the question is, talking directly to small business owners, one piece of actionable advice, something they can do today to help protect themselves and sees the benefits of online opportunities. >> educate yourselves, education is out there with a great use of the internet and give you things like googl searche and you can find out things in five or 10 minutes back and make your day a lot easier and more comfortable to understand what you are dealing with and understand what kind of simple things you can do to protect yourself. believe it or not, the list of top 10 may take you know more than half a day to look at and organized in an effective way that can help your business wants to understand what is your business is subject to. >> excellent. >> very similarly, this is a competitive advantage and a

competitive disadvantage for the list of 10 is only good if you execute around it. i would suggest that anybody take that list of 10 or other resources they can find and do something that creates value in their business for their customers. unless they act and act quickly, it will be a disadvantage. in this environment, nobody needs that. >> the first step in cyber security for small business is all about relationships. you want to be able to impress upon your employees their responsibility and give them the ability to perform a task they need to do and work with law enforcement and other industry groups to understand what is going on in the environment and what the tip of the date is for how they protect their networks and you need to be involved with industry at large so you can invest with capital funds are operating funds as needed to

further secure your enterprise. it is all about relationships and knowing where to go and when to go there. >> what actionable piece of advice do you have? it be a deterrent to you're making maximum use of the opportunities presented by the internet and make sure use the education and resources that we are discussing today to allow you to continue to grow and expand. we have seen tremendous growth, particularly in minority-owned businesses in the last few years. many, many single employee businesses. it is a real answer to a lot of the challenges we face in the employment due to the recession. knowing how to empower yourself, to not allow concerns about cyber security slow down and limit your business is critical. >> thank you. >> they should implement the top 10 sec recommendations as

well as the chambers internet security guidelines. those are simple steps and they are inexpensive. is far less expensive to invest an internet security now than to lose trust business and partners later. >> recognize you have a risk first and second, don't ask before it is too late. insure that your information is protected completely, get your employees involved, get them trained, tester plans frequently, review and update those plans on a regular basis, and lastly, don't be afraid to change with the evolving technology. that will keep you safe in the long run. >> all good suggestions -- i would say in closing, now what is valuable to your business and no if you lost information or intellectual properties and you can no longer function, now were that bad and that gets lost in the day-to-day operations.

make sure your increasing revenue because sometimes we forget the bigger picture. until you really sit down and realize that, this can go a long way to protecting you. >> it is a lot -- as a way of getting a lot of value of getting communication is to take a leadership position in your sector. whatever kind of business you are in, had that business be a leader in implementing security. you can find pretended security at could bulk rates and you can get informational relationships that will protect you and your customer and her brand. >> secretary chertoff, please offer actionable advice but also if you could put this into context against the backdrop of a broader cyber security issues that the country faces along with the broadband opportunities that we need to seize, what are

your thoughts? >>two little actionable tips -- be mindful about free wi-fi. people have the ability to collect information off a free wi-fi. there is little in life that is actually free except for your family members. second, when you have your employees, there are capabilities that and now you -- enable you to the disabled in of late. watch out for lost devices. i think this program is vital because you have given small businesses actionable advice that they can use to enhance security and that will benefit businesses individually. in a larger sense, a huge part of our national economy now rests upon the ability to operate on-line whether you are a business in the physical world or exclusively on line. you cannot really compete

globally without the ability to use the internet. that means it has to be trusted. it means we have to safeguard our intellectual property. people who work about -- a worry about our national security are aware that enormous amounts of very valuable intellectual property is being stolen all the time by people who are acting as criminals or even seeking to help overseas competitors. the ability to protect against that and make sure the benefits of the internet are available throughout the country so that we are on the cutting edge of the global move to internet and cyber communications, i think that is the number-one priority for the national economy over the next 10-20 years. these efforts are a big part of moving the country forward to compete in what will be an exciting but also challenging global economic environment. >> that is very helpful.

thank you so much for taking time to join us today. each of you are all playing a very important role in our broadbent economy whether it is building businesses and employing people or whether it is advising them or whether it is building and marketing the security software that companies can use, the chamber, the national urban league working with small businesses, all of you, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. i want to thank the staff again. let me conclude with a couple of observations. high-speed internet, broadband for small businesses and large is really the platform for our economy for the 21st century. no less so than electricity and telephone service were in the

20th century. imagine thinking that you could run a small business without a telephone or without electricity. at some point people did. small businesses seized those opportunities. we are in the middle innings on small business is getting to the point on broadband where we have gotten a telephone service and electricity and it is important that this platform become available to everyone and it be seized two of them to our economy, growth businesses, to compete locally, nationally, and globally and to save costs and become more productive. we have to take the risks that come with new technology seriously. their respective the telephone service. the risks the kindle electricity. there are risks that come with

broadband service. what we have tried to do today with this group and the work that has gone in behind it is to help busy small businesses manage these risks. so vacancies the opportunity of this new technology for their businesses and economies. i thought the data point that stands out for me today is one that 50% of small businesses don't have security plans. 50%, each of the businesses that does not have a security plan is at a competitive disadvantage in and is that needless risk. you can't address every risk but there are many risks that small business can address. everyone on this panel agrees that it is not an on/off switch. we have to do everything we can to improve our security profile and minimize risk. we can't eliminate them but we can minimize them.

my closing actionable thought to small businesses is have a plan. we have given year the draft of a plan. with this one page cyber- security to small-business is, take a look at it and look at the resources available at fcc.gov. you will see a lot of material there. you will see similar information on the small business administration website and other places. we are trying to do the opposite of confusing people with inconsistent information. we're trying to focus small businesses on a small set of actionable things. give us your feedback on that because that is what we wanted to and we know we can improve every day. thank you to all of us for joining here and joining at home or at your business. i look forward to part two of

what i thought was a very successful forum today, so thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [general chatter]

[no audio] [no audio] >> that wraps up the discussion with fcc chairman julius genachowski and former homeland security head michael chertoff. four other topics on security,

check out our homeland security series every morning this week starting at 9:15 eastern. the topic tomorrow deals with several rights and liberties. -- civil rights and liberties. we will take you right to a discussion hosted by the american enterprise institute started at 1:30 eastern followed by a look back at senator john mccain's stance on torture from may comments he made on the floor last week. mother live discussion from the woodrow wilson center in washington about the military operations approved by the u.n. and congress moderated by john yu who wrote "the tortured memos." also, we will talk with a former cia director porter goss will be at the panel starting at 4:00 eastern. >> follow the house and senate when you want -- the

comprehensive resource on congress, congressional chronicle has daily schedules, a full list of members, each day's committee hearings, plus video of house and senate sessions and progress of bills and notes. congressional chronicle at c- span.org/congress. now available, the cspan congressional director, a complete guide to the first session of the one to 12 congress. new and returning house and senate members with contact information including twitter addresses, district maps, and committee assignments and information on the white house, the supreme court justices and governors. order online at c- span.org/shop. >> next, the $14.30 trillion debt ceiling which the u.s. reached today and we will look at the fiscal implications of how could affect the finances of americans and the ways other countries deal with their deaths.

debt. ceiling now. joining us at the table is a senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics. we are also joined by a senior fellow at the george mason university. let's begin with the immediate debt ceiling. the immediate implications of today. tons of headlines reaching the debt limit. what does this mean to you? guest: i do not think it is a big deal today, but it is emblematic of a big problem. treasury secretary governor has said there are quite a few things he could do to postpone any problems today. i think he has done quite a bit

more than he said he could do. the problem has to be dealt with at some point pyridi. guest: the short-run issue is how treasury can economize on cash so they do not have to borrow. there are lots of assets like and move around to avoid the debt ceiling. the bigger problem is the budget. how are we going to deal with our budget deficit going forward, and that is a much more difficult problem? host: 2 are second-guess, what do you suspect other countries around the world are seeing as they viewed the situation here in the u.s.?

guest: i do not know that other countries have short-term memory loss or whether they follow or inform themselves abouthat has happened in the past, but we have been down that road before. there is an understanding that there is way more than secrary has claimed he can do to get is in a bad situation. there is also the understanding that congress will also try to avoid as getting complacent. the more important question, and i will agree with your guest is the fact that the budget and what we're going to do for the long-run is what is really key. the debt ceiling is nothing but

leverage. host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen as we continue to look of the debt ceiling. they have reached the debt ceiling today. all the second was the date that was put out there as a drop dead date. what does that mean exactly? guest: i do not think it means anythingespecially considering that the secretary has already changed the date four times. d we will default for sure, and that it was may, july come august. the worst-case scenario is supposedly the fault. there is no way we would get there. host: help us understand what

the fault meadefault means. guest: that would be of interest payments became do and the treasury was not able to pay the owners cash. that would be -- secretary said that is unthinkable, and i believe it is unthinkable. he raised this as a concern, but he actually is not saying he will default. i think what he actually -- i think what would happen in the worst-case scenario is a partial government shutdown. guest: i totally agree. what needs to happen is we pay interest on the debt. we have enough tax revenue coming -- the government collects revenue on a daily, monthly, yearly basis, and we have a way more to pay the 200

million to actually never have toeally the fault on r debt. that is a key message to send to the american people. one of the main headlines today. our guests are helping us to understand the debt ceiling more. our guests are joe ganon. let's start off with marty on the republican line from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning, and think you c-span. i have been holding for about 20 minutes now. -- thank you cspan. the point was just made that as and as the dt ceiling i

the chatter about a false, i just do not get it at all. our receipts is about 2.2 trillion. 0.2 trillion or 200 billion has to go to service our debt. wire talking about a default? is it just a certain prioritization that is being picked to politicize? -- why are we tking about default? why is everyone talking about a default on the debt when we are getting 200 billion from service over bringing in two trillion. and i just cannot understand why all the chatter about defaults? guest: it is a very good question. the short answer is probably politics, and also trying to get

leverage on things going on the part of the secretary. the issue of the debt ceiling is a completely bipartisan one. each time a party is an office and is about to hit the debt ceiling, they work very fast to save the default threat. a reagan did it. everyone has done it. as long as we pay interest and the principle that is coming due, we will not default. to which the secretary says that any default, any default on the obligation would be the default, do nothe faul agree. we have lots of reserves that we can use. i suspect the american people understand there is a difference

between you telling someone you're not willing to pay them and actuall telling a bank and credit-card company or the person was lending you money for a anhat your not want to pay them. not going to pay them. would agree. the fault would be the worst thing we can do. -- defaultwould be the worst thing we can do. there are plenty of assets. $200 billion worth of gold. $200 billion worth of mortgage- backed securities. there are bunch of other things. host: new bedford, conn. abraham,hink you for waiting. -- thank you for waiting.

caller: i am independent. it looks like we're playing politics with our lives, a politics and everything. they should quit bickering and go ahead and look at what is happening. the citizens, everyone is suffering economically. my point is that they should come to an agreement, rk together, not be fighting on these things. guest: you make a very good point, and i am with you. this is what i want, but the nature of politics as winning the next election.

whether you are a republican or democrat. that means looking good at all times, even if it is not necessarily good for the country and taxpayerand citizens. unfortunately all of the bickering is a product of this. all the bad laws and bad policies we're getting is politics. host: this is one of the stories out there today. "the washington post . " " "sell the gold." what are the implications? guest: obviously a large sale in a hurry might push down the pric one solution to that would be if the government wanted to b a little time the federal reserve

might agree to buy the gold. the idea that they might sell it down when the problems stop pyridine there is only a current crisis, for under billion dollars worth of gold, which is only a quarter of the budget deficit. it does not get to three months. >> also, the u.s. is the biggest owner of gold. it is not even going to be 400 billion. more importantly, the real solution to the problem is to address this long-term. we are on the way to not having budget for two years. without a chance of it going down. this is what needs to happen. host: to california where george is calling on the republican line.

we're talking about the u.s. debt ceiling. caller: one suggestion for c- span is maybe you should give the guest a pad and pencil. so many times they avoid the question by saying you put a lot on the table. host: they both have pads and pencils. caller: i think the political and social the bite not getters.immes and 47% of the working people pay nothing. they get the full return. peop are calling in and telling everyone that they are justified in taking others hard-earned dollars. i have never heard such a thing. where is humility? it seems to me it is a tough

sell attempting to tell the successful to hand to their hard-learned dollars. my big question is could anyone please -- if 47% of the people were paying taxes, maybe we would have a chance at it. the more everyone pays, the more theemocrats spend. and if you could justify where is it written -- the excess and entitlements is amazing. the cruise lines, the franchisees are full. the casino is nuts. they have $500,000 that are not even growing a tomato. where is it written in about mcartor, the 10 commandments, the constitution that i should get my money, which should be sled for my next generation, to some other people? guest: first, i would like to

say that i agree. i think everyone should be paying some taxes. the reas why 47% of people do not pay the income tax is because cgress, and most of them are very poor people -- it is up mostly very poor people. it is because congress distribute social benefits through the tax codes. we can debate whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. guest: i do not know anyone in this country who does not pay taxes. everyone buys things that the store. everyone who buys gasoline. everyone pays taxes. and i think it is only fair that those who make more should pay more, and i do not have a problem with that.

those who do better, pay more. host: we will stay with our guest for 35 minutes or so. sean is next. caller: i have so much to say. host: are you still there? he had a lot to say, and he dropped off. in we will get to dawn on the republican line from pennsylvania. no donna. let's try topeka, kansas. kevin is calling from topeka. caller: good morning. i would like to know how come i have never heard about this during the bush administration?

eight years of destruction and not one word about the debt ceiling, and i just cannot undersnd that. can you give me an answer on that? why all the sun with the obama administration is in office we have had problems with assailing being raised? -- with the deficit ceiling being raised? guest: it did come up actually. guest: each time there is an issue with raising the debt ceiling the party he was in the majority is in favor of raising it, and the party in the minority is against raising it. in 2002 president obama voted against raising the debt ceiling. it has always been a very partis issue. over and over again. in the debt ceiling has been raised at 10 times in the last 10 years. there has been a lot of talking about the debteiling. host: there is a story, one of

the many in "the new york times" automatic cuts to curb deficits. --ey write tha wanted to get your take on this idea of triggering action when some of the goals are not reached, but because the article points out of the folks back here cannot get it done, something automatic should be put in place. guest: i would agree with that. i think it should include both spending cuts and tax increases, because there is no way we will solve this problem entirely on

spending cuts, given the tremendous increase in aging of the population that is raising spending requirements for retirement and health care. at some point we wil have to have more tax revenue. guest: if you want to simplify the base and get rid of the tax reductions, i would like to see serious reduction in rates. basically a fundamental tax reform. this was a revenue on the table, but spending is really what put us in this situation. whether it is wars or education. much of the spending on things that we like, but we have done in ways that has been very unreasonable. obviously auto pilot-type programs are a big problem. they have been increasing the eligibility. promises have been increased without ever really considering

who would go to pay for this. it is time we have this actual honest debate. we want all people to get money, but we have to realize whond how is going to pay for it. it wille the young regeneration, and that has real consequences. host: more headlines. usually natural allies, the tea party and business party are at odds over how to raise the national debt ceiling. paul krugman writes about what he sees as americans being held

hostage. what will happen at the ceiling is not raise? any reaction? guest: i have spent all lot of time, i have resrched the past two years looking at the literature of the implication of debt on the economy, the implication of the reaction of investors to spending and to big

deficits, and i think there is a pretty big consensus that there is a level where it debt and deficits hurts the economy. more importantly, there is a very good paper that does com out called "a decade of debt." what they talk about is the impact on interest rates of having sustained level of debt. they say it is increased debts that speaks out investors. guest: i would say totally agree with she said about thadebt. i do think there ia question as to whether our taxes too high or spending too high?

it is not clear to me that the position that you cannot raise taxes at all doe not make sense to me. i would rather do it by broadening the tax rates. after about the point i wanted to make. -- i forgot the point i wanted to make. caller: good morning. and i have a quick statement or story. my son moved to georgia when he was 20. he made $7 an hour and shared an apartment. they started lower-paying jobs. now they are making a comfortable livinghey paid $7,000 in taxes last year.

the first thing they did with the spending packages to give welfare recipients more per month for food stamps. why is it fair to people in that incomeax range of have to pay for everyone else? number two, 64. since the time i have been working, so security and medicare i have put to wonder thousand dollars in between me and the company. give me my $200,000 tax-free. this whole thing is getting ridiculous. they keep giving away money to the people who do not work and are not productive. guest: i am afraid i have to say i do not agree with the calller. the system is set up to benefit everne. some people are able to do quite well. we have government that enforces laws, rules, contracts.

it seems to me only fair that those who make more should pay more. i think that is of fundamental principle i should believe in. guest: it is the case that income taxes extremely progressive. people who make more pay more. i will also agree that there is some profound dysfunction in the system where very often you end up taking from people to give them back a share of the mone this is why in my ideal world that would be a priority. host: stephen, independent from indianapolis. welcome to the program. basically, my comment is the relation of federal deficit spendings related to the the value of the u.s. dollar. in if the dollar crashes, we will live 25% of the standard of

living. i do not believe we need to raise the debt ceiling because we will risk crashing the dollar. that is why gold has gone super high. instead of that money reinvested back into the economy, it has been reinvested into gold. australians own most of the world gold. they mined most of the world's gold. host explain the impact of the dollar on that. guest: anything tha poses a risk to the u.s. economy, some people worry about that. if it did happen, it would be catastrophic. one thing i would say is -- and this is an area i have done most of my research in it -- up to a certain point, and surprisingly the decline of the dollar would be a good thing for the u.s.

economy now is not taken too far. in a total crash would be another thing, but we have never seen that in a country that had sound policies. obviously the debt problem has to be resolved. guest: i totally agree with you, but i think there will be dramatic consequences on the dollar also if we do not reform spending. there is a moment where investors will understand and perceive us as a very high risk. that is a bad thing. cannot continue on the path. host: to the spending issue, the lead headline -- this has drawn a little bit of attention this morning. debt talks target federal pensions. is that a good way to go? guest: i read that article, and

e thing that shocked me the most is they presented it as employees increasing contribution being a pay cut. it is not a pay cut when you are contributing to your benefits in the future. the pension problem, when you look at the financial statement of the united states, but retention a car for 5.3 trillion dollars of debt. -- but the federal pension accounts for 5.3 trillion dollars of debt. we hashould have started 30 years ago. guest: i do not a strong view

and what we should cut. i do not work for the government anymore. host: beverly. good morning. caller: you guys always have the greatest show. you are more educational than any other show out there. i have a little thing with a fellow there. you were talking to a couple of the other fellows who call been about how you should tax the people that make for money. ere is a large percentage of the taxpayers in this country that do not pay taxes, okay? i do not even consider myself middle-class even more. cut to 30,rs were and i am ill. you are talking about cutting something that i paid into all my life. give me a cash out and that will take the money and run.

number two, you will never have this in the country, because one party has everybody believing that the other party is going to make everyone died because they're not going to get health care, they're not going to take care of the children or education. why don't we do this right and have a flat tax? nobody gets a return. i do not know what number do could use, but the money goes straight into the federal government's bank, and nobody gets a return. we could eliminate the irs. that would help the debt, too. guest: i would support eliminating the income tax if they could collect everything through failed taxes and other taxes. let me say on your question about medicare, this is a bit out there, but i totally would

be opposed to cutting medicare, and at lea one of the proposals out there would eliminate medicare in proposed -- replace it with a voucher where people could shop with health-care. i think that would be tough for many people to pay up to 30% of their health-care insurance cost. i think a better option would be to find a savings. we waste by% of gdp -- 5% of gdp. my doctor spends a third of his day arguing with insurance companies. that is just pure waste. guest: i am in favor of consumption-based tax in general. i think that it is an easy talking point to talk about eliminating waste in order to address the expanding spending.

we have this gigantic increase in spending, and we will have to deal with it, and of course the politicians and people who do not want to feel any pain, but some people will have to feel the pain, and obviously it should not be the people who the program was intended to serve, which are people who need the money, poor people, and needy people. it is unrealistic to think the system can continue and it only will address it by getting rid of waste. guest: i would dagree with the other guest. other countries with equal or better outcomes with health care in this state. we know within the u.s. some companies treat people better with less money than other

companies. we need to figure out what the other good companies are doing and make the other companies follow. it is possible. host: next calller from alabama. hello. caller:i have been listening to you all morning. when you talk about cutting the va benefits. i am a disabled veteran from vietnam. they talk about cutting our pay, cutting medicare, and all these people that got wounded or messed up in vietnam, that is all the have to live off of is there check they get from the government. they start talking about the benefits, medicare, i do not know what will happen in this world. we will not have enough money to live if they start cutting our pensions. guest: no one is talking about

cutting benefits for people who really need it. no one is talking about cutting these benefits. more importantly, one of the cases i am trying to make is because we are overextended, and actually high-income people are getting a lot of subsidies from the government, whether it is in the fo of free museums, and a lot of that is seen as corporate welfare. there is a lot of focus on helping the people who truly need it. host: next call is from anthony. caller: i agree we can not default on our national debt. that would be ridiculous. exceptne has term limits an congress. why not have a 12-year term limit? that would solve some of it.

i have never heard that on the tv yet, except for today. host: another idea, a term with its. that's go back to learning more about the death. how do other countries do with the debt? -- let's go back to learning more about the debt. guest: a study by the g.a.o. found only one country does it the way we do it, which is denmark. most countries when you pass the budget includes authorization to borrow as much as needed to fund the budget, which makes a lot of sense to me. it seems the whole debt ceiling thing we're facing now should be rolled into the 2012 budget, and in both of those should be solved together. guest: is that of the argument on vader is king right now --

is that the argument john boehner is making right now? guest: i agree, but i have not heard him say that. i want to see the debt ceiling went to how much the government can spend. right now you tend to have these things totally disconnected. government makes a lot of promises but some good about things they will give to people across the board without ever having an idea on how this will spend. we have reached a situation where the real problem is we are scheled to spend 3.7 trillion dollars and only cut 2.2 trillion. you could blame it on the recession. it is a real problem. the american people and those it is not how it works of their household. when my income goes down, i cut things, even things i like.

host: 15 minutes left with our guests. macomb, illinois. what would you like to say or learn about the debt ceiling? caller: i just have a comment about i agree with that guy. if he is making $80,000 per year, you should pay more taxes. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: helen on the republican line. good morning. caller: i would like for your guests to comment on two things. how much would we save in interest as we lowered the debt ceiling? that is an easy way of paying 43g it we're cents out of every dollar, if we lowered it down we're getting something. host: can you help us with that?

guest: interest on the debt is not 43 cents. guest: 43 cents on every dollar is far road. guest: it is not enough to solve the problem. in guestguest: right now with af gdp is interest on the debt. by the time my children retire it will be 40% of the wealth created by americans, it will go to pay the debt. the econy will implosion, but you are right, if we reduce borrowing, interest on the debt will go down. host: did you have a second question? ller: have either of them ever heard the results of president obama's press conference that line by line they were going to go through and eliminate old programs that we waste money on? i have heard nothing ofand i bes

ago, so there should be over 2000-plus page of results from that. back to the butts -- budget process. guest: when you are actually in your job, the incentive is much less. think about it this way. since the budget laws were changed in 1974, right, it is the first time ever that congress has not passed a budget. democrats did not even have an excuse. the republicans are no better, bu because the white house -- they had the white house and congress and they did not pass a budget. we are on to the same thing this year. host: joe gagnon? guest: i can disagree with

veronique. both parties promised more than they can deliver, and it is unfortunate. host: what is the expect on -- what is the effect on the stock market now? guest: was markets to not worry so much about what they consider political theater. obviously if it goes further, we mentioned there are things that geithner can do, but some of the things might scare the stock maet. selling gold might do that. if it strings out too far, it might start to scare the market. host: let's go to fort bragg, north carolina. felix, good morning. caller: how are you all on this beautiful morning? host: great. how are you? caller: we seem to be having an argue -- an argument and a

debate over the region between the tax-and-spend democrats versus the borrow and spend republicans. it is my understanding the debt was about $1.4 trillion in 2009. the thing about this tax-and- spend type thing. it is my understanding that from 2001 to 2008, tax codes cost about one. trillion, about $1.7 billion given out in taxes, $1.7 billion in debt. we seem to be wanting to cut all these things here for poor people. what are we going to have, a green type situation where all the poor people just line up and die? i thought the republicans were against all these death panels. have a great day. guest: the caller is right, i

think thereay be a confusion about debt and deficit. basically, about one-third of -- since the year 2000, 2001, the first year of the bush presidency, you can roughly say that a third of the problem, the rising debt, is to tax cuts, about one-third is e to more spending, things like the wars in afghanistan and iraq, and medicare and a third is due to the recession we just had, which has walloped it. it is about a third, a third, a third between tax cuts, increases, and a recession. guest: you can say that, but the money is fungible. if youut taxes, whether it be on anye, and then you increase spending, our social programs,

on education, foreign subsidies under the bush years, or roads, everything 60% in real terms, 60% increased. of course you're going to have a deficit. you cannot reduce your revenue and dramatically increase spending. host: go ahead and finish up. guest: we have to remember the country is getting older, and people are aging. that means more government spending on social security and medicare baked into the cake year after year. we have to deal with that problem, of course, but there is the pressure to spend more. host: charlie as online. good morning. caller: good morning. we talk about the debt ceiling and everything and the cost of

everything. number what, why don't we take all city, state, and federal employs, like mr. gagnon over there, drawing a check from the government. guest: former. caller: it does not matter, i am sure he gets a check. let them draw their benefits at the me age as people on social security, including senators and ngressmen. i am sure they would all agree with it. this is the real thing, the benefits and these retirements -- the retirement that these people are getting are outrageous. guest: you're right. i actually think, public employees, whether local, state, or federal government, should get different treatment. but understand the reason why this is happening is, again, politicians like to make promises without having to pay for them. this is one of the ones we are faced with. there is a gigantic pension

crisis, and it is going to hurt. host: phenix city -- we just did phoenix city. jane is online now. caller: my name is jane, i am here from cincinnati. i have been listening about social security, medicare, medicaid -- i do not know exactly where you're coming from on that. but medicare, we paid for our medicare, as seniors do. and we cannot pay any more than we are paying. if we did, they would have our house, ok? we worked all our life -- my husband did, i never worked. i am a stay-at-home mother, wife, and i am proud of it. i got to see every tooth come up heads.babies' i did not have to trust strangers to watch my baby.

me and my husband decided for me not to work. and for me, i think a lot of people should do that. they would know where their kids are. host: jayne from cincinnati. howard from marietta, california? caller: good morning. this young lady is my hero she hit it right on the head, and the gentlemen there, the democrat -- in fact, we just had a conversation where we all agree that we need to take care of t needy. the problem is, the gentleman does not agree as to who is needy and to how much is needy. and let me address the latest from ohio who said she paid into social secury all her life and the medicare people have paid in

all their life -- i agree. i did the same thing. i worked 40 years, have been retired a number of years. here is the problem with social security. people, listen to me. social security was set up as a supplement, not an entire rerement. and the problem is that we have now two people paying in where we were paying, a it was 14 people. and you cannot continue with a ponzi scheme. the problem is, what is the answer? and i wish i had an answer, but i do know -- and there is a long conversation about the debt ceiling, whether it should be raised or not. host: the color reference to you

first. go ahead. guest: think you put your finger exactly othe problem, is that america is getting to be an older country, or people retiring relative to the numbers to support them. this is a big problem. it is bigger for health care than for social security. there is no one right answer, and i am not here to make a different proposal, but i think clearly we need to get that on a better path going forward somehow. i do not know what the right answer is. guest: something that most people do not understand is that medicare and medicaid and social security, these are not entitlements. congress can change a lot any time, and this is something people do not understand if we do not change the system, which is becoming -- the system will be running a cash flow deficit for social security.

in theory, to cassie i know you -- to cash in the iou's -- by that time, if we do not reform the system, all benefits across the board will be cut by roughly 22%. we will not be taking care. all the people that to the depend on it, low-income people, will see their benefs cut it needs to be reformed. not everyone in america, just by the only fact of being 65 and america, should be getting something from the federal government. we should focus our resources on the people who can do without. host: we're down to our last couple of minutes. lowry from california is on the line for democrats. hi there. caller: good morning. i am 50 years old on social security and s.s.i., and i'm

terrified because if they do not raise the debt it is a matter of life and death. i cannot be homeless and they have already cut $100 out of my s.s.i. and i am at $800 now. if they cut all my money, i am dead because i cannot live with what i am living on. host: there is a lot of fear in that person's voice. guest: she really should not worry about this. one of the reasons is treasury geithner has the power to decide. even if they are not to raise the debt ceiling and be done with selling aets and everything, it has the power to prioritize first pay the interest on the debt and the principle that has come due. second, pay for social security, medicare, medicaid, and these checks will be going out.

they should not be -- i actually think this country will come through for the people who really need it first. host: joe gagnon, to the people part of this -- savings -- the worry and that person pa's voice. what do you say to the average person? guest: i agree with veronique, that this person should not be worried personally. host: marietta, florida. joe, good morning. republican line. caller: the public, the constituency always has comments and questions, but we never really hear from the people who influence the senate and the congress, the lobbyists. i know the shows on tv and radio are trying to get somewhere, but it does not seem that the public has ever heard.

host: richmond, texas, richard on the independent line. caller: good morning. a question about the 47% that do not pay income taxes. i am not of that group. i pay my taxes -- or i did. and all the other taxes that he talked about. the people, we all receive benefits from the government, everybody. fbi, homeland security, the infrastructure. everybody receives those benefits. why should 47 percent of the people not contribe to p for those benefits they receive? host: let's hear from our guests. guest: 47% to not pay any income tax. if you take out the payroll tax, it goes down to 14%. the reason why we have the

system the way it is it is because congress has decided that it can address and pay out social benefits through the tax code. that is the reason why. we could dot a different way and have everyone pegged and send out checks. we have everyone pay and send out checks for this is not the way it is done. host: richmond, virginia, deborah, republican line. good morning. caller: you are all pulling out everything that is reasonable and everything that is so screwed up is because of the people. but you all have to look at accounting. it is either an accounting or greed. to give you an example, you all keep saying that we do not pay enough, people on social security. $96 is taken -- some people take more than that -- for medicare every month.

every month. ok? and a cut off time, you cannot even gto your doctor'sawyer lobby before -- or your lobby when you -- before you reach the limit. thdoctors get paid when they are supposed to get paid. so where is the money? you need to look how much you all are paying for prescription drugs. host: final thoughts on the debt ceiling? guest: we have a real problem we need to address, with the explosion of spending on social security and medicare, medicaid going forward, otherwise we will have this problem repeated. i want to empower americans and let them keep their money and know that not everything has to go through the government. guest: it is a real problem and congress needs to deal with it. i would like to see this folded into the budget pprocess.

we do not need to raise our debt selling this year or next year, but we do need to repeat our debt ceiling this year or next year, but we do need to do some things tt raise the debt ceilin >> we will let you know about some of our upcoming programs in just a moment -- first, some of the news this hour -- donald trump decided he will not pursue the republican nomination. dominique's roscommon has been denied bail in new york. he has been charged with rape. coming up, more about the use of a detainee tactics and the mission to kill osama bin laden, hosted by the american enterprise institute here in washington d.c.. they will discuss whether enhanced techniques lead to the

killing of osama bin laden. john yoo will moderate the panel which includes michael mukasey. before that, we want to show you a speech john mccain made last week condemning the use of torture. he spent five and a half years in captivity as a prisoner of war in north vietnam and was subjected to torture in that time. these remarks are just over 20 minutes. osama bin laden to justice has appropriately heightened the nation's appreciation for the diligence, patriotism and courage of our armed forces and our intelligence community. they are a great credit, an inspiration to the country that has asked so much of them, and like all americans, i'm in their their success has reignited debate over whether the so-

called enhanced in delegation techniques of enemy prisoners, including water boarding, were instrumental in locating bin laden and whether they are necessary and justifiable means for securing valuable information that might help prevent future terrorist attacks against us and our allies and lead to the capture or killing of those who would perpetrate them. are they and should they be prohibited by our conscience and laws as torture and in human, degrading treatment. i believe some of these practices, especially water boarding, which is a mock execution and thus indisputably torture, are and should be prohibited in and nation that is exceptional and in its defense and advocacy of human rights. i believe the violation of the detainee treatment act of 2005,

the military commissions act of 2006 and article 3 of the geneva conventions, all of which forbid cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment of all captured combatants, whether they wear the uniform of a country or are set essentially -- or are essentially stateless. i opposed water boarding and similar enhance interrogation techniques before osama bin laden was brought to justice and i oppose them now. i do not believe they are necessary to our success in the war against terror as the advocates of these techniques claim they are. even more importantly, i believe if america uses torture, it could someday result in the torture of american combatants. i know that al qaeda and other terrorist organizations do not share our scruples about the treatment of enemy combatants and have and will continue to treat american soldiers to the

cruelest treatment and magical. but we must bear in mind the likelihood that some day we will be involved in a more conventional war against the state and not a terrorist movement or insurgency. we should be careful we do not set a standard that another country could use to justify their treatment of prisoners. it is difficult to overstate the damage of fuel and -- of cruel and dehumanizing treatment does to our historical reputation. to our standing as an exceptional nation to countries from the world trade is too great to justify the use of these techniques. america has made its progress in the world not only by avidly pursuing our geopolitical interests, but persuading and

inspiring other nations to embrace the political values that distinguish us. as i have said many times before and still maintain, this is not about the terrorists, it is about us. i understand the reasons that govern the decision to approve these interrogation methods and i know those to approve them and those who employed them in the interrogation of terrorists were admirably dedicated to protecting the american people from harm. i know they were determined to keep faith with the victims of terrorism and prove to our enemies that the united states would pursue justice tirelessly, relentlessly, and successfully no matter how long it took. i know their responsibilities were grave and urgent and the strain of their duty was considerable. i admire their dedication and love of country, but i dispute it was right to use these

methods, which i do not believe were in the best interest of justice or our security or the ideas that define us. which we have sacrificed much to defend. i do not believe anybody should be prosecuted for having used these techniques in the past and i agree the administration should state definitively that no one will be. as one of the authors of the military commissions act, which i believe prohibits water boarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques, we wrote into the language of the law that no one who use them before the enactment of the law should be prosecuted, and i do not think it is helpful or wise to revisit that policy. many advocates of these techniques have asserted their use on terrorists in our custody, particularly, lead shake muhammed, revealed the

trail to bin laden, which had gone cold in recent years but would now lead to his discretion. the former attorney-general of the united states, michael mukasey, recently claimed that the interrogation that led to killing of osama bin laden was because of the harsh techniques do to water boarding. he eventually released the nickname of a trusted courier to bin laden. that is false. with so much misinformation peeing fed into such an essential public debate as this one, i ask the director of central intelligence, leon panetta, for the facts and i receive the following information. the trail to bin laden did not begin with the disclosure from the man who was water board 183

*. we did not first learned the real name of his career or his alias. the first mention of of the name as well as a description of him as an important member of al qaeda came from a detainee in another country. the united states did not conduct this detainees interrogations, nor did we render him to that country for the purpose of that. if we did not learn his name from a result of water boarding or any enhanced technique used in u.s. or any other country. none of the detainees who were water boarded gave his name, whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al qaeda. in fact, not only did the use of

enhanced interrogation techniques often khalid sheikh mohammed not provide us with key courier,bin laden's actually produced false and misleading information. khalid sheikh mohammed specifically told his interrogators that he had moved , cotton married and seized his role as an al qaeda facilitator, which was not true, as we now know. all we learned about him through the use of water boarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques was the confirmation of the already known fact that the courier existed and used an alias. i sought further information from the staff of the senate intelligence committee and they confirmed for me that in fact, the best intelligence gained

from a cia detainee, information describing his real role in al qaeda and his true relationship to the osama bin laden was obtained through standard, non-coercive means, not through any enhanced interrogation technique. in short, it was not torture or cruel, and human treatment of detainees that got us the major leagues that ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find a osama bin laden. i hope former attorney general michael mukasey will correct his misstatement. it is important he do so because we are engaged in this important debate with much at stake for america's security and reputation. each side should make its own case, what do so without making up its own facts. for my part, i would oppose any legislation if any should be proposed intended to authorize

the administration to return to the use of water boarding or other methods of interrogation. i sincerely believe they are tortured, and human, degrading and unworthy and injuries to our country. this debate is ongoing, but i do not believe it will lead to a change in current policy prohibiting these methods. so, perhaps this is a debate for the history books. but it is unfortunate because americans in a future age as well as their leaders might face these same questions. we should do our best to provide a record of decisions that is notable not just for its passion but it's the liberty of ms. and opinions informed by facts and scrupulous care by both sides for the security of the american people and the success of the ideals we cherish.

we have a duty to leave future american generations with a history that offer the not confusion, but instruction as they face their crises and challenges and try to lead america safely and are we through them. both sides cannot be right, of course, but both sides can be honest, diligent and sincere. let me briefly elaborate my reasons for opposing the return queue these interrogation policies. obviously, to defeat our enemies, we need intelligence. but intelligence that is reliable. we should not torture or treated inhumanely terrorists we captured trade i believe the abuse of prisoners harms, helps our war effort. in my personal experience, the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence, but often produces that intelligence. because under torture, a person will say anything he thinks his

captors want to hear, whether it is true or false, if he believes it will relieve the suffering. often, information provided to stop the torture is a deliberately recent -- deliberately misleading. what the advocates of cruel and harsh interrogation techniques can never prove is that we could not have gathered the same intelligence through other, more humane means as a review of the fax provides solid reason to be confident that we can. the cost of assuming otherwise can be a hugely detrimental. it has been reported in the staff intelligence committee confirms for me that a man who had been captured by the united states and rendered to egypt, where we believe he was tortured, provided false and misleading information about saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction program. that false information was ultimately included in secretary

of state: paul's statement to the un security council and i assume helped influence the bush administration's decision to invade iraq. furthermore, it is extremely unfair to the men and women of our intelligence community who labor for a decade to locate a osama bin laden to claim falsely that the -- that they only succeeded because we used torture to extract actionable intelligence from a few detainee's several years ago. i have not found evidence to suggest torture or, since some much of our disagreement is definitional, message which i believe arbed her bid by international law and u.s. treaty -- i believe are prohibited by international law and u.s. tree obligations played

an important part in bin laden. i think his death -- important part in finding and killing bin laden. i believe we can do this without the result of these methods. it is also the case that the mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops who might someday be held captive. while some amis in al qaeda will never be bound by the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those americans captured by more conventional enemies, not in this war, but in the next. until about 1970, north vietnam ignored its obligations not to mistreat the americans held prisoner, claiming we were engaged in an unlawful war against them and not entitled to the protections of the geneva conventions. when their abuses became widely known and excited unfavorable international attention, a

decrease their mistreatment of our prisoners of war. some have argued that if it is right to kill bin laden, it should be right to torture him. had he been captured rather than killed. i disagree. first, the americans to killed bin laden were on a military mission against the leader of a terrorist organization with which we are at war. it was not a law enforcement operation, but primarily an intelligence operation. they could not be certain that bin laden, even though u.s. and -- even though he was unarmed, did not know whether he possessed a suicide bus and they were instructed to take no unnecessary chances during a message. -- during their medicine. -- during their mission. ups had recaptured kim, he would have received all but the sanctions as captured or criminals in previous actions

had. but war criminals captured, tried and executed during world war two were not tortured in advance of their execution either in retaliation for their crimes or to elicit information that might have helped locate, apprehend and convict other war criminals. this was not done because civilized nations have long made a distinction between killing and injuring in the heat of combat on the one hand and deliberate infliction of physical torture on an incapacitated fighter on the other. this distinction is recognized not only in longstanding american values and practices, but also in the geneva conventions. they provide legal protections for our own fighting men and women. all of these arguments have the force of rights, but ultimately, even they are beside the most important point. there are many arguments to be

made against torture on practical grounds. as i have said, i believe the torture produces and reliable information, hinders our fight against global terrorism, and harms our national interest and reputation. ultimately, this debate is about far more than technical or practical issues. it is about far more than whether torture works or does not work. it is about for more than utilitarian matters. ultimately, this is about morality. what is at stake here is the very idea of america. the america whose values have inspired the world and in stilled and hearts of its citizens the certainty that no matter how hard we fight, no matter how dangerous our adversary, in the course of vanquishing our enemies, we do not compromise our deepest values.

we are america. we hold ourselves to a higher standard. he that is what is really at stake. osama bin laden is dead, america remains at more. to prevail in this war, we need more than victories on the battlefield. this is a war of ideals, struggle to advance freedom and the face of terror in places where oppressive rule has bred the malevolence and feeds and ideology of violent extremism. prisoner abuses exact a terrible toll of us in this war of ideas. they inevitably become public and when they do, they threaten our moral standard and expose us to false and widely disseminated charges that democracies are no more inherently idealistic and moral and other regimes. i understand that the islamic extremists who resort to terror

would destroy is utterly if they could obtain the weapons to do so. but to defeat them utterly, we must prevail and our defense of the universal values that ultimately have the greatest power to eradicate this evil ideology. though it took a decade to find him, there is one consolation for bin laden's tenure evasion of justice. he lived long enough to see what some are calling the arab spring, the complete repudiation of bin laden's world view and a cruel disregard for innocent life and human dignity he used to advance it. in egypt and tunisia, arabs successfully reclaim their rights from autocracies to determine their own destiny without resort to violence of the deliberate destruction of innocent life. now, arabs are trying valiantly by means as just as our cause to do the same in syria and

elsewhere. as the united states discusses and debates what role which played to encourage the arabs spring, can we not all agree the first and most obvious thing we can do is to stand as an example of just government and equal justice under the law. a champion of the idea that an individual's human-rights are superior to the will of the majority or the wishes of the government. individuals might forfeit their life and liberty as part -- as punishment for breaking laws, but even then, as recognized in our constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others. i do not mourn the loss of any terrorists life. nor do i care if in the course

of serving their malevolent cause they suffered great harm. they have earned their terrible punishment in this life and the next. what i do mourn is what we lose when, by official policy or official neglect, we allow, and views or encourage those who fight this war for us to forget that best sense of ourselves which is our greatest strength, that when we fight to defend our security, we also fight for an idea, a tribe, landmarking, but twisted interpretation of an ancient religion, but an idea that all men are endowed by their creator with an inalienable right. it is indispensable to our success in this or that those we asked to fight it know in the discharge of their dangerous

responsibilities to our country a are never expected to forget they are, the deli and defenders of a sacred idea of how nations should be governed and conduct their relations with others. even our enemies. and those of us who have given them this onerous duty are obliged by our history and the money terrible sacrifices that have been made in our defense to make clear to them that they need not risk our country's honor to prevail. that always through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation, cruelty and loss, that there are always, always americans and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us. mr. president, i yield the floor. >> we join the introductions now

under way about the use of detainee interrogation tactics and the mission to kill osama bin laden hosted by the american enterprise institute here in washington d.c.. >> my business has to do with facts and law. my eye -- the fact is, khalid sheikh mohammed, who was subjected to intense interrogation techniques, including water boarding, he was one of three people who was the water board, did disclose the nickname, which was the name of the courier actually used in the course of questioning that took place after enhanced interrogation techniques. nobody is question while they are undergoing these techniques. the questioning goes on later on after they are compliant. was there a memo in the file before hand containing that name? absolutely.

was completely disregarded because it came from somebody who was regarded dance -- regarded as insignificant. it was not regarded as significant until it came out of his mouth. when it came out and he said that person was no longer affiliated or had nothing to do with al qaeda, and that was married up with later facts that were learned, it became obvious he was covering for him and that was a very significant fact. it was one of a mosaic of facts. there are a lot of stones in nausea and that was one of them. so much to facts, as for law, the techniques to which u.s. adapted, including water boarding, were not in violation of the law as it existed at the time, including the torture statute. that was disclosed in the memos of the office of legal counsel that i was tasked with reviewing at my confirmation hearings, but then found that by the time i conducted my review, the program

had changed and that technique and the number of others had been eliminated, so there was no need to express the view. plus the fact other statutes had been passed since 2005 and 2006, the detainee treatment act, the military commissions act, that change the landscape to a certain extent or may have changed as to what was permissible and what was not. to me, the current issue is not whether or not there was a tile in the mosaic and stemmed from that, but rather what do we have in place now to explain the trove of material we got from bin laden's residence. according to all reports, there's a huge amount of intelligence obtained from this raid. which, by the way was a commendable way to a, not a drone, which would have obliterated all that.

there is a huge amount of intelligence gained and that's bound to lead to people who could in turn disclose valuable information. what programs do we have in place to interrogate those people? the short is we don't have anything, we have the army field manual which al qaeda uses and has used for years. we don't have that and we should. this is an issue than has written on -- an issue that ben has written on. we do not have a detention policy either. we have an improvisational regime, if you want to call it that of whether we detain people, turned over to other people or use predators drones. we need a detention policy as well. >> let me turn to elisa massimino, the head of human rights first to comment on the

attorney general's comments. >> i want to start by saying i appreciate very much the opportunity to be on this panel. it is a great testament to the american enterprise institute's. i say the same thing to my folks all the time that we need to not just be talking amongst ourselves with people who share the same views, but we need to be talking with each other. i wanted to say one word about where i come from in this debate. i grew up in a military family. my father was a naval academy graduate and served in the nuclear navy during the cold war. i grew up keenly aware of the dangers and sacrifices we ask our men and women in uniform and their families to make. also with a strong sense of what our country stands for.

the values for which our men and women in uniform fight. my views as an adult on this issue are very much shaped by a group of retired generals and admirals who believe very strongly that torture and cruel treatment of prisoners is wrong. that group is led by to four- star marine corps generals. one is a former commandant of the marine corps and the other a former sens, cmdr. they agree with john mccain and david petraeus, which is who owns the bin laden success, which brings us here today, that torture not only violates our fundamental values and principles as a nation, but it is counter productive particularly in the fight against al qaeda in that puts our men and women in uniform at greater risk. the way the panel was framed is what is the role of torture. the debate in the op-ed pages

has been did torture lead to bin laden? could we have achieved this great victory without the use of water boarding and other torture? with great respect for general michael mukasey, the facts as he described him were challenged by senator mccain in his piece in his speech on the floor. he has asked the general to clarify them. senator mccain was informed by his discussions and it turns out a letter from leon panetta at the cia about what we know about what led to bin laden. the "washington post" earlier today, got a copy of that letter and it will be made public at some point. it was not made public by senator mccain. it looks as though the letter

confirms very clearly what senator mccain said in his piece in the "washington post" about the damage that torture does. that is that the facts as a matter of record as we now know them are now as michael mukasey just pointed out. the cia got the name used by the courier from a low-level informant and the accuracy of that name was likely and formed by a former intelligence service, probably in kuwait. as senator mccain heard from leon panetta, we did not learn his real name or alias as a result of water boarding or other so-called enhanced and delegation techniques. -- enhanced interrogation techniques. none of the prisoners we reportedly water boarded provided his real name, whereabouts or an accurate

description of his role in al qaeda. i think sometimes people are surprised when a person from a human rights organization talks about the efficacy or not of torture. many people think is illegitimate to talk about that question when we are dealing with an act that has been so universally condemned by our own government and the president's going laid-back. in fact, in the eight -- going laid-back. in fact, we have prosecuted soldiers for engaging in that with our own troops. i do think it is relevant and it's important for us to have a acts. sion based on the fa i think we will have more facts as the letter becomes public, but we should be having this conversation based on facts, not fantasy.

i think it is very tempting, when you have a national security victory of the level that this is, the killing of our enemy, osama bin laden, to success has many mothers, as they say, but i think what we are talking about here is a policy of abuse of prisoners that has been repudiated definitively. i'm sorry we are having to have a conversation about again, but i think is necessary we do because there are very well respected people, including my fellow panelists here who believe torture was the pathway to bin laden. i think they're wrong and we should talk about. >> in the interests of talking about it, marc a. thiessen is

here, he was a speechwriter under president bush and drafted this speech discussing the enhance interrogation program. >> thank you for being here. we appreciate your coming here to engage and i hope will agree to disagree agreeably. the first area of disagreement i would say is that we on the other side of this issue do not argue that torture was necessary to get information from detainees because we argue was done and the program was not tortured. i was recently asked by a major newspaper to defend the use of torture and i told my do not support torture and they said we're not interested. there are a lot of people who dispute the fact that the interrogation that took place amounted to torture. senator mccain in his speech said it water boarding is indisputably torture. there are people who dispute that, including many of the people who were fellow prisoners

of his in vietnam. a colonel who is an american hero who won the medal of honor for escaping from a north vietnamese prison camp was brought back and soberly tortures that -- soberly tortured he could not perform his functions. i asked them what he thought. he said i'm a supporter of water boarding. water boarding is schering and somebody with no long-term injuries affect trade is a scare tactic that works. an american hero who underwent excruciating torture and knows more than any of us says it is not. the same thing with another medal of honor winner is served with the center mccain and eight north vietnam. he said water boarding is not torture. torture involves breaking bones, passing out from pain, beating so that blood splatters on wall and in my mind, there's a difference. i could go on.

there is an admiral who in a north sienese propaganda video was forced to blank the word torture in morse code says water boarding is not torture. it is not an issue that is beyond dispute. it's not an issue that everyone agrees, second, as to senator mccain, you mentioned senator mccain said it's not the first place we learned about the courier. he cited in his floor speech a foreign intelligence report. he said the first mention of him as well as a description of him as an import al qaeda member came from a detainee held and and other country. we did not conduct this interrogation or render him to another country for interrogation. we have held this up as proof that we did not learn this from

the cia detainee's. i talked to other cis officials and none of them heard of this report and did not know what he was talking about. then we dug a little deeper and it turned out the report senator mccain is referring to is a foreign intelligence report collected in the early 2000's and had no information of any great value. it mentioned the courier and passing and no one had taken note of it. the only reason they found it was after the s -- after the detainee's identified him from the order made deep dive where they went to all of the databases and scoured to find any mention of his name. sfax they came across as a report in 2007. was the first -- they came across this report in 2007. so the statement was technically true, but nobody knew about it. the way they learned about him was they learn about him from cia detainees, including khalid

sheikh mohammed and senator mccain misstates the situation. he says we did not get the information, we got the standard interrogations and debriefing. he was subjected to enhance interrogation techniques. he underwent enhanced interrogation and became cooperative. when he became cooperative, just as it was with all the detainees, and hence interrogations stopped and he went into standard debriefing when he gave the mother lode of information. what everybody says was the most important information that put us on his trail. senator mccain knows because he has been briefed on how interrogations' work that the interrogation techniques were never used to gain intelligence. there used to gain cooperation, to take a non clobber to detainee and bring him to a

state of cooperation trade the ask questions they knew the answers to in order to test whether they were still resisting once they make the decision to cooperate because he's answering questions truthfully, they stopped the techniques and never won back. for the subsequent years, these standard debriefing techniques. the idea that you get it through standard interrogation techniques ignores the fact that he would not bento talking at all had it not been for enhance interrogation. i think senator mccain sincerely believes what he is saying that many of the things he said in a speech last week were misleading, at least. >> part of the debate -- all three of you have turned it into a dispute about facts about what happened. either in letters from the director or leagues right after the operation -- all want to turn to the only person who has

actually worked at the cia on the panel to ask him which version of what you have been hearing seems closest -- i '80s toward the trees, but to the facts as you know it or could both sides the right here? parlay a sort of speaking past each other? and let me just say that john rizzo was for over three decades a lawyer with the central intelligence agency, finally rising to be the acting general counsel at the cia. >> thank you for that trip question. -- that trick question. i stayed at the cia through october 2009. i served for seven months in the obama administration.

all i can really say at this point with in -- with any degree of certainty with respect to the program from the beginning, and i was and it from the beginning for better or worse for the next seven years, i was the addressee of the first memos. beginning with abu zebada, the cia always recognize -- these are up the cia lawyers, the real heroes of the cia, the operators and analysts, always recognized that couriers were the rosetta stone to finding and locating bin laden. i distinctly remember from the beginning, attending all of the

late night operation meetings. there was an immense amount of information derived from detainee's on couriers. as to who had been subject to the enhanced interrogation program. the purpose of the program was not to break the detainee's with these tactics so they would blurt out the truth. the purpose of the program was to create a condition that would cause the day cheney -- a detainee to give up hope and began to be truthful and the answers. never received

the techniques because they began talking relatively soon and without a considerable amount of dress. as you know, water boarding always comes to the floor when this discussion is held. but the program contained a menu of techniques. some relatively mild, water boarding being probably the most aggressive. the detainees begin talking subjected to some but not all of the techniques. what i am saying in general, and i'm gone from the cia now, so i have no particular cross to bear. first of all, i look forward to reading the cia director's letter because he is a man i got to know what the agency in my last several months and he is a man of the utmost integrity and

honor. by would be prepared to accept his characterization's of the role of program played. but when we talk about the intense interrogation program and what worked and what did not work, at least in my mind, a sometimes overlooked aspect of the program is the isolation of it. the idea of putting detainees incommunicado. that in itself is an interrogation technique that would not have been available other than the of the cia program. i have always thought from the beginning, and i think there is some evidence on the record, that merely the isolation of the program, where the detainees are allowed no communication, no visitors, no red cross, no notice to anyone, i have always thought that was a very

important element for causing an atmosphere whereby detainees would ultimately talk. of course, by definition, isolation by itself is nothing but isolation. i would suggest to anyone who is here or listening to this, keep that in mind. that is one of the unrecorded or not sufficiently recorded benefits or attributes of the program. the program, along with the rest of the interrogation program, is effectively taken off the table by the president's executive order a few days after he took office. i have no idea whether that answered your question, but some of this is frankly a noble. i am not going to tell you -- is frankly an unknowable.

for every single one of those interrogation techniques, i will not tell you we would have never learned anything. i cannot say that. i cannot say with any degree of certainty that some of the information would have been collected somehow without the program. i cannot say that. but i do know within the cia program, there are the most hardened, toughest, sophisticated and knowledgeable elements of the al qaeda leadership. i personally find it hard to believe that any information, and the valuable information, certainly about the location of bin laden, these guys would have given up just on a certain army field manual question and answer format. >> one thing that several of you have not mentioned is that one of the big differences between the bush administration and obama administration is any kind

of closing down of classified interrogation methods. benjamin wittes is a scholar and will offer on this issue and has written several articles about terrorism, counter-terrorism policy and so on. has that difference caused -- i hesitate to use the word distortion, but differences in the with the bin laden operation might have been carried out? it has been well noted that this administration has ramped up the use of drones to kill al qaeda leaders where it might be the case the bush administration preferred to capture them. is the fact that the obama administration doesn't want to be involved in the interrogation, has that caused the bin laden operation to be a kill operation rather than a capture operation and has that been a harm to our security? >> thank you for having me. i would actually like to start

with a point that elisa touched on briefly but there's some emphasis. there are people in the human- rights community who would object to her having this debate at all. i think this is actually an important place to start. the "new york times" editorialized after this question arose that the question of the -- the question of the efficacy of these techniques is an illegitimate question and we were not allowed to discuss it at all. i think the important place to start this discussion is, first of all to agree that these are actually important questions and it actually matters very profoundly. the questions are extraordinarily hard to answer for all of the reasons we have talked about and i'm sure we will continue to talk about. i think the first important thing to say is that the situation in which you're going

to capture a high-value detainee in a crisis environment and have to figure out what techniques you are and are not going to do to them is going to rise again at some point. and when it does, the calculation we will make will not be a simple moral calculation -- do we feel better for every nightstand if we are not as nice as opposed to do we feel better if we are not very nice to really not nice. the question will be indelibly inflected with the question of what we expect the take to look like. i want to start by just emphasizing that you can disagree very profoundly about these issues and there is all lot of disagreement as you have seen on this panel. but the first important point is that they are actually important questions and we cannot shy away from them. i want to divide the questions before returning to the broader question -- and want to divide

the issue into three analytically distinct questions that are often confided in this did coercion -- did coercive interrogation give us the bottom? we have different levels of precise about the answers to them. all of these have been contested vigorously over the last 10 years, although the first question, a lot of people are now denying they ever contested it. the first question is was there very important information from programmatic -- the u.s. tumble over time in a mosaic and continually process and go back and refer to. did that contribute materially to the mosaic of the information that led to the killing of osama bin laden? i think the question to that is simply yes.

i do not think it's a complicated question or difficult question. there is a very -- this is where this debate interaction with the detention debate that underlies it. if you are not allowed to detain outside of the criminal-justice system large numbers of people at various times and interrogate them for those little bits of mosaic information that you'd been assembled, i don't think there's any good arguments that this result arises. that's the easy question. the second question is the one that john just alluded to which is, is there value added to that general process of custodial interrogation with strategy -- strategic interrogation as a feature of it. is there value added to that when you isolated the highest value detainees in a separate

program subject to a different set of rules? leave aside for a moment the question of what those rules do and do not permit, but you are taking out the highest value people. you are putting them in a specialized program that has its own set of rules and new orleans . -- norms. and you are putting in charge of that analytical and interrogation expertise that is different from the standard military interrogation model. and i think the answer to that is -- that it probably pretty clearly shows that there is some value added to such a program. now how much i'm not sure, but i do think that there is a -- it is a striking fact in the debate that has arisen that a lot of key pieces of information seem to have come out of this program. that doesn't necessarily mean that the same detainees in a different program wouldn't have

produced the same information. i don't think you can prove that conclusively, but i do think it is a striking thing about what's come out that there does seem to be a lot of information contributing to the mosaic -- it has its origins in this program. the third question which is the one we always focus on and we let subsume the other two which is unfortunate is specific interrogation techniques used in that program were responsible for the take. this is, i think, probably an unanswerable question because you don't know what would have happened if you had used more standard techniques or a lesser coercive technique, or if you had just waited a while longer, right? there's -- it's very hard to turn the clock back and figure out what the hypothesis is. i'm hess tant to say that we have enough information at this stage to sort of figure out what the best hypothesis is regarding

the role of coercion, or any specific coercive technique in particular. i do to address john's question, i do think that there is a concern that this issue raises, which is, if you do not have some programmatic answer to the question of what you're going to do with high value detainees, and let me just say i don't think that the calculation would have been different if there had a been a programmatic answer to the question. there is an extraordinarily risky operation even as a kill operation, or a kill or capture operation. and i think if you had had an answer to the what the heck do we do with him question, that

the calculation still would have been very similar, which is you're sending people into an extraordinary -- extraordinarily dangerous environment and both protection reasons and for a lot of other reasons, you don't want too much -- you want the rules of engagement to be pretty relaxed, pretty open. that said, as a general matter, i do think the less answer you have to the back end questions, what are you going to do with the person once you have him, how are you going to -- what is the legal status they are going to be in? what's the ultimate back-end question? what are you going to do with him after you have exhausted his intelligence? the less stable answers you have to those questions, i think as a general matter, the greater the incentive structure would be to moral lethality rather than

less. >> i just wanted to pick up on this because i want to clarify a little the question that we are talking about here because there's a lot of--ben took us much bigger picture from what we kind of came here directly to talk about. i think it's important for us to be clear what techniques we are talking about. i want to address what marc said about waterboarding and torture. i guess we can't say it's indisputable because some people dispute whether or not walter boarding is -- waterboarding is torture, but the fact is we have always called it torture when other nations have done that. in fact we have prosecuted enemy soldiers for waterboarding our people. that's a standard we have upheld for many, many decades. i think while we are having a

conversation about efficacy, i want to remind you, my opening remarks emphasize that i am imbued by this sense of what america stands for. and perhaps that's not just because of my own personal upbringing, but also because as an international human rights advocate, i spend a lot of time talking with people outside this country who are putting their own lives on the line to advance freedom and democracy in their own country. against repressive governments. and they believe that the united states stands for something. and in fact i recently had the -- occasion to meet with some former soviet bloc countries, representatives, particularly a young guy from poland who was expressing how distraught he was that the united states was

re-engaging on this debate about torture and how prisoners ought to be treated. whether or not we would comply with the geneva conventions because he was formed in the kruse balance -- crucible of looking to the states as the morrall beacon. i think it's glib to say are we going to feel better if we treat people nicer, it is a much deeper question about who we are as a country. i don't believe that it's irrelevant or i wouldn't have come to this panel that's framed about how did we get bin laden. what role our interrogation program played in that. i think interrogation and intelligence gathering is absolutely key to defeating this enemy in particular, but it's always been key. so i don't question that. we talk a little bit as though there's not a current program in place and that in fact that there's not a high value

interrogation group that includes experts from the c.i.a. there is. i have met with them. they are now putting together and they have for some time now, put together what they believe is the best and the brightest experience interrogators to go after those who we believe are of high value in intelligence. so we have that program and i wouldn't want anybody listening here or watching to think that we don't have a way of interrogating or dealing with people who we capture. i think it's very important. but i do think we would be -- that we should be listening very carefully to the message of general petraeus in his letter to the troops in iraq, which he issued in several years ago. we are as a country very seared by this horrible experience of the attacks of 9/11 and the

ongoing threats of terrorism. in many ways similar to the experience that warriors face on the battlefield where they see the horrible treatment and brutality of our own people by the enemy. but i would urge you to go back and look at this letter from general petraeus in which he instructs his own troops to reject the back and forth of politicians about this issue. and he says, this is -- i quote, some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. they would be wrong. beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they are also frequently neither useful nor necessary. the extreme physical action can make someone talk, however what the individual says may be of questionable value. and it goes on. i think one of the things that's

striking about as the details come out of the program that led to the information that led us to bin laden is that some of what we discovered after using waterboarding in particular was that people told the truth sometimes after they were water boarded, sometimes they lied. and we can't have it both ways. it's almost as though -- i'm not sure really what that proves. if it's no matter what the person says that it proves that torture quote-unquote works, then i'm not sure why we are interrogating these people in the first place. i mean i suppose torture works in the way that a rowboat to europe works. it's incredibly slow, it's incredibly risky, and it's ultimately probably self-destructive. >> let me stop you there. i might turn to general mukasey

because this question came up during your confirmation hearings and you had to conduct a review on this issue. you had to make a determination as a government official. >> what i was asked during my confirmation hearings was whether waterboarding was torture. since i didn't know what the c.i.a. did, that they called waterboarding, i couldn't answer the question. much to the frustration of a number of the members of the committee. and afterwards i undertook to do a review of the memos, which i did over a period of months, with the assistance of two other lawyers, neither of whom who the other was so i had input from two people who were independent of one another and independent of me. and concluded that what the c.i.a. did did not violate the torture statute. you may -- point's been made repeatedly a label's been attached to waterboarding as

practiced by the c.i.a. as torture, if that's what we are here to discuss, that's not a discussion i can have because it isn't. it doesn't violate the torture statute. if we are here to decide whether torture led to the capture of bin laden, i think we can agree that it didn't because we didn't torture anybody to get any information. so far as people having been prosecuted for waterboarding u.s. troops, indeed they were, and what they did there's virtually no relationship i would say no relationship to what the c.i.a. did. what people were prosecuted for when they walter boarded u.s. troops -- water boarded u.s. troops was forcing water down their throats until their stomachs and intestines became distended very painfully and stepping on their stomachs and forcing the water back up and doing it repeatedly over and over again. or feeding them raw rice and forcing water down their throats and waiting until it expanded so it would cause excruciating

pain. what the khmer rouge did was handcuff people to the bottom of barrels and gradually fill them with water until many drowned. that was also called waterboarding. what the c.i.a. did was tie somebody to a board, put a cloth over his face, pour water for him for no longer than 40 seconds at a time, and the effect was in essence to increase the co-2 level in his blood to the point where it caused panic. that's all it caused. and all three of the people who were water boarded showed no ill effect afterwards. that's just the plain and simple truth. you can call an 18-wheeler and mini cooper both motor vehicles, but i don't think that creates a meaningful comparison between the two. >> i would just add to that, the technique that mukasey described

was called the tokyo rice treatment. there is no relationship between what the c.i.a. did and what the japanese did. it's a false comparison. i would add something, general mukasey, i'm on the panel here with three lawyers, i won't give you the legal definition of torture, throw i'm sure they can give you chapter and verse, i'll give you a common sense definition. there are more journalists who have had themselves water boarded to prove that it's torture than there are terrorists who were water boarded. ok. and my common sense definition of torture is, if you are willing to try it to see what it feels like, it's not torture. none of these individuals offered to have themselves have electrodes attached to certain parts of their body and have volts put through them or teeth drilled with -- by dentists without novocain or have their bones broken and some of the techniques that people were subjected to. i think two things, i think it does a great disservice to

people like colonel day to compare what the c.i.a. did, it does a disservice, to realtor ture victims like colonel day, and disservice to our country to suggest we were in league with what the japanese did and what the nazis did and what the khmer rouge did. it's factually incorrect. and second of all, the issue that elisea raised we learned that they said certain things that weren't true after doing waterboarding. first of all the enhanced intear cases are not -- they weren't a truth syrup. it wasn't -- serum. against their will they told you everything you wanted to know. they took a detainee who was in a state of total resistence, k.s.m. when he was captured and brought into c.i.a. custody he was asked about planned attacks. the purpose of intense interrogation was not to get information. it was to get information to stop terrorist attacks. it was not a technique that

could be used if that was the only thing you thought the person knew. it had to be somebody very high value who knew information that could lead to a terrorist attack and we had to stop and didn't have the luxury of time. we had to get them talking right away. it took someone in a state of total noncooperation and they started with a tummy slap and worked its way up to waterboarding. most of the people didn't make it to waterboarding. they gave in pretty early on in the process. after that the technique stopped and they were -- they had made a decision they resisted enough and were willing to cooperate. that didn't mean they gave us 100% of everything they knew and they didn't hide anything. there is no such thing as a truth serum in an investigation. the director of the joint intelligence group in guantanamo bay and followed the army field manual in his interrogations, he estimates that -- none of these techniques were used in guantanamo. he estimates that he based on providing subway sandwiches, he got 25% to 25% of what they do.

20% to 25% is unacceptable. the detainees who were in c.i.a. custody, those who underwent enhanced interrogation, and draw the distinction some didn't go through it, they cooperated because of the fear of enhanced interrogation, ok. everybody wascoersed in some way by that. those people according to the interrogators who i interviewed for my book, they estimated they probably got about 70% or 80% of what they knew. that's closer to the acceptable amount for the master mind of 9/11 who is sitting there and telling you when he was first asked what are your plans for new attacks, he says soon you will know. he admits he has attacks planned and underway, they are going to happen. then he tells them, the americans are weak and decadent and don't have the will to do what's necessary to find out and protect their country. i think he found we did have the will and did stop attacks and also got bin laden. >> marc used the phrase truth

certificate yum which brought to -- serum which brought to mind a question i have been asked. why don't we inject them with sodium pentathol and use truth serum. the short answer is it's illegal. you are not allowed to use mind-altering drugs. there is no exceptions for that. you can't do it. even if the alterations are temporary. >> i knew that. >> ben wanted to get in on this. maybe hopefully we'll turn to a question -- this administration, you don't have to answer this, this administration clearly disagrees with the efficacy issue. this administration view would be it could be as effective as you say but we are still not going to do it i think for many of the reasons that elisea mentioned. i still wonder if this is a mistake or not, but whether it causes the military intelligence agencies to conduct operations in a certain way.

in other words, decreasing their flexibility. ben, you wanted to get in on what people were saying. >> i'm delighted to shift to the question that you just asked. one of the things that that is one of the oddities of this debate, leave aside, i don't mean this particular debate, but the debate in general, is that the -- we tend to focus on the most extreme technique, which is to say waterboarding. and we -- what that causes us to do is ignore the fact that there is a very large gulf, and i don't think anybody really disputes this, i think this actually is undisputable and indisputed. there is a very large gulf between what the field manual permits and the legal line. now, why do you think that gulf is and what does and doesn't fit under it? the army field manual is law for

the military. under the mccain amendment, but it is not the law for the c.i.a. and the c.i.a. is bound by conarticle 3 and bound by the other terms of the mccain amendment which prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. but the field manual was never designed to exhaust the list of lawful techniques that are not cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. i think everybody -- not sure everybody, but i think it is widely agreed that between the field manual and the legal line, there is some degree of space. we argue about how much space there is and what does and doesn't fit under it. but i think the argument that there is some category of the word enhanced has a weird connotation now, but i mean it

nonyufe missically here -- euphemistically here. enhanced under what the military is permitted to do under the field manual but still within the law is over poweringly strong. the question of why you don't -- why the administration has chosen as a prudential matter to go nowhere near the legal line even if the highest value cases is an interesting and important question. now, i think the answer to it as a practical matter is some combination of beliefs about efficacy. some combination of beliefs about reputational damage to the united states. and as elisea says a sense of who we are as a nation. third, i think there is another factor that's a factor that's really important in conditioning the entire thing, which is we are not operating in a crisis environment anymore and we are not capturing large numbers of high value detainees. the atmosphere if you did

capture a high value detainee today, is still so different from what it was in 2002 and 2003 in the sense of the that person's knowing something that is, as mark describes it, simply unacceptable not to find out, is a lot lower than it used to be. and so you may as a prudential matter, choose to forego certain techniques that would be indisputeably lawful as a result of these other factors. i think the point that will really test the debate between my fellow panelists is the point at which the threat environment is much higher than it is today. and you are capturing detainees once again whom it is simply unacceptable to be at 20% rather than 70%. that will not resolve the debate over what -- whether waterboarding is or is not torture. that's a legal debate and -- but

it will put pressure on the decision to stop if the legal line is here, to stop down here. and there is this space between the legal line and prudential line that is really quite broad and that i think clearly encompasses some or many of the techniques that the c.i.a. was using. what everyone thinks about them as a policy matter. and i think there will come a time when we will have to face that question again of whether we do or don't want to live in that space. >> john, you wanted to -- >> yes. a couple semiminor corrections, factual corrections having been on the scene at the time. i think, ben, as you know, the president's executive order of january 23, 2009, basically made the army field manual, the standards in the army field manual applicable across the

government. so it applied to all federal agencies. >> absent further guidance. >> again i'm at a disadvantage here because i was there at the time. let me just give you the best i can give you about what we were thinking at that point. yes, there was subject to further guidance or subject to -- the morality was we at the agency, it was informally suggested to us that we come up with a series of interrogation techniques that might be beyond the army field manual in that space you described. collectively at c.i.a. after seven years of collective -- being pummeled and investigated and accused, that collective space to us was no man's land. we were not going to turn on a dime frankly after being called torturers and suggest to the new

administration, well, how about this technique? would you go for that one? this was -- best i can determine this is the unanimous collective view of certainly the career qadry at c.i.a. which i could say to myself, one. nothing you said, i'm not disputing, but i'm just trying to give you some context, some spherics of what -- atmospherics of what was the agency's position or state of mind at that particular juncture. the second factual correction, it is true that the -- if one was -- were ranked from the beginning what was the first goal of the enhanced interrogation or the c.i.a. program in general, it was to prevent another catastrophic attack on the homeland.

as i indicated earlier, there was a second goal, and that was always, again, one from the beginning, was to locate u.b.l. -- o.b.l., there were twin goals. and they existed for seven years. those are -- basically broadly speaking the criterion to which we decided whether a particular quarry was a detainee or not. >> i meant the waterboarding, whether it was a higher standard. maybe i'm wrong about that. i thought for waterboarding they had to have -- believed to have knowledge of imminent attack. >> certainly have that. again it's hard to -- we didn't put up a shopping list at the time. but certainly terrorist attack was first and foremost objective of the program. i don't -- again i just can't

emphasize enough the single-mindedness inside the agency. from the beginning as to getting information that could lead to the taking down of bin laden. >> 30 seconds. just to clarify on my part, i need to suggest whether the decision to live in that space was a c.i.a. matter. i think it's -- the decision not to live in that space is clearly a presidential matter and the decision to revisit that would have to be a presidential matter. i meant it as a statement about the government itself, that there will come a point when we have to decide based on the gap that exists between statutory law and the field manual whether that's a gap that we do or don't want to continue to exist. >> a few points on that quickly. one, i think i agree with ben that there's nothing magical about the techniques in the

field manual, as if they are the received wisdom and there can never be any other technique that's compliant with the geneva convention. i do think it was a prudential decision to make clear what had become incredibly muddy to our people, military and civilians, who were charged with this often task of getting information from very dangerous people, what the rules are. i think marc, but the field manual by implying it's about subway sand witches, there is a lot of flexibility in the army field manual. it was not written for the low level interrogation officers of the army. and in fact many interrogators from outside of the military have said i don't need anything outside of what's in the army field manual. there's a lot of flexibility in there. another quick point i want to make about the description,

judge mukasey gave about what the c.i.a. actually did, i have to say that if this debate comes down to parsing whether or not we are more humane at waterboarding than the cambodians or the filipinos were, it makes me heart sick that something that john mccain, who knows what he's talking about from torture, has said it's equivalent to a mock execution. i don't think that's going to give much comfort to my polish friend who is looking to the united states for moral leadership in the world. thn finally, just to get us to this forward-looking question about the bush administration, the obama administration and what's different and where we are going, i think that it's a mistake to view this as a bright line between the bim's policies and the obama administration's -- bush administration's policies and the obama administration's policies. we did a lot of things as a

country right after 9/11 out of fear, ignorance. we were not well educated about the threat of al qaeda. that we later came to our senses about. and to his credit president bush was already starting to move in the direction that president obama ultimately moved. whether president bush would have gotten there with more time i don't know, but i do think that it's not accurate to talk about this as a bright line that changed when president obama came into office. he did some very important things. closing the secret prisons and establishing a single standard for interrogations. but president obama had already started down that road by ceasing waterboarding by talking about how we can go about closing guantanamo. i think we ought to talk about what we are going to do next,

but we should do that in the context of some historical accuracy about the arc of this policy even within the bush administration. >> i think before we turn to audience questions, i'd like to just ask the panelists to think about the future. we have seen the bush administration policies, the obama administration policies, do we have the opportunity now with the death of bin laden to rethink the policies we are going to use? are there an example that policy should be kept the same? what would you do differently in terms of corpte terrorism policy going forward? -- counterterrorism policy going forward? general mukasey, would you like to start? >> what would i do differently? at the beginning i said that we need an interrogation program that is lawful and classified. and administered by the c.i.a. that's one thing i would do

differently. another is to have a coherent detention policy so we know who we detain, who we kill, and on what basis. third, we haven't talked about this at all really, it has to do with the commission as opposed to the courts, i don't know either one is attractive. i don't think the military is really in place to run a parallel justice system. we have done it before. we have had military commissions before, but never long term. and i think we ought to reform that system. >> john, you also i thought wanted to say a little something. but with forward-looking gaze. >> ok. forward-looking, ok. i'm not there, i can be very forward-looking. like general mukasey, having

been part of and certainly witness, observed the interrogation policies and programs of the bush administration, i don't see any real factual argument that it did yield huge benefits in terms of intelligence. as i said earlier, i think it is unknown ultimately whether some or any or all of that intelligence could or would have been acquired without the enhanced interrogation program. that one we'll never know. i think the country would benefit with a -- an interrogation and detention program of some sort. frankly the for better or worse,

the program that the u.s. government has in place today is -- doesn't, in my mind, come close whether you are prove it as a moral or legal standard or not, simply cannot come close to producing the kind of intelligence the previous program produced. once you make a judgment it's not worth it, that's what increased intelligence means. i just make no mistake about t. the program today and for the foreseeable future is different. the one final thing looking ahead, i come with this with seven years of experience, seeing the pendulum swing from the days after 9/11 when c.i.a. was compused and vilified from being risk adverse, to late 2008 when the c.i.a. is being vilified by some of the same politicians for being human rights abusers and war

criminals, i think certainly for the agency to embark upon an interrogation program, take the lead in the detention and interrogation program, i think first of all if i were still there i would advise my colleagues at the agency against doing that given the experience we have had. but i would urge if there is a national will, an administration will, to involve c.i.a. directly in a mentally risky, aggressive program interrogation, the least men and women of the agency desiff is -- deserve is consistency. tell them what there is to do. tell them -- give them adequate legal authority and cover to do it. and for god's sakes don't change your mind six or seven years down the road. that's all. >> good luck.

>> i can tell elisea that president bush would not have ended up where president obama is. if you think back to the period after 9/11, we didn't know the operational command. we didn't know anything, about how they were structured. we didn't know the collaborators, what plots were out there. it was through the interrogation of these detainees that we established this information. michael hayden has said that over half of the intelligence that we had through stricks came from detainees about threats to the country. serious terrorist 34r09s. it also gave us a huge amount of information about the operations of al qaeda. as we became more knowledgeable, what mike hayden did in 2006 when the program had been stopped and president bush went to congress to get legislation so we could restart it, when he resumed the program he made a conscious decision because we had gained a lot of knowledge about al qaeda's operations and how their career networks work

and the rest, he decided to scale back the techniques and sacrifice the effectiveness, and he knew that, in exchange for political sustainability. meaning that the next -- he wanted to have a program in place that the next administration, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, could come in and continue. without compromising their values and what they believed. the program unfortunately we know what the details of that program were. there were six techniques left. the tummy slap. the facial hold, the facial slap. a diet of liquid ensure, there's one other. and the final one was mild sleep depravation. i'm sure ensure would be surprised to learn about that. and a d.n.i. demonstrated the techniques to the president. his reaction was, that's it? that was all that was left in the program of the the reason it

still worked is because the detainees, the terrorists didn't know that. no one knew that. what president obama did was he canceled that, which no one could argue could possibly consider torture, eliminated that, mandated the army field manual, and released all the techniques to the world so the terrorists could learn the legal extent of what we could do in an interrogation. what the president could do looking forward, -- >> some people just don't want to look forward. >> look forward, look back. what you could do very simply is restore what he closed, what he shut down, what he inherited. the gift mike hayden gave him, when mike sat down with the president, he said everything you think you need to do we have already done. restore that. he can do that in a very easy way. he can amend the executive order that he signed on the second day of office with a few words, unless otherwise authorized by the president. when he limits it to the army field manual. he could announce there is a classified annex to the army

field manual that's been added. it could be a blag page or the six techniques that had the mild sleep depravation or nothing. but as long as the terrorists don't know what they are facing, the key to success of breaking these people is they can't know what they are facing. if they do know they resist it, k.s.m. figured out waterboarding. he actually mocked his interrogators by holding out his arm and counting off the seconds with his hand. he knew exactly how far we could go. when terrorists know how far it is go, it is very hard to break them. >> ben? >> i'd like to suggest that the way to move forward is actually not to focus on interrogation right now. because interrogation presents probably the hardest and most divisive issue that has arisen in the post-9/11 era and because

for one reason or another and probably a multipolicity of reasons, we are not capturing any or at least large numbers of the sort of people who would be going into this program if we had it. so while i agree that there is a long-term or medium-term question we are going to have to confront on the interrogation front, i think the much more pressing short-term problem is the underlying detention question. which is when you capture somebody, are they -- what do you do with them in the immediate sense? do you think of them as somebody who comes to the united states for criminal trials? do you think of them as somebody who gets held in theater and transferred to another country for detention or processing of one sort or another? do you start bringing people back to guantanamo as the chairman of the house armed

services committee has now repeatedly suggested? these are questions with really no stable answer and they do affect a substantial number of people. are people in operating theaters do capture people? and i think this is -- if you can resolve or begin to bring resolution to the sort of long-term detention architecture we are going to be working with, some of the interrogation questions will follow from that, which is to say once you decide you're putting somebody in the criminal justice system, a set of rules about interrogation follow from that. some of them are very permissive rules vis-a-vis the military interrogations ironically. the field manual you are not allowed to threaten anybody under any circumstances. the f.b.i. people mentioned the lengthy criminal sentences that people could get every day. that's sort of standard operating procedure in the

bureau. on the other hand, some of the rules are very restrictive relative to the military. for example, you have to myrrh ran dies people. when you make de -- mirandaize people. when you make decisions, you make decisions about the rules that will be permitted. there is a lot to be said for starting with the question of what the detention rules are going to be. and then over time as you figure out what the long-term volume of high value detainees and how cooperative they are or are not in whatever detention virmente you put them in, that will give you data that is not data from 2002 and 2003, but data from 2012 and 2013 about what kind of interrogation techniques that you do need that we don't have now if any. >> very good.

>> i do think it's important to it's been referenced here the question about criminal trials. i think in fact we a lot of what we learned about al qaeda that we didn't know we learned through the trials of the first world trade center bombing. this question about whether we look back or look forward, i have a lot of friends in the agency, actually, and i have a huge amount of sympathy for the situation that they were put in. i wish more of our political leaders had expressed that kind of sympathy in advance before they led people who joined the agency to protect the united states and the values that it stands for and led them to believe that they had to compromise their honor and honor as a country to protect us and do their jobs. i think that's what's criminal. i find it stunning that a panel here at the american enterprise

institute we are not talking more about what this means for who we are projecting as our identity as a nation to the world. i think that the people that we ask to fight this fight minimum wage huge sacrifices as i said. we owe them a huge debt, but we also owe them clarity. and i fully agree with what you are saying, john, about what the rules are and that they can uphold their own honor personally and the honor of our country while protecting us. i think that's vitally important. >> thank you. raise your hand and we'll come over with a microphone. please say your name and your institutional affiliation. keep the questions very short because we don't have a lot of time. you have had your hand up for 30 minutes i think. why don't you go first. i bias people brave enough to the sit in the front row. >> senior fellow discovery

institute. two things very quickly, first we don't know how the owe bam interrogation techniques work so long as we are relying in part on intelligence gathered under earlier techniques that are not fully dried up, or until we go up against another terrorist group i'm sure there will be somewhere we have no intelligence. and that's years away before you have a market test. you don't know how it's working. no one does now or whether it's not working. the second thing, hypothetical for the panel. let us say an islamist group takes over in pakistan. a few months later, one goes off in an american city, president x snatches kahn master proliferator. do you restrict yourself to the army field manual in interrogating him to find out if you don't have conclusive forensic evidence of the characteristics of pakistani nukes, whether it was theirs? or do you use enhanced techniques either the ones that

were used by -- under bush administration or even going beyond that? >> very good. anybody want to -- john, you have your microphone on. do you want to respond? left over from the -- from before. that will teach you not to be ignorant of communications technology again. >> from the purely parochial standpoint of the agency, i feel fairly confident in saying the agency, the people in the agency, will not accede with conducting any certainly renewed techniques along the lines without the personal written information of the president of the united states. >> would you decide to do that? >> if the president -- >> if you were president would you authorize those techniques? >> in the scenario you described, yes, i would.

>> i'll be pleased to work on the rizzo campaign. >> your hypothetical, both at once extraordinarily detailed and extraordinarily vague. and it's detailed in some respects, but the question of what you know and how you know that a.q. kahn in that scenario knows something that is really valuable is extraordinarily important in deciding what interrogation tactics are and are not appropriate. i think you're describing a scenario that has -- that's very hard to respond to responsibly. >> my question is debate had been going on for the last 10

years, why u.s. cannot get osama bin laden. and now obama got him. the question is now, this debate will go on why we don't him. the two most wanted people were hiding in pakistan, a.q. kahn and osama bin laden within those walls which everybody knows now that pakistan kept in line for 10 yoorgs. one, should pakistan pay price for this? and should a.q. kahn also be brought to justice? and fenally -- finally around that nation only the pakistan i.s.i. and also the military people were living around that compound. and somebody, this is according to pakistanis in pakistan, knew in the military and i.s.i. that osama bin laden lived there.

we don't know that anybody else here knew it or not, but general musa raf then and also i.s.i., my question now where do we go from here and what pakistan should do or u.s. -- >> i think there's two questions, one is -- is it really possible that pakistan did not know that bin laden was there given the location he was ultimately found or was he being shielded in some way by the pakistani government? second question is, what do we do with pakistan? should that change our policy toward pakistan or not. that's actually a legal question i think a lot of people on the panel thought they hard about this problem. john, you don't have your microphone on. >> i'm not sure i can give a full answer to your question. i think obviously it's a question that a lot of people are asking right now, including in the obama administration.

but it's really a question we should have been asking immediately after 9/11. in fact, going back to the huge -- hundreds of people who were turned over to the united states by -- the contrast is striking. many, many people were turned over to the united states who ended up in guantanamo who the bush administration later released as irrelevant, nobodies who we got from pakistan. and yet during much of the time since 9/11 it turns out that the leader of our enemy has been in hiding there in open sight. i think it absolutely must change the dynamic of our relationship. the dilemma we are obviously in is that we also need a relationship with pakistan to fight this enemy. but i think we have to be very

frank now with the pakistanis, and i think congress will also start forcing that as the administration revises its relationship there. >> all the way in the back standing up with the curly hair. there's no one with curly hair behind you. >> thank you very much. george mason law school. my question is for miss massimino, thank you for joining us in the lion's den. my question is, do you think the army field manual should be the standard for interrogations conducted by nonarmed forces personnel? if so, why, given how restrictive the techniques are? they are considerably more restrictive than the rules that apply in garden variety. can't do good cop and bad cop unless you get an 06 to approve.

or solitary confinement with higher approval. you cannot threaten a source, coerce a source. you cannot yell which would come to a real shock to f.b.i. agents, if you don't cooperate you might go away to leavenworth for a long time. why should the c.i.a. be bound by interrogation limits that cops are not bound by? >> it's more a policy question than legal question. >> as i said before, i think that there's no magic about the army field manual. i don't think it contains all of the techniques that are client with our values and laws. i think that's also why it's a good thing that president obama has created this high value interrogation group which has representatives on it from the c.i.a., the f.b.i. and the military. in an attempt to make sure that we canvas experts from all of the relevant agencies. to collect the most effective and legal techniques for

gathering intelligence that we have. i think that was lacking right after 9/11, frankly, and it's part of the reason why things went so awry. i think that's good. and the high value untear gationgloup -- interrogation group as i understand it, part of what they are doing is looking to see if they are -- if there are other techniques that want to suggest. personally i think -- i mean what i am concerned about is that our techniques are client with the geneva conventions -- are compliant with the geneva conventions. i think we ought to be able to stand firmly on that in front of the rest of the world. and what to do with the idea that we can convince al qaeda and therefore the rest of the world that we might torture them. i don't think that that's a good idea or a useful thing to do. so i think it was as ben said earlier prudential decision to

go the army field manual as an existing document that has proven and was testified to by many, many interrogators, including outside the military, that it provided what they needed to get the information from dangerous people. could it be changed? yeah, it's been changed lots of times. in fact annually it can be reviewed, revised, and techniques could be added. i think that's fine. i would disagree with your characterization of how limiting it is. there's a lot of flexibility in there. too much flexibility some people would say. but you've got the ability to isolate people to deprive them of all kinds of things that some people would argue violate the geneva conventions. i think it's a useful starting place. >> i would say we do want to hide what we are doing from somebody, the terrorists. i think we don't want them to know what the limits of the techniques because they can train against them.

it's very easy for them to do that. the problem is at elisea mentioned several times is high value interrogation group. i would be very interested to know who they are interrogating because i'm sure mike hayden said recently that outside of the battlefields of afghanistan, there has not been one high value detention by the united states of the high value terrorist since president obama took office. we are simply not -- it's not a question of what techniques we should use against them because we are not at that point. we are doing battlefield interrogations in iraq and afghanistan. the kinds of people in this program, this is the most exclusive club in the world. this is the hardest group to get into. this is the cream of the crop. the highest value. the people who planned 9/11 and set in motion other plots. there are people like that out there today that k.s.m. was replaced. he was replaced by other people. this administration has been blowing them up with predators which is better than letting them go. but we are not getting intelligence out of that.

president obama deserves great, great credit for making the decision to go and send boots on the ground into that compound and get bin laden because if he had not done that, if we had done a predator strike, that whole treasure-trove they are going through, would have been blown up. it would have been gone. and the predators versus these kinds of raids was, well, back in the early days when k.s.m. was captured and they were in big cities and karachi and the rest. now they have moved to the tribal regions. you can't get teams in there. too high risk. you can't do that. take them out with predators. guess what? they are in abada bad. there is at this moment a high value terrorist who was captured just a few weeks before the bin laden raid. he was one of the last remaining at-large members of the k.s.m. network. he had recruited to carry out the second wave of attacks.

he had been hiding out in the philippines for 10 years and all of a sudden he appears. you know where he's captured? abadabad. what was he doing there? he was there to meet the guy we killed. he's not in u.s. custody. and the bush administration, that man would be in a c.i.a. black side telling us who he was meeting with, what he was planning. and this administration doesn't have him. and we don't have a place to take him. we don't have an interrogation technique to use against him. so we are in a very, very big world of hurt when it comes to what is the most vital form of intelligence in the war on terror. >> i think we only have time for one really fast question. how about right here. wait for the mike. ask you to keep it brief. there's only about two minutes left. >> abc news.

this is for general mukasey. mccain gave his speech it seems like there is a word game going on. today you said the information was a nickname and the letter from "the washington post" panetta said no detainee in c.i.a. custody revealed the facilitator or courier's full true name. is that what we are talking about here? nicknames versus true names? is this -- do you believe the demonstration is being misleading -- administration is being misleading? >> no. certainly not here to play word games. i know what i said to be true. and you can read into that letter what you want to read into it. i will go back to what i said earlier. it was part of the mosaic and the key issue was the one we have been addressing at the end here which is what we do going forward. we need a program in place. i agree with the people who said we need a classified program for the reasons i have said it. we also need detention program

and some upgrading of what we do when we capture the people. but i am not interested in playing word games with neighbor. least of all a certified war hero who has a superb public record. but it's possible to be a war hero and have an excellent public record and be mistaken all at the same time. >> couldn't think of a better note on which to end our panel. join me thanking our panel we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] fun few [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]. .

>> i am newt gingrich and i am announcing my candidacy for president of the united states because i believe we can return america to hope and opportunity. >> with the field of presidential hopefuls taking shape, follow the announcements and speeches on the "road to the white house and look back at their careers on line with the c-span video library, with everything we have covered since 1987. it is what you want, when you want. you are watching c-span, bringing you politics and public

affairs. every morning is "washington journal," are live call-in program about the news of the day, connecting with elected officials, policy makers, and journalists. weeknights, congressional hearings and policy forums. also, supreme court world arguments. on the weekends, our signature programs and on sundays, "q&a", and prime minister's questions from the house of commons. it is all searchable at our c- span video library. a public service, created by america's cable companies. >> former deputy assistant attorney general john yu will be on another panel later today, set to start at 4:00 eastern here on c-span. the panel will talk about military operations approved by

the un and congress. the former cia director will also be on the panel. now, a look at this morning's shuttle launch, the last mission for endeavour as that delivers an astrophysics experiment to that international space station. the post shuttle era begins after the final mission of the atlantis this summer. >> t - two minutes and counting.

>> one minute 30 seconds. >> now arming the water system. >> one minute. >> posting the liquid oxygen and

liquid hydrogen and drain valves. standing by for the handoff to endeavour's onboard computers. the handoff has occurred. >> 25. 20. >> firing chain is armed. arms.ater system is a large bi >> 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, and lift off for the final launch of endeavour. expanding our knowledge.

>> roger, endeavour. >> it will roll over onto its back. it heads down position on course for orbit. three engines now throttling down as endeavour passes through the area of maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle in the lower atmosphere. approaching one minute into the flight. >> endeavour, go at throttle up. >> go at throttle up. >> endeavour's three main engines now back at alfull

throttle. endeavour is already traveling 1,300 miles per hour at an altitude of 11 miles down range from the kennedy space center, now 12 miles. at liftoff, endeavour fully fuelled weighed 4.5 million pounds and has already lost half that weight. propeling now burns that weight. separation of the twin solid rocket boosters coming here shortly at the two-minute, three second point. those boosters are earning 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. -- burning 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. standing by for separation of the solid rocket boosters.

the onboard guidance system has done its job of selling at any dispersions introduced that booster separation. the orbiter is now traveling 3,200 miles per hour, down range 50 miles. altitude 37 miles. all systems in good shape. hydraulic systems and fuel cells providing electrical power to all other systems. endeavour's three engines are all in good shape. endeavour sailing into fehr went on its final, historic voyage. this view looking down the external fuel tank, the order

there on the top as endeavour continues to power its way into orbit, traveling 4,000 miles per hour, down range 90 miles, 3 minutes 15 seconds into the flight. >> endeavour, negative return. >> roger, negative return. >> endeavour can no longer return to the kennedy space center in the event of an engine failure now, but all three are still in good shape, as are all the other systems aboard the

order required here in mission control as a team of flight controllers watch is over all of the systems. four minutes, 20 seconds into the flight, endeavour is traveling 5,500 miles per hour, altitude now 63 miles. about 335,000 feet in altitude. four minutes, 20 seconds into the flight, endeavour is traveling 5,500 miles per hour, altitude now 63 miles, traveling down range 186 miles. environmental and control systems officer here reporting a good flash of an operator system providing kaline to all the avionics equipment aboard the vehicle. commander mark kelly and pilot johnson, flight engineer

vittorio.-- roberta oratori endeavour can reach orbit on two engines, should one fail at this point. however, all three are still performing as planned. andrew feustel and greg chamitoff. vittori 0 and fincke making their first voyage on the space shuttle after flying to the international space station aboard soyuz space station previously. >> endeavour, a single engine up 3 big break that call indicates that endeavour could reach a trans-atlantic abort site on one engine if it lost two of the three, although all three are in good shape, 5 minutes 50 seconds

into the flight. >> several calls there. the guidance system is controlling the engines to rolle endeavour to a heads up position to optimize the air to ground communications through the satellite network. flight controllers reporting to flight director richard jones they are in good shape. >> set down plan is nominal.

>> endeavour, single engine press, 104 para >> endeavour can reach orbit on one engine, should two fail, however all three are still in good shape. the two main engines are pushing fuel through the main power systems at a rate equivalent to drive it -- training and average backyard swimming pool in 20 seconds. seven minutes, 20 seconds into the flight, altitude 64 miles down range from the kennedy space center, 13,500 m.p.h. we are now seeing throttling on the three main engines to maintain the three times gravity load on the vehicle and the crew.

engines at 82% of rated thrust eight minutes into the flight. the next activity is manage and cut off that it support -- will be conducted in 20 seconds. >> a last look at the space shuttle endeavour as it drops of supplies for the orbiting lab. mission leaders briefed reporters, and here is a look at a 20-minute portion. >> words almost cannot describe how beautiful that was this morning. talking about in terms of what the teams have done in the past couple of weeks is the past -- is the best way to do that. a couple of quick questions. the first relating to their

pressure indication. wasn't identical to what you saw the first attempt back on at all 29, and why did this one also require a waiver if it was unknown condition? can you talk more about the main engine sensor and what exactly that was monitoring and what it did during flight? we basically have to separate limits on that tank we are monitoring. you want to make sure the total pressure does not get so high that it would activate the relief valve which is protected by a burst disk. the other limit your trying to protect is the tank pressure in the oxidizer tank and fuel tank are not far apart from each other. when they initially start up, you do not want more of one propellant and the other showing up, pushing the combustion of to one side or the other.

there is a delta pressure limit between the two tanks. it is a pretty big instrumentation area. the problem we had the last launch attempt was due to some regulator creep, they naturally leak helium a little bit. the oxygen tanks have a set about that close those off, where the fuel tanks do not. the leaking pressure builds up in the fuel tank but not the oxygen tank. when we have a fuller lower than normal, there is not a lot of pressure in the tank to absorb that delta pressure so it goes up pretty high. the oxidizer like to absorb helium and therefore it drops the pressure in that tank. after we sat for a while, they

got themselves close to that delta limit. the reality is, the actual devices on the tank were 1.5 psi, not 15. you could say we were not anywhere near our actual true limit, but by the letter of the law, which are required not to town on that. on the first launch attempt, the easiest thing to do was tied the right tang to the left bank. because we did that last time, this time there was not as much room to do that because we had already balanced those tanks up. we had the waiver ready to go because we knew we would frawley not be able to get the backing limit. it went to a 16 psi delta instead of 14 last time. knowing that the true delta was within limits, the waiter said if you count for instrumentation error you do not have to worry about it.

the true delta limit is somewhere in the 30 psi range, not 15. we basically did lots of homework to protect us from the letter of a law that says you have to be careful not to launch their and make sure we really understood it. on the low pressure field turbo -- turbopump, the beach channel dropped off, so it basically dropped off for a couple of milliseconds and then came back. that was enough for that detection system to throw it out of the occasion. the pressure goes into an internal calculation that basically measures the density and the flow rates to try to calculate an internal flow through that turbopump. it could have defaulted down to a default measurement rather than the actual real time measurement.

it is just a data point that we gather on engine operation. >> since you mentioned presenting an award, were you presented anything as you were on the last flight of discovery? what have you done, if anything, to mark this last flight of endeavour with your launch team? >> i was honored with the endeavour side hatch emblem, the name emblem on the side had signed by at the flight crew and the flow deck crew. that is to out of the three, i guess you could say. i was named an honorary member of the closeout team today. i know those guys pretty well. that was really special to be recognized like that as it now a

member of their team. that meant a lot. i will cherish that forever. the final flight of endeavour, we are going to wait for it to come home and then celebrate some special way. today was all about getting the countdown right, getting mark and his crew on our been settled, and we did that, and we are proud of that. >> could you talk a little bit more about the weather condition at the time of launch, and how close of call was it in terms of if it had been 30 seconds earlier or later, was the cloud situation or other factors rejected that have eliminated the possibility of a launch today? adding two additional days to the flight, does that mean there is less margin at the end of the flight in case lending

conditions are not right? would you have to make some decision criteria for deciding whether to land or not at the end of the flight? >> the weather was actually never forecast no go or observed no go. the landing forecast was always ago. they did amend it. the initial forecast called for scattered cloud that 4,500 feet. the same thing with the range. they are looking for a 6,000 foot deck or a four thousand foot deck with clouds less than 500 feet thick. i would never drop below 5000 limit. we had our weather cretonne up about 30 minutes out -- our on up.r reci

he moved off to his orbit position. the forecast at held true to the observations all day long. this was not a close one on the weather. it was well within limits and it was not really moving on us at all. what it was going to come down to writer around lunchtime, it would have limited our ability. we still have our standard today's of extension for systems problems or whether extension. we always have plus two. we had originally planned to offload some oxygen which we use in our fuel cells to generate power for the shuttle. as we got closer to actual

launch date, we looked at the weight of payloads and the weather conditions and temperatures that the boosters would be at and discovered we had more performance margin than we had projected. instead of taking it off to be less way, we decided we could launch with a little more weight so we left the extra 02 on the ship. we have two extra energy days into extra energy days. we turned the energy days into plan days. >> on the weather discussion, for the launch site there are really two categories of launch weather criteria. one is for the shuttle program itself and one is for range safety. today we had the observer working that had.

as long as they can verify that have good visibility, it is permitted by the rules. we do it often and it worked just beautifully today. by way of example, three or four years ago we had a cloud deck that was 600 feet thick. today we were 500 feet. we were exactly right on the criteria and we were good to go. if it had been another 200 feet thick, we would still be on the ground. the process works extremely well and today it worked out very but -- very well for us. >> now that this mission has launched, can you tell us the latest thinking and what kind of considerations you'll have to wait to arrive at a launch date for 135?

>> we have to wait and see. we want to be pretty specific for this launch date since it is our last one. we will see what it takes to turn it around and if it fits within our 14-day template that we have arranged, and we basically expect this week to get that assessment and finalize what we have been looking at and narrow it down to an exact launch date. the second week of july, there is a delta launch on the 14th. we want to be able to plan ahead if we can at this point. we will give it a try this week and see what we get. i suspect we will pick a date by the end of the week or early next week. >> we will see if we see anything in order performance that makes us question what we are hard to do before the next launch. maybe the end of this week, maybe next week we will actually set the date.

>> give us a post launch report on that circuit. was there anything anomalous there? does it give be increased confidence that the damaged insulation might be the culprit? >> we went through our troubleshooting plan and we came up on but b side heaters. it worked fine. we switched over to the a side and went through the process and everything checked out to the letter of the law. we will probably never exactly know if it was that little

opening on the back. >> this is the second and final mission for one of the orders. it is for one of the orders. in any easier this time around for you guys emotionally? last time we saw tears here and there. since you have been through one of these final mission is already, isn't any easier on you? receipt is it any easier on you? >> i would say no, in simple words. the real trick is, are really challenged the team and challenge all of us to treat each one of these missions just like a regular mesh it -- just like a regular mission as much as we can. everything we do, i want it to

feel like this is not the last mission, but one of many missions to go forward. i have been challenging the teams to do that, and they have done a tremendous job of being able to stay focused to watch what is going on and be the true experts that make this look a lot easier than it really is. the thing i feel is a real privilege to be considered part of this team that has pulled this off. what you have seen today was not easy. it is not easy for us to get this vehicle ready to go fly. it was not easy to find a problem and slowly work through the problem and take the time that it needed to get worked through. we worked in a very methodical manner. we have a huge challenge in front of us in terms of the mission. we will see how that goes when we get endeavour back. then we have another one after that. our job is to stay focused and

make it look just like every other flight and keep moving forward with all the distractions that are going on on the outside. what i carry away from this mission more than any other is just a wonderful job that the teams have done to give us a quality vehicle and a great asset today. >> i am not sure i can add much more. i think you wrapped it up pretty good. there are several of us that it to work on each vehicle, and that is a lot of fun, and we enjoy what we do. but there is only one endeavour processing team. this was their only final launch. those folks are looking back on the history of endeavour with fondness and probably a few tears today, but that is ok because they know they did the best job they could.

one-on-one, each team is going to have their final flight. >> after the installation, can you characterize the validation period for the detector and how soon will late start to receive data? >> i have learned just like everybody else has learned, [unintelligible] the first will be given after ams is installed. >> you mentioned that there is a heavy cryo load on board.

it seemed to me that the order was kind of slow getting off the pad. was that because of the heavier vehicle? can you talk about the timing of the sts-135 rollout and the sts- 134 lending if they happen as currently scheduled? how is that all going to come together? >> we were not any heavier than normal for a typical launch. we were able to take more cryo because other things weighed less. to meet personally, i always like to watch all three main engines before i turn around and look out the window and i had the wrong tv channel up. it was gone before i even turn around, so it seemed pretty fast

to me. >> the lending versus rollout question, as we said the other day, there are two separate crews to do that. atlantis will be rolling out at 8:00 p.m. on may 31 and endeavour will be landing at about 2:30 a.m. on june 1, and we can do both perfectly fine. that will be a special day for the program and for the kennedy space center. >> the awful magnetic spectrometer stands poised to be one of the most historic instruments ever placed in orbit, and therefore a very historic flight and mission for the endeavour. could you elaborate on dark

matter, dark energy, and antimatter? if this instrument does make detections that lead to discovery and a direct observation and validation of dark matter energy and antimatter, what do you see as the effect of that honor society and the physics community and the astronomy community and scientists around the world? >> if we find any research that will identify the fact that [unintelligible] on previous missions we always try to say that we go to space to make good science. this is very, very different from what we did before.

it takes a lot of time to do the research. we will find things we have not seen before. it will be up to the scientist to talk about that, but this will be very different from what we have seen before. >> i know this has been a very special day on many levels and i know that you have always had a special -- many special guest over the years. can you talk about what it was like having congresswoman giffords here and what that was like for you guys today? >> from the unfortunately

clinical side of the house, we are locked up and doing our jobs and the crew families are in a different location. we don't ever get to see them or know they are there, and in this case, they had left before we were released. us had thenk any of chance to even see her, but conceptually, having heard here is just as important as every other family member, especially the kids. one of the traditions is while they are waiting for launch they set up a white board and markers for them and the kids get to draw their version of the mission and messages to mom or dad. we hang them in the halls in the control center. it shows how much this is a family thing and a personal thing and is a good reminder to us that there is people's lives here and it reminds us to do good work.

from that standpoint, we are very happy to have her here as a crew family. her story is a remarkable testament to human will and recovery to be able to come back from something like that and travel here twice and finally get to see her husband fly in space. >> congresswoman giffords, who was wounded in a shooting in january, is the wife of the commander of the mission. his wife was at the launch. afterward, her staff briefed reporters. >> welcome to the sts-134 post launch briefing. we have members from representative giffords' congressional office. first we have heard chief of staff, her press advisor, mark

campbell, and a media strategist. >> i want to say thanks to the whole public affairs team here at nasa. everyone at kennedy space center and johnson space center has made us feel very supported throughout this whole process. this is just going to be quick. i will say a few words and then it will be happy to answer some questions. first of all, i will run through the time line. we arrived yesterday around noon. we flew out of houston. nasa provides transportation for the spouses. we were on a flight with astra not brag johnson's family.

-- astra not greg johnson's family. we landed here and then we went to the beach house where the spouses and crew were able to have lunch and spend some time having their last goodbyes. we were there for about two hours and went over to the data upon. i saw my first florida gator. we went back to the hotel in cocoa beach and the congress woman was able to see some staffers who were here working. some were able to see her for the first time since the shooting. this morning we arrived at the launch control center at around 7:00.

we held in a conference room until we win up to the roof at about 8:20. we spent about 50 minutes after liftoff on the roof with the rest of the spouses and that children -- their children. we went back downstairs and i have been here since. it was a great day. obviously we have been looking forward to this for many months. mark was assigned this light in august 2009 and gabby and all of us have been very excited ever since. in the last 4.5 months since the shooting, it has been much more challenging. marc made the decision he would fly and still keep this mission. it was a big decision for their family. it was a real sense of relief for all of us that this went off safely.

that is just the lay of the land. i know there are plenty of questions. >> we will start taking questions now. >> i wonder if the congress woman had any reaction, if she spoke at all during our after the launch? >> for all of us, we were sort of speechless during this process. there were not a lot of words during the viewing, but at the end she said to me "good stuff." there was not a lot of talking at that moment. we were cheering and clapping and taking a moment to absorb what we were seeing.

>> [unintelligible] pia, can you describe exactly what she was doing before, during come and after, what her emotions were like? >> we all were looking up in the sky and seeing clouds at about 7:30, wondering if it was going to be scrubbed or if we would have an issue. we were excited, but a little worried. the sun came up and the cloud smirnoff and we knew it was probably going to happen -- the clouds burn off. when we got up to the roof, the first time they were seeing the

spouses that morning. this bounces it to know one another pretty well throughout this process -- the spouses get to know one another pretty well throughout this process. i think relief was her biggest feeling. she was very proud. she is always proud of mark and what he does. scott kelley delivered flowers to gabby and their daughters right after a main engine shut off. that happened on the roof, and then we went downstairs. >> where she holding anyone's hand? >> no. it was very celebratory among at the spouses. her mom was with her, and she was standing with her the whole time.

>> could you tell us about the congress woman schedule? how long will she be in florida? will she be here for the landing? >> we don't know whether she will come back for the landing. i believe is sometime after 1:00 a.m., so is unclear whether or not she will be able to make that trip. it will be up to her in part whether or not she wants to make it, and also the doctors. as far as travel back, she will be leaving soon to go back today in just an hour or so and she will be heading back to houston. >> it is my understanding the last time she arrived here when the launch was scrubbed that a nurse traveled with her. was there a nurse or doctor

with her this time? the second question is, it is my understanding that she and her husband had exchanged rings. what she holding his ring during the launch or anything like that you can describe? >> the first question about the nurses, we had to nurse is with us -- two nurses with us. that is really just a precaution. she does not have a lot of need for any medical staff at this point but she is still under care of the hospital as an inpatient of the hospital so it is appropriate to have medical staff with her. the second question about the ring, they did exchange rings. this time she wanted his return for her. his fingers or a little bit bigger than hers so it does not quite fit around her finger so she is wearing it on a chain on

her necklace. i do not remember seeing her clasping it. >> a question that crossed my mind when you said that she said "good stuff." is she in a state of aphasia, or is it just because she did not feel like talking more than what she did? >> i think it was a combination of the two. i will not get into the medical details of her recovery or challenges, but for all of us, there are not many words to describe watching a shuttle launch in person. >> during the mission, there is often a time when you can have

family and crew conferences. are there arrangements being made so she could do it and how many times have you arranged to do that? is there anything besides the ring? >> the hope is that we will arrange for a video conference at some point. she has gone down to johnson space center multiple times in the last few weeks when mark was in quarantine, so that is an easy trip for her to make. anything else he has brought, she sent him with a note which has been reported, which was hidden on the shuttle. i don't know if he has brought

anything else of hers with him. he does have a picture of the two of them. >> i wonder if you could tell us anything about her future, when she might be able to return to congress, and will her husband continue as an astronaut? >> he will be back in 16 days and you can ask him then. as far as the congresswoman, we do not have a timeline necessarily. every patient is different who recovers from these brain injuries. all we can say is that she is focused on her recovery every day. she works extremely hard. she is a very determined person. we are hoping she can return to her life both personally and professionally as quickly as possible, but we do not have a sense yet of wind. it is just too early to tell.

>> i note there was a large delegation of congress. whether any members of the congressional delegation who were at the viewing location where she was today? >> there were no members of congress or anyone else at the viewing location. it was strictly a small group of family. during the last trip, a close friend of hers was able to come over after it had been scrubbed. we still went over to the launch control center, and she joined us over there for lunch on the last attempt, but not this time. >> issue fully aware the is she fully aware of all of this?

the intense media questioning, for lack of a better term. if she fully aware of what happened on that january day? i know that mark was waiting to tell our bits and pieces to put the entire puzzle together for her. is she aware of everything that took place that date now? >> she is not aware of everything, but ashy process is this, as anyone would, she has learned more. the question about the press, we try to tell her there is extreme interest in your story here. she is still a little bit surprised to hear that. she has not been exposed or personally fully understood what that is like. i told her it just now i am going down to do a press conference, and what did she want me to say? i think she is getting a sense of it.

she certainly understands the outpouring of support that has come from around the country. to have people in four parts of arizona know who she is and from people round the world, it has really made a difference. for someone who is in the hospital recovering from something like this to be reminded regularly that they are loved and supported and thought of around the world, is definitely moving. >> the congresswoman has been looking forward to this for so long, is there something else in the plans for after this? is there some thought that mark and gabby will get away somewhere together? is anything being planned for when he returns? >> i know he has thought about

that topic. it has been hard to think beyond the flight because there is a set of tasks ahead for all of us. i would suspect they will try to do something soon after his arrival. the crew is always busy after a rival with all the debriefing and press. as the summer goes on, i am sure they will try to take a couple of days off. >> i want to ask about a tiny moment that occurred this morning when commander caylee reached out and pointed upward. you know if that was a gesture toward her? >> he may have been pointing at the root of the launch control center where the spouses were watching, but none of us were there. >> this one might be for one of

your colleagues. i was just wondering how gabby is putting her tweets out, whether she is telling you what she wants to express. how is that all working? >> we had some confusion early on about who was tweeting. we are careful that we say staff or officer orme. it is not her, it is us, but we do discuss with her like we discuss everything. >> prior to the shooting, she was an avid tweeter.

we are continuing to keep them in beijing and fun, which is what she always liked to use those tools for -- keep them in engaging and fun. >> some family members said that they were standing and watching the launch. what she standing or sitting? >> she was sitting. sometimes when you are looking up, you can get off balance. we wanted to make sure she was comfortable and able to really days at that and not have to focus on standing and balancing. that is something that she works on. she is doing a great job, but we want her to feel very comfortable. she did stand to greet the spouses, but she sat for the actual launch. >> congratulations to you and to congresswoman giffords for making it as far as she has.

she is a great inspiration for people who have been through deep trauma. how has that affected her relationship or her concept of god? >> i do not know. i cannot begin to answer that question. we would have to ask her. for anyone involved in something like this, you obviously take stock of how valuable and precious life is, but specifically, i cannot tell you. that is the first time i have had that question. >> since the shooting, you all have really stepped out as spokespeople and representatives. at the time when there was a discussion underway about whether mark kelly would resume his work at nasa and golan commanding this light, if you all personally had any concerns about that, and just what sorts

of things you are taking on now , and if his decision to apply this mission has impacted your work at all in that sense. >> i think we have all provided a sounding board for mark and gaby going through this process. i never would question his decision in terms of whether or not i thought it was right or wrong. i personally hoped that he would do it because i knew gabby would want him to. weeks later we realized she was going to begin to make a good recovery broadway. at that point, we were happy that he decided to do it. as far as our jobs changing, for

her spouse to be an astronaut has a unique impact on our office. obviously worked for the congresswoman, not for mark. during these times when their personal life becomes the center of attention personally, there is some overlap there. we have certainly been supporting mark via gabby throughout the process just because there is a lot of interest in it. our jobs have changed, but the core of it has not. we remained committed to serving the constituents of arizona's eighth district. we are proud of that. >> i am with the celebration

ended ended newspaper -- celebration independent newspaper. i am interested in how our office in washington is continuing to operate, and i understand she cannot cast votes, but is there any influence she has through you back in washington? who makes decisions in her absence? is it you or somebody else? can you describe a little bit about how that works? >> speaking about the tucson services offices, where a lot of the george t. -- where the majority of our work is focused right now. in an environment that is often bitter and divided, having an

impact is often in your home office. last week, the defense authorization bill passed the armed services committee that the congress woman sits on. we had a number of amendments, including one addressing traumatic brain injury before returning soldiers from afghanistan and iraq. right now the insurance program that covers veterans does not cover rehab for traumatic brain injuries. we have a situation where the congresswoman is receiving better care than a soldier would receive. that is not right. we have taken on that issue. adam smith, the ranking member of the armed services committee is a close friend of the congresswoman. he and others on that committee have been very supportive and were able to help us get some of minutes into that bill. you were able to feel her impact without her actually being in

washington d.c. >> i guess you had not seen her since january 8? you there that day. i just wanted to know your reaction to seeing her and her recovery. >> it was certainly a very emotional moment to see the congresswoman for the first time in about four months. it was also extremely inspirational. i think it reminds all of us why we are so devoted to her and why we enjoyed working for her. it was extremely encouraging. we have heard such good reports about her recovery, but to actually see her and talk with per, it was a very moving experience. i am very glad i did.

>> we have a few more minutes left. i want to make sure arizona of media gets a chance. that's good, all right. >> you mentioned she was sitting during the launch. was she sitting on a wheelchair or on out regularly -- regular stationary chair? you mentioned someone gave her flowers. what kind of flowers were they? >> >> they were red roses. >> we have a picture that we are flashing their. the beautiful flowers, the face with the bigger bouquet for daddy, and then a single rose for his daughters. she was in a wheelchair, which was four key ease. we were moving around and it was

much quicker that way. >> you mentioned a note was sent up with commander kelly. the the congresswomen right that note? did she have help? >> she did write it. >> thank you. just wondering if you know at one point she might be considering making a first public appearance in public, and what might determine when that happens? >> we are far from that. that is not a discussion we have had. her next medical hurdle is cranioplasty. it was taken off on january 8 in a very good split decision made

by the team at the university medical center in tucson. it allowed the brain to swell, which is credited for saving her life. that surgery needs to happen, and addis the net -- and that is the next step we're looking at before we think that what happens after that. process.a slow hau it takes time. >> you can find this briefing online at c-span.org. we now join a conversation at the wilson center in washington, d.c.. >> woodrow wilson is still the only president to have earned a ph.d. he was a professor before he became a politician. in 1910, when he was the

president of princeton, he ran for governor of new jersey and he served two years and that post and ran for president and serve for eight years. wilson was a believer in bringing together the scholars and politicians, thinkers, doors with the belief that both would benefit through an exchange of ideas. that is the spirit in which the congress spotted this living memorial on the mall. we have 800 meetings a year in this facility. the congress project is just a small drop in the bucket, but we are pleased with the programs we do. we bring together members of congress, former members, officials, journalists, to study the congress, and we talk about specific policy issues and how the process plays out on issues on the hill. today is the final in a series we have been holding on the

general theme of policy making, media, and public opinion. next fall we will launch a new series of congress and foreign policy making. today i should mention that the series is sponsored in part by a grant from chevron. today that program is co- sponsored by the international securities studies program. thank you very much for cosponsoring. the program today is on the subject of congress, the u.n., and the war power, from korea to libya. what prompted this was the u.s. participation, the authorization of proving the authorization in the security council for enforcing a no-fly zone over libya back in march. the president sent a letter to congress in compliance with the

war powers act that they are doing that voluntarily because the war powers act is said to be unconstitutional. it was signed into law over president nixon's veto in 1973, and what presidents have the biggest problem with is the provision that if they commit troops the hostilities without authorization of congress or an imminent threat of attack, they must withdraw those forces within 60 days. that that line comes up this friday. it will be the 60th day on the 20th of this month. it will be interesting to see what the president does or whether the congress will move in the interim to authorize the continued presence of the u.s. participation in the no-fly zone enforcement. that is what prompted me to think more about this subject and what our relationship is with international organizations use troops from time to time, either for

humanitarian for peacekeeping purposes. also the relationship with congress. the president did not ask congress for authorization for this particular mission. this has been the case in many instances in the past. we have a table in your hand out what some of those instances war. we are very pleased to have a stellar cast today, making presentations, from their perspectives on this topic of congress, you and, and the war power. we are pleased to have porter goss, who for a least 16 years, served as representative of the 14th congressional district in florida, a lovely place where he lived. my wife and i visited sanibel, and he is a member of the house rules committee, where i met him, but he was also the chairman of the house intelligence committee and from there became the director of the

central intelligence under president bush and then was appointed under the terms of the new intelligence reorganization, as director of the cia. he currently works on the farm and is also the chair of the office of congressional ethics, which is an independent screening body that the house uses the screen complaints and pass them along to the house ethics committee. that is keeping him very busy as well. he is chair of that bipartisan organization. david skaggs of cal -- of colorado is the vice chair. the second speaker the day -- will not going to a lot of detail -- john yoo, a professor of law at the university of california at berkeley. he has been there since 1993, but in 1995 and 1996 he served in the judiciary committee.

he was at the office of legal counsel, the part of justice. he is currently a visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute, king from a program there this morning in fact. he is the author of several books, one of the powers of war and peace, the constitution and foreign affairs after 9/11. we have shared in your hand out a recent piece he did for the wall street journal on the case of libya and the president's actions, both his statements as a senator and his actions, statements now as president, which many of you will conclude after hearing presentations the day the old washington axiom is alive and well where you stand depends on where you set. things look different when you are unclear -- when you are on the other end of have an avenue. the third speaker is louis fisher, who i had a prisoner --

pleasure of working with for several decades, and he is retired and with the constitution project. he has offered more books than i have had a chance to read, but they are on my shelf. i have read them, including this one, "presidential war power." there is a more recent addition in 2004. we are going to save for the fourth speaker, cleanup hitter across jonathan broder, who is the senior editor for national security at the congressional quarterly weekly, and jonathan had 20 years as the correspondent all over the world for a variety of news organizations. in such hot spots as beirut,

lebanon, and they are all listed in your hound out, but he has that at the center of a lot of action around the world. he returned to d.c. in 1990 as a washington correspondent for " the san francisco examiner pit " in late march he did cover stories on the proposition of congress and the war powers and the president, looking at it since the libyan crisis arose. we are pleased to have jonathan here as our cleanup hitter. turn the microphone over the porter goss -- though i will turn the microphone over to porter goss. >> thank you. this is like church. the applause starts and from the back and comes forward. that makes me feel comfortable. i started on this subject and read the works of these men

sitting on this panel, including the works of dpm. i am very impressed, because there is plenty of information. i have come to the conclusion there are more opinions than questions and more questions than answers, and it is not going to end anytime soon. you can probably come back anytime and have the same discussion. i want to set a context because we will talk about this, in context, the first context, i will make stipulations which i will ask you to agree with. the first is the world is a sorry mess. the second stipulation is we are a superpower. the third submission is we're gonna to be asked to help out to do all kinds of things. the fourth stipulation is politics are more partisan than they have ever before in my life and perhaps years as well, and we do nothing to doing better than that. we no longer have the old practice of partisan politics

stopped at the water's edge. partisan politics have gone global. the last stipulation i would make is something we all have known is relations between congress and that hill will all vote -- always have this version in them, where we cannot decide how many members of a different root committees we will brief from the white house and congress on a given subject or how many we will release classified information to and can have another debate about that and stop legislation from going forward. you can see that even a small minutia of what goes on on that daly relations have great significance. that is since it was meant to be -- separation of powers. i will ask you to participate for a moment and this is a question i asked every time i speak about which is quite often these days. it is the question -- are we at war? how many people in this room think we are at war?

by your neighbor. how many really think we are at war? it is divided. it looks like more think we are at peace. the fact of the matter is we do not know whether we really are at war or not because we have not answered all the questions get about what he is that is a war into the's context that i have given you. declaring war is one thing. congress -- we could talk about congress declaring war all along. what do we mean when they declare war? is it an incursion or world war ii or something like that with the next thing has to do when you start talking about things like war, you have to start looking at things like if we are having a war, who is the enemy? do we have an enemy? can we identify an enemy? a state, a despot, a militant etiology out there, a group of rebels, freedom fighters,

pirates off the coast of all of these things suddenly are manifest the us and we try to find out what are we going to do with these people who are making trouble? the next question you have to ask is where is the battlefield. we have come across this one recently -- is the battlefield that we thought we approved in 17 september in 2001 just iraq and afghanistan and that area, or is it elsewhere? it is the battlefield global because what we're doing is fighting an enemy that believes that at least the -- part of the globe is the battlefield, and i do not think it is restricted to the caliphate part, the people whose not thinking about things the way we see it. where is the battlefield, and did you get to the hard part, the part that i have lived,

difficult, what are the rules of engagement what are the legal rules? what is the policy that works those are important points because it is no longer a world war ii. we're not in a conventional war. unconventional operations. the idea is no longer go out there and sap the energy costs will to fight. that used to be the way we w on wars. the people we fight against the they say the only way you can stop me is to kill me. if i don't kill myself first with a bomb and but you ought to. this is different. this is a philosophy that we have got to deal with and think about, and there are not a lot of conventions. we go along and we take a look at the fact that there are big conventional threats out there and you have to be prepared, so maybe some of the old dialogue about war powers is a good

dialogue that have. we still have russia, china, we do not know exactly what the future is gone to be, but this might be an area where we have something more conventional in terms of organized military that we are facing off against. we do not know a lot of things about how we are going about dealing with this enemy. let me take one second to explain. this enemy is a brutal enemy. as the enemy fix on innocents. steny utilizes terror and brutality the score points, and usually penske the most vulnerable -- and usually pits the most formal targets. they take advantage of our freedoms and decency. they exploit our tolerance of them, and they are not tolerant of us. i'm talking about radical islam,

of course. i am not talking about the great religion of the world which is is live. i'm talking about the ones who have hijacked it, and a conclusion is there is complete incompatibility between radical islam and gao-christianity as we know it and understand it in this country. does this matter to us? it does as we start going along. when we start trying to have decisions made about how to go about this war and deal with these kinds of people, we find we have come to unsettled times. we have a lot of a decision, hesitation, that has been going on for a lot of years now. it goes across the board because this is new. do we treat these guys as lawbreakers who are the combat that?

i am in the intelligence business. the idea of mirandizing does not help me with my intelligence mission a lot. you have these things out there that we have got to deal with. perhaps the most lucrative flow of information we have got about the enemy has come from professional interrogation, and i mean professional interrogations, down lawfully and properly. that is for the great body of her mission has led us to the successes we have had and the protections of america that we have been able to exercise as well. the problem with this is, this is all created now a great debate and we do not know when we talk to our front line up for this whether they are special forces or intelligence agents or people out there. we did not know what to tell them what the rules of engagement are.

we end up with situations like we just had with ubl. shoot him, bring him back here, and deal with the complex problems out there. where do you try him, can you talk to him, what can you do? it is a nightmare. this has become a martyr. is in decision has led us to point where we are not getting the best advantage of the sister that confronts us. i would have loved to have had a couple of days with osama bin lawton, questions about his operatives, where the money come .rom sequoi we're not going to find out all the personal aspects of this that he has engendered with so many others out and about the world today. the last thing that goes on, and

when i talk about the decision is congress in its wisdom said the cia is out of control. these weapons of mass cistercian stuff did not do too well. we need a new organization. we will create another organization, and we will overlay it over the cia because they are out of control, and we will call at the directorate of national intelligence, and they will solve the problems and coordinate everything beautifully. that way everybody will share affirmation and nothing can go wrong. it is interesting, the hallmark of intelligence is agility, speaker, to be able to respond quickly. the whole purpose of the director of national intelligence to coordinate, make interested parties have a chance to look at something. from the time you see your enemy, say i could do something, but i have to go back to washington and get 15 agencies

to sign back on it. how long does that take? it is hard to get osama bin lawton or anybody else to stand still for that long. we have created this problem, and if our mission is to find a needle in a haystack, the solution is washington, d.c., idea that the way to complete this is at work they did a haystack and pay a lot of money for the they. that is pretty much what we have done with the national intelligence director at the idea. it is supposed to be a smooth functioning coordinated rapid exchange of information. there is that what will benefit from that. it is far from her. if you doubt it, what the -- one of the other parts of intelligence is sharing information is a no-no. you only share with people who need to know. the trick is knowing with whom you need to share. that is the trick. which he expressed to us that when you decide to open the door

and say let's put this up out there for everybody to have a shot at, you see what happens. we have some embarrassment's gone on because of wikileaks, because we have that enthusiasm to get that information out and the overview on intelligence and make it work has a downside. something we used to call unintended negative consequences. we got to the next question about congress, and i will try to boil this down to what is the question for congress on war powers. it is how much blood and pressure for how long is going to be out there. that is what members of congress have to think about and go back talk to the constituents about. you can lead, make people understand what the policy is,

you can and line, and do a great job as a representative, but there is a time when you listen at town meetings and what you hear coming back at you is we do not like this. then it becomes we heat this. then it becomes stop that. and then soon we will pick you if you do not get it right. when we talk about congress responding and in the transmission to what our great society, the free democratic open society, wants, that is the hallmark of our democracy and freedom, but it is inefficient. congress has to get involved in dealing with these little brushfires, and some of them are big fires the state, that crop up and say, how do we deal with what the people want, what the administration is what to do, and what is our job? how do we look at the many different things? i would say it is hard to be a member of congress these days. it is not about declaring war. we have not had that situation.

limits of the purse, i will tell you flat out, denying our troops overseas money or armor or anything they need to do their job is an absolute non starter with most of the american public as it should be. the power of the person really is not just in the congressman's hand, it doesn't lie with the people, which is where it should be. as for questions for the president, i would say what the president is looking for and understanding he is not a hill with committees and chairman, and because we have redefined national security, i cannot tell you how many committees and subcommittees and german and vice chairman and ranking members are involved. it is a long list of people that the president has to take into account when he talks about who does he notifying congress about what he is going to be doing. who does he try to bring in as an assistant to help his cause, and who does he have to and run to get around what he wants to

do. the president's goal is can he get done what he wants to get done? that is his issue. i have to deal with this, can get this done, and how wide to get that it's the first question is defend the nation, and highs prairie, and we understand that. the question becomes is it necessary that this bill blood? does the british fleet have to be at that river and the white house burning before we understand we are under attack? do we have to have a 9/11 before we get it so we can say we do something because there is a real threat out there, or can we look at what is in front of us, and the most of all decision a president of a united states would have today is making a pre-emptive nuclear strike. a pre-emptive nuclear strike because they had solid intelligence that something was want happen, and all the conventional wisdom and the war said so. you could very easily have a serious miscalculation, and that is one of the great worries in the nuclear world that you have

this this calculation. i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about lesser matters. do we commit for some overseas for things like instability? we did not what areas to be embroiled. do we go into countries, bomb belgrade for 72 days because it is the best way to deal with a small problem over there, named milosevic? do we cocoa saw the destruction of commerce problem by doing something about pirates or do we not do something about the pirates pulled it is odd to me that we are not doing more about the pirates because it seems to me our navy was started because we were trying to do something about pirates. i'm wondering when we are going to do something serious about pirates. are these reasons to launch -- those are important questions that we have not answered yet. there is so much going on, the

libyan thing. we have talked about that. is it possible that people who are yearning for freedom and reaching out and so forth -- i give you a situation where an authoritarian relatively evil dictator, even though he poses as a democrat, is developing a nuclear weapon siegele, providing technology that works, and propagandizing heat against americans -- is that a reason to do is something? that is iran today. shall we acknowledge that or do something about if they are reaching out for freedom in egypt, libya, everywhere, which ones do we help, and on the basis of what, and who makes that decision? you could down the line in using, if we went to libya to

stop a bloodbath, why aren't we doing something in damascus what are we letting assad get away with shooting his own people? you go into these questions. these are very difficult questions, and when do we commit the force of the united states, because we can. we're the only force out there that can do that. they get to that extent. just for humanitarian causes -- should we commit for humanitarian causes ? shame on america for sitting on its hands when that was happening. why weren't we they're protecting those people from those of extraordinary acts of atrocity? i ask the question that way. these are all totally legitimate

questions that come right down under the question of who is the the site her? it is now fashionable to talk about regime change. regime change did not use to be t.shionable to talk about ahea regime change might be the reason -- not the legal reason we are in libya -- but the fact is the president said we would like to get rid of that guy, we want regime change. when we start down this road -- who decides what regimes are trying to be changed? how is king abdullah in saudi arabia on to feel about that? the president in yemen might be useful, but this guy assad would

seem to be a candidate, but what are the consequences of whom are making the decisions on regime change? how do you accomplish regime change? what is your equipment to do that. that is going to involve the congress of the united states. then you come to the rest of the question of who is the replacement for this regime change? any idea who will fill the seat? i remember papa doc? it turns out he was better than some of the people who followed him. finally, the question of who decides all this and who picks and how the regime change happens -- that is a totally legitimate debate for the congress and the president have. the problem is they're usually

there is not time and not clarity about how to go forward. we have situations that are new, policy uncertain, and we have a mechanism that is designed for last century. that is a problem, and we cut all go home and not worry about it anymore, thinks colors will face it, but wrong because will wake up tomorrow morning and figure out there is another challenge. my answer is simple -- there's something called military cia action agent program cooperation. it is -- this is being able to deal with these brushfires and conflagrations lawfully, with policy, with understanding of members of congress, and you can make it work, can do things in the hours that takes weeks to do if you go to the big box,

checking grafts, to safeguard it. i suggest that is the wave of the future, and my advice is to more fully develop that, and my view is that the work on the war powers will be endless because there will never ever be a settling of power. nobody will ever have as much as they deserve or want or need to do their job, so consequently, everybody's future is going -- is guaranteed for a long time who is involved in this debate. thank you. >> john, you can present from the podium or at your seat. it is your choice. c-span would prefer you at the podium. >> lou and i agreed to speak at the podium. it is the last thing we will agree to today. i to thank you for joining fort

-- for inviting me to join you at the wilson said today. this is the 17th anniversary of the date when we first started the bidding war powers, and you will see 17 years that i have not been able to change lou's mind one bit. it is a great pleasure to be here with lou again and with mr. goss, and mr. broder. it is a pleasure to meet you today. i will give you a chance to leave one wonderland which is the people of republic of berkeley and visit another one which is to come to washington, d.c., and defense the obama administration, which is not a position i'm usually used to being in. i'm happy to do it on this one occasion, although not for reasons that the obama agonists -- obama administration wanted.

this friday the 60-day limit will pull on the obama administration, and that is the war powers resolution which says a president cannot have troops abroad in periods or informants of potential hostility for more than 60 days. unless he gets authorization from congress, they have to remove them. that means the libyan intervention is this friday. i think this puts president obama in a very tough position of his own creation. when he was campaigning for the presidency at the end of 2007, he told a press and there was a nice piece that had a quotation, he said, of what the president does not have power under constitution to authorize a

military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an imminent threat to the nation." i would think as a candidate, president obama would have to think that the libyan intervention will be unconstitutional as of this friday. unless somebody here who thinks that the civil war going on in libya actually constitute some kind of threat to the country, i do not think it is, and i have not heard people make that argument, but that would be the only way that would be consistent with his earlier statement. i will say, when he took office, his views on executive power have changed, not just in areas that -- most prominently in the areas mr. goss referred to, issues on terrorism, where many people have criticized by many people agree his policy started out very different from the

former administration, and now they have circle back to be similar to the bush administration. let me read you the sentence from his letter that he sent to the congress reporting to them . " i have directed these actions pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct u.s. foreign relations and as in chief. of candin i am providing this report to keep the congress fully informed and consistent with the war powers resolution." he did not say he was acting in pursuant to it. this is the same language ever president has used since it was passed because every president

has taken the position that the war powers resolution does not constrain their ability to use force of rot. what is going to happen on friday it does not look like he is on to receive any. it does not look like congress is gone to spend a funding bill. he will somehow how have to withdraw our operations, which i think would be quite q -- which would do a harm to the nato alliance, and britain and france would have a reason to be upset for leaving them in the lurch, or he will take the position of president before him since nixon that the war powers resolution is an unconstitutional restriction on the set of bridgett's ability to use force abroad. in the paper they're spending all kinds of tricks to get out of this. it is suggested that the

president is thinking of stopping the war for a day and restarting it. the president loves basketball, but it does not work that way. when it comes the war powers, people talk about withdrawing but leaving an american command and control of the lovely, because that is what mr. goss refer to, in the past, nato has had trouble controlling these operations without command and control. where still telling the british and french were to drop the bombs. is that not going to be war? in the time remaining, i would like to make the case that the president has the authority to continue the war and does not need congress' permission. congress could cut off funding and in with and tomorrow if it wanted to do that, but i do not think congress will do that. congress will do what it is done

in these situations, which is do nothing. the salsa dance. he says you go to the left, right, and you are in the same place he starred in. the same idea? congress is not going to do it in living, but it gives congressmen and congresswomen the ability to criticize the president. what they do not want to do is take responsibility for the decision. the safest thing is not to take a vote at all and that the president the other on a limb. three basic ways to interpret the constitution. most lawyers agree with its factionalism, and original -- functionalism.

functionalism advises the courts to defer to the arrangements that have been arrived at for exercising powers. it is the great justification for the delegation of power for the administration state from congress. here it is functional and it is hard to say the should overturn what had been decades, if not centuries, a practice where presidents have used force without any congressional permission, and waited afterwards for congress to authorize it, not provide funding, but the congress' role has been usually to give permission afterwards. the reason why is because congress' incentives are not to take any role before the war starts. i would say that the nationalism and an-- fu

nctionlism -- the threat environment has changed. you could say maybe the constitution originally had a system in place to prevent the president from engaging in adventurism. i think that would be called the error, designed to prevent mistakes being made from commission. type two errors, mistakes of omission. rwanda is a type two error, because we did not do anything. thousands and thousands of people were killed because -- obviously if the world war ii generation, the great mistake

was not stopping hitler and japan. with the threat environment of terrorism and nuclear proliferation and human rights crises, our president and congress have moved to a system where the president can act quickly, rather than a system that slows down how fast the country can act, which is why we have a standing peacetime army for the first time in our history, one that if you look at it is built undertake offensive operations in other people's countries, not to defend the territory of the united states. second example, textualistm -- what can you learn by reading the text of the constitution? it is not that clear. the president and congress have to share power, appointments, treaties, it has a detailed

provisions explaining how it is the happen. this is not the point mr.'s was making, but there is constitutional basis on it, because the constitution this is a party to the president and congress and expects them to fight it out. does not create settled congress ident goes and present this a second. the constitution is silent. the reason why that is is because in the constitution there is a procedure for going to war that is detailed and specific. it does not apply to the president. it applies to states. for some reason i always thought that this is the most clever thing i ever found in the war powers area because i was reading my constitution in my office, you all have your heritage foundation constitution

is on you, and look for any mention of war, and i found this provision that people never read about, which is about states making war. it says the state shall without the consent of congress engage in war. the framers wanted to have subjected the present to the same limits, they could have copied that language and apply it to the president, then they had something for sudden attacks. even though the constitution does not say that, if you think you have to declare war first, paone unless the states were actually invaded or uttered danger that would not have allowed eight the lake. they knew exactly how to write a constitutional provision for that.

if they want to have that same process, why did they not copy the same language? they created a different kind of process to be built on political fighting between the executive and legislative branches. i am at the end of my time, and i what to wrap up my time. you think that the people are wrote the constitution should understand it to govern, what was the practice of making war at the time of the riding of the constitution. here i will point out a lot of other arguments. article 1, section 8 -- which is what everyone says congress can declare wars, it is not a

domestic provisioned about who gets to decide whether to go to hostilities. it has another purpose of what is the state of our international relationships. the reason i think the original case for that is, go back and look at when wars were declared in the 18th century. we got the idea from great britain. it gave the power to declare war to the british crown. if you go back and look, the declare war power was not seen as some kind of domestic provision, it was about notifying the other country were at war. i think one way to check that is, when did they declare war in the 18th or 17th century. i went back and looked. in only one war of all the wars that britain fought in the 1600's and 1700's, and there were almost that were more often than peace, they only declared

war and once before hostilities broke out. it seems to me the original understanding was not that you need to declare war first before you could have hostilities. to me, the ratification debates were funding powers. when the constitution is challenged during its ratification, is giving power to the president and more time. the defenders of the constitution said it will work like it has in england. in england, it is the power by the purpose, not any other formal powers we are talking about today. i will conclude by saying that it seems to me we have had many decades now since world war two, i would say earlier, at least since the korean war that we have had without

congressional permission. that have worked out the arrangement. if you work or to overthrow the decades of practice, you ought to have 100% certainty that you are right about the constitution. in my view, there are a lot of arguments that point in the other direction. the last people i think will decide this in our lifetimes is the supreme court of the united states. they have avoided this question like the plague. i am afraid that means it will really get fought out on panels like this. there will not be any permanently winning party. thank you very much. [applause] >> john and i talked earlier that our first contact with his article in 1996 in the california law review. if you look at the people that

johnson's thank you for looking at the draft, lou fisher is there. i did not keep my notes from the time. but i would suspect at that time, we differ radically. if john was to make the case that after world war ii, we are moving in some kind of fashion, i think the facts would support him. where we differ fundamentally is the period from 1787 up until world war ii, or the framers knew all about marquee and it rejected it. -- monarchy and rejected it. i am going to focus on authorization. president obama says the authorization for the war in libya comes from the security

council. you have to ask yourself, what kind of the system is that where the president does not come to congress for authority. i will say from 1789 up until 1950, that is the korean war, over the period, every major war the president either came to congress for a declaration or came authorization. all of them were either acted by statute, authorization or declaration, and there is nothing unusual about that. in 1798, it was authorized by about 20 stat sheet. everybody knew they were born to go to war against france. that got to the supreme court. people say the supreme court does not get involved in war issues.

they left it up to congress. alexander -- alexander hamilton said it one of the federalist papers. this occurred -- the supreme court's authorization, that is what we did. john talked about defense of acts, the framers understood that at the philadelphia convention. they recognize that when congress is not in session, the president may have to repel certain attacks. that was understood. but to go from defense operation into office operation to take the country from a state of peace into a state of war against another country, that was done either by a declaration or authorization of congress. always. a couple of sentences from president obama. he talked to the nation on march

28 about libya. he says that the united states has done what we said we would do. the united states? no, president obama. congress has nothing to do with it. courts have nothing to do with it. president obama is the united states. he didn't talk about some supporting institutions. had a unique opportunity to stop the violence. a broad coalition prepared to join us. the support of arab countries, a plea from the libyan people themselves. completely missing from this picture is congress and the american people.

"history has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch. it is always preferable to have the conformed consent of congress prior to any military action." and we can start to talk about how the constitution is structured to go to war. the framers knew all about the executives not just holding all of the war power but foreign affairs. that is what john locke would have supported. the better to of powers is what we would call the foreign affairs. john locke had this totally in the executive branch. the legislative had no role at all.

the framers knew that model. william blackstone and his commentaries did the same thing. look at these powers, blackstone give them all to the executive. that would include the power to declare war. blackstone gave the executive power to make treaties, declare war, appoint ambassadors, raise and support armies and navies, power over the military regulations, the power to issue letters, mainly to have private citizens help in military activity, then look at the u.s. constitution. it is very clear. the president does not receive one of those powers. not a single one. they either give them expressly to congress and article 1, or he

has to share them with the senate. so the framers knew of that model, and for many reasons spelled out -- he said,, "the president will have all the qualities, but will not make war but support it." you cannot give that power to the president in a small "r" republican government. that goes for the people. it is not for the president. a lot of people have viewed the federalist papers. one that does not get attention is no. 4. if anybody would have been sympathetic to a strong executive role in foreign affairs, it would be john jay. that was his specialty.

listen to this language. he expresses here what the framers learn when they studied all the other constitutions and histories and experiences. he said ," absolute monarchs for often make war, the nation ought to get nothing by it. but for purposes nearly personal such as a thirst for military glory, revenge for personal friends, or support for their particular families. he's in a variety of other motives often leads him to engage in war is not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of the people." i would say particularly after world war ii when we have gone

into war is not declared, we have gotten to a succession of wars that are costly to the nation. so i do not think any of us would say, oh, what ever the framers believed, we should follow. the framers got a lot of things wrong including slavery, not giving women the right to vote. on this one, not putting it to the president in one voice, the framers got that right then. what they thought in the 18th century applies even more, to me, now, in the 21st century. let us look at the korean war. the same thing that obama did going to the security council to get authorization or harry truman did in 1950. my paper has a lot of details on this.

the u.n. charter never gave the power to go to war to the security council as an authorizing body. you cannot do that. the un charter is a treaty that the president and the senate cannot give away article one powers to an outside body. it is impossible argument. the un charter did not do that. the un charter had no police force. the only way the security council could call upon a military force would be to have the nation's who belong to the un contribute troops, equipment, and anything. they would do that. it meant that every nation who would do that would have to look at their own system and see what the constitutional process was.

at that time, when the senate was debating the the u.n. charter. truman who wasn't pakistani, he pledged to the senate "when any such agreement or agreements are negotiated with the security council, it will be my purpose to ask the congress for appropriate legislation to approve it. everybody knew it. they did not go on the basis of truman's pledge, it put that in law. the un charter would be implemented by the u.s. participation act of 1945. it is that these agreements should be subject to the approval of congress by joint resolution. i have in my paper the background of what happened to woodrow and wilson, the league of nations, the got into