there are two prowled longhorns in the room. i would like to introduce dr. dawson. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak today. my research efforts are focused primarily on model in the simulation of processes in the coastal ocean. the primary sources of federal funding for this work was the national science foundation, the department of defense, and they department of homeland security. we utilize the competition will resources of the national science foundation grid and the texas access computer center. we have connections with the national oceanographic institution and use data in our research. when the main applications of this research as the predictive stimulation of storm surge is due to hurricanes and tropical storms. by predictive simulation i refer

to the development of computer models like to be used in real time as hurricanes approach land and study the impact of historical hurricanes to produce actual measurements that were taken during the storm and study future scenarios for reasons i will discuss below. the computer model that we have developed is called adcirc, which stands for advanced circulation. it has been used to study hurricanes for over a decade and music -- was used extensively in katrina as part of the interagency task force study. predictive stimulation can fall into three categories, forecast, forensic studies, and teacher scenarios. in for christmas, our model uses supercomputers such as the ranger computer to generate a

high resolution forecasting that within one hour. for a storm approaching texas or louisiana, the information is transmitted which is responsible for emergency response evacuation, search and rescue and other operations. in forensic mode, it is used to measure historical hurricanes. we measure the output with historical data as was done with hurricane katrina. they validate the predictive capability of the model and help to build understanding of the physical processes which occurred during the hurricanes and qualify the vulnerability of coastal areas and can help understand the success and failure of various protection systems. hurricane ike gave us new information through hind- casting.

this was documented during the galveston hurricanes. ike was similar in track and intensity to these hurricanes. our forecast model was able to reproduce this surge and now that it has discovered, similar storms, we will be able to predict a surge in alert the public to the dangers. we run under various hypothetical procedures for future protection systems and quantify risk in low-lying areas. these protection systems include soft options and our options. and -- and hard options. our federal investment is paying off. government funding can reap tremendous benefits by enabling economic activity, promoting sustainable coastal and

garments, and during the safety and well-being of coastal populations and protecting critical infrastructure. there are several future research direction which are critical. this as a path toward resolution rising -- this has paid a path toward resolution. overall, federal funding for coastal ocean modeling research has been peaceful across different agencies and focused more on the short term rather than the long term. i would welcome any effort to promote longer-term focus and sustain funding in this area. with respect to storm surge forecasting, future forecast model should be performed at the highest appellate possible given

the resources available and the uncertainties inherent in any forecast. there is basic research to be done to understand winds and waves and currents. the ability of natural and man- made systems to withstand and medicate the surge is not well understood nor is the long-term impact of her cancer on coastal ecosystems and communication and transportation. these challenges are best met for knowledge and experience gained by theoretical research, experiments, and computations. we need to have multidisciplinary teams with laboratories, state and federal agencies, and private industry, thank you. >> thank you. we will start on the questions. it is such a profound subject. one of the things that interests me most is how little people know about it.

and actually how little people think about it. dr. hook, you made an interesting observation that 85% of businesses that are affected by a disaster close their doors and don't reopen. many things come to mind. americans tend to thank of earthquakes like japan how we tend to think of the absolute calamities. the research being done on that is incredibly important. i am thinking about 85%. that would not be an earthquake. that would be some other kind of flooding or other event. what i am trying to get at is

how can you prepare or do we have to say that you can't prepare? in iowa, they just blasted down a whole bunch of levees which they put up for the purposes of defending against flooding -- missouri. hundreds of thousands of acres are getting flooded. that is what i am talking about. we cope as best we can and we see images of people piling sandbags on sandbags. the question that you mentioned about the structure of buildings -- the japanese are really good at that because they have something like 3000 earthquakes per day and most of them are very small. we are not good at that. in my own state, we have had

some light floods i cannot even count them. houses get washed away up and down various rivers and people don't leave. that might leave temporarily but they always come back and they do rebuild. what is the psychology, what is the practicality of how we can defend against these things which even if we can predict them, what use is it on last weekend abate the effects? it occurs to me we are not very good at that. i have learned bunch of things at you. >> you sure have. i went to size because baseball is not my strength. thank you for those insights. i think you're absolutely correct. the starting point is that we have some very humble objectives. we want to live a little better.

we would like a nice quality of life. we aspire to a good life for our kids but we are trying to do this on a planet that does its business through extreme events. when you talk about earthquakes, you could go to your science class and learn about continental drift. in some parts of the world, hurricanes are provided 1/3 of the total yearly rainfall. these severe events make up what is really the planet average and yet what we do is we see these events as some how suspensions of the natural order. 100 straight days when the sun is shining or there is a little bit of rain and all of a sudden, the heavens opened. we are not very good at rare, high consequence events. the 85% of the small businesses that don't reopen after they close their doors have a variety

of causes. their business may be okay or it may be on dry ground in the business may have survived but their whole customer base disappears. you have a restaurant that specializes in asian cuisine but suddenly everybody is spending their money at home depot. it is very complicated. the customers could still be there. your business might have been in the flood plain down by the river and an. . if you think about the homes we build, you can look at mobile homes are manufactured homes and they are especially vulnerable. they are only only way of home ownership for large factions of people. 100 years in the life of a building, the job of the walls is to keep the roof up. for maybe one day, the job of the walls is to hold the roof

down. we don't put in hurricane straps or whatever we need. that is a long after by u.s. to a complicated question. >> i also ran out of time. senator hutchinson senato >> thank you, i have introduced in the last two sessions weather modification legislation not to do it but to start doing research to determine if there is a benefit to try to modify the veracity of tornadoes and hurricanes if it can be done and if it is done, does affect other areas? i think we should have the research to start determining that. my question is probably to the doctor polk or dr. dawson, do

you think this is an area we should pursue? can it be done with computations with any degree of accuracy? would you pour so pursue tryingo determine a way to mitigate the enormous damage we see? it seems it is so much different from the past. i grew up in galveston county so i have seen hurricanes but we never had the kind of katrina for these alabama tornadoes. the damage seems to be so much more and the ferocity seems to be so much more in the last 10 years than it was in the previous era.

would research help? could it be done with computers? where would you go from here? >> i would suggest that a bob ryan be brought into this conversation. >> bernie vonnegut had discovered the use of silver iodide. iodine. one of the things to address that is that i think all research meteorologist would agree that the more we can understand what is going on and the more we understand the process that initiation hurricanes and how they go through life cycles and tornadoes, the better understanding we can have of the fundamental science.

i would dare say that before we can have an intimate and detailed understanding of the life cycle of some of these very small scale but extreme events, we're not in a position to then say let's try and do something to mitigate. we have to do everything first weekend to to create an environment where people take action. it is interesting the convergence of the structure issue for earthquakes and for tornadoes. 44% of the fatalities in tornadoes occur with people live in mobile homes. there is that issue of how can we insure that the structures that people are living in and given the economic times are able and we have communities where these people can seek a secure shelter for what ever natural disaster comes whether it be an earthquake or a tornado

or a flood. the basic science has made tremendous advances but there is still many unanswered questions and i think the more we can understand the eve aleutian -- the evolution and details of what is going on, at some point in the future, we may be in a position to try to interfere a little bit and mitigate the maximum impact population centers. >> your second point had to do with the growing severity, apparently, of the events of this sort. we are ratcheting up slowly, day by day, our vulnerability to he events all over this country whether it is mudslides of mount rainier are hurricanes on the gulf coast or tornadoes in between. what is happening is nobody wakes up in the morning saying that i think i will increase the

vulnerability of my city or my county or my state to these events. we make decisions in favor of business development and needs for today and we may be compromised at once less 10 of 1%. we go on saying that was a good day. they committed burden of all the slight compromises, not in tents are people looking the wrong way, that adds up over the timescale for the return of these events to tremendous vulnerability, levees that are not built well in new orleans or infrastructure that was 30 years old or 70 years old. it is the kind of defect. effect. >> with respect to our games, people focus on the intensity of the hurricane. in the last few hurricanes that

have been the most destructive like a train and ike they were not very intense when i made landfall. we need to understand that the storm surge associated with a hurricane may have nothing to do with the intensity of the hurricane but as more to do with the size of the store and how long it has been churning and the radius of the storm and so forth. with respect to hurricanes, i want to caution people to step back a second and realize it is not just the intensity of the storm that matters but the size of the store and other factors that contribute to the actual flood. >> thank you. senator klobuchar. >> thank you. i just returned from the grand forks area where we share a border with north dakota and barely missed a visiting the mayor of oslo, minn., 345 in a

boat because their entire town is inundated. i have been amazed at the water level forecast of the difference it has made in flood preparation. st. paul, minn., decisions were made because we had so much flooding as to how high this sandbags have to be, how high the walls have to be based on these forecasts that change daily. it made a huge difference in reducing damage and loss of life. i'm a big fan of what they whether predictors' are doing. we have complete decimation in a public school or the bleachers were found a mile away. not one person died in that town. they got the warnings and the sirens went off 25 minutes ahead of time. a pool with 40 kids with only

high-school life guards, the neighbors were able to pick up all the kids and the five that were left, a high-school kids from across the tree to a basement. this is because of emergency warning systems. it made such a difference. literally, 24-7, there are cameras in the flooded areas in towns all over our state's citizens can watch the river so they don't make stupid decisions and to make their own decisions. they're watching the river at certain points on the web live. even small towns are doing best. in fargo and morehead, they watch for one hour up to the event. my first question is, from your perspective of a private partner

in disaster preparedness, where do we xl and fall short in communicating severe weather to the community? >> thank you very much. for those of us who have been in the field of meteorology for a bit, it is satisfied to be able to see the advances in the size and the application. and the real utility in life- saving events. it is not only benefit to the public but to the economy, too. as you point out, we are using modern technology, things like live web cams, to help people make the best decisions. that is the area that is probably most exciting going forward. when we talk about the storm surge, earthquakes, or tornado outbreaks like last week, we are really thinking of still a small area even though it impacts

hundreds of thousands of people, but that also are still very rare event and how can we best communicate these perhaps once- in-a-lifetime events that people have never experienced before correctly so that they still make the best decisions. ? we saw that in country now when a family had a storm cellar in alabama and invited their neighbors in. the neighbors n saido. -- said no. they did not survive. we have a job involving bringing in the social sciences and social science expertise and help people make decisions and how we can best communicate some of these rare events graphical using some new communication technologies to help people make the best decisions. ultimately, we can have one other% accurate forecasts and a

bad decision. >> dr. hook, you talk about studying these past disasters. minnesota employed flood mitigation and moved hundreds of houses. one guy decided to stay. he is the guy that got flooded. it is difficult for the cities to make these decisions but it saves so much money in the long term. can you talk about the mitigation issue? >> i also think anne talked quite a bit about this. >> she can answer, as well. >> the earthquake issue is quite related to the weather and flooding issue. >> this has been taking place systematically. we have to recognize that this is a very expensive process. at stanford university, we have

been upgrading and replacing and repairing our buildings for more than 20 years at the cost of $200 million per year. mitigation strategy -- there are no specific mitigation policies for earthquakes that are in place. there was one policy that was in place in san francisco and los angeles to identify allun reinforced structures and to upgrade and replicate those structures and we have succeeded in that effort. to upgrade all the remaining structures and the infrastructure out there -- >> i am talking about houses in the midwest that are just moved. >> i'm sorry i don't have experience with that. >> these are maybe $100,000 homes that are moved to a different part of town and it is

cheaper. it is expected to flood on those parks and instead of losing these homes, it helps these kind of things. towns on the river need to look at this more across the country. >> in both cases, it is a matter of culture and values. if we want a big house and once a showcase and we like some of the jazzy features, we go for that or maybe we are thinking of the safety of the kids and whether we are putting our kids to bed in the flood plain at night. that is not so good but we can change the culture. i was encouraged on this by my staff. we talk about stem education and

neurosciences for public schools. they are a great way into each household and developing this culture and set of values than a thank-you to all of you. >> we have had a number of examples where the young people have made the proper decision for their family and ended up saving lives. education is certainly important. >> thank you so much. thank you for holding this hearing. i am proud that you have joined with me and senator cantwell to sponsor the national hazards risk reduction act of 2011 that will reauthorize for five years important programs that deal with national earthquake hazard reduction sandstorm and wind impact reduction. i will put the rest of my statement in the record and i will summarize. i can to the house of

representatives in 1983 and since that time, california has experienced 31 significant earthquakes. out of those, nine had debts associated with them, the most deaths that people no work northern california and northridge in southern california. between the two, 120 deaths. when we talk about hazards, we are talking clearly about saving lives and we lost 342 people in the south and there are still people missing. no part of this nation is immune from the devastation of one kind of -- or another. i want to focus on earthquakes with the good doctor from stanford. earthquake early warning systems is something i hope in my lifetime to see. i know we are testing and evaluating them right now. can you give us a report as to

when we can expect to be deployed on a larger scale? >> it is being worked on right now. we have to remember that earthquake warning will help primarily to save lives. they will not help with preventing damage to infrastructure. in that respect, they are really important. i think we are getting closer every day. >> give me an idea of what we're looking at? is this months or years or decades? what do you think? >> i would say the three-five years. >> that is good news. i don't mean to put you on the spot but i will. we have two nuclear power plants in our state that are located on or adjacent to a fault lines

that are very dangerous. after looking at what happened in japan, these two plants are up for reauthorization. as a scientist without any agenda, for me, i look at it that one of the plaza's 7 million people living within 50 miles which is the area that was evacuate in japan and the other has half a million people. do you have concerns about these plants? >> i would say those plants have been evaluated and re-evaluated. what would concern me is that they are just such complicated systems. there is always some chance of something going wrong. it can be due to the earthquake but it can also be done -- due to human error. how do we prevent that? we have to be vigilant.

we have to study the system continuously. my understanding and one of my first consulting jobs as on the diablo nuclear power plant. we looked at the type of ground motions that we might expect. we have learned a lot more. based and my understanding, i have not kept up with it, but based on my understanding, those plants are being re-evaluated every two or three years from an earthquake safety point of view. the structures and containment structures have been designed appropriately and i don't expect to see any damage. >> wait a second -- you are right, they were designed to withstand a certain earthquake. but they were not designed to

protect against larger earthquakes which are now predicted ver. can i follow up with these with you? when you say they have been evaluated, they have not done the 3-d evaluation and is to be done. they are agreeing to do that when the state said they would not allow in our state a reissue of the license. can i follow up on this? -- ken we follow up on this? when we talk about this, we are talking about millions of people and that is my concern. if the building is still standing there is one thing but it is what happens with of the radiation. >> right, the building would withstand but what happens to all the systems within the building? you have a cooling system, the backup generators. one of the reasons each nuclear power plants suffer the damage

is because their backup generators were damaged. we need to look at the entire system and all of its components and how they work together. that evaluation is to be done again in a much there -- and much more detail. >> also the tsunami threat particularly for san onofre. for every dollar we spend, we say $3. -- we save $3. >> very good. >> we have to be in our seats at 3:34 a symbolic vote. if you are willing to wait, we will come back. this hearing is temporarily adjourned. no, recessed. >> next , a commencement speech by the former utah governor and ambassador to china and live at

7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "washington journal." >> on newsmakers, jack girard, president of the american petroleum institute talks about gas and oil prices and congressional and administration efforts to keep them from moving higher. he also discusses developing the american energy resources through offshore drilling, liability caps, and whether oil companies should continue to get tax breaks. newsmakers is today at 10:00 a.m. and at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend, the former utah governor and former ambassador to china, jon huntsman, delivers the commencement address at the university of south carolina. south carolina's first southern state to hold a presidential primary. watch tonight on road to the white house. >> former utah governor and u.s. ambassador to china, jon

huntsman, give a commencement address saturday at the university of south carolina at columbia. the utah republican was nominated by president obama to become ambassador to china. he resigned as governor and took the post in august,., he stepped down as ambassador last month. he is considering a run for the presidency in 2012. this is just under 20 minutes. [applause] >> the trustees, to faculties, to parents to use students -- i am flattered and honored to be here today. i assume it is because i know a little about the south.

i spent the last 28 years of my life with the south. wife, mary kay, who is sitting right over there, you would be pleased to know that i don't need an interpreter now when i meet with my in-laws. [laughter] my wife will kill me for saying this but i lost complete faith in my father-in-law to be, a good southern gentleman, when i found out that, at first, he had been given the name charles floyd cooper and chose to go by floyd. [laughter] last saturday at midnight, a lost my security clearance when i transitioned out of being the united states ambassador to china. maybe you think i can now tell you a little about the highly sensitive secrets of foreign

diplomacy. well, guess again. the real secret about diplomats is that we are trained to say something when there is nothing to say and to say nothing when there is something to said. [laughter] we are for ever locked between a cliche and an indiscretion. even though my immunity has been revoked, i thought i would err the side of indiscretion and try to find a few honest words about choices ahead and finding a successful path way in life because tomorrow you will start finding your own pathways. today, you are closing an incredibly important and expensive chapter in your life. no matter what else i say today, i hope you remember this -- congratulations, graduates, we are very, very proud of you.

[applause] life is not a straight and narrow route. it is full of turns, alleyways, clips, lots of speed bumps and potholes, some pathways are by design, others are more random. some stick to the script and others like to improvise. everyone of you sitting here today could tell a different story about how you arrived here at the commencement exercises today and for most of you, you are just beginning the first chapter of your life. what do you want your book of life to look like? how do you want it to read? how many chapters will there be? will it be fiction or willoughby nonfiction?

heroic or romantic? comedy or tragedy? it starts the minute you wake up tomorrow, it is totally up to you. wonka i have learned is that your life will never be complete until you find your most deep-rooted passion. you will never find your passion until you learn to follow your heart, the one thing that drives you and inspires you and motivates you. promise me this -- starting today, quit asking others what they think you should be. ask yourself and follow your heart. it will never let you down. my initial passion in life was to be a rock-and-roll musician. in my late teens, you would not have recognized me. my hair was rod stewart-shaggy. i would not wear anything but super skinny james. i ended up leaving high school

before high-school to play with a band called wizard. i thought it was my ticket to fame. we rolled in the ugliest green ford econoline van you could imagine with all the chairs in the back. it was pretty awesome until the inconvenient intersections, curves, and stoplights caused those chairs to move around a little bit and seat belts were not in force in those days. wizard did not make it but i will never regret following my passion. sometimes we take america for granted. sometimes we forget that we have the freedom to pursue any passion while many in this world do not. i recently visited a very humble apartment of a chinese woman.

she is a petite, minute -- magnetic and impoverished wife, mother, and lawyer who chose the path white of activism. she has committed to like to calling for justice and fairness in a system that lacks the basic human rights that we in america believe our fundamental. she has been repeatedly detained and tortured. so much so, that i found her with her legs broken, her entire body mobilized, trapped in this disheveled one-room apartment, hardly even large enough to hold a wheelchair. on that cold winter day, or water, heat, and power had all been shut off. the only thing that worked every now and again was her internet connection on this old and a down laptop. one physical broken woman with a

passion and belief in her cause up against a government with the most formidable apparatus in the world determined to keep her silent. who won? she was rounded up and again forced into an unknown destination facility. she was charged with creating a public disturbance. this woman was unable to walk without assistance and was viewed as a public threat. she gives me strength. she follows her passion. to me, she wins. never take for granted your freedom to choose your own destiny. to make the mistake of comparing your destiny to anyone else's. it is easy to look at someone else's facebook wall and think their life is somehow that much more put together.

everyone has different battles to fight and surroundings in which to cope. you alone have the ability to be your best friend or your worst enemy. embrace who you are and make yourself unique. like all of us, i am a product of my place in history. my earliest memories were vietnam, civil rights, the beatles on the ed sullivan show, and the assassinations of national leaders. it seemed to me like a time of great change but it is not really that different from today. your generation will have your own unique set of circumstances that will make you feel that your future has somewhat -- somehow been derailed. wars, economic recession, social of people, revolutions around the globe and yet, in each case, we recover. we learn lessons and become ever more resilient.

i know there are many in china who think their time has come, that america's best days are over and there are probably some in this country who have lost confidence and think that china is the next best than. thing. these people are not seeing things from my vantage point of 10,000 miles away. the real test of a nation is not how well it does when times are good but how well it does when times are tough. the way i saw it from overseas, america's passions remain as strong today as ever. hold on to that sense of optimism. hold onto that belief in your future. our free and open society beckham respectfully embraced debate coupled with a free- market system that rewards risk

and innovation is still the envy of the world. we are still has full potential as ever. just remember this -- when the oppressed are fighting autocratic regimes, they look to america for inspiration. went overc sees an entrepreneur is build companies, they look to united states practices as the gold standard. when young people around the world want to attend the best colleges and universities, where do they go? they travel here. when pyrites, filmmakers, and a creative classes abroad dream, their imaginations are fueled by america's example. the world you step into tomorrow, regardless of where on this globe you come from, should bring you excitement, not fear. anticipation, not anxiety, the

prospect for breakers and concrete human disease, lifting the poor from desperation and bringing about greater world peace, those are challenges of your efforts. our system needs new thinking. we need a fresh generation of innovators, leaders, risk takers, for openers, scientists, and activists. that is you. you are not just taking ownership and risk -- and responsibility for your own pathway but for all of our futures. one person his pathway a want to celebrate today is my daughter who is also graduating from college this month and is here with me today. liddy makes life look easy with her contagious laughter and energetic personality but few know she has faced great adversity. she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was just eight years old. she spent every day since giving

herself numerous insulin shots. there were times when she wanted to give up and call it quits, when life seemed so unfair up her courage and determination kept her going. i want to dedicate my comments to her today. she is an inspiration and a hero to me. [applause] before you officially set foot in the real world, let me leave you with a few thoughts i have collected over the years. number one, b u. find a genius that is uniquely your own, nurture it, it is your passion, don't let anyone drown out your inner voice, take that leap of faith, and trust your instincts. your uniqueness can change the

world. stand in front of the mayor and tried to look like everybody else -- don't stand in front of the mirror and try to look like everybody else. number two, remember others. the greatest exercise for the human heart is not jogging or aerobics or. weight lifting pack it is reaching down lifting someone else of. find a cause larger than yourself then speak out and take action. never let it be said that you were too timid or too weak to stand by your cause. learn what it feels like to give 100% to others. it will change your life. number three, embrace failure. some of you probably have not landed the job you wanted. i'm sure many of you have faced hardships. i have. failure only hurts if you cannot turn it into a learning experience that makes you

stronger and wiser. sometimes that momentary setback, that failure seems like the end of the world. my heart is -- my part -- my heart has broken more than once when friends of my kids in moments of despair have taken their own lives. please remember, when you encounter an obstacle in life, four of the most powerful words in the english language are " this too shall pass." #4, find somebody to love. it is life's most powerful emotion. first saw my wife across the courtyard in high school. i tried to get her attention by running for class president. i lost. [laughter] it did not work. when we unexpectedly found ourselves working together at the muri calendar pie shop, i

had a little more luck. this dishwasher caught the eye of the salad girl. i have a lot more love now, too, seven kids including two adopted daughters, one from india and the other from china. we got to visit their orphanages in many of the women who cared for them while they were there. we saw how love can transcend race, geography, religion and class. some people need friends. others need hope. you will find some that just made love. -- just need love. reach out your hand and give them your love. number five, give back as much as you are able. work to keep america great. serve her it passed. i was by a president of a different political party.

in the and, while we might not all be of one party, we are all part of one nation, a nation that needs your generational get of energy and confidence. never forget how lucky you are to be sitting here in america today even with student loans and maybe a little uncertainty about your future. we live in the greatest, most freedom-loving place on earth. embrace it. it might not succeed the first time and you might fail a few times but it will be the pathway you choose. no one else will force it on you. why my favorite musicians is ben folds. i love this lyric --"i don't get many things right the first time. in fact i am told that a lot. now i know all the wrong turns, the stumbles, and falls that brought me here and i know that

i am the luckiest." be you, remember others, embrace failure, find someone to love, giveback, never forget to rock and roll, and in closing, i want to leave you with my favorite chinese aphorism. i think it was from baker han dynasty. it does not translate directly but let me get as close as i can. [speaking chinese] in english, it translates roughly into, and you may have to help me on this one -- "go, fight, wwin -- best of luck, graduates, thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, jon huntsman. your words were neither cliche more indiscrete. there were powerful and we thank you for them. we will remember them. i can assure you, as well, that a millisecond after this commencement ceremony is over, there will be thousands of google searches with the words "huntsman" and ". "" let's think john hulsman one more time. [applause] >> the pentagon held off camera briefing for reporters with more details about the killing of

osama bin laden by u.s. forces. we are joined on the phone by one of the set -- reporters in the room. >> they disclosed there is lots of new information about al- qaeda. they said the group has been damaged by the death of osama bin laden but it remains a threat. my own take away from the briefing was that al qaeda is in its death throes summed. 20 of their leaders have been killed over the past few years and their top leader is dead. when i made the announcement according to this official, they did not name a successor. there were also some details about how the number two al qaeda lieber, ayman al-zawahiri is not popular with the group

appears not to be the person who will take over the leadership role. >> we are showing some of the home video footage that was taken from pakistan. what did they say about these videos and the way they identified osama bin laden? >> they said this was the largest intelligence take from a senior al qaeda leader that has ever been since 9/11. basically, there were five videos. the first video was a message to america from osama bin laden. they showed about 1 minutes of video from that and did not release the audio. the senior officials said we do not want to be in the position of replaying propaganda. they said it was timeworn themes of al-qaeda. it was their typical type of message. there were two short videos

showing outtakes of a prepared statement by osama bin laden and the most interesting one was actually osama bin laden himself watching a small television monitor with video footage of himself and ayman al- zawahiri in a mountain place video that has been shown many times. what was unique is that osama bin laden's beard was completely gray and in the videos earlier, his beard had apparently been dyed black. in the video they showed, it was great. when the official was asked a question by one of the reporters, they asked if osama bin laden's beard was gray and they said yes. >> they said this marks the demise of al-qaeda. what about plans for future attacks that they might have found? >> so far, the most immediate plan of attack was the one that

was announced prematurely, i think, by the u.s. government this week that there was some plot to go after trains. that is raising a few suspicions. it is not a typical mass casualty attack. they talked about tipping over a train. they are at the beginning of exploiting this new intelligence. they created an interagency task force that will be going over all of the minute details. one of the highest priorities for the task force will be to find out if there are any immediate attack plans for this is standard procedure in any kind of big intelligence breakthrough. what is the most immediate threat to the united states or other allied countries from my future al-qaeda attack? >> will that help learn how to prevent future attacks? >> i think this material will

probably provide enough information if it is clear enough that they will be able to forestall some attacks or at least there will be discussions of targeting what types of things. one of the questions i asked of this senior official was whether or not they had received any confirmation about concerns that al-qaeda was seeking to develop and use weapons of mass destruction. the officials said clearly this is one of the things they would be looking at very closely to try and determine. >> did they mention how the u.s. will deal with pakistan going forward? >> that is a very touchy subject, obviously. my sense is that the u.s. government is trying to maintain the half a loaf relationship with pakistan. they have been allowed us to do covert drawn spikes against terrorists.

-- drawn up strikes against terrorists. some say we should cut off the estimated $3 billion per year in aid to pakistan. the offical kind of dance around the question and gave a qualified answer that from the material they had obtained, there was no evidence that the pakistani government was aware of bin laden. when asked if there could be other elements in pakistan that supported osama bin laden, that was less clear. the official referred to the comments earlier this week of a senior administration official who said that clearly had appeared that osama bin laden had to have some kind of support network and pakistan to be able to operate their and not be detected. one of the big takeaways from the briefing was, and this was reported in "the washington

times," that this compound and the hide out was a command -- a central command headquarters for al-qaeda. in other words, u.s. officials kept saying that al-qaeda had somehow diversified and the central al qaeda appeared to be less important than many of these affiliate's in yemen and places like that and somalia. this briefing made it clear and the information they recently recovered makes it clear that osama bin laden was an active commander for terrorist activities from this compound. >> bill gertz with, the washington times, thank you very much. next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal." then jack jurors, president of the national petroleum institute and after that, eric holder.

>> if the amateurs do it over and over until they get it right, professionals do it covert until i can't get it wrong. >> a former navy so was a platoon leader of seal team won during vietnam and is the author of 14 books. he will discuss the life and training of today's navy seals on "q &a." this morning, national journal senior correspondent discusses the potential use of intelligence gained from computers seized at the compound were osama bin laden died. chris hennick who worked for rudy giuliani and george w. . bush