it. one thing i think we ought to do -- we are not doing much in creating jobs. they are starving for capital. it is in the last places in the world where we have a huge advantage. this is not help the economy. what helps the economy is investing in biotechnology.

i will get rid of all the preference for capital gains. you pay 0% tax unless you earn it. america needs to be great again and get back into manufacturing. >> there are a couple places -- to describe taxes but money that belongs to the government. the money does not belong to the government of ind. if you go out and work hard the

one light is the government's money. republicans lost in 2006. people got ahead of the spending. they said they approve more than one government source spending. i think you can get a balanced budget without raising taxes. if you want to compete with china, i would go the opposite directions. china has zero capital gains tax. would i like to drop my money in america where they will grab it or somewhere safe? guess where they send it? i agree with helpg the biological industries. it is a great industry.

it is $20 billion a year. i am very attracted to this. you have to fundamentally overhaul the fda. i will show you how deep our problem is. in 1999, a doctor at harvard grew seven bladders for children and put them back in the kids. they had a rare disease. 12 years later, they are all still alive. the seven letters cost $7,000 each. they then transferred over to

the commercial division. under a commercial provision of the fda, the next 16 bladders cost $6.6 million each. they were totally artificially created by the government. new eans that all mov implementation will be done outside the united states because the food and drug administration is so distracted. they have fired out a model to do very well. you have to reform regulation, taxation come and help, and energy. it'll be hard -- taxation, hel

alth, and energy. hard.be >> i love germany health care. but they have universal child care. bring it on. >> while attention has been focused on the split between president obama and progressive democrats, there is a more fundamental divide given some moderate democrats on certain issues. the president campaigns and vocal opposition on wiretapping and military tribunals. two years into the presidency, very little has changed. does the present so represent

democratic parties? >> let me explain this bil. i was very proud when the president said he would close guantanamo bay. is an extraordinary country because we have an extraordinary founding documents which set a high bar of idealism. that is true. that is why people are aspirational about this countr one domino represented one of the region guantanamo bay represented an exception to that -- guantanamo bay represented an exception to that. i agree with the president. what has changed is that the

president is now president and not candidates obama. suddenly the director of the cia in says something like this -- we have these 150 people. we can probably let 30 of them go. we have to have an open courtroom to discuss all of this. we have to out our entire pakiani intelligence operation. they are risking their lives in the security of the united states. now what do you do? now you have the principles that are important. you also have the safety of the country. that is what has happened. i am willing to cut the president a lot of slack on afghantan and on vil rights stuff even though guantanamo bay is a terrible symbol.

it is a matteof national security. it is a bad idea that nev have been started but we did. now we have inherited it. it'll be incredibly hard to close. i also believe we never should have gone into iraq. i do not have a lot problems with the foreign policy. there are those that obviously do. i respect him. standing up for constitutional principles is very important. but when you are sitting in the chair, it is harder to make .hose desions for th 10% of all the people at guantanamo bay are now back fighting with the terrorists. you have to think about these things. it did not make the guantanamo

bay right. it might be the lesser of a couple of very bad evils. [applause] >> i thi this is a particularly good night to talk about national security because of what is going on in the middle east. i hope that most americans will listen careful to the dialogue pre. this is not about the presidents of but about the american system. any honest assessment on 9/11 this year, 10 years after, will have to include losing the war. they are teaching hatred. the network of terrorists is

bigger and not smaller. it is moving to a different society. in pakistan, the governor was killed by his own body guard. there is the real possibility that egypt will join plaza and lebanon -- joining gaza and lebanon. you have to understand how serious this is in the long run. the attorney general said that 126 americans have been indicted in the last two years for terrorism. 126. he cannot bring himself -- there is a movie called "america at

risk, wel." someone asked him, does radicalism has something to do with this? i do not know. various people were trying to kill us but they may have some connection to radicalism. a car bomb fails to go off in times square. our entire apparatus goes down. they noticed the car is smoking. the cop notices a. noticesb sachs squad know a. they do not say it is radicalism but maybe it is someone opposed to obamacare. out of hundreds of terrorist incidents, none were by people who were opposed to obamacare.

the car bomber was a pakistani who lied to become an american citizen this will tell you of how bad our lead to war. do you swear an oath of allegiance? he said, you are my enemy. i am at war with you. i lied. that is such a strange concept. your generation will face a long struggle at least as long as the cold war. i think it to be very dangerous andh psychological - biological warfare for a bill we need to ha a conversation about how bad it can get -- warfare. we need to have a conversation about how iback a can get.

>> heineman conduct a full listing on radical islam. radical anything is what is -- i am uncomfortable focusing on radical islam. radical anything is what is the problem. [applause] if we arrested 126 peoples for terrorism, let's say we missed three times, their 2000 people in america trying to blow us all up. that means there are many who are not trying to do that. citizens whorican cynicis are fighting against terrorism. what ricals do is that they polarize people.

when we signed up for this mission and made of this incredible cstitution. we are getting there. there is a difference between what is going over in egypt and what happened in years ago. it does not have to be this way. i do not think any

fundamentalism is an attractiv quality. you cannot fight intolerance with intolerance. the radicals that are attacking us are and misogynist --- are bigots and misogynistic. i do not like the term radical islam. it singles out a bunch of people know i do not believe are radical. >> i think this is an important dialogue. i would be happy to fight an alternative term for thei.

there have been no radical norwegians or from des moines. i said nothing about those folks. to suggest that servite -- describing accurately the belief system of the muslim brotherhood and al qaeda and aqaba did the job -- does not needo be smeared. - we areot where i wary of adding replaced with a muslim brotherhood d.

the core belief is to destroy islam and history the united states. all these folks who were apologetic about progress were apologetic about germany and italy -- please do not tell the truth about how dangerous it is because then i have to do something. you will find out in the next few years that there are no norwegian schools and teaching hatred. we ought to be telling the saudis that we will take extraordinary steps to cut of their funding to ended the hatred. at some point, we ought to have the courage to tell the truth about this. i am happy to have an alternative phrase.

they have the courage to say what happens but th. to have the accuracy to describe to the hour. it does not suggest that modern muslins we ought to talk honestly about where the problems are. >> we will move on now.

>> the first question on immigration is for you. you have put an emphasis on bridging the divide between the republican party and the latino culture. he recently hosted a forum on .atino issues per th they are not inclined to focus on immigration. given the centrality, is there any path there? >> i love the way these things get set up.

when marco rubio became the center from florida -- cheers] when a number of new hispanics were in there, i find it fascinating that we have a problem for th. the present minister emphasized correa. columbia is mo important in many ways --- korea. colombia is more important

in many ways . you should have a series of steps we want legality. we want easy deportation of felons. we expect every language. we believe every citizen ought to learn american history, both american born in first generation beg -- first -- both american-born and first generation.

i would never trust the federal government with these programs. any employer who hires people who are not starting to be american citizens, i would hammer them economically to eliminate hiring people illegally. have --you have got to i think you have got to have some system of human discrimination that ss- for

example, there is a young man in texas who came here when he was 3 big be. he does not speak spanish. to say to them, you need to go back to mexico, strikes me as something that no common sense american would do. [applause] but everyone who ends up as an illegal guest worker has to go to the back of the line in applications for citizenship, because we cannot punish those who have done it legally by telling them, you were dumb. you should have broken the law. anyone who comes to this country illegally should be deported

within 48 hours. with so much nonsense regulating against deportation. most of the people here came in a legally, and then there visa expired and they stayed. but if we could build a majority and pass each of those building blocks, we could do an two-three years. >> thi is why i became the object of consternation by a few democrats after i was misquoted. i am not going to disagree with what he said. he said something i agree with. why deport someone that does not even speak spanish?

but then, why didn't the congress passed the dream act? i think it is good for the country that hispanic candidates have been elected. i am delight to have everybody's side with us, but then -- in general, what is good for the country does not always make everyone comfortable in both parties. the united states senate voted to make sure that to ural's you're dragged here illegall are going to be kicked out. -- two-year olds who were dragged here illegally are going to be kicked out. the tea party was excited about

the constitution until they read it. it says that if you are born here, you are a citizen. i think we need people to stand up and say what he just said, at some rest. but it is not the democrats that voted down theream act. >> does the dream act provide for resency or citizenship? >> citizenship. >> that is why they voted it down. you cannot give citizenship to people -- he cannot jump past millions of people around the planet who have obeyed the law and waited their turn to come here. i would support finding a way to do two things. one would be to have service and military count towards becoming a citizen. two, i would support finding a

way for residency, with something like a red card, if here under certain circumstances and you are clearly a minor. a residency is different from citizenship. the dream act was created to be a political issue. it is unfortunate that harry reid wants to create polical dialogue rather th create law. [applause] >> i take exception to that, and i will tell you why. that is blaming people that have done the right thing. if you come here at the age of 3 and you do not speak a word of spanish, you've done really well, you go to college or you serve in the united states military, why should you be a second-class none citizen? why do we have to do that? [applause]

i do not go f this anti- immigration stuff. i agree with new. he is common sense. we obviously cannot open our borders, but i do not think we should demonize people who have come here and done the best they can. how many people here have a american indian blood in tampa -- in the them? everybody else is an immigrant. everybody else is an immigrant. [applause] the reason this country is such an extraordinary success is because we got those people who dared to leave their homes, dared to do something different. every american family has a narrative of that, someone who worked hd, g year, and their children or grandchildren, or

great grandchildren got to go to george washington university. those whdo not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. when the irish got he, no irish need apply. when the jews got year, the jews could not go to the ivy league. it when the italians got here, at the same type of thing. isn't it time we got past this? [applause] >> i want to applaud governor dean. first of all, thank you for recognizing the much of what i said is reasonably thought through. [laughter] it is nice at a time when people

are exhausted by partisanship to actually exchange ideas that we can chat about rather than scream about. [laughter] that was not a reference to howard. that is a sign that you have wicket minds. -- wicked mind. that was a wonderful emotional speech. i was personally deeply touched. [laughter] but it was the perfect example of the liberal democrats model. it was factually inaccurate, but terrific emotionally. [laughter] i does want to challenge my friend over here -- i just want to challenge my friend over here, by whom i was deeply

moved, my grandfather and grandmother -- my grandmother came from poland. they rode down to where she came from, what ship she was on, and they inspected her for help. they would have kicked her out if she had not passed the health inspection. we have this mythology of ellis island. i have two objections to the dream act. first, i do not think we should put people ahead of other people who have been obeying the law for years. i think that is wrong. second, senator reid deliberately brought the act up in an amendable form in order to make a political point. i think that is tragic.

it is not a healthy way to enter the 21st century. >> we need to move on. you said this would help yo everywhere after i said this would not help you in iowa. are we making news? we really knew -- we really do need to push ahead now. i am going to ask each of them to answer a different question, a question tailored to them. i will start with senator dean. you have indicated that the democrats should close ranks around the president for the 2012 election. should that extend beyond that election? should 2012 candidates go for a more unabashed liberalism?

>> look, there are disadvantages we have because we are not a parliamentary democracy, but there are some advantages. what advantages that you can run and say who you are. i am not the chairman anymore. i am not going to support everybody. i went around looking for people i agreed west -- i agreed with less time and raising money for them. there will probably be a few whose primary opponents i will support. but i do not think a candidate running for office has an obligation to support the president or any of the stuff. their own pace wl pick the candidate they think they should. e will pick the candidate they think they should.

parties are important because they raise money. we go through reasonable exercises, but nobody pays much attention to them. we give you an idea of who the candidates are, and people are going to be in the spectrum. i am going to support the president. what i think the president will be better than the alternatives, no insult intended. [laughter] i think, in general, this is a nation of independent-minded people. >> mr. speaker, at some point, sooner rather than later perhaps a republican wins the white house in 2012, the tension between two divergent political impulses in the republican party will have to be sorted out. the tea party is about federalism with a strong

libertarian antipathy towards authority. successive republican presidential administrations, and much of the intellectual and bureaucratic apparatus surrounding them, have given the president and his administrative officers almost unlimited constitutional latitude. in which direction should the party turn? [laughter] >> let me start and say that i treasure most that governor dean made clear that he will support president obama to me. i want to make sure that everyone in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, knows the governor dean prefer i president obama to me. [laughter]

hiding there is actually a mixture of the two that would work reasonable -- i think there is actually a mixture of the two that would work reasonably well. i am a federalist in the sense that i believe in limited but very strong government. i do not believe in weak government, but it should be limited government. it shod keep the dollar worth the dollar as opposed to having inflation. it should set the general framework for the economy in dealing with the world of large. there are a number of things that the founding fathers thought through pretty carefully. the federalist papers are pretty useful stuff. when it an issue of national serity, as commander in chief -- this is a document written, presided over by george washington, who had been commander of the army for eight

years. they want the commander in chie in award to be the commander in chief. in 1942, the nazis landed spies that were all captured within three weeks by the fbi. the president said, i want you to tell the supreme court said that they will be tried within three weeks. they will be executed. i will not accept habeus corpus. he was acting in the spirit of abraham lincoln. he wanted to send a strong message of national security.

so, faced with a threat to national security by a terrort, would i be prepared to support a strong president? definitely. we need to understand that there is an enormous difference between fighting a war against an enemy and dealing with domestic civil liberty under the structure of peacetime. now, having said that, do i think that means we need to have a trillion dollar government that micromanage is everything? i do not think that. i think things should go through it citizens, up through local,

then that state government, then federal government. our current model goes from the top down. a deacon of the small government with a strong national security apparatus -- i think you can have a small government with a strong national security apparatus and they can work very well. >> we are going to take questions. going to the closing statements. >> i just have one message to all of you. this has been the most extraordinary experiment in governance ever undertaken anywhere on the planet.

we're the only society that put in our founding documts that your personal rights, from your creator. you loan power to the state. the state does not loan power to you. for four hundred years, this has attracted more people, created more opportunity, generated greater prosperity, and created more opportunities than any other society. we are now mired down in a cultural, bureaucratic, political and financial mess. are you prepared to pick up the work ethic? to pick up learning about america? to take on the responsibilities of citizenship, not to tell the government, you should do it for me, but to be actively engaged yourself? are you prepared to lead an

american economy cable of competing and winning? he will make these decisions much more than governor dean or i will. you face the toughest challenge of any generation in our history since our founding, and i think it might be the longest and toughest the goal of anything we've faced in the history of this company -- of this country. i am very optimisc we can do it. we will once again prove that a free people can outdo all the different leaderships in the world combined. [applause] i think that was very well said. i also want to a a note of optimism.

i think we should be focused on doing things locally. changing your own community is the way to change this. change rlly does come from the bottom up. also, change migrates from the extreme to the center. things they used to being considered extreme ideas are now considered the center. your generation is interested in doing, not just modeling. here is the difference that i have, and what i think it is the difference between republicans and democrats in general. i do think that the government has become too unwieldy. it is a problem in china. the chinese worry about this a lot as well. the problem is, what

responsibility do we have to assure people that they have their personal rights. you can say you have personal rights through the constitution, but if you're serving in iraq, you cannot exercise those personal rights. in the state of texas, 22% of children have no health insurance. in my state, 3% of children do not have health insurance. i cannot tell texas how to run their state, but i do believe that as an american, i have a responsibility to the children of texas, not just the people of texas. that is why lyndon johnson put and medicaid, so that all kids would have some form of insurance. i do not think all democrats

want big government and all republicans want no government. the battle comes in how are we all americans in this together. w much is too much. we have all seen societies where the tax rate gets too high and innovation is stifled. we have also seen societies where the government is corrupt. but we also know that the bigger the gap between the wealthy and the poor, a less stable country is likely to be. this is a legitimate debate. i have enjoyed the conversation. but it needs to be a debate because it is a difference of opinion. i think it comes down to social justice or fairness.

we live in a country where everyone ought to be able to enjoy at least some of the fruits. i do not think we should all have the same income, but i do believe that you can have a state where 22% of the children do not have health insurance and be happy with that. [applause] >> we will take questions from the audience now. it looks like people are queuing up. we have three microphone stations. >> my question is for speaker gingrich. you recently called for the abolition of the environmental protection agency. the epa was founded by a bipartisan majority. every polls those -- every poll

shows the great public support for the epa. can you explain how you think the epa arms business and why we need to overhaul it? >> i called for its replacement with an environmental solutions agency. i suggested that you needed an agency that was collaborative, not dictatorial. second, we need an agency that focuses on the entrepreneur is and study science and technology. if you look at the whole process the cleanup of toxi waste dumps, we spend about two-thirds of the money on the administration lawyers and about one-third actually cleaning them up. it is taki far longer then it should and it is far more expensive, and it is a field day for trial lawyers and bureaucrats. when i was speaker, we had virtually every african american mayor in the country to talk to being -- come to me to talk

about brownfield's. on one side of my street was a huge bethlehem steel plant. the epa said, iyou do not clean it up to a standard that would be appropriate to a kindergartner, the result was, the cost of doing that caused the company to leave the city and build on a green field elsewhere. the inner city lost the jobs and the internal lost another section of grain. i think there -- the environmental lost another section of green. there is a linear, intellectual model. three or four years ago, the congress had to pass a law

blocking the bureaucrats at epa from pursuing the question of methane gas from cows. i think the idea of trying to figure out, of all the major problems america has, where would we rank methane gas from cows, it would probably not rank in the top 300. that is still level of bureaucratic absurdity that makes no sense. opposed to, how can we build a clean coal plant that has a carbon neutral output? we are still studying and think we may get a bill by 2016. the chinese are already doing it. this should be of very high value and have a big incentive, because it would do more to clean up the environment than

worrying about cows. >> good evening. thank you for coming out tonight and for your great discourse. i have enjed it. my question brings us back to the middle east. i have read in a couple of places a comparison between what is happening in egypt right now with what happened in iran in 1979. a popular islamic uprising in deposed a dictato, one that happened to be a close u.s. ally. i am curious really what you both think the relevant parallels are, and also, as far as the current administration is concerned, what lessons could

president obama draw from jimmy carter's experience with that situation? >> i spent about six hours on this today because i served on the brd of the nationa democratic institutes which has people in the ground. -- which has people on the ground. i have talked to a lot of people involved in what is going on in cairo. at this point, i think there are no parallels' whatsoever between egypt and iran. first of all, of the crowds are showing an extraordinary amount of self discipline. with the exception of the looters. secondly, the army is playing a relatively neutral role, and this is evolving, so we do not know where we will be two weeks from now. third of all, the islamic otherhood, as of yet, they

have joined the discussion, but they have not yet tried to take over the majority and they did not have much to do with starting this. egypt is a nation of 80 million people that have virtually no experience with democracy. to expect a smooth transition to democracy here is expecting something that is not going to happen. the question is, and if you go backo the soviet union, there was a democracy in russia for a short time. then the bolsheviks came in. that trumped everything. we know what the result of that was for the next several years. 75 years. i remain optimistic, but its a scary time. could this be taken over by an

islamic group? yes, but i think the people of egypt at this 0.1 -- at this point are doing exactly what they need to do. i do not think they will have the same president a month from now. the question is, who will be their leader? there are a few people who are acceptable to the protesters. they have a shot, but they're going to design a constitution in a country that has no history of democracy, design of parliament. this is a heavy, heavy left. -- heavy lift. i hope that the new majority in congress will really think about what our aid money does.

we have been in egypt for a least 10 years ando media for five. -- tunisia 45. we have a dialogue with those people. we have worked with them for a long time. i think there are virtually no parallels a ball with the iranian revolution -- at all with the iranian revolution. we do not know where this is going, but we should be optimistic and also be prepared. we should make sure we do not get hijacked by people with authoritarian principles. >> for those who are interested, the author of black hawk down wrote a remarkable book that is a very detailed

study of the iranian crisis and how it came about. it is worth lookingt because it gives you some sensef how the system worked in the late 1970's. the thing that is most bothersome to me, if you go back in love, the ayatollah khamenei had been kicked out -- if you go back and look, the ayatollah khamenei had been kicked out of iraq by the shot. -- shah. he clearly stood for a very anti-american model. for a long time, the carter administration could not bring themselves to understand how dangerous this was. i think the muslim brotherhood would be a disaster. i think we are likely to get a military leader and are somebody who is acceptable to the military, someone who is open to

exploring democracy, a greater stability, a more open society, but i worry about the kind of confusion that could allow the muslim brotherhood to take-over. >> first of all, thank you both of you for speaking here. my question is dirted at mr. gingrich, but i would like mr. dean to feel free to respond as well. the republican party has long stood in opposition to gay- rights, specifically gay marriage. you wear speaker of the house when the defense of marriage act passed. if you truly believe that lgbt people do not have the right to marry you they love, i ask you to tell all of my friends who are gay why you believe that right now. [applause]

>> look, i am quite happy to say th i come out of the tradition that is several belsen years old the says marriages between a man and a woman -- several thousand years old the fed says marriages between a man and a woman. i defend that tradition. i have a right believe then i believe i have as much right to the police as you do as yours. >> -- i have as much right to my belief as you do to yours. >> i do agree that you have as much right to your belief. the problem is, you have rights when you are married that you do not have when you are single. the issue for me is the right to be treated under the law as any other american citizen. [applause]

now, i have debates about the marriage-word. what i am interested in it is the right, not the word. here is why. as long as everyone has an equal right under the law, i do not much care what you call it. if you want to enumerate all 1700 laws -- in no, and it is founded on the notion, and i think most americans reject this, that people do nothoose to be gay. there is often a misconception that people have made a choice. but what 14-year-old and high school would voluntarily choose to be gay?

especially among groups that are very tough. there is not a gay gene, but there is plenty of evidence that this is not a choice. as it turns out, which i think is interesting, when george w. bush decided to send tons and tons of americans to iraq, the first person to step on an ied and the previously injured was a case staff sgt of the united states army. gay staff sgt of the united states army. if you're willing to give your life for the united states, i think you should have the same

rights as everybody else. [applause] i think everybody deserves equal rights under the law. i do not get invold in the marriage debate, but i think everybody deserves equal rights under the law. if you can think of ather way, i do not have a problem with the, but for now, the only way to do it is same-sex marriage. >> let me add one conundrum to the comment. in massachusetts today, there are no catholic adoption services because it was illegal to run a catholic adoption in massachusetts. 80this city, after years, there is not an adoption service. it is imptant to weigh the balance of equity.

as the democratic nominee for the u.s. senate in massachusetts said when asked if catholic doctors should served in the emergency rooms, she said maybe not. what she was saying was that a catholic doctor would not perform an abortion. we are at a complex point where freedom of religion is rapidly being subordinated to other values. you cannot say this. you cannot believe this. you cannot practice this. your institution cannot exist. if there is going to be tolerant, and there should be a tolerance for religious liberty that comes from thousands of years of of belief that are equally valid. >> i do not think they are equally as valid.

look, the bible is full of all of this. enough already. it is more than 2000 years old. [applause] if you have freedom of religion, you can practice it as you see fit, but you cannot practice it at the expense of my daughter's right. if you are a pharmacist, and you do not want to give the birth control, be my guest, but you better have somebody there when she goes to kill her prescription. if you do -- fell our prescription. if you do not want to -- feill her prescription. if you do not want to perform an abortion, i believe that is your right. but the fact is that somebody

might need to have an abortion, and they have the right to have someone who can do it. there was a story about a woman fired from a catholic hospital change because she gave an abortion to a woman who was going to die if she did not have one. when different people have different approaches to moral issues, you have to think about the rights of those people as americ citizens. i would never ask a catholic doctor to perform an abortion. i think that is wrong and improper. your she has the rht to follow upon -- he or she has the right to follow the teachings of their urch. t i also believe that individual citizens have rights that can not be impeded because of someone else's religion. if you want to create women as

second-class citizens in your religion, be my guest inside your church or synagogue, but do not treat women as second-class citizens want to get out into the country. [applause] >> we have gone a little over time. one more question. >> this question goes out to both of you. in january of last year, the supreme courtecided citizens united in which they affirmed that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts cannot be limited under the first amendment. i know that speaker gingrh has been featured in several films under the citens united

production name. with that,hat positive than negative impact would the case have on the future 2012 election? >> i believe this entire, highly regulated federally supervised bureaucratic model of citizenship is wrong. i believe it has put enormous power in the hands of labor unions, corporations, political action committees and a the like. i believe it has allowed some people to buy office that if you had (a real competition, you could not do it. it has given rich peoe an enormous advantage. i think that any american citizen should be able to donate in any amount they want to as long as it is filed every night on the internet and everybody can see the support of everybody. i would rather have the money go

back to candidates and parties and get out of this model where operatives of both parties create these organizations that are part of the whole underlying mess. i think things are going to get worse until we decide on a very clean, simple election system that allows the candate to go out and raise the money directly rather than this say, i will take your $2,400, and my friend here would take $10 million because that is so works under the six system. -- how it works under this sick system. >> i think this indicates the nature of the supreme court. nowhere have i found in the constitution anything that says a corporation is a person. that was invented by the right wing. [applause]

here is what i think. i think one of the most interesting things about public financing of campaigns, which i think is a good ide is that it was adopted by a vote in two states. one was arizona, arguably one of the most conservative states, and the other was maine, obviously one of the most liberal. i do not think corporations should have a right to personhood and be able to buy elections. i do not think the right wing things that is so good either, do have corporations running elections. i do not think money is the same as speech. if this, then people you have $10 million have a whole lot more freedom than people have temples and dollars. i do not see how that contributes to what -- $10,000. i do not see how the contributes to what americans are all about.

i believe unreasonable, thoughtful selection rules. i think arizona has a smart public financing system, but republicans and democrats, including the current republican governor, have said it is reasonable and thoughtful. this is a two-way deal. this is not just republican versus democrat. this is a big interest versus small interest and ordinary people. i am with the ordinary people as to whether we can make it work. hope >> thank you all, and thank again to our our audience. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> the bill aims to modernize the air traffic control system while improving safety and availability of flights. at 5 p.m. eastern, the senate will hold roll call votes. watch the senate live on c-span 2. the house returns tuesday at 2 p.m. eastern. members plan to debate a number of bills including revision of the patriot act. >> the c-span network all available to you on television, radio, on line and social media networking sites. find our content any time through our c-span library.

and we bring our resources to your community. now available in more than 100 million homes, created by cable, provided as a public service. >> this week, "q&a" features a documentary about hub ert humphrey. >> when did you first thing of doing a documentary on humphrey? >> it would have been the late fall of 1999. i ran across the humphrey election that is just enormous there are 1200 manuscript boxes.