difference in those vehicles is $60,000. don't make your truckers pay to be patriotic. it will be a hurry up program $8 billion per year will only get you, at the end of five years, 143,000 trucks. you don't even have enough money to do the job. i don't have to have the money to get it started very he give me the money to get started. give us the direction, mr. president. we will go in that direction because ware patriotic people and we are not stupid. we can save $1.50 per gallon and get help just to get kicked off. all this wilhappen ve. i made another speech, a starter [applause] >> how do you retool those trucks? >> infrastructure.

i have a model for everything i do. by don't dor &d. r takes to in years andd takes 10 years and that puts me or the line. i looked at california because they dealt with air quality issues there for 20 or 30 years. cs -- the south coast air quality districts as air quality issues in southern california and the guy that runs it is a smart guy. he now has to reduce his emissions in southern california. he asked who the biggest polluters are. trash trucks because there were 24-7 and i idol and they have an efficient burned. what is the incremental cost differences? 50,000. on a scale that maris.

he said to give them $50,000 and when they buy a new one, they have to buy natural gas but they do not have to get rid of their diesel. when they do get rid of their diesel, one diesel tak off the streets and southern california is equal to 325 cars. one 18-wheeler taken off the highway is equal to 1600 cars. on emissions. it is that much cleaner. he said to do it. the southern california trash trucks, natural gas, all trash trucks built this year, 75% of them will be on natural gas. that was started by the california model seven years ago. i know it works. infrastructure will come with the trucks. that is a business in and of itself. you don't need to have a governmentuilding filling stations. can you imagine? go back to henry ford when he

said that everyone will have a model t ford. they asked if he realized that they have no filling stations. we cannot do it. [laughter] forget the idea. was a bad idea. maybe a little incvenience. what to the 8 million do for you? in seven years, it is 2.5 million barrels per day and it cuts opec in half. we get 5 million per day off them and we are paying for both sides of the war. there was a great op-ed piece april 9 of 2010. it said that we are paying for both sides of the war and i truly believe that is the case. we don't look very smart doing that. >> is there anything you have to

add? >> i don't like war either. for it andaying losing, what everyone in afghanistan and iraq and what we want in libya? the last time we won the war was world war two because that was the last time anybody surrendered to us. not even grenada surrendered. you don't win unless the other side admits they were beaten. >> i agree 100% on this point guard with to get those people out of afghanistan. >> that would save a lot of money right there a d themeamn right. [applause] >> next time send scientists and engineers and doctors and maybe a few lawyers over to help out rather than send soldiers. the bombs did not do any good. >> let me ask questions from the

audience. i will paraphrase in the intere of. time you are both essentially unhappy with the status quo. you say we're going back at least 40 years. have there been structural or political impediments to getting these reforms in place? does it have to do with how campaigns are financed? why is it that it has taken until at least this year that we have not weaned ourselves off foreign oil? >> there are two reasons. by embracing an answer is, believe it or not. your leadership in washington did not understand the problem or did not feel it was important not to pursue and second, you had to boil. cheap oil is -- you had cheap

oil. i have had conrsations with the saudis and they say to me that if you come with alternatives, we will lower the price of oil. they said that to me. i believe it. that is exactly what they do. we don't come up with anything. we could have some control over our energy future if we just understood what the situation was. we don't have time to address that problem. we have cheap oil. >> what is keeping reform from happening? >> the oil and coal lobbies who have all the money have done a masterful job of confusing everybody. i go to bed at night praying for clean coal and i know there is no sh thing but have seen so

many ads for it -- [laughter] they are persuading me that it is possible. , almost. if president obama had just taken the energy and climate change bill and put it fst before health care, we have gotten it through. we were ready. he spent all this political capital and that was more contentious than we thought. then the call and the oil industry counterattacked with their ad campaign. the solar and wind industries ran out of money and could not match to them. which is got beat. we have to be really careful because this law that was just upheld that corporations can spend all the might want to on political campaigns, that

worries me that we may lose our democracy. we're close to losing it now. [applause] it really worries me. the government is supposed to serve the people but it is not. it is not serving the people's best interest it did, we would have clean energy now. we would be doing the smart thing rather than the dumb thing. i am really worried about it. i keep hoping that things will get better, but that law, letting the corporations spend anything they want to, it is likely koch brothers in kansas. they are smart guys. they are in the oil business and they spend millions at the heritage foundation. they are kicking our butts.

we cannot ntinue tlet it happen without serious negative consequenceshich we are already experiencing. >> the koch interest and the heritage foundation are not for me. >> i did not say they [laughter] word. were. >> i dn't say you are. >> those guys are not helping me. >> i am n happy with gas and our 18-wheelers. >> the major oil companies, see them for what they are. they are international oil companies. take exxon, is it a good company? of course it is. is it will run? absolutely. they work for shareholders. they do not work for america. they are international company. a 4% of the revenues come from offshore.

-- 84% of the revenues come from offshore. alas president bush, there were one of his biggest advisers on energy and make america. that is not who you go to for energy in america. you go to energy experts in america, not an international oil company agreed it does not make sense. [applause] >> another question to mr. pickens. a recent report from the cornell scholars found that hydraulic fracturing for natural gas may result in excess greenhouse gas emissions, possibly worse than cold. al. how does this change the plan? >> those of the only figures i've heard a that says coal is cleaner than natural gas. there is no question that natural gas is cleaner variant natural gas was the fuel to clean up california. some of you are old enough iam,,

ted you're not. [laughter] you flew into los angeles and you could see it. they have a bad smog in los angeles. it was yellow/brown. that has all cleaned up with natural gas. 2800 buses in la mta . the largest bus company in the world is in beijing. paid cornell to do that. that guy has a half a dozen things in that report. i have never seen anybody and with those conclusions that he ends with in that deal. there will be people that will look at it.

m.i.t.responded and they did not think much of it. who paid him to do this study? that is the place to go. >>ted mentions that he wished the environmental downside of natural gas extraction could be better address. what about that? >> the firstfrack job i w was in 1953. how did that with my first well. a 1957 until now, i have fracked over 3000 wells. he is talking about that the will -- well is drought -- drilled -- he is talking about that the well is drilled down. the hole is drilled to 1,000 feet, they run a string casing and close it off. i work in an area where sand of

aquafer.stfe korf we were conscious of this. we put in cement and rolled down to 15,000 feet. you complete the well there. you are 2-3 miles below the freshwater sand. you tell me how they frack job to mile down can get back up into the fresh water sand. i never had it happen and i know nobody else where it happens. all the complaints are coming from pennsylvania. that is a m in thearcellus. they have drilled over 800,000 wells in oklahoma, kansas, and texas. i do not know of any losses or

any complaint or anything else. why is it all right there in pennsylvania and western new york? they have now said that you will frack these wells in the watershed. that is where it rains. but don't know what that is. it rains and the watershed and runs into a lake. frack the lake or the watershed. you go to a thousand miles under the surface. they don't know what will happen to the water in new york. they need someone intelligent, a leader to say this is what the deal is. don't worry, watch what i am telling you. check the facts. that is all you have to do. it is not complicated. it is very simple.

they want me to feel guilty. i feel like i did yesterday. [laughter] >> are you as confident about the environmental implications? >> he knows more about it. he is an oil man. i was a tv and [laughter] man. >> i trust to godte is,d. do you trust us? [lghter] >> do you -- do you believe the climate change is a natural phenomenon? fewer americans believe to be a real problem. >> your than what? it before? >> i don't know. how serious do you believe the problem is? >> i think it is a life or death issue.

i am a real expert when it comes to nature and of the temperature goes up six degrees fahrenheit it will make life on earth very difficult for most of the creatures including humans. >> how do you feel about it? >> i made geologist and we can take you back in time were you ha drought that would extend over maybe 1 million years. we have had ice ages that were hundreds of thousands of years. we know the temperature can remain constantr fluctuate or whatever. believe it or not, i am one of the few geologists that believes in climate change. [applause] i think all of us skred up a lot of what -- i think a lot of

us screw up what we emit into the atmosphere. i don't think it will happen real quick. it is like a problem with ener and america. you h a cheap oil. you have climate change but if you're cheap oil had run up to $200 per barrel, something would have happened. somebody would have figured out a better way. on climate change, it does not go up fast enough. it goes along and some people think that as part of the change. i am ready to take measures to restrict emissions into the atmosphere. if i am long, i did not heard myself. -- a did nothurt myself.

if we find it in 20 years that there is no climate change, i did not do something that hurt. i did not do anything wrong, but if i go out 20 years and i keep saying there is no climate change, and tn i say that it did mean something, and if i did not do anything about it, that is bad. high pay to set up things that make all of us look stupid. i feel stud sometimes about the way things go. why do we let it happen? i am not in the role of leadership. i cannot stop these things. ted is aeader. he stepped up. [laughter] he says $62 million, i spent $82 million on this.

that will get to something. have i got my money's worth? i will win i pass hr 1830. ted has been on this. i did t agree with him and we talked a10 years ago and i said i am not going for the climate change stop but i do now. i am ready to throw in. [applause] >> other than talking to ted, what changed your mind a [laughter] ? >> i am interested in polar bears,oo. but icecap is sure disappearing fast. i don't go for the funny whether. i can remember when we had tornadoes and flooding and all kinds of things. the way the ice is disappearing fast, i had some experience

with of the glaciers and you can see what is happening there. it is getting warm where the ice is. that is not normal, i don't think. >> here's a question for mr. turner. you have a partnership to build solar power. do you plan to do without federal subsidies? >> it depends on the situation. there needs to be some subsidies. we are now subsidized coal and oil big time. over theears, they have been the source of economic subsidies. wind and solar a geothermal are not being subsidizedecause they were not here to get in line to get their spot at the feed trough.

levelingally playing field, wind and solar have a better chance with subsidies stacked against them on the fossil fuel industry. we are subsidizing the wrong thing but we did it over 200 years of the industrial revolution. we have been giving them breaks all the way along. not having the polluting mpanies paid health care, i think the polluters should do the paying. if they were, claim renewable energy would be competitive. [applause] >> if you look at where the most

wind energy and solar energy is, do you know where it is? >> in the midwest? germany. terminate they don't have wind or saw [laughter] on. they're really down. germanyey really don't gets their natural gas from russia. i was young but i remember stalingrad and leningrad and there we 5 million people killed there. there were abo 3 million germans and 2 million russians. those people in russia and germany remember that. the germans do not want to get dependent on the russians. they take gas from them but they went in and subsidized wind and solar and paid a hell of a price for it but that is what they thought of as security.

that is my pitch here. we have a security issue with opec oil. we don't even address the but they did. we ran some of those ads is that you may remember this show the globe and the lights are on and said ", and then one day one person does not have gas it clicked off eastern europe pic." guess who came to see made? e? they sat on thed, you are cutting off our service area. i know, i meant to. they don't like it. they watch this stuff that i put up. two weeks after we launched the

pickens plan, i was at the democratic convention. was aon't remember i letter this -- that i was a republican. i get out of politics and went to the democratic convention. that surprised many people. i had never been to one in my life. they are a bunch of nice people. [laughter] i am their and my wife who was born in iraq and her mother is lebanese and their father is english and emigrated to the uned states when she was 18 years old. she has friends from that part of the world and she got a call at my friend and wanted us to go to dinner. we went to dinner and i thought it would be 15 or 20 people. it was five people. the first question was asked of me.

what is your pickens' plan? i said i want to get o of your oil. i smiled when i said it. but we are friends. i said i know we need to get on our own resources. they're watching that close. in two weeks, there were asking me what this plan was. they cou see what i was going to do. i was going to get on our resources in -- and get off of their oil. that's what it was. [applause] >> you both earlier talked about the inability of our policy makers and leaders to forge an effective energy policy. just yesterday, there is a headline that standard and poor's essentially warned that the u.s. is at risk of not

forcing an adequate solution to the deficit and in the near term, the debt ceiling is looming. how do you feel about how washington is managing the financial situation in the united states right now? >> i'm not happy with it. i am concerned when yo credit rating is downgraded and that is what happened yesterday, that is not good. >> they warned on the outlook which was longer term. they said it was along the road to downgrading the credit rating. do you think republicans and democrats can come together and find a solution? >> i am not comfortable with the way the parties are getting along with each other. i am concerned about our ability to cpromise and run our

country in an intelligent, forward-thinking manner. >> what dyou think? >> i think they are doing a fabulous job. [laughter] they are working so well together and act like they're not but i know they really are. do you feel that way? no >>. >> i am not here to express my opinion bit. >> i'm not a fool. i agree with ted. i try to let myself to my subject. i feel like i can represent that i am five-feet we a 50 feet deep on one subject i think congress has accepted me that way. they realize i am a serious person with a serious plan. i have both sides that call me and ask me about energy. question s. i made a speech last week in

california. there -- in this county, people are very liberal. they asked how i think they've ew me. >i said i think they view me as a patriotic old man with a good idea and i got big applause. ihink i am viewed that way and that is the way i want to be. [applause] >> ted, everybody knows originally as that c founder cnn.he founder of how you feel about that as an enterprise today? >> they went in for more rious news and more international news like they used to. i am an old geezer, too. i am not there anymore.

there's nothing worse than asking somebody in my position what they think of the company based thereon is being run today. that is not really fair. >> i wrote ted a note any probably doesn't remember. i said you have done more to open up the world than anybody i have ever seen. [applause] you showed people all over the world how we lived a what opportunities they would have if they had a democracy. you are the guy that showed the world what the world really look ke. >> what you think about that? >> it makes me feel good. [laughter] >> on the other side of the television equation, you have not always had kind words about the perceived competition which

includes fox news. do you sample across the media landscape? how you feel about rupert murdoch and news corp. and a job at fox news does? >> i think he has done a real good job with "the wall street journal." he is a little far right for me on television. with fox news. that is me. i think they have every right to do it. it does not seem to be irresponsible >> since you gentlemen are no strangers to the news business and this was a return trip to the national press club, how do you feel like you are treated by the news? >> i feel fine. [laughter] >> we are glad to hear that. >> if i could write the

articles, i would write them a different light. [lauter] having said that, i think they treat me very fairly. they are better as i have gotten older. the use to jump on my ass pretty bad. [laughter] i have gotten older. they introduce me as legendary oil man. most articles say t. boone pickens, legendary oil men. what does that mean? [laughter] that is a guy 75 years old and still has a job. [laughter] i am 82, though. >> we are almost out of time. before we ask the last question, a couple of housekeeping things to take care of. i would like to remind our guests about upcoming luncheon speakers. on may 16, general james jones, the former national security adviser and marine corps commandant will be our speaker.

on may 20, t richardrumka will speak. we will have a fox news contributor. juan williams will deliver a rebuttal on the npr issue. next up on our regular business, i like to present both of our guests with the traditional npc coffee mug. [applause] you are collecting a set. we are grateful for that. next is the last question. there's another wealthy individual these days making the rounds and that is donald trump. he seems to be flirting with the notion of running for president. what advice would you give him? >> good luck. [laughte

the more the merrier. maybe we will find somebody that will shake things up. >> would you vote for him? >> i know him. [laughter] i kinda like him, to tell you the truth. he is colorful ver[laughter] >> you have that uncommon. >> i know him, too. was oncnbc and he was talking about how to solve the energy problem. he said the way to handle the ro pack crowd is you tell them what you will pay them for the oil. -- he said the way to handle the opec crowd is you tell them what you'll pay for the oil. >> i came on after him and i

said i'll tell you what,f you won't say any more about energy, i won't ever mention real estate. [laughter] [applause] >> ho about a round of applause for our speakers today? thank you. [applause] thank you for coming today. i would like to thank the national press club's staff including our library and broadcast center. you can find more information and [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

[unintelligible] >> coming up next on c-span, former defense secretary donald rumsfeld talked about his newly published memoirs. white house of specials announced new initiatives to combat the abuse of prescription drugs. and ted turner and steven pickens talk about alternative energy. -- t. boone pickens talks about alternative issue. >> what are you doing? i give you the ipod nano. >> mike daisey comments on the world as diseases it. his latest, "the agony and the

destiny -- s to see of steve jobs." >> they spring out at the obsession. >> find out more sunday night on c-span. you can also download putt casts -- podcsts. >> the c-span networks -- providing coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history. it is all available to you on television, radio, online, and on social media networking sites. view our content anytime at the c-span video library. we take you on the road with our digital content vehicle. it is washington your way. the c-span networks -- now available in more than 100 million homes, created by cable, provided as a public service. >> recently, former defense

secretary donald rumsfeld talked about his new book "known and unknown to" with a panel of insiders. the book focused on the decision making during the years he ran the defense department, including the 9/11 attacks and the war on terrorism. panelists included peter pace and vice cheney -- vice- president cheney's former chief of staff, scooter libby. >> i'm delighted you could be here today. secretary rumsfeld is well known around these parts. he has been a friend of the hudson institute for more than

four decades. he knew are found. quite well -- our founder quite well and has been a recipient of the doolittle award for extraordinary contributions to american security. it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the hudson center. we celebrate a half century of floor-stucking analytical research. -- ford-thinking -- forward- thinking and a little research. we think creatively about creating a better future while avoiding unthinkable threats, and draw on the creativity of scholars to help bank -- shape public debate on the critical issues of the day. our research has stood the test of time and a world as been dramatically transformed since the collapse of the sodium -- the soviet union. the core of our work is

independent policy research, our willingness to examine critical and complex issues from different perspectives. to better understand the future, which is our mission, it is essential to get a better understanding of the past, especially the recent past. even though we know that the past will never lead perfect -- beverly -- never be perfectly understood, we are proud of hudson's first half century of forging that is that promote security, prosperity, and freedom and we look forward to our next 50 years. during this anniversary year, we are hosting an extensive program of seminars and celebrations. today's event is one of these and we're delighted you could be a part. today our discussion examine some of the major decisions related to the u.s. reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks, and does the road -- and does so through the lens of secretary

rumsfeld. his book is a new york times best-seller and is available at the end of the event for sale of the reduced price of $20, or give us, mr. secretary. [laughter] it is an absolutely creeping and fascinating read and i urge all of you to -- gripping and fascinating read and i urge all of you to do so. i turn this over to douglas feith, himself the author of a critically acclaimed memoir that is also available in the bad for $10. but this is a paperback. [laughter] doug has the honor of animating today's discussion. >> thank you, tim. [applause] also like to welcome all of you here and in particular well, my

fellow panelists. peter pace, a marine, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he retired in 2007 and before becoming chairman, he served for cluster years -- for four years. he continues to lead by as the defense debarment on the defense policy board, and he is active in charitable work on behalf of america's wounded warriors. to his left is jamie mcintyre, who was for 16 years until 2008 cnn's senior pentagon correspondent. he was in the building on september 11, 2001. he is now a news consultant, a blocker, and teaches at the university of maryland. to his left his scooter libby,

my colleagues here at the hudson institute, where he serves as senior vice president. he worked as chief of staff for vice president dick cheney and was a regular attendee at the national security council and principles committee meeting and is the subject of so much of mr. rumsfeld's book. mr. rumsfeld is quite literally the person who needs no introduction so i will not give him one. if you want to know about his extensive background in government, no better way to do it in to read his book. and i would urge everyone to do that. the full price book. [laughter] by the way, like to make the observation that secretary rumsfeld is donating all of its revenues from the book to charity.

after the panelists offered some opening thoughts for a few minutes each, alaska secretary rumsfeld to respond and get -- i will as secretary rumsfeld to respond and get his response. then we will take questions from the office. if you want to pose a question, we let cards on everybody's chair. please write your question down and pass it forward. we will get to as many questions as we can. i like to get the panel discussion going with a few comments. first, regarding the substance and tone of the book, secretary rumsfeld has written an important book, full of revealing stories and historically significant information and has been selling as impressively, it has been on the best-seller list since it came out, something like seven weeks ago.

the book contradicts a number of popular misconceptions about the war on terrorism, the iraq war, and other subjects. it deals with a number of matters that were very hot controversies, state department versus defense department disputes over afghanistan and thecom's partnership with no. alliance, the rationale for the light footprint approach, the failures of the multilateral approach in building up afghanistan after the overthrow of the taliban, disagreements about when and how to use nato, and regarding iraq, it explains how decisions were made to go to war, how u.s. troop levels were set, health policy officials used intelligence regarding iraqi weapons of mass destruction, of planning was done for the post-saddam period,

how key elements of the planning was undone in the field. it reveals of secretary rumsfeld was reluctant for the pentagon to take on the detainee mission , how he twice offered to resign over the abu ghraib scandal, and now how the progress that he did not insist president bush accept his resignation. a quick word that some commentators say that it is full blame shifting in finger pointing. i do not think that a fair minded individual would characterize the book that way. the town is analytical. it is not harsh or recurring minatory. some have attributed to secretary rumsfeld every problem that arose in the national security field. now he gets blamed for selling that some of the accusations were ungrounded.

so you get politics coming and going. as a second matter, secretary ron phelps relations with his generals. the book shows that there were times when the secretary challenged and contradicted his generals and there were times when he deferred to them. when the secretary prices his generals -- presses his generals and clashes there were, as rumsfeld did it with version after version of general frank'' war plans for rot, he leave themselves vulnerable to the charge that he is micromanaging and interfering in professional military judgment. but when the secretary defers to his generals in the field, as mr. rumsfeld did for years during the iraq war, before the search, when the war was not going well, he leaves himself vulnerable to the charts that he is failing in this chain of command duties. i like to ask mr. rumsfeld to

elaborate when he decided to challenge and when he decided to defer. >> to answer now? >> in time. [laughter] >> the short answer is in perfectly. >> third, the role of a cabinet official. just when there are issues with the secretary of defense should challenger defer to his generals, there are important questions the book raises about when a cabinet officer should challenge or defer to a president. and it is clear that mr. rumsfeld views the dubious of a cabinet official different from the way: powell did. and like to ask you to elaborate on this and how you see the role of the cabinet official in dealing with difficult and controversial issues when he thinks the president may be ill informed or wrong in his judgment. fourth and last, i would like as secretary rumsfeld said comment on current affairs. too much happening to not look

at current affairs, drawing on his experience as secretary of defense. president obama has lost a u.s.- led military action in libya. he pre-empted what he feared was going to be a major humanitarian disaster there. and secretary rumsfeld help develop various principles for u.s. military action after 9-11 regarding u.s. leadership, coalition billing, the definition of the military mission, u.s. freedom of action, role of the un, etc. i like for you to comment on how you think president obama is handling libya. is he respecting or violating the principles you build up for the bush administration? now like to ask general pace to give a few comments about the matters dealt with in the

secretary's book. >> thanks, very much. it is a great pleasure to be with you here today. first of all, i have great respect for the folks on this platform with me, number one, in number two, is absolutely true that in many wireways, secretary rumsfeld has continued to support the troops. this is why am proud to be sitting here next to him on this occasion. i will not speak to the book precisely. i will share some thoughts about things, had i known at the time, i would have made different recommendations, because if i think we're going to be learned from our mistakes, we need to understand what those mistakes were. in afghanistan, for example, when the war first began in afghanistan, we needed about 20,000 reservists.

after the attacks on 9/11, we had literally hundreds of thousands of reservists who are volunteering to serve the country. so rather than call-up reserve units, we elected to take volunteers. and that made absolute sense at the time. we did not have or rocks on our hands. we have afghanistan and a number of 20,000, and hundreds of thousands were volunteering. in retrospect, that recommendation to take volunteers was not a good one. the reason being, when we went into iraq, we need is significantly more reservists. out of fairness, we determined that they as who served already would not serve a second tour until everyone had served a first one. again, made good sense.

but the results of that, was that the unit that was to be deployed might have had 30% of its folks already deployed. they stayed home and we had to go to other units to fill in the spaces. over time, to eunice replacing one became four units replacing one, became a guinness replacing one. and it all came back to the original premise that we will take volunteer reservists in afghanistan. i was one of the voices supportive of that. in retrospect, not a good idea. next in afghanistan. there was a great deal of discussion about the u.s., the afghan government, and our nato allies as to the size of the coalition -- coalition at the time, not afghan government at the time -- what was the proper size for the afghan army?

as i recall, the minister of defense was asking us to help him build an army of about 400,000. collectively, all of the coalition looked at that and said, in a country with an economy that was $6 billion, gdp of $6 billion, $2 billion of which was drug money, it makes sense to strap them were the responsibility of a $400,000 army that they could not afford? so collectively, i agreed and the number determined was about 70,000, a good number to have in the army, able to maintain going forward. fast forward to the problems that led to the requests for more u.s. troops. the math is fairly simple. to let 10,000 u.s. troops on active duty, it cost taxpayers

about $1 billion a year. to send 30,000 troops to afghanistan, you have to have about $3 billion. to replace them every other year, you have $6 billion. to replace them one year and two years back, in the $9 billion. and that is before you start to use them. that will cost you extra a month. it was around 2006, i do not have my exact timeline, when it became obvious that we would need more troops. that the map no longer made sense. we went to the secretary and to my mama -- to my knowledge he went to the president, and recommended that we change and increase the size of the afghan army. because in the long run, it

would cost us, and i will make these numbers of, $2 billion a year to supplement the afghan government so that they have formed a thousand troops on their roles. at the end of the day, he would have the right countries troops doing work instead of afghanistan. and the cost of u.s. taxpayer for sure would be a whole lot less. at the time, going back to the situation on the ground and the understanding of the afghan government's authority to fund their own military, 70,000 troops seem to make sense, even though $400,000 makes a whole lot sense now. next, some folks wonder, why is it that when we did do the in afghanistan, why did we expect a different outcome? you need to go back to around

march 2003, when we went into iraq. at the time, there was very little activity in afghanistan. some, but not a lot. and the military assessment was, and i was part of that, that we could go into iraq, but if we needed more troops someplace else and the world, we would not be able to do the rotation of forces that we wanted to do. it was certainly discussed among all the leadership, but at the time, it appeared that we could go into iraq, do what we needed to do, and still have a rotation of forces. as afghanistan started to bubble again, and while iraq was more difficult than we thought it would be, we ended up with the basic decision of either live -- leading the troops in place there for as long as it took, or

maintaining our all-volunteer force and having rotation of forces. when the decision was made to maintain rotation of forces, then we were in minute -- in military terms and economy of force mission in afghanistan. think of germany and japan in world war ii. germany was the primary theater, japan was the economy of force theater until we won in europe and could switch resources, shift to the pacific. that is what happened in iraq and afghanistan. we gained enough troops and maintained enough troops in iraq until we were able to shift forces over to afghanistan. it was not until 2018 that we're able to start pumping up the number of troops that we needed in afghanistan. there is a reason to believe and have expectations that from 2008

full word, that you could have different experiences on the ground and afghanistan that we did have before, because we're able to allocate the right number of resources to that. in iraq, going into iraq, i believe the intelligence as did everyone i know that when we crossed a line of departure out of kuwait into iraq, told divisions, 14,000 troops or 16,000 troops of iraqi soldiers would surrender. they would become part of the liberation force. makes sense to a western mind. makes sense to someone who is live in freedom all of his life. makes sense that liberators would be welcomed with open arms. and of course the army would be loyal to their new governor. turns out, they did not surrender and mass.

nor did they fight. the disintegrated. they went home. which leads to another assumption that proved to be false. in military planning, an assumption is something that if it is wrong, your plan fails. there has been a lot of discussion about face four in iraq and that there was no planning about phase four, what you do after you win, how you maintain security? one of the basic assumptions was not only would there be u.s. troops and the coalition partners on the ground, but that the fundamentally the iraqi army would be in tact, loyal to the new governor. they were not. the disintegrated. they went home.

the brilliant strategic surprise that bobby franks accomplished by not establishing troops on the perimeter, not bombing 445, but going to a bombing at the same time, hitting him in baghdad in three weeks, that brilliant tactical /strategic opportunity on the ground weeks -- that brilliant tactical/strategic opportunity on the ground was then followed by a string of troops who were on call but not in country and a lack of iraqi security forces to provide security in more places than we can. lastly, with regard to w.m.d. i don't know anybody at the senior level, certainly in the u.s.

military, who did not believe, as i did, that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. at least chemical weapons, which he had already used on his own people and on his neighbors in iraq. we believed it so firmly that we ensured that our troops were well-trained and properly quipped before we put them into -- equipped before we put them into combat. we fully expected that there was a line somewhere short of baghdad that when we crossed it, saddam would hit us with chemicals. that assumption was wrong. i was relieved that he did not attack our troops with chemical weapons. like everybody else, over time, i was chagrinned that we found no weapons of mass destruction. but each of these cases -- and i've thought about this a lot. it may or may not give you a comfort. but the good news and bad news is the same. if you gave me the exact same intelligence in each one of these cases, i'd give you the

exact same recommendations. these were not knee jerk reactions. these were the results of tommy franks coming to d.c. 30, 40,50 times with dick myers, who was chairman, me as vice chairman going to the white house many, many times. these decisions were made after very careful deliberate discussion, dialogue, pushing back and forth. we need to acknowledge where we were wrong, but we also have to remember it in historical context as what we knew at the time. and without pointing fingers at each other, ensure that whatever it was that caused us to have the wrong intelligence, whatever it was that caused us to have the wrong analysis, and we understand that part and learn that lesson and teach it

in our schools to the youngsters who were -- who are coming up now who will be the next chairman, the next vice chairman, will have a better context, a broader context in which to make their own analysis. thanks. >> thank you, \[applause] >> ok. thank you. i'm jamie mcintyre. if any of you have kids or watch "sesame street." you known that -- know that song "one of these things is not like the other." i'm feeling like a little bit of an outcast. i did not serve in the bush administration. maybe you saw this comic on sunday's "doonesbury." gary trudeau did a piece on facebook in which the character in the comic strip is looking at

facebook and realizes it has gotten completely out of hand. in which she's accomplished happy and endearing. and i thought yeah, and i thought then there's rumsfeld's book. actually, i really loved this book. as a journalist i'm big on trying to understand what's going on. journalism has famously been called the first rough draft of history and it's invariably wrong and incomplete. as you're there you're always wishing you knew what you don't have access to. you have this illusion that if you could see behind closed doors, see what these guys see all the time that you would have clarity. and then you read rumsfeld's book and realize that even if you were there you'd still not know what was going on.

one of the things the news media doesn't do well is nuance. that's reflected in the title of the book, "known and unknown." secretary rumsfeld explained that concept to us at a pentagon briefing one day so -- and to me it made perfect season. it's sort of self-evident and he explains in the first part of the book, the origin of that. and then i was flabbergasted to notice that over time, various reporters and commentators would portray that as some sort of misstatement or malapropism or something that, don't they get it? this is a very straightforward

recitation of the problems that you face when you have misinformation. so i really applaud the effort in the book. i have to say it's very impressive, the documentation. even though -- and i'll go on a limb here and say it has sort of a pro-rumsfeld slant to it. we can debate that later. >> why don't you just give them the hook. >> it's very impressive. the other thing i want to say is i also commend it because i feel like donald rumsfeld is the anti-dan snyder. washington redskins. he felt that he was being portrayed unfavorably in the

press. his response was to file a suit, lawsuit against a very small publication, which, in my opinion, was ill-advised. donald rumsfeld has taken the opposite approach. he has put together all the documentation, laid out his case in a very cogent fashion. while we can argue parts of it today, i think it really adds to our understanding of what happened during the time when i was there and trying to figure it out. >> thank you. anybody who has a question and wants to write it down on the card, you can raise it and our colleague, whose hand is up in the back, he will see raising a card and come and retrieve it from you and pass it forward. scooter, please. >> thank you. it is nice to be here. i particularly enjoyed the staff

in this opportunity. it is an unexpected pleasure to be here with the bush 43 pentagon crowd and their groupie. [laughter] >> i will get to later for that. >> i say unexpected pleasure because the person who should be here is my former boss, president bush. it was an extraordinary pleasure to watch these two brilliant men working together in difficult times. they remain friends to this day. but that is not to say that there was not a bit of rivalry between them every once in awhile. when i was busy with vice- president cheney, not long ago,

-- when i was visiting with vice president cheney, not long ago, he is working on his own book at this point. i mentioned to one, you know, don's book is still on the best- seller list. it is 815 pages. he got right back to work after that. [laughter] a lot of that -- >> a lot of that 815 is the index. [laughter] pete was talking about some intelligence issues. it was covered in the known and unknown -- there was a passage about the morning's briefing. vice president cheney also took these morning intelligence briefings. except that he took them twice

each morning. i believe you took your intelligence briefing only once. >> yes. >> so he -- so the president would take the intelligence briefing once with the president at 7:00 a.m. and he would also take it at 6:00 a.m., before he met with the president, so he would be well familiar with the content of the meeting, of what was in a briefing before he sat down with the president. i would usually go over to his house before the 6:00 a.m. briefing. this worked fine, except the vice-president did it when he was out of town as well when he was in jackson hole, wyoming, for example, as you might guess, which is two hours behind, the president's briefing was at 5:00 a.m. and the vice president's meeting was at 4:00 a.m. and i went to his house before 4:00 a.m. and again, that is not so bad under normal circumstances, but i do know how many of you have been

in wyoming in winter, but it tended to be -40 degrees, windy, snowy, and one year we had 8 feet of snow in 10 days. so i take my 15-pound briefcase. since the roads were not crowded at 4:00 a.m. with 8 feet of snow, i would march out across the gulf coast -- across the golf course. one of these mornings, i had this brief case, the -40 degrees at 3:00 a.m. on a dark golf course as i am headed at to see my boss. as i am about to clear the last set of trees at the edge of this golf course, about 20 yards from his back door, icily realize that the terror -- i suddenly realize that the terror warning we have been receiving -- we all had badges telling secret service not to shoot us. but it was dark. i had three layers of clothing

over my badge. and i had no light. it was perfectly pitch black. i had no flashlight with me. as they say, you go to work with the back that you have. [laughter] >> good point. >> so there i am with my 15- pound briefcase, which probably looks like a satchel charged in the dark to the secret service. white parka happens to be black. there are no lights, and i am close to the vice-president. first, the secret service guys are really good shots. second, the shop will light the wick and neighbors.

so i will be dead -- the shot will likely wake the neighbors. so i will be dead. so i decide that the only thing to do waiting in the snow with my parka and satchel was to sing loud enough so i do not settle the secret service, but not so loud that i wait the neighbors. but what do you sing? the only thing that comes to mind is a song by the rapper eminem. i finally come up to the secret service agent. it happens my bad luck to be a friend of mine who i had taken two minutes before drinking too many shots of tequila. i tried to pull my dignity together and i said, " why do not shoot me?"

and he said, "you know, do you think a terrorist is stupid enough to be out here on a night like this?" [laughter] so i finally make it into the best president's house. i am covered in snow. i am horse from trying to sing. i am dressed in sweats. there is an icicle hanging from my face. my hands are shaking because i almost got shot. and the vice president takes a look at me and he can say -- he can see that my job satisfaction is sub-optimal. and he said, "you do not know what it was like working for rumsfeld." [laughter]

>> i do not believe it. [laughter] >> there is not a terse story in that book. -- there's not a truer story in that book. there are several interesting subjects in the known and unknown. i was prepared to raise several of them. but i do not think there is time enough for more than one and a third. one of the sub-teams is the importance of strategic thinking. the book describes ronald reagan as "strong, long range, with strategic sense, so successful to -- so essential to successful leadership." 8 strategic thinker looks to three steps ahead. by contrast, the book describes as a dangerous this judgment the

"post-cold war holiday from strategic thought that characterized much of the 1990's." the book contrasted the strategic thinking of one of our main competitors, china. the book says, "and unlike many western policy makers, the chinese make the practice of thinking several moves ahead while they look to take advantage of current trends." the book notes that the chinese, to this day, led by the writings of a fifth century bc writer, sun zhu, a long-range thinker. "even to the point of sound business." -- when it comes to being extremely mysterious, do you think the chinese have a lot to teach vice-president cheney? [laughter] as part of the kind of strategic thinking that we need, the book points to the importance of avoiding mirror imaging.

we need to think through how our enemies the problem, not how we see it. and for that intelligence -- and for that come intelligence plays a very important role. a related problem or theme in the book is the problem with intelligence. as another strategic -- another element of strategic thinking, the book says the surprise is inevitable.

there is the famous quote. "we need to consider our older but is with imagination." it quotes frederick the great who asked his generals, "what designs will i be forming if i were the enemy?" \ of course, i should point out that that is mirror imaging, mr. secretary. frankly, i was also disappointed in you letting frederick the great saying that. but then again, that was when he worked for you. [laughter] the question he should have last was who has studied how this enemy things and ask that man with the enemy might plan. next, as the book notes, we tend to treat the and familiar as the improbable. the results can ruin your day. "the period covered by this book is one of great obscurity

for those who lived through it. that was the future clouded, but the president was equally clouded. we broke after interpretations of events, sometimes reversed lines of action based on earlier reviews, and hesitated wrong before grasping what now seems obvious. we had more than the usual difficulties discerning the shape of events. that is not don rumsfeld in two dozen 11. in the 1940's, a time the people today think was much less complex and a time when we had a theory of containment, a strategy of containment which leading figures of the time had wildly different interpretation of.

i should also quote this passage to be judged by your readers. "terrorism is a form of warfare and must be treated as such. simply standing in a defensive position, absorbing blows, is not enough. terrorism must be deterred." that is not donald rumsfeld into the as 11. that is donald rumsfeld in 1984. or will's fictional book "94" also had a veiled threat. -- "1984" also had a veiled threat. in 1979, a time entitled "islam, the militant revival." you note the precision. your position remains controversial and i hope you have a chance to discuss it. one theme is the importance for clear, strategic thinking and

the difficulty that that has posed for america. a second related theme touches on the all too common in perfections of our interagency process -- all-too-common imperfections of our interagency process. both interagency and inter- departmental problems. your observations in this realm are, sadly, as you know, not new. you could well have cited sources even before your era. preeminent cold war historian yale john steward guess said that kennedy's strategy broke down because it did nothing to prevent the subordination of strategic interest to those of the organization implementing the strategy. large bureaucracies all too often develop their own institutional momentum, making them impervious, either to instructions from above or to

feedback from below. samuel huntington wrote of the eisenhower years. we ought not to be surprised that organizations resist innovation. they are supposed to resist it. that same area, dean acheson wrote about the chairman. . -- about the truman period. accustomed to dealing with the future only when it becomes the present, we find it hard to regard future trends as serious reality.

yet failure to achieve this state of mind is certain to approve fatal. henry kissinger wrote, "most farm policies that history has marked highly in whatever country have been originated by leaders who were opposed by the experts." i hope you have a chance to comment, mr. secretary, in the context of a food world. their lives by 1.33 themes that i said i would manage. i have too little time to go on. i want to congratulate you, mr. secretary, on your memoir and on writing a history of the bush administration that i think, in years to come, many will see as the second-best book on the topic. [laughter] >> well, now, my goodness

gracious. i look out there and i see people who were in the administration, many of whom could give the answers to the questions that these folks have posed every well as bad as i. ken, thank you for your hospitality. -- every well as good as i. ken, thank you for your hospitality. i am told that have 10 minutes for 12 minutes to comment. >> only if you want them. >> i was told not to interrupt, but you all are allowed to. the process of the book, i debated whether i should take a year and write a book basically from memory. i had such a rich archive, having lived a third of our country's history that i decided to take four years, digitize a lot of my papers, and

create a web site that now has over 3500 documents on its. -- on it. there must be 10,000 or 20,000 pages of paper put there. so when people see the book, they can see a primary source i quoted, see the end of, and go to the web site for more information on it. rather than rewriting history, we want to write history and try to correct what jamie calls the first draft of history in a way that will be helpful to serious people who were interested in learning and reading the original documents

from the website and the approach of people who are actually there as opposed to people who were talking to people who were there, probably mostly two weeks for three weeks down. so i took four years and have been enjoying completing it and having a chance to answer questions about it. the questions that doug had, it seems to me, are interesting ones. one involved the deferring to generals or not to deferring to generals, as the case may be. i think pete case would be better to answer that than i. but there is a picture of me shining the generals shoes. [laughter]

so i hope someone looks at that. there has been a lot of talk about rumsfeld coming into the pentagon and having some. the technology or modernization or transformation or something. it was just not the case. i was -- and having some idea about the technology modernization or transformation or something. it was just not the case. i was minding my own business. he was talking about bringing the department of defense and to the 21st century and into the information age. that was the blueprint for what he wanted. when he asked me to consider coming into the government again, after being out for 20 years to 25 years, that was what was on his mind. he was interested in having the department of defense to engage in the process of transforming itself to fit the challenges of the 21st century, which he saw

as being notably different from the prior period. that was the challenge. that is what we set about to do. once you do that, you begin by saying that you have to engage people and things will have to change in one way or another. you sit down and work with these people. and change is hard. people in the military are proud. they developed a doctrine that they were talked and believe in and are implementing in many years of their lives. when a president comes in and wants to make adjustments to what is comfortable, what is known, which is reasonably certain, what has been practice, that which has been exercised

and the train vendor, that is uncomfortable. -- and they trained under, that is uncomfortable. there were not comfortable with a new president they did not know and they kind of changes that he was urging. general chase talked about the situation in afghanistan and the people. i should say one other thing about the generals. pete, you should answer this. but i was in meetings, very comfortable with people asking questions. i must say, i do confess that, if the answers were not good, i had trouble hiding it. is that fair? >> that is fair. >> is it an understatement? >> no. it is absolutely true. if you arrived at a meeting with the secretary of defense and had not done your homework, you're not going to have a good

day. shame on the generals who did not do their homework. i will not take much of the secretaries microphone time, but i will tell you that those folks who are out there, the bulk of the generals, etc., each and every one of those was either working on rumor because there were not in the room or they had their buds shoot for good reason because they had not done their homework. >> the afghan army has described accurately that there was concern that there would not be able to afford it, but he is correct when he points out that we could, with a relatively

modest amount of money, help them support it at a cost per person. we left for what it costs the united states to do that. one thing that has not been brought up in the connection of both iraq and afghanistan is -- first of all, i did write a paper in march 2001 and is on the website, talking about guidelines for using military force for the united states. and i sent it to the national security participants and to the president. this is a will before september 11. i said -- i thought it was important to have an understanding about that and i hope people will look at it.

somewhere buried in there is a comment that i think we, in the united states, have to have a healthy respect for the things we cannot do and hope for the things we can do. i think we do have a degree of modesty about our ability to nation build. they have different histories, different tribal arrangements, different neighbors. and time is varied. it is not possible for the united states, i do not think, to "build nations." i think people build nations and they have to do it themselves. we can help them create an environment that is possible for them to do that. but it is only realistic to face up to that fact, that ultimately they will have to do it. there is some middle ground obviously between hands-off and hands-off. but the reality is that americans have a tendency -- i mean, if a ditch is to be done and enough people are around, our inclination is to dig and we will dig a duke aide -- and we will dig a good one. we ought to be teaching people to dig ditches. we ought to have some tolerance for ditches to not be as good as we might do it or as fast as we might do it. we have to understand that, it seems to me. the afghanistan situation -- i have had the impression that

the discussion about it was, in the current administration, that the government took their eye off afghanistan. i do not think that is the case. the reality is that we went in with limited forces. general franks plan was -- mass -- general mass -- general frank's plan was essential. they went in and did a superb job. they managed to move the taliban out of kabul. and the level of violence was fairly modest. it was low. to be sure, the taliban are determined. they want it back and they will get it back. they went into pakistan and they ran silent and deep and prepare themselves and came back over time. during 2003 and 2004, 01 people were worried about taking the offer afghanistan, afghanistan was in good shape. the elected people and set

about their business. refugees came back, son million people give back to that country and drove down the street and you could see a lot of economic activity. that is a misrepresentation of history as i thought. in 2005, i asked minister miki to look at it and he did. we began to see a level of violence increase. and we then set about increasing the afghan army and taking a series of steps. in the last analysis, i personally believe that afghanistan will evolve in a

way that fits afghanistan and fits its particular stage of development. it will not be -- the idea that we have a template that works elsewhere is a misunderstanding. we did not even have this template ourselves. think about the bumpy road our country went through. my goodness, we had slaves and to the 1600's. we had a ghastly civil war. women did not vote until the 1900's. we did not arrive in 2011 like this. and those countries will not arrive where they will end up. they will have to work their way through just like we did, like other countries do. it is not a smooth path from authoritarian systems or different systems or drought or so war and 10 years to 12 years of occupation by the soviet

union. it is not an easy path from there to where i think they're going. admittedly, it will be bumpy. weapons of mass destruction, that has been handled. i agree with karl rove. he wrote a book or he said that the biggest mistake they made was the button "bush live, people die." there's no question that the united states men and women who put on chemical protective suits as they were moving north in iraq, they did not do it for the fun of it, because they liked to wear them. they did it because they were concerned. every leader in the area said to get closer. you will face chemical weapons. to not rebut it and to allow it to happen undermined the bush administration.

but you can be absolutely certain that every word that the president said he believed, that every word vice-president cheney -- everything that colonel colin powell said -- he spent a lot of time preparing his words for the united nations. he believed every word that he said. the idea that was the lie is irresponsible. -- that it was a lie is irresponsible. i made a few comments about the press. one of the stories i discuss in the book is a story from my first executive position as the director of office of economic

opportunity where an article was written that was just totally inaccurate. so i invited this person and let them see you what was going on and that it was totally inaccurate. he said he was sorry and left and never uttered another word about it to correct it. and the paper did not. it was a wonderful experience for me because i learned early. there was another myth about general some shacky that has been printed and shown on television thousands of times. god bless jamie. he went out and found the facts and wrote a story that said that it is almost chipped in stone that this happened and it did not. it is totally inaccurate -- general shinseki. scooter brought up something that i think -- and i will wind

up with this. if you think about it, world war i and world war ii had finite endings. the cold war came along and lasted decades. i worried about language, the idea of calling the war on terror a war. it left the impression that it could be won by bullets and it cannot. it left the impression that it was the department of defense's responsibility and not the rest of the government and not the private sector. it is much more like the cold war where there was a competition of ideas between communism and its expansion activities and people who believed in free political institutions and free economic

institutions. this, too, is a competition of ideas, this competition that we have with radical islamists. to prevail in overtime -- think of the cold war. it took administrations of both political parties in our country and it took administrations in our allied country with a persistence over a long, long time. it was an impressive time that -- impressive thing that that was accomplished. i think that the difficulties we face today with radical islamists is of a kind and it will take a long time and that it will not be won with bullets. i have no idea -- in fact, i have another member of on a website. i think it was october 16. it leaked within the press within a week and i only sent it to three people. but i basically said, look,

here is our policy. we have to pursue it. it is important that we protect the american people. but i do not know that i have any metrics that i can tell how we are doing. i do not know if we are capturing or killing terrorists as fast as they're able to recruit them and train them and finance them and organize them and send them out to kill innocent women and men and children. i still do not know if we have at this day any metric for that. people have done a lot of fussing about george w. bush and the structures he put in place, including indefinite detention and military commissions, which has been a long part of our history, guantanamo bay, a prison that has been maligned and the people down there have

been criticized. i would submit that it is undoubtedly one of the finest prisons on the face of the year. it is exceedingly well run. i asked a journalist the other day. give me a sense of how many people would probably waterboarded down at guantanamo. and she said, oh, tens. >> of course, the answer is zero. no one was ever waterboarded at guantanamo. not one. in any event, here we are, almost april 2011. we could have a terrorist attack tomorrow. they can attack anytime, anyplace, using any technique and it is not possible to defend against terrorist attacks in every location, day or night, against every possible technique. but we have not had a successful attack in the united states of america for close to two years. that, in my view, is due to

president bush and the structure put in place and it is not simply a defense structure. the success, i think, is rooted in the fact that the decision was made that you cannot define everyone all the time. therefore, you must go out and put pressure on them. everything they do harder and that has been done very well. it is harder for them to raise money. it is harder for them to travel. it is harder for them to talk on the telephone. it is harder for them to do everything that they do. i give us a good grade their. i would give us a low-grade on competing in the competition of ideas. the bush administration was reluctant to talk about islamists because we did not want anyone to believe that we were against the religion or against hundreds of millions of people that are all across the globe who are not radical and are not islamists and are not terrorists.

but there is a nervousness about it. people did not want to be accused of being against a religion. so i would give us a relatively high grade in terms of helping to protect the american people. i give us a relatively low grade in terms of communicating and competing in that set of ideas. unless we do it very well, we will not know how well we're doing and we may not be doing well enough. there was talk about the intra- agency process. i listened to the people talk about its in jamie's business. i suppose, if i were in his business, i would do it, too. but the personalize it. that guy is against that guy or this person is against that person. there is a battle of titans going on. if you go back in recent memory, henry kissinger had a

problem with the press. rodzinski -- george shelf had problems with jeff sheinberg. people have different views. there ought to be different views. that is for the president and then to listen to those views and make a judgment. it seems to me -- i just got off the phone with george shultz. he said he wrote an op ed on this subject that he hopes will be printed soon. the thing i would say is that, at the end of world war ii, we or at an inflection. an enormous number of institutions were fashioned during that critical time.

you ended up with the un and nato and the imf and the world bank. here at home, we ended up with the national security council, the cia, the department of defense, the u.s. i day -- the usia. all of them began at the beginning of world war ii and gone until the end of the century. we are at the end of the cold war and we have not done much to modify. they do not work as well in the information age going forward. one of the recommendations i made on the website at rumsfeld.com -- a group of us in the pentagon talked about this and said, look, back then, a to still be called a hoover

commission. they had people on both political parties and thought about these things in a serious way. then they came out with a set of proposals. we need that today. we need to think through these things, -- we need to think through these things, for its influence in a significant way by subcommittees that are very turf conscious -- the defense department and the cia, they all pop up. they need to bend if they will come for the president so you

can begin to pull those threads through a needle head and he can make rational decisions and not have a clash as they come up. there hast of the ways that we can do that. i would like to know what they are. but i do know that the information age is a terribly difficult thing for our government to manage, to handle. half the people in your do not know what a treat is -- what a tweet is. it is a much faster moving world today. i think that those thoughts are something that we will have to come to grips with. i know that doug has thought about. i will stop with that. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> thank you very much. the point that general paste

made about how many of the assumptions on which the war plans and post-war plans for iraq were based that proved to be faulty is an important point. the particular point that be highlighted, the thought that we would have iraq yesterday forces available to us to help maintain order after the ouster some, i recall that scooter, ink particular, when we were briefed by the cia on the iraqi police remaining intact and the cia made the argument that iraqi police be viewed by a professional force. if you view leadership, you did not have to change the people around the country. they were well-regarded around the country.

i remember scooter making the point that it does not make sense that, in a police state, the police would be viewed as professional and not an instrument of repression. that was an important factor in cent, planning. the military commands up to get there -- in centcom planning. people raise questions about the way our intelligence community is organized. they have said that there was a major reorganization in the bush administration of the intelligence community after the 9/11 report. several people would like to know what the panel's evaluation is of our intelligence community now versus what it was before 9/11. are we better organized a? we are dealing with some other

kinds of questions that the secretary raised at the end, our -- are we prepared to handle this? where we stand on intelligence organization, i would ask this of anybody that wants to jump in. >> i would just begin by saying that i think they have a very, very tough job. i was secretary in the 1970's during the cold war. we were looking at the soviet union and we made our intelligence community made judgments that were not accurate in a number of instances. in that case, you were able to look at it year after year after year after year, the same

plane, the same people, get the language confidence. for example, you may remember the misjudgment as to the percentage of gdp that the soviet union was paying/span ending. there were convinced that it was a relatively small number. rand concluded that it was a relatively high percentage, much closer to what they of hitler in germany was spending prior to the beginning of world war ii. it turned out they were both right as to what was being produced. we could see it and look at it and counted. what was different was the size of the economy. the soviet economy was much smaller, so the percentage was much higher. of course, the importance of it was that it showed a sense of purpose and determination. if you're willing to deny your consumers, that is a big deal. of course, in the reagan era, when the cold war was won, if

you will, that critical question as to how could the economy of the soviet union survive was not trivial. it turned out that the agency was wrong. i give them a lot of credit. i think we have a lot of wonderful intelligence people work in their heads off trying to do it right. and i -- and it is very, very hard. we're dealing with closed societies, and governed areas, not just nation states, but with networks. it is an area that we have not -- we had a big dip in intelligence investment during the 1990's. there was a bathtub. and it takes a long time to develop the kind of internal comments in an organization like that that you can get the language skills and develop the knowledge. i think it is very easy to criticize. i think it is important to

recognize the difficulty of it. but i do think we have to expect to be surprised and we ought not to be surprised when we will be surprised. giving the weapons today, vastly different from the 1970's, just enormous, our margin for error is not what it used to be. let there be no doubt. >> i would just like to bring the same question slightly different. one thing i enjoyed about your book was the extent that it challenges and reduce the conventional wisdom about things in the past. one item of conventional wisdom was that the press failed in his job to ask the really difficult questions and come to some extent, the same criticism

applies to policy makers who were not adequately questioning the intelligence at the time. i wonder what your opinion is of the press, specifically, and the administration. was it a matter of -- if you ask the right questions, then your bids typically would get a different answer? or was it simply the case that these things were not know what the time until after the events of the war unfolded? >> before you went to that, can i jump in on the previous question. i think there is a part that needs to be answered. i have been really hesitant to lay a lot of blame at the feet of some very, very dedicated intelligence analysts who have been trying to do their best job. i told you that i had recommendations based on things that turned out not to be true. but i do not fault the intelligence agency for that. first of all, how are intelligence agents were getting input from folks on the ground, iraqi, and from other countries

intelligence services. there were doing their best job, synthesizing that for us. just like those of us in the military who learn from our lessons, so do -- so does the intelligence community. if you are a receiver of intelligence, you need to listen to what you are being told. it is like listening to legal recommendations. whether you listen to a lawyer or an intel officer -- a do nothing to put them both in the same pile -- but if you listen to them, you have the responsibility to apply your own judgment. and we should not excrete our intelligence committee for giving their best judgment. if you want their best judgment, then we have to understand that they will be wrong sometimes. and if we beat them up, they

will start going further into their shell because they do not want to be wrong or beat up, number one. no. 2, the carpet was not answered was what about the internal structure? -- number two, the other question that was not answered was what about the intel structure? he or she has 032 direct anybody in the intel community and has no budget authority. if we believed -- and it is open to debate -- if you want to have somebody with a choker on to the whole process, then give them the authority and give them the budget. if you believe do not want that, fine. right now, i think what we have is an organizational chart that looks like there's somebody in charge of everybody when they are not. thank you. >> i would like to comment on

the intel structure. i used to be in the pharmaceutical business. in research and development, you do not want one single control over r&d. you want people thinking and doing different things and coming up with ideas and the competition of lights -- competition of ideas. the idea is that it would be helpful for the united states of america to have a structure where a single intel person was over every single thing, budget, personnel, in the united states of america, that would be the perfectly terrible idea. the militarily -- the military would and decreed in their own intel capabilities because they cannot function if they do not

have access to military intelligence. there are multiple types of intelligence, to be sure. there's strategic intelligence, economic intelligence -- but the department of defense absolutely needs and intelligence mechanism and so does the department of state. i must say -- i know my relationship with george tenet and john negroponte and our department's relationship at the senior level, even down a layer -- maybe not down way below. but it was superb. i would not have thought of appointing one person to an intel position if the pentagon without having a long conversation with george tenet. he participated in all those decisions. the same thing with budgets, we sat down and work every budget issue. the idea that the director of national intelligence -- the congress behave like there was

a serious problem. we must fix it. then comes the deal and i -- then comes a the dni. there were people who wanted to break the system. people were anxious to have it changed. let's have a simplified approach, one person in charge, and i think that would be a bad idea. and the dni's had been wise and prudent and i congratulate them. >> my question was not about any criticism of the imperfection of the intelligence, or whether there was an inappropriate do -- but whether there was an inappropriate degree of skepticism at the time. >> read the parade of horribles that i wrote, and sat down of the people and talk about all the things they could go bad.

we may not find weapons of mass destruction. it was right there, written, center around to the president. we thought about those things. i was on a program with o'reilly and said, why didn't you tell us that it might go wrong? wonderful idea. let's tell the enemy everything -- every conceivable thing we might have a problem with so they can get about doing it? no, that is not the kind of thing you tell the press or talk about publicly. but there is page after page of things that duggan other people in the government thought about and talked about and that was circulated and people were worried about. >> you think the press fell down on its job? >> 0, goodness, we haven't got time for that. [laughter] >> i do not mean me personally. i did a terrific job.

the media in general. [laughter] >> we naturally focused in this discussion on the period of the bush administration, for obvious reasons, but one of the things and secretary rumsfeld's book that particularly is interesting is the discussion of his career going back to when he was in the navy and then his first run before the congress, and all the jobs before. before he became secretary of defense for the first time in the mid-1970s. one of the jobs that he had was u.s. ambassador to nato. we had a question which i think helps tie together your early history, your time a secretary of defense in the bush administration and current

affairs with libya and all that is going on right now. what is your evaluation of nato? and what has become of nato, how has it made the transformation from its original purpose of the cold war alliance to what it became when you were secretary of defense in the bush administration and now how do you see it functioning as president obama calls on it to act in libya? what is your general evaluation of nato? and by the way, you can come in here also. you will have thoughts on the subject. >> nail is struggling just like the other institutions i mentioned. -- nato is struggling just like the other institutions i mentioned. they have not adapted to fit the 21st century. if you look down from outer

space on earth, they are a finite number of countries that have our values and have free political and economic systems, and most of them are in nato. there are others, australia, japan, singapore, south korea, an indian. but these countries are important. and most of the problems we face our problems we cannot face with ourselves. we cannot deal with the proliferation of mass destruction, or piracy come with a drug problem, or strap -- or the slave trade. any number of things that require coalition. i am a believer that the commission determines the coalition and then not not to determine the mission. but having these countries together in nato is potentially very useful. when the united states is providing strong leadership and giving them time to adjust and think about it and determine the extent to which they may or may not want to protest a paid in a

coalition to do something, -- to participate in a coalition to do something, then nato has done very well. and when we have been in a hurry and not providing good leadership, there have been problems. the coalition with respect to libya, go back to the global war on terror. president bush and:. >>: power put together a coalition of 90 countries. in afghanistan, there were 69. in iraq there were 45 countries. and yet president bush was labeled a unilateralist. the difference to me is that they set about the task of recognizing that we needed help and we needed people but we needed people to agree on the mission. the problem we have seen most recently is the confusion over the mission. imagine if you are sitting in libya and you are an ambassador or a government employee or you are in the army, you are a

colonel or a private, or you are in the neighborhood and they're looking for -- their rebels are looking for collaboration. they want assistance and food and housing. and you do not know even to this day whether gaddafi is going to go. imagine. there, it seems to me, and people are a lot like magnetic particles. the point where things are going to happen. what is going to happen? is it likely to change or is it not? and where are they pointing? they are all over the line because they do not know what is going to happen. if they're going to get up in the morning, he will still be around, they will alter their behavior. the thing that worries me about what goes on in africa is the critical element is iran and syria and the damage they are doing us in afghanistan, the

damage they are doing in iraq, the potential for they are doing in lebanon, hezbollah, and the rest of iran with nuclear weapons. there are other major factors, egypt, its size and importance. and what we do in libya -- what we do anywhere is seen elsewhere in the world. people make judgments over it. how we behave is going to alter their behavior. what we do in libya, given the visibility, will be taken into account in the areas that are critically important. the cult and egypt in the case of that part of the world, -- the gulf and egypt in that case in that part of the world. i worry that we're not taking those things into account and i would say that they are the main feature out in that part of the world.

>> can ask general pace -- if president obama asked you, based on your experience or thoughts, as he is looking into nato to play a central in libya, whether they thought you would offer to him? >> i will not answer that question and i will tell you why. to be an adviser to the president of the united states and to the secretary of defense, you must have absolute confidence and trust in that individual. and you cannot worry if you're chairman is a republican, a clause a democrat, is he going to write a book, and the things that i say to him private, will they sunday be published?

-- will they someday be published? so for me to speak for or against something that president obama is doing is wrong. i will give my counsel in private. i have to the secretary of defense. the person to answer that question is the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral mullen. but i think officers to serve have the privilege and do damage to the relationship between elected officials of our government and those who serve in the u.s. military when they stepped outside of their private advisory roles because it is inappropriate. i did not my predecessors at needing me. mike mullen does not mean -- need me helping him. i think it is ill-advised or

very senior military folks to do damage to the current serving force by speaking out of turn. having said that, i would like to take 2 seconds to talk about the native question that doug asked before that one of me and our elected ticket from a purely military function. -- i would like to take it from a purely military fortune. the non-nato military coalition going into afghanistan, the non- nato coalition going into iraq, required the leadership and you need control and capabilities of the u.s. military. the long standing nato coalition which is nato also requires the unique leadership, command-and- control, and military capabilities of the u.s. military.

so nato as an institution that's as it does, but the military function, whether a coalition of non-nato for a nato coalition, is going to be very dependent on the day-to-day leadership and capacity of the u.s. military. >> and i would say, not just the military leadership, but the political leadership of nato requires u.s. involvement and direction. it is just the reality of that institution. >> you're saying that we're turning the mission over from us to us? [laughter] >> yes. [laughter] but not in an insignificant way, not in an insignificant way. from the paramilitary execution standpoint, i met exactly what i said.

-- from the pure military execution standpoint, i meant exactly what i said. the coalition of non-nato countries is one thing. but the coalition which is nato, which has stood the world in good stead for many decades, it is a unique institution. so we should not put through that fact. . -- poo-poo that fact. >> a peace program has been a tremendous they were non-nato countries have been engaged in begin to develop a relationship with nato nations' military. that is critically important. they really are.

they get engaged and interested. they began to understand our values and civilian principles, civilian control and how the military functions, and become much more professional. there are other parts of the world -- i mention some of those countries where highlight to develop -- i would like to develop our relationship with singapore, japan, some of the others, not up formal one, not coming into nato, but a closer relationship because those are countries that as i say, if you're going to do what the problem like the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we will have to have lots of countries engaged. to have some linkage with nato of some sort, it seems to me, makes sense. clearly the united nations has demonstrated that he can do certain things, but major things like i am talking about really do not fit into their satchel. >> you just highlighted a topic

that was a major concern of yours when you were secretary. it did not get much attention in our panel today. i am glad you raised it. the focus on the united states as a specific power when something that you talked about a lot, in some -- in one of the major projects that you launched and highlight in your book, and that we have received two or three questions about, is the realignment of the american defense posture all around the world. this was the first time in history, i believe, that anyone actually said we're going to look at the way u.s. forces are deployed, postured, ready to operate a run the entire world

all at once in a single exercise. how much of that in your sense -- what is your evaluation looking back on the project? is that going forward? to you think you actually succeeded in reshaping the defense posture? some of the key elements of what you worked on were extremely controversial of the time and people were waiting for your departure to try to roll them back. where do you think it stands? >> that is the understatement of the afternoon, i think. i looked around the world and where we have forces were they were left over from the cold war, there were some countries where the countries did not want them. and it was not hospitable fortress. you have a volunteer force, you better have them in places that are hospitable to the extent that you can do it.

second, they were in places where the country develop an ownership interest over them and decided that those forces work for them. our forces work for them, period, and that we could not use them elsewhere. so in some instances they said, you can i use them unless our parliament approves it. another kantor said to us, if you do anything with any forces in afghanistan or iraq, move them now before our parliament assembled or for our government gets involved. some of the political parties will pull out. you are spending to an $36 million a year, close enough for government work, -- $236 million a year in iceland to have our air plans be sure that soviet bombers were not harassing people in that part of the world. there was no soviet union. there had not been a soviet union for years and years.

we did not need to spend $236 million to have those aircraft. what were they doing? there were going out doing a search and rescue for fishermen from iceland. i've got nothing against fisherman from iceland. we still had people in that cyanide from the middle east war that stood there and looked across the water to see what was happening. i started moving it and the opposition was horrific. it took me quite true years to get them out of iceland. [laughter] $236 million a year, think of it. everyone was against it. and there were frankly a couple of countries that said, look, you cannot use these forces in iraq. they are to protect us simultaneously. they were reducing their military while we were increasing hours.

and he is sitting back there and you are involved in it extensively. there was a lot of resistance from the state department because it caused ruffles with our allies and friends around the world who worry about it. did we make progress? you bet we made progress. was it pain free? no, there was some pain along the way. >> one of the questions fifth as it relates to the comments you made earlier about dealing with the world -- war on terrorism not just capture and kill operations but as a battle of ideas. the question is, how can we think of winning a war of ideas

when there are no warriors of ideas in the u.s. government? is there an agency of the u.s. government that has the responsibility to deal with the ideological challenges related to terrorism? >> not only no, but the extent to anyone tries to do it, they are landed on what both feet. i was a congressman when john f. kennedy was president. there was a film made by usia about the kennedys in india as a way of promoting american of and so forth. and the movie was played overseas in india and it was a darn good movie, filmed. and then the congress fanned out what was going on and they said taxpayers money being used to develop a film that is highly complementary to the kennedys. it is played in india and other places. but it is also played in the

united states. the world is the world. you cannot have something to one audience and not expected to be every august. people in congress that very nervous about using taxpayer money for that purpose. general casey, as i recall, found that in iraq, he needed cooperation of the people. he needed iraqis to give intelligence. the single most of the one thing that we need is for the iraqis to give as intelligence. that is how we deal with the problem of an insurgency. we decided that the press in iraq was publishing everything, not just a good things but all the bad things that happened. some civilian gets killed, someone is wounded, a bomb hits a civilian location that should not, that is highly publicized and the fact that the military was out there putting generators in schools and hospitals, helping people, none of that was getting reported. casey decided to hire some people to see that the stories

could be written and given to the iraqi newspapers so that it would end up in the iraqi press oh, my goodness. oh, what a terrible thing to do, printing the truth and paying someone to print the truth and put it into the newspaper. it had to stop immediately. the congress got highly excited about it and it stopped and it was over and we were right back to square one. it is a very complicated thing using taxpayers' money to do something that deals with information, even though it is honest and accurate. we all know the reality. the reality is that the al qaeda folks have media committees, it sounds amazing, they do. they have committees on media. they manage the media. they do a very good job of it. and they are serious about it. they are disciplined about it. all i will go around the world

three or four times before the truth, i guess it was mark twain, before the truth gets started. a talk about in the book, this methodology of the car ran being flushed down the toilet in guantanamo, and you get riots, people being killed dead. weeks later, one magazine says, to the extent that we have part of our story wrong, we're sorry. and the people they were saying they were sorry to were dead. there was not koran + down the toilet. that is the problem. we do not do well. i was asked about a great idea for the united states in dealing with issues like this in the press. i gave as saying d minus, including me. >> to wrap up, i hope you do not consider this a perot group question -- parochial question,

but over your career, i would be interested in if there are any reflections on herman cahn that you like to share with us as a way of closing. and before we close, but for a turn it over, a light to think our panelists, a general pace, and jamie mcintyre, scooter libby, and it was great to have the opportunity to host an event like this. any words to close on? >> i think that put a picture of herman talking to gerald ford in the book. i am sure that i did. he was a friend of mine from the 1960's when i was in congress. for whatever reason, we end up at the american assembly in new york and were involved with the

u.s.-japan relations together, and everywhere he would go with his sparkling wine and wonderfully evolved into let to stir the pot, and the value on this side of the hudson river on this, the value of is that. what we need is a great big thing to connect them. you will end up increasing the value on the side is so low and everyone will be happy. he goes to japan with me and he starts using the possibility that the japanese will have nuclear weapons of some point because it is an anomaly for a major country not to have the ability to defend itself. that caused quite a stir. he was with hudson when it was on the hudson, back in the old days. i adored the men. working with him was a delight.

he was a stimulating -- i remember one of his book was called "the year 2000." it is already 2011. when did he write that, in the 1960's and 1970's? in 1967, he wrote of an " the year 2000." he speculated about the world and it was just fun to be with a person like that. one of my daughter said, what should i do? i said co-worker someone really is like herman cahn. she says, what what i do? i said, it does not matter. be around him. you're going to find people sparkling around herman cahn. it will be a wonderful thing. the last time i saw him, we were doing a panel at a hotel here in town. i hadn't seen him for some time. he weighed a lot.

he had gotten very heavy. i remember looking at him and saying to him in friendship that he was performing a disservice to the country. anyone with the intellect that the head and the contributions that he made, to carry around that much weight was not right. he could not do it. his heart could not do it. it was not long thereafter that he left us. quite a man and a good friend. and i want to thank him and thank you, doug, for your hospitality. i hope that the question you were asking in the latter portion came from the audience, because i did not see any hands go up and i guess they were all on paper. >> think everybody on the panel and thank you all. >> can i say one thing. they would always tell us that

the pentagon up that the essence of donald rumsfeld was so complex, it did not lend itself to a bumper sticker. they made one bumper sticker that said it is unbumper- sticker-able. but now i can say, don rumsfeld, he got us out iceland. [laughter] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> white house officials announce new initiatives to combat the abuse of pressure contracts. businessmen ted turner and t. boone pickens talk about alternative indeed. and later, we will talk about the economy with john fund. >> tomorrow 9, wikileaks founder julia sons debates former british and american officials abovut the role of whistleblowers. it gets underway at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> now this is no more. no! i give you the ipod nano. [laughter] >> in his monologue, might daisey comments on the world as

he sees it. his latest examines apple and americans love the technology. >> all of my monologues come out of my obsessions. they sprang out of the obsession. they have these collisions with one another. >> find out more sunday night on c-span's q&a. it is one of our signature interview programs available online. >> i think we are all ready for democrats and republicans to get the country on the right track. >> the debate ahead of us is about more than spending levels. it is about the role of government itself. >> with the current year's spending result, lawmakers turn their attentions to the 2012 budgets and the nation's debt limit. watch the debate on capitol hill, the white house, and around washington online anytime with the c-span video

library. search, watch, clip, and share -- is what you want when you want. >> the obama administration today unveiled new requirements aiming at curbing prescription drug abuse. the number of people who unintentionally overdose on prescription drugs now exceeds the number of people who overdose during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's. law enforcement and health officials outlined a government plan at the national press club. this is 45 minutes. >> i am delighted to be here with >> the drug enforcement administration, the assistant secretary for help athe department of health and human services.

as everyone is here, and a special thanks also to karen perry. she is the executive director of the narcotics overdose prevention and education task force. she traveled with us to be with us from south florida. she has a very powerful story and she has been absolutely focused on this effort. seated in the front row, dr. janet woodcock. he is the deputy director of the center forrug evaluation and research. thank you to all the people here. more importantly, to their staff members who have worked so tirelessly on this particular issue.

i want to mention to the head of the cdc -- he could not be with us here today. when we have metz, i can tell you that he is also been absolutely focused and committed to reducing this problem that we're going to talk about for a few minutes. tom is the director of the center for disease control and prevention. he is represented here today by the director of the national center for injury prevention control. let me start by talking about a staring fact. as a longtime police chief who paid attention to what caused harm in my city in seattle, it was one of the startling to me. i think it is startling to a lot of people in this country. america is in the midst of a

public help epic -- idemic driven by prescription drug abuse. prescription drug abuse is our nation's fastest-growing drug problem. it is an epidemic. that is not a word that i, or the nation's public health community, use lightly. the facts are devastating. and 2007, 28,000 americans or about one in every9 minutes died from an unintentional drug overdo. it was driven to a large dree by prescription drug abuse. more recent data shows that seven people in florida, for an ohio, and three in kentucky die every day from an intention -- unintentional drug overdose. put this tragedy in perspective, the number of people of overdosed on prescription drugs now exceeds the number of people who have died as a result of gunshot wounds.

it is a significant problem. the overdoses that we have talked about in the past, crack cocaine and others, are not at the same level of problems that we are seeing a prescription drugs today. today, in 17 states, it is the leading cause of accidental death. it means that it is ahead of car crashes for taking lies. from day one, the obama administration has been focused on this particular problem. we have increased funding for drug prevention for treatment, enforcement programs, by millions of dollars. the d a hosted t first ever national prescription drugs -- the dea hosted theirst ever national prescription drugs take back program.

in october, the president signed legislation that will make it easier for the committees to collect dangerous and unneeded or expired drugs. we've set a goal of reducing prescription drug abuse by 15% over the next five years. the severity of the problem help epidemic requires the sustained national effort that will build upon what we have already done. to build upon our response we are releasing the first albert national prescription drug agrees plant. i think many of you have been provided the plant. -- plan. prescription drug abuse is an unbelievably complex drug problem. the plan is a culmination of months of collaboration across the federal government. acknowledges the people reprented here, the department of jusce's, veterans affairs, the department of defense, all of these are significant players

in dealing with this issue. the plan outlined an unprecedented strategy to save lives and reduce the mammoth burden prescription drug abuse places on our community by fosing on four key areas of action. the first and the most critical part of the action plan requires a significant expansion of efforts to educate health providers. and citizens and the research committee about the scope of this direct. to many americans are still not aware of the abuse of prescription drugs and how dangerous they can be, particularly compared to illegal drugs, which aul -- which often get a lot of attention. we need to raise the awareness by educating parents and help care providers. -- health care providers. it is a crucial component of this effort. at the action will work in

concert with this plan. by pursuing legislion that would amend the controlled substances act to require mandatory education on the sale and the appropriate use of opioids for a prescribed rest of controlled substances. a sick of that part of the plan, we are expanding efforts to monitor busch crofton drugs. to help accomplish this we are calling on every state in this nation to help implement a prescription drug monitoring program and establish the ability to share data between them. these state-based programs are successful in 35 states around the country, and they a saving lives by traffic -- tracking prescriptions and alerting prescribes to those who may be engaged in doctor shopping. not only will it prevent abuse,

but arco also does -- but they are designed to have protections to privacy and are tailored to the needs of the states. third, the plant will make it easier for americans to dispose of unneeded christian drugs. seven out of every 10 people who abuse drugs got them from friends or relatives. the help prevent the diversion, the plan requires federal agencies to conduct more take back programs, distribute information to local organizations, and cate rules that will make it lose your for communities to host their own local take back programs to safely dispose of these painkillers. the action plan will shut down hill mills and will crack down on those who contribute to the suffering of citizens by illegally preribing and

dispensing prescription drugs. although it is a small number of doctors who abuse their prescribing privileges, there -- theyre responsible for a tremendous amount of addiction and the deaths. we have a responsibility to do everything we cano bring these criminals to justice. as a result, this action plan increases resources, training, and support for federal agencies and state medical boards to take action against these pain clinics and describes her it the prescription drug abuse epidemic is not a problem that is going to be sought over night. there are common sense steps that we can address it. today's plan does that. i want to thank our partners at hhs, and the other agencies i mentioned along with others i did not mention for thr work, contributions, and

all the efforts they put into this plan. i look forward to the progress that we are going to make in the days and weeks and months ahead on the prescription drug abuse problem in this country. koh is gone to speak. thank you all very much. >> thank you for your leadership. you have been an incredible beater for all of us in these critical public health issues, and we are delighted to join you for the release of this plan. i want to thank the leadership and the leadership of mr. leonhart and from commissioner hamburg and their colleagues. doctor wesley clark, pam

hyde not be here today, but she had the pleasure of co-chairing a committee across dhhs the trustees services around substance abuse. i want to acknowledge sarah wattenberg and the deputy assistant secretary d at banks and admiration to karen perry. the error was and she has displayed to turn personal pain into power is extraordinary, and we want to thank you for being here and sharing your story. you have heard from director kerlikowske about abuse of courage and drugs representing

an alarming crisis. i can accept that this crisis is suffocating our society. you have heard several startling facts, and let me add to those facts. we know that the accused of legal drugs now account for 1 million members see department visits a year, matching the number of visits achievable to illegal ugs. we know that nearly one-third of people who use illicit drugsor the first time began by abusing crash corruption and drugs. as the director has noted, seven out of 10 of these people get the drugs from the medicine cabinet. these facts alarm all of us. the alarm me, as a father, as a physician, and as the assistant secretary for health. as a father of three children, i

know all parents try to protect our kids and create safe, healthy environment forhem to promote health and healthy choices. we may think that kosher kitchen drugs can be used only for good, but they are beneficial only when used appropriately. as a physician who has spent over 30 years caring for patients, i am also aware decks we physicians and providers have had too little opportunity for education on parker prescribing nd dispensing of opiocd vacation. we try to respond to this challenge as individuals and individual organizations, but this plan gives us an opportunity to provide a broad partnership to tackle these issues from a public health and a couple -- and a public safety approach.

the promise of this plan is that we now have a chance that helps each person enjoy the gift of health, we have a chance to celebrate the health care system and a society that delivers prevention early instead of treatment too late. as you heard from the director, the plan as four dementia -- education, monitoring, disposal, and enfcement, and i am here to pledge of full power of the department of health and human services on or four of these dimensions. with regarding to the education," we are increasing our commitment activities with respect to education for both patients and providers. you will hear from commissioner hamburg how we are supposed to dohat. this is at an activity that involves not just the fda, but the centers for disease control and prevention, how resurfaces

services administration, and a national institute for drug abuse. with respect to monitoring, we commit to continue to attract the trent with respect to thi epidemics, improve our surveillance, and use that it could help us to target our resources better. we're delighted to advance monitoring with respect to the restriction drug monitoring programs that have been meioned. with respect to disposal and enforcement, we are pleased to work so closely with the administrator who has done such a wonderful job of leading these efforts to beat. i should mention our national make thees of health lease rights in the understanding of the disease addiction. as i close, i want to thank everyone here. this plan offers promise for our

country, the promise health and hope, and it is with that promise that we are delighted to move forward in partnership with everybody in this room, indeed, thousands across this count. now it is my pleasure to introduce my wonderful colleague, dr. peggy hamburg. >> thank you very much. for all the work that you have done. in helping to shape this initiative and to lead it, and say to all our colleagues and our partners who are here today for your important work and for the months of hard work and collaboration that you have put in to helping to make this national prescription drug abuse action plan a reality. it is very exciting to be participating to the, and i want to underscore the importance of government coming together in

this way, working with stakeholders on the outside to put together an action plan that addresses key issues and lays out steps that we must take working together to make a real d enduring difference in accessing this important problem for our nation. i am delighted to be here to show fda support for the administration costs initiative, and share our new public health efforts in this area. i speak to you as a physician and public health professional about a serious problem of missed cues, abuse, the illegal diversion, and inappropriate andibing of opiods, outlin the measurements to a candidate to promote safe use of these potentially addictive and dangerous products for it this action which will support and

act with the administration's new plan is part of the safety measure called a riskvaluation and mitigation strategy, or rems, which will now apply to all long-acting and extended release opioid products. as i think you all can appreciate, opioids are a necessary part of pain management for certain patients, but can bring serious risk when used improperly. for yea, at the eight as well as drug manufacturers have taken steps to prevent these tragedies through additional warnings, labeling, educational efforts, special projects, and collaborations, and insuring communications to professionals and patients. despite these efforts, the rights of misuse a of accidental overdose are still on the rise.

now we face an ongoing challenge and a dl responsibility. we must ensure that patients have access to medications they need while also preventing misuse and abuse from the damaging health effects and the defects that eent not just to individuals, but devastate families, communities, and our nation. that is where thatrems grant comes in. we require companies to develop risc management plans to address serious risks of opioids while balancing the benefit profiles of this class of drugs crit companies will be required to develop educational mateals for both prescribe first and patients. our focus is to ensure that health professionals have the knowledge and training to deliver effective pain management and care and that he should understand the risks of

opioid products, and we will do this through two key features. medication guides to help patients understand the benefits and risks, and new tools for essure driver training and patient education. we believe that rigorous education for individual prescribes is critical, supporting a previous, and reducing diversion and abuse. fda supports the administration call for education for open u.s., which would reqre an amendment to federal law, but we feel would make a significant difference to the problem for us. at its core, this program is about action. today i would like to announce that fda has sent letters to truck sponsors who market long acting and extended release formulations of prescription .nalgesics,

the letters lay out requirements and direct the sponsors to develop and submit ms products. through a single system of a members of this drug class. fda will approve all materials before they can be implemented, and we expect all training will be conducted by a credit it education provider. we are serious about holding sponsors accountable for results. we will conduct a periodic assessments to ensure our program is indeed effective at reducing the tragic consequences of opel will it misuse and abuse, and that we will make a difference in improving public health. i would like to note that fda receives i will input of a her right ear of leaders, health professionals, patients, and other stakeholders as we designed this program.

i would like to thank all those who contributed as well as those of you who will continue to contribute as we proceed with implementation. this is after all a problem that touches all bus in bh our professional andur personal lives. i look forward to continuing our work together as we build safer, healthier america. thank you. and administrator leonhart will be our next speaker. >> thank you, and good morning to all. i especially want to thank director kerlikowske for bringing us together, not just this morning with what we have done to the government, to the justice problems, but also for your continued leadership on the issue. the drug enforcement administration is fully

committed to finding solutions to combat the epidemic of richard and drug abuse, for reducing the demand for these drugs to enforcing our nation must struggle loss, taking pressure from drugs out of harm's way when it no longer needed. we are engaged in this fight, and we will continue to lead in the implementation of this national framework that provides guidance and clarity for the road ahead. regulating control as curve and drugs under the controlled substances act is dea's responds ability and his court that are very mission. this includes the registration, monitoring, and enforcement of laws that provide oversight for health care professionals who write and filled positions and for the scheduling, tracking, and monitoring of controlled substances. when taken properly, many of these medicines are extremely useful and provide great benefits for the patients who

they are prescbed for. when abuse, controlled prescription drugs are just as dangerous and just as addictive as street drugs, like methamphetamine or hair when. the more we can do to stop the abuse of prescription drugs, the more effective we will be in reducing deaths, the destruction, and despair that accompanies all drug abuse. dea has made it a priority to reduce doctor shopping, to aggressively shut down kill mills, to investigate those who abuse their responsibilities as medical professionals, and break their pledge to the public to do no harm. as part of this plan, the aid will continue to lead enforcement operations such as federer surry's operation -- the largest operation against roque operion in florida's history.

this is why dea is leading the way in the elimination of eliminating sources of prescription drugs. director kerlikowske mentioned so of the disturbing restriction drug abuse statistics, but is also remember -- and poor and to remember that as much as 40% of all medication " us, which is more than 1.5 billion this is a year. and that more than half of teens lead prescription drugs are easy to get from their current's medicine cabinet. the process for disposal will be streamlined to the secure and responsible trug disposal act that was signed by the president last year and will be implemented by dea. until then, dea will continue to

coordinate take back defenevent. last year, on monday, 121 tons of drugs were collected from more than 4000 locations around the country. on saturday, april 30, we will have another tape back day and invite the public, media, and other partners to visit our website, www.dea.gov, to find a collection location near you. each of us can contribute to this solution to win the fight against christian and drug abuse. it is now my privilege to introduce to the podium karen perry, seconded director of nope, soone we can all learn from. thank you. >> thank you, and thank you,

director, and all the agencies gathered here today, working, collaborating on this much- needed plan. seven years ago, my family suffered a devastating loss of our 21-year-old son through an accidental drug overdose. he was the oldest of four children. he was friendly, compassionate, and had a warm sense of humor. rich raised and left to support his family, to respect himself and others, to be sincere, to work hard, and to give back to the community. when myusband and i droveich up to college, we were filled with pride and promise. just three years later, our dreams were shattered. our precious son would be

released to us from the medical examiner. we were faced with the unthinkabl task of determining how ricky's body would be brought home for burial. we witnessed the horror and heard in our surviving children s' faces. we watched his younger brother's carry rich's cass it to his grave site, while his sister sang "everybody has an angel. rich his drug use in high school. by college, is an addiction had flourished, and to his credit, he came home to us and asked for help. following several months of treatment, which returned to school. he even made the dean's list. at some point of time during that year, back at school, he