many ways. why was it? it was not because they read our book. it was not because of the thing congress for the oval office told them to do. it was the knowledge and experience and practice of arlington and alexandria and rescue crews and the pentagon that had practiced this previous 2 9/11 and knew that unity of command made common sense and knew each other by first names. they knew each other by first names. one of the most important things in this report is getting back to knowing that the american people have a lot of these answers. this unity that we had after 9/11, when people were flying flags and helping each other out, this unity of purpose that was so strong in america -- it

is gone today. >> i have an addendum on something john said about new york city and the benefits of decentralization of the recommendations. new york city is a wealthy community. new york city was the subject of the 9/11 attacks. new york city has always been held up as the place where it was most likely they would occur again. so new york city responded in a way that they should have. the had the resources to do it. hot but few other places in the united states have those resources. they do not have the experience of 9/11. all of us know, as we went out into the country after the 9/11 commission report and talked about it, that the further away you got from new york city, the less concerned people were. they just could not imagine it happening in chicago or the morning -- or does moines, or

los angeles. this company -- this country is so big and easy to attack. there are pipelines, but there is cyber security, the ability of terrorist to hack into systems and shut down electric power, or shut down vital resources -- we have not done anything about that. >> let me join the optimists side. when we first started our review on what happened, the firemen from new jersey could not cook their hoses up to the houses in new york. there were practical problems. i think the physical part of it has been solved.

they still have to get the communications problem solved. >> i want to move all of this to the dysfunction in congress that you described, and the idea that the white house has not put out -- has not filled up a commission on civil liberties. i would like to start with the people who are full members. do you think -- obviously, things are different in 2011. but partisanship is not in great supply here. is it impossible for the institution of congress to make the kind of reforms you have suggested? it is extremely difficult for them to do it. >> the fuse is let right now. they have a bomb underneath them. it is going to go off sometime in the fall or winter. it is the budget. it is the deficit.

it is the super committee looking for ways to save the taxpayer money. even as important as saving the taxpayer money -- streamline congress. congress has not looked at reforming how they do their oversight in decades. they can contribute to the deficit by shaving off committees that are requiring the department of homeland security to come up, week after week, at two different committees and two photo opportunities, hearing, and oversight, with very little follow-up. congressional oversight could drive reform in other important areas. we talked about interoperable lucky, licenses, biometrics. congress could have won powerful committee, rather than dozens of them, and really push the reform. it is important they do it. i think this is an opportunity

with the crisis we faced to do that. >> here is the problem. we have lost as part of the congressional culture the powerful leader, a powerful speaker, a powerful majority leader. we have raised up dozens of powerful individual representatives and senators. in the old days, when you had a powerful speaker, we could say this is congressional reform, this is what we're going to do. now you cannot. these guys have to build coalitions within their party and within their branch of government, and get everybody's consent in order to be elected in the first place, and then to maintain their rule. so they have to sort of let it go to the committee chair and a subcommittee chair. these committees proliferate because this is power and

prestige. that is what blocks congressional reform. i do not know if we will ever get the powerful leader back. i think of some catastrophic event that could force the resolution to these issues, if individual leaders cannot do it. >> i think nancy pelosi would be surprised to hear that she was a week and not authoritarian speaker. introduce me as a dissatisfied former member of the senate intelligence committee. even during the war itself, i learned more on television and then through the briefings that took place. [laughter] and i hardly ever got a briefing in which i did not read the content within about 48 hours in "the washington post." it seemed to me that we were

spinning our wheels and not doing anything. i think a large part of that is due to what congressman reomer sai -- roemer said, a division of authority. the people from the pentagon and the cia did not have to pay a great deal of attention for us. the great advertisement for congress itself -- you forfeited all the movement in this to the administration. they should be motivated by the fact that if it were consolidated in three or four committees, the influence of congress over what goes on would be greatly enhanced. >> you have watched this from the inside of the oval office. >> the phrase what is the bomb that needs to be let -- the bomb is lit, as far as congress goes. they have been told for years that this is something that should be done.

i would be surprised if something happens and they have not done it. whether it is connected or not, it will not matter publicly. it will not change because the underlying cause is campaign finance reform. it is the 74 act. what the 74 act did, by limiting the individual contributions, has made every congressman except those that are very wealthy totally dependent on bun dollars and fund-raising. the way you get a powerful bond dollars is by being a subcommittee chair. when i first came to washington, a freshman congressman was limited to two. they tended to become expert in those areas. now a professional congressman is entitled to six committees.

usually, by their second year, they can wrangle a chair on a subcommittee. that brings a raft of lobbyists who hold cocktail parties to raise their money so they can run. there is nobody going to reduce the number of committees and subcommittees until you change the way campaigns are financed. >> i would come back to the point that jim made and say it is not point to come from super committees, or even the good work of senators lieberman and collins. this change has to be driven by the leadership. it has to be driven by the senate and house leadership. it has to be bipartisan. it has to be driven by the american people. the american people have to say you look at the executive branch agencies, and you insisted on reforms and 21st century change. yet when you looked in the

mirror, you did not change ourselves. you haven't opportunity to make your committee system reflect the challenges and threats to america. you are not doing that effectively. >> i want to shift gears for a moment. we will be opening this to questions from all of you. the issue of civil liberties and the protection of civil liberties, and how that is balanced against the administration believe that it must protect americans, and legally how do you do that, especially with guantanamo -- where do we head down? where is the government going what you think practically can be done in coming years to settle what is not only unsettled, but -- the name of it is the oversight? >> the question posed is what

can be done. first, we must put into functioning reality the commission. it is a puzzle to me why that has not been done. i am not sure i understand it. president bush supported it. president obama has supported it. neither president has made it work. the very first thing that has to be done is to appoint the remaining three members, get them confirmed by the senate, give them a budget, and let them go to work. every argument since 9/11 has been on the securities side. the security people come up with ideas that need to be implemented and to strengthen their ideas to make the nation more secure. the can make a very powerful case for that. it is understandable, i think, why the country has agreed with it most of the way.

but we have given, in the process, a lot of powers of intrusion by these intelligence groups into the lives and the privacy of americans. you very much need a robust board with a lot of power that can push back and make the argument in support of protection of our core values, and our privacies. second, what needs to be done is how to deal with this problem of the suspected terrorist. that is a dilly of a problem. you have a guy in front of you. the strongly suspect he is a terrorist. you do not have the evidence that will stand up in a court of law. you may have some evidence, but it may have been produced by means that would make it not admissible in a court of law.

if you release him, he can kill you. he can do a lot of damage to you. that is a problem that does not fit in our system. we have to figure out a way. i am not suggesting it is easy. but it has to be done in such a way that it has a statutory base. this gets into difficult questions of due process. i conclude by saying what ever you come up with you should have a statute the president and congress agrees on, and the statute must be and must be perceived to be fair. that is a slippery word, i understand, and very difficult to carry out when you are putting the details on it. but it has to meet that standard. therefore, i think the president and the congress are derelict in not pushing a statute that gives

us a comprehensive way of dealing with these suspected terrorists. some improvement may be recognized in our statement on enhanced interrogation has been sharply reduced. but these problems -- i think they are very important. >> i agree, but a note of reality. any presidential candidate who campaigned on anything but jobs next year is wasting his time. but if you were to go out and take a poll of the american people, the plight of guantanamo detainees would be at the bottom. when you said to them, "if we let them go, they may kill you, "it would be way down here.

i do not know why he has not filled out the board, except he has a lot on his plate. he has three wars going on. he has a dysfunctional and partisan congress. he has not gotten to it yet. he could easily get to it. name them and send them to congress, and if they are not confirmed, it is not his fault. but under the obama administration, there have been as strong or even stronger issues of executive power, the state secret doctrine -- in many instances, this administration has gone one better than the bush administration. in that kind of white house, facing the threats this nation faces on a daily basis, the civil liberties issue is not going to get much traction. that is the real world. >> about the privacy and civil

liberties board -- president bush established such a board by executive order. it was located in the executive office of the president. it was staffed and fully supported -- fully appointed. the last year -- i guess it was when the house turned over at the end of the bush administration. there was a move to make this an independent agency or an independent commission, unlike what it was modeled after in the bush concept. so the bush administration dissolved its commission. i have no idea why this is not gone forward. >> what did that commission do in terms of the language on detainee treatment? >> that was not on its plate. >> what was on its plate?

>> national security butters. they investigated when there was a problem with the fbi. they did the investigations. there were supposed to be, ultimately, called upon when there was an issue like that. i have no idea why it has not been filled now. one of the issues was people wanted it to have subpoena power. when you say that within the executive branch, everybody says here we go again. this is building another bureaucracy. so that maybe the reason. another reason is one of the recommendations we made that has been virtually ignored. that is the vulnerability we found in our investigation of the desperately slow appointing and confirmation process. there was no question that it

contributed to allowing the attacks to happen. most of the senior national security positions were not filled nine months after the president was confirmed, as you saw in our televised hearings. most of the senior people that testified were holdovers. we had norad, cia, etc. nothing has been done. there are far too many presidential appointees. they are up to nearly 3000. most of them do not get filled by the end of the first term. not most, but a lot of them. that is one thing that has to be streamlined. we have to make sure a new administration does not come in to empty file cabinets, and that they can name their people and not go to the kinds of delays that do not even allow the

president to get his nominees up the hill for three or four months. then the committees are swamped by too many. >> i am want to really emphasize and agree with what john has said. the entire appointment and confirmation process has broken down. there are all kinds of really good people who just are not want to fill out the application in the first place because the forms are so intrusive. we are so worried about sometimes minor conflicts of interest, people get savaged over relatively minor things. when you cannot get many of the people you want to take the office in the first place -- and if they do agree to do it, they go through six months of hell before they are ever allowed to take the office in the first place. a bit more trust. not so much detail in the applications. and an agreement by the senate to deal promptly with

nomination requires senate approval. is it a national security issue? >> you are the only one here who has had experience in this confirmation process directly, and i agree with what you have said. i would be interested in your reaction. i have always thought that a proposal put forward that a president has a right to have his nominees voted on within a certain time -- 60 days, 90 days. he deserves an upward down a boat. if you put that into statute, would you think? what is wrong with that? the senate probably would not accept it. >> i was going to say. it would be hard to get through the senate. however, this really does not have anything to do with the constitution. the will of adopted for myself was that it was the right for

every appointee who served at the pleasure of the president, and i would generally vote for them, even if i did not agree with them. the president ought to have working for him the people he wants. there ought to be a prompt vote when the names come up. i would not have applied that to people who serve for life, like the supreme court. i would not have favored something like this. to say that could not be filibustered, that there could not be considerable debate -- the constitution says with the advice and consent of the senate. my idea was that if my advice was not sought, i was not bound to give my consent. but only with those who serve for a long time or life, as against people who work in the cabinet. they're going to go out of office when the president went out. >> the more a reflect on it, i

agree with jim that jobs and the economy are going to dominate the landscape of the presidential and congressional elections. but when you start to think about the scope and the intimacy to americans of privacy issues -- the e-mail, their mail, telephone calls, the privacy of conversations they have, the identification numbers -- these are critical, important issues to most americans. the congress and white house working together on a statute that would address this, in terms of the timing, in a way where there is the liberation and time to do it the right way -- you do not want to have this debate five days after another catastrophic attack, when there

is probably going to be a push to get legislation through that will not have the necessary balance. in terms of scope and timing, i agree it is not at the top of the list for congress and most people, but it should be somewhere in the top 20. >> let's talk about something really scary -- cyber terrorism. this is no longer science fiction. do any of you have thoughts on what immediately the government could do? are other elements in this report that you think could at least give the government a start on doing more on the potential of its cyber attack? >> i think it is beginning to be addressed. at least that is my impression. it is curious in a way that it has taken so long for us to get

their, because this possibility of an attack has been known for a long time. but after postponing the debate and policy questions for some time, it seems to me we are beginning to move. you have to have somebody in charge of cyber security within the administration. they have to have direct access to the president. they have to be able to cut across a lot of departments and agencies, because a lot of them are involved. organizationally, steps have been taken, but it is not clear to me yet the authority exists. >> the pentagon? >> the nsa is the powerful actor here, i believe, because of their technological skills. they have to develop both offensive and defensive approaches to dealing with cyber attacks.

we saw in the paper just as today about the north koreans they think made a cyber attack on the bank in correa. that kind of thing will become only more frequent. we have to develop a set of tools that not only protect government, but protect the private sector. you have to have a lot of interaction with the private sector, because so much of our vulnerability to cyber attack is in the private sector, not controlled by government. i think an awful lot of work needs to be done and is beginning to be done, but we have a long way to go. >> what about the threat, how it is being managed? it is totally decentralized. the chinese are doing it to technical universities, 17 and 18 year olds being paid seven or eight bucks a week to come up with different approaches to

hacking, coordinated by the pla. you look at the ways we are starting to respond, which is to create a ponderous bureaucracy. who do you think is going to win, if we centralize through our vast bureaucracy? on the other hand, look at silicon valley. all of the big companies are more concerned than the government is about being hacked and counterattacked. i think that trying to come up with the concept we had for the dni applied to cyber, to coordinate government activities and help the private sector -- you do not want the and a say in running the cyber business of google. we do not have that approach now, but we have to take our

model from the threat -- decentralized but well coordinated. >> we will now have a question and answer. >> doyle mcmanus from "the los angeles times." i would like to expand on the cost of security in a time of fiscal austerity. the deficiencies and cost benefit -- can you expand that? are we doing it right? is it possible to envision a future we can be as secure or more secure at a lower cost? >> i think the question is a good one. it would not have been five years ago or 10 years ago.

what happened is four years we did not pay attention to costs. we knew there were steps that had to be taken. we did them. we did not ask much about the cost. when i was chairman of the intelligence committee, i cannot remember exactly what the budget was, but it was a few million dollars. the last figure i saw was a million dollars total for intelligence. whether that is right or wrong, i do not know. there has been an explosion. homeland security, $50 million budget. defense department, much higher expenditures because of homeland security and the wars we are fighting, and so forth. for the first time, i have noticed in going to congressional committees and testifying that the question of cost is beginning to come up.

your question reflects that. i believe it is a relatively new element in the debate. are we getting our money's worth when we spend all this money for security? i think it is a legitimate question. my sense is we are just at the beginning of that cost effectiveness debate. it is not a debate we have enough of in government, incidentally, i think. we need it here in the security area as well. if you argue with somebody about whether or not a given security staff is necessary, you have a tough burden of persuasion to say it costs too much or is not necessary. they can give you 101 reasons why a particular step is important for the national security of the united states. i am glad to hear the question put. i do not have an answer. i think we are at because of a debate on cost effectiveness.

i think we should be. i hope it becomes a more robust debate. >> let us begin with the premise. the very first, fundamental obligation of at least in national and state governments is to keep its citizens secure. if they cannot do that, they cannot do anything else, whether it is education or social programs. you name it. security comes first. that is the obligation of government. that is why we have a government. that is why we are not an individual society. the question of cost is important. at the moment, the chinese are paying for a lot of our security programs. who knows how long that will go on.

the question should be not how much is this, but is this worth paying for. is this good security? is this the best we can get? if so, we will buy it. if it is less than the best or is reduplicate, or isn't added a rider to benefit a constituency, the answer is no. but let us not forget why government exists in the first place. >> if you are the president of the united states and somebody makes an argument to take a certain security step -- you know that if a terrorist attack occurs or something worse, you will get the blame for it. you will take every possible step to protect the american people. that is an understandable and even desirable trait in a politician or the president. >> a qualified yes.

if we had the dni john invasion, with somewhat more authority, my estimate is that we could probably get at least the quality of intelligence we have now at a modestly reduced cost. i do not think we can cut it in half, or anything like that, but we would improve its efficiency. >> i totally agree, on the part of the budget i am familiar with, the pentagon budget. more and more of the money is going to the bureaucracy. when the pentagon was created, the act limited headquarters staff to 50 people, to have a lean, powerful secretary with a strong staff. the pentagon put out its latest report. the staff, the bureaucracy

around the office of the secretary of defense -- forget the service. 750,000 people. and during the reagan administration, we had a 600 ship navy. we had twice as many aircraft at half the age. today, the budget excluding the war is 50% higher than it was at the height of the reagan years. the force is half the size. the bureaucracy is twice the size. that is exactly what has happened in the intelligence community as well. instead of acting as if it is determined -- you put money in, you get capability out -- the budget debate about our security is where is the money going, and let us change where it is going. >> i would propose three things

to strategically get at your question and provide sound answers to a better, safer intelligence and security system. can we save money? absolutely yes. one way is we come back to congressional reform. many of us talked about congressional reform as one of the most important unresolved issues we recommended. we do not just talk about congressional reform over homeland security. there was a guy by the name of harry truman, during world war two, who formulated a committee to oversee expenditures. a very risky endeavor in wartime to take that on. it propelled him to national prominence to make tough decisions and see where there was waste, war profiteering, and other things, to get better defense and save taxpayer money.

there was an excellent series of articles in the washington post about overlap and waste, and too much intelligence. on the 9/11 commission, we talked about the frequent and fragmentary nature of the intelligence coming in. we did not say it was not good, robust stuff. there was so much of it, some of it was not getting to the right people. we have created a system with 80 billion in intelligence. i think there is overlap and reduction and waste. finally, what we envisioned on the dni was something that could oversee the intelligence community and cancel some of the over budget, wasteful programs that are very difficult for us to bring to life on the intelligence committees without getting in trouble.

this could bring out those oversights and those of budget problems and those are detectors, and have the budget and personnel authority to save billions of dollars before they go too far down the line. that simply was not done right. the office was created the right way, but it is too big now and the authorities are not appropriate. >> a lot of what the commission looked at, when you were doing your investigation, was winning hearts and minds. i was wondering if anybody on the panel can address the issue of radicalization. how should local police be combating this issue? it has become, since the commission ended its work, one

of the main terrorist threats in this country. a number of cases involving american citizens is over 50. i am wondering how you think we could approach that and what needs to be done. it is not exactly clear who is supposed to be leading this. there seems to be a void in government response to this issue. >> i think you put your finger on what worries of our national security folks may be even the most now. you have a spectrum of possibilities in terrorist attacks, running from the lone wolf on one hand, it is operating by himself, obviously, to a 9/11 type attack. as your question suggests, we have seen an acceleration of american citizens or people who

are in this country legally who of become radicalized. this makes the law enforcement and hit -- and homeland security function much more difficult. you are not only guarding against an extensive effort from afghanistan or pakistan, or wherever. you are dealing with people who may be in india or somewhere else in this country. how do you deal with it? we are learning as we go. we have to increase our communications with the islamic communities in this country. in some places, i think in new york city, you have done quite an excellent job of the nypd developing contacts with the islamic communities in new york city. in my state of indiana, we have

islamic groups, and i do not think we have done nearly as good a job as the york city has done, much smaller in scope. but this problem is very local. it means you have to have contact occasionally with the leaders of the islamic communities who are the people who can identify suspected radicals within their community. it is a problem the federal government clearly has to deal with it and be helpful on. but the real action, it seems to me, is at the state and local level to identify these people and try to head them off. you began your question with chapter 12 of the commission report, the whole question of what to do about islam and the foreign policy fischer's which are largely ignored in the reporting on the report. but that raises the question of

how united states foreign policy must deal with the islamic world. it is a big question. >> how much is possible? it is like saying how do we prevent bank robberies. the insert is you do not prevent bank robberies. you solve bank robberies after the happened. the notion of trying to prevent attacks by radicalized americans or people in this country lawfully is almost impossible. when you overly religion on the top of it and all the structures that puts on law-enforcement, that makes it even tougher. when you try to talk about infiltrating a group to which these people might belong, it makes it even tougher. communication to the leaders of societies and organizations may help.

they do not go about the individual radicalization of someone who is not a member of their group. then you are out of luck. there may be a better psychological examination of that individual with all the warning signs. this is very different. >> you have time with these people. you do not suddenly tried to bomb someone or strep something to your desk. -- to your vest. the process takes four or five years. somebody gets attracted over the internet to somebody who is talking about that. they become more and more intrigue. then they become radical. then finally they become radicalized enough to want to do harm to other people. but you have five years in there

to disrupt the process. we tried to do it to law enforcement, the fbi, the police in new york, and so on. i think we have to get away from the police. i think there are people who are trained better than the police to involve themselves in the society of these communities. we have tips from parents. we have tips from community leaders. there are ways in which we find out how these people who have misdirection. i do not know who is in charge in the federal government. but somebody has got to find ways to intervene before it gets to the stage where somebody strops a bomb to themselves. >> we are often asked a question, everyone of us, what keeps you awake at night. i would answer to things. a terrorist group getting a nuclear weapon and a self- radicalized sell in the united

states that is undetected and can pull off a catastrophic event. several months ago, we had something that was almost both. there was a person by the name of david headley, who was a terrorist living in chicago who could travel seamlessly between india, pakistan, and the united states. he helped plan the attacks on mumbai. those attacks killed 177 people in mumbai two years ago. six americans were killed. it almost started a war between pakistan and india that might have resulted in a nuclear component. this issue is critically important. we did not look a lot at it. but i think we have pointed to the answer. it is designating an agency in the united states who is

responsible, the fbi or homeland security. having spent the last few years ago, -- a few years abroad, i would say now these people can train themselves on the internet. the five-year time frame is now down to sometimes months. it is really shrinking. >> i think self radicalization is the wrong term. there is a 500 pound elephant in the room. economists small elephant. that is the saudi wahabist network of mosques and schools that are preaching a very austere, puritanical, and islamist point of view. 80% of the muslim schools in this country that most of their funding from saudi arabia. we found, if many of you watched

the tv, there were many of the hijackers given aid and assistance by other saudi-funded mosques around the country. they were helped into training at one point the wife of a saudi ambassador. they run a network of 400 schools around the world that preach a very islamist point of view. there is no alternative. as ambassador romer made the point during one of the hearings, it would take less than one day of operations in iraq to fund a secular school to match every saudi-funded school in pakistan. we have not done any of that. we have not worked with any of

the more secular islamic countries to build schools, to give parents an alternative to the hatred and intolerance they are being taught in the saudi- funded schools. north, to my knowledge -- you're closer to the bush administration -- never was that issue ever raised with the saudi government. >> [inaudible] >> i was glad to ask about where the panel felt the next terror attack would come from. i was going to ask about self radicalization.

maybe you have already answered it. is al qaeda a player here? >> al qaeda is a player, but it is a different al qaeda. it is not centered in afghanistan with contacts in pakistan. it is in yemen. it is in somalia. it is in nigeria. it is a number of places. they seem to be more and more independent of central authority. they're planning their own attacks. in the same way, these attacks are not necessarily 9/11. their individual attacks for individual people, such as the fellow who tried to put the bomb in times square, or the fellow on the plane, the underpants bomber. that seems to be the new strategy. it is difficult to defend against.

it is coming from different places. it is one or two people, rather than a whole group. we have to get ahead of that. this is a different kind of al qaeda. >> i think that is part of our success. al qaeda does not have a huge refuge in which to plan deliberately. these smaller groups are attacking people in their immediate neighborhood. they do not seem to have been able to put anything like 9/11 together. the damage they are doing is in their immediate vicinity, with their co-religionists. >> but al qaeda is copycat did and radicalization is spreading as well. >> it is madness. both the bush and obama administration of seriously

disrupted the vertical structure of al qaeda. al qaeda translates into a base. they are also very horizontal lead powerful. they have spread from pakistan and afghanistan to yemen and africa. they have global intentions. we have to keep our eye on even a degraded -- and al qaeda attempting to replace some of this leadership. the second point is very important. there are other groups starting to be like the al qaeda of 1999 and 2000. the was a group based in pakistan that is not just regional in its fund raising and its tentacles. it has global intentions to try to hit our homeland in america. to just think that once we finally take care of al qaeda,

some point in the future -- maybe that point is never reached. there are other groups that will try to meet that purpose. >> the 9/11 commission report, 10 years ago, we set out a strategy to deal with al qaeda. it had three component parts to it. one is to attack the enemy. that is military, special forces, and all the rest. you try to knock them out of business. the second is to try to do everything you can to prevent radicalization. we have been talking about that. the third thing is that you protect the homeland. that three-point strategy, articulated in the commission report, in my view, has been the basis of u.s. policy toward dealing with al qaeda for 10 years. i think that strategy is very sound.

obviously, it has tremendous problems in implementation. it is still the strategy this country is using in regard to dealing with al qaeda. >> i am from nbc news. how well is the nation prepared for catastrophic tax? -- catastrophic attacks? >> it depends on the nature of the attack. if the attack is on the unprotected elements of our infrastructure, we are not prepared at all, except to respond. if you are talking about attacks on, let's say, subway systems, it depends on the city involved. new york can be much safer, we assume, then the subway system's of chicago or other large cities who do not have the

advantage new york has in terms of experience. if we are talking about airports or harbors, perhaps we have got some minimal protection you can only get to the outside zone, in many instances. you cannot get to the planes are the ships unless to subvert the security process. the answer has to be not prepared at all to compared pretty well, with most of us in the middle. >> if you look at the progress here, it is noticeable. >> katrina was poorly handled. the oil spill is better handled. down to a ream. we're getting better at dealing with catastrophic events in this

country. as he emphasized earlier, we still have a lot of things to do -- communications that could make a stronger. are we better prepared for a catastrophic attack? in my mind, there is not any doubt that we are much better prepared than we were 10 years ago. are we where we ought to be? i do not think we are. i think everyone of us with a knowledge that a lot of improvements could be made. but progress has been made, and it is important progress. >> i am curious if the congressman and the governor would like to address whether it will be difficult to get allocation legislation through. that money will not be auctioned and might go to the buildup of the network. >> the main thing about the super committee is it will not

everything off the calendar between now and the end of the year. the total focus of the president and the congress will be on the work of the committee and what they recommend. i have no idea what they will recommend. but everything we have been talking about that the president ought to do is good to be subordinated to that. the entire budget of the united states government is riding on what that super committee does. the report at the end of the year. i have no idea whether there will be successful or not. it becomes the focus of action. that makes all these other things much more difficult to achieve. >> it is very hard in congress to prioritize. whether or not this committee will be able to do it for them, whether they will accept that as a question -- -- there are other

ways to do it. it does not have to cost a lot of federal money. if that is not want to be federally funded, we moved to the other ways to do it. it will be safer if we get it done sooner rather than later. >> this government has to be prepared to do more things than the budget at one time. we have a lot of problems in this country. the budget is a serious problem in the federal government. something like the super committee knocks everything else off the calendar, or the debt ceiling debate knocks everything off the calendar. if you govern anything by a crisis like that, it means you are not dealing with all kinds of other problems that may be with the same magnitude, but are very serious.

this government has to be able to focus on more than one problem at a time. >> we have talked about past recommendations that have not been fulfilled. >> we do not exist anymore. we're going to have lunch together. i will let you know. >> we have testified any number of times. i am scheduled to testify next week, i think. september 8. we are trying to keep these issues that we have been talking about front and center in the appropriate committees. tonight, we are meeting with some of the tennessee people of the white house.

-- some of the nsc people at the white house. the commission went out of business a long time ago as a statutory commission, but to the work of the bipartisan policy center they have let us keep plugging that in. we are deeply appreciative of that, because we think we have suggestions that ought to implement. >> there has been a bill introduced in the house, at least, to reconstitute a 9/11 commission. i am sorry to tell you all that. [laughter] it is going with the rest of them. >> to end on a note of great optimism, but also deep concern -- hopefully, the 9/11 commission has made a difference in making our country safer.

with the 41 recommendations we put on the table in 2004, many of those have been executed, and our country today is much safer. we are here today to talk about eight or nine that 10 years later have not been implemented and could make this country a lot safer. if it takes us 10 years to deliberate and consider those pending recommendations, how do we stay ahead of the terrorists? how do we anticipate the next set of concerns, whether they be cyber security, self radicalization -- if it takes us every 10 years to do this, that is not good news. the terrorist cells are entrepreneurial. they are dynamic. the react in months or years of planning, not decades. one of the things for government

to think about is how do they do things within government where they are not creating commissions all the time, so they are making the country safer with oversight, with good ideas, and using their imagination? >> we have always had meetings with the 9/11 commission. the commission would not exist except for the work of the families of 9/11. the president and the congress did not want us to exist. we would not have been able to do a number of things we got done but for the lobbying, appearances, and work of the families of 9/11. i used to call in the wind in our sales. -- i used to call them the wind in our sails. they have helped us make the country safer. there may be other members of the families here.

they continue. i have not testified once before the united states congress without looking behind me and seeing a member of the families of 9/11 that has come to support what we are trying to do. i want to give tribute to those families and the wonderful job they have done, in spite of their own tragedy, to make things safer. >> >> those families have been remarkable, and we're deeply indebted to them. having said that, before things get too optimistic, i wanted to say that 10 years after 9/11, we are not yet in the place in this country where the first responders can talk to one another. 10 years after 9/11, we are not yet at the place where we know who is in charge at the site of

a disaster. i can go on and on. progress, for sure, but i do not think we can pat ourselves on the back to strongly here because these issues were no- brainers to this commission. first responders ought to be able to talk with one another at the site of a disaster. that is so obvious. and we have not solved the problem. that is a great criticism of the united states government, in my view. and like was on the other things. progress has come slowly, but tom and i -- and i think the other commissioners to -- have a deep frustration that some of the things that are so obvious to protect the american people have not yet been achieved. >> [inaudible] [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> an update on president obama, his speech before congress at the joint session will be a week from tonight at 7:00. the white house has accepted speaker boehner's invitation to speak next week. president also sunday september 11 will be visiting new york city, traveling also wishing still, pennsylvania, and to the pentagon, and the president is expected to deliver remarks at an evening concert and interfaith service that night at washington national cathedral. look for live coverage across the c-span networks sunday september 11. tonight, transportation secretary railage joins a panel of business and labor representatives discussing creating jobs through infrastructure investment --

transportation secretary rate low hood -- ray lahood. a series of these listening sessions have been held across the country since the creation of the panel in january, and you can see the dallas meeting tonight at 8:00 on c-span. fred barnes of the "weekly standard" gives his thoughts to former vice president dick cheney pose a more. then, talk about trends and demographics of life expectancy in america, and our series looking at the weather wraps up tomorrow with the director of the national weather service. he will be talking about the structure of weather forecasting and climatology. that is at 9:15 eastern. plus, your e-mail and tweets here earlier today, joe lieberman of connecticut, who served as the senate home led security committee chairman said

the u.s. is safer than it was 10 years ago, but the country continues to face threats coming from homegrown terrorists. he gave the comments at a conference on terrorism response and studies. it is 35 minutes. >> thank you, very much, gary. thank you for that welcome. i remember a gathering here a few years ago when henry kissinger was the keynote speaker, and the moderator said henry kissinger is a man who needs a knowledge reduction, so i give you dr. kissinger, and kissinger got up and said the it was probably true that he did not need an introduction, but he liked a good introduction, so i appreciate that introduction. good afternoon. let me thank the national

consortium for terrorism and responses to terrorism and the university of maryland. in less than two weeks, the united states will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on our homeland in our history. this anniversary will stimulate quite a round of reflection on where we have, in the past decade and where we are going, whether we are safer or not, whether we have done well or not in responding to the attacks of 9/11. for me, this is the first of several occasions i will have to reflect on these questions, and i thank you very much for giving me that opportunity. we are at a moment here at home when the american people are understandably focused on the

economic problems we are facing rather than the threat of terrorism to our homeland security. the fact that terrorism has receded so from the forefront of our national consciousness is a reflection not just of the failures of our economy but, i think, of the successes of our counter-terrorism policies over the past decade. we have not had another major terrorist attack on american soil since 9/11, and 10 years ago, no one would have dared to predict that with any confidence. unfortunately, our success in keeping our homeland say has also prompted some to question the seriousness of both the original thread and the continuing dangers. it has become fashionable in some quarters to characterize the past decade as a time in which america mistakenly exaggerated the danger posed by

islamic extremism and terrorism and overreacted in the wake of 9/11. this view is, in my judgment, profoundly mistaken, and its embrace would lead to a false and dangerous road map to our future. the american government pose a response to the tax of 9/11 and to the broader ideological challenge those attacks represented to our country has been absolutely necessary and correct. first and foremost, we were right to recognize that after 9/11, we became a nation at war in the conflict that was and is real, by little, and global with the forces of islamic extremism who attacked us. we have also been absolutely right to book this conflict at the top of our national security

agenda, which i believe -- where i believe it continues to be long for the foreseeable future. the enemy has been weakened in the past decade, but clearly not rank with. the threat posed to us and our allies throughout the world, including most particularly the muslim world, is absolutely real. had we not acted in the way we did for the past 10 years, it is very likely we would not have enjoyed the luxury to day of debating whether we overreacted to the threat. our enemies would have taken advantage of our lack of resolve, and i fear, many more americans would have become the victims. the fact that we have gone a decade without another mass casualty attack in the united states, as you well know, has not been because our enemies have stopped trying to attack us. our homeland security has been

hard won and fiercely fought. it is the result of the determination and focus of leaders across two administrations and six congresses to enact and implement reforms and reorganizations within our government. it is the result of painstaking and often dangerous work by countless heroic individuals -- soldiers, diplomats, intelligence operatives, and law enforcement personnel, to name some, operating at home and on almost every continent, and what is different in to many cases as compared to pre-9/11 is that they are coordinating their operations with one another. as a result, we have made tremendous gains against the forces of islamic extremism that attacked us and our allies around the world, and i believe without a doubt we are much safer today than we were 10

years ago. at the same time, we have made these dramatic and effective improvements that i have referenced briefly in our homeland security. we also prosecuted the war against islamist terrorists abroad with a determination, ferocity, and ingenuity that our enemies did not expect from unmanned aerial drones to the unprecedented fusion of intelligence and military operations through a brilliant new counterinsurgency doctrine that blended civilian and military initiatives. united states over the past decade has built end of lease the most capable counter- terrorism forces in human history against what i would describe as the most significant terrorism threat in history. we showed that our best in the world military could dominate on a very different and unconventional battlefield, and

a clear result is that they have failed to achieve their goals. al qaeda leadership in the tribal areas of pakistan has been decimated. it's a fairly which came dangerously close to seizing control of the country has been gutted, and the founder and architect of the 9/11 attacks is no more, just as having been delivered to osama bin laden by courageous american hands. more fundamentally, our country grasps the basic nature of this conflict almost from the start. rather than seeing it as a clash of civilizations, a battle between islam and the west, as al qaeda has sought control, the united states and our allies have correctly seen the war -- in our case first under president bush and then under president obama -- in some ways as we saw world war ii in the

cold war before it -- as an ideological struggle between an extremist minority -- a violent extremist minority the sikhs in very real ways to dominate a large part of the world and eliminate the freedoms of the people in the heart of the world and on the other side, a moderate majority. in this case, on the front lines of this battle of muslims who wanted the same freedoms and opportunities that we all desire. the clearly stated goal of the violent islamist extremists -- and this really is clearly stated, back into the 1990's -- has been to establish a caliphate, and empire within the arab and muslim world that would overthrow the existing governments there. it may seem fantastical to us, but that was quite clearly what their goal has been. i think we also correctly diagnosed early on that the

ideology of the islamist extremism, the political ideology that they made of islam was being read in part by the for the deficit and the broader middle east, by the corrupt and autocratic governments there that gave no valid to their people for legitimate grievances, let alone granting them human rights and economic opportunities. now, throughout the middle east, we see the narrative of violent islamist extremism being rejected by tens of millions of muslims who are rising up in peacefully demanding lives of democracy and dignity, of opportunity in the economy, and involvement in the modern world. indeed, the rallying cry of the arabs offering and its successes thus far are the ultimate repudiations of al qaeda and

everything islamic extremism stands for. i would like to think -- i hope that our willingness to stand up to a violent extremist repressive is long in the name of human rights may have given to the people of the arab world some of the courage invincible but they have so remarkably shown in the last several months. now, did we make mistakes over the past decade? in prosecuting the war against violent islamist extremism? of course we did. just as every nation, including ours, has made mistakes in every ward day and we have fought. yet, looking back at our actions over these 10 years, it is crystal clear to me that we have gotten a lot more right than wrong, and we are better off than safer as a result of it, and so is a lot of the rest

of the world. looking ahead, i think we have got to acknowledge some unsettling facts. in protecting our homeland, we have sometimes benefited from just plain love. had faisal shasad why did his bomb correctly and detonated in times square last year -- wired his bomb correctly and detonated last year, the history of homeland security that i have just surveyed in the past decade would have looked very different, than thankfully it does today. -- we have sometimes benefit from just plain luck. this is the challenge we face in a country as open-ended and free as ours is and we want it to continue to be. it is difficult to be 100%

secured. while high it is down, they and their ilk are certainly not out. current political and geographic realities and not for traces of closure and complacency. in addition to the threats from abroad in places like somalia and yemen and pakistan itself and, of course, iran, which remains the no. 1 state sponsor of islamist terrorism and just about on every continent in the world, most notably in recent times to watch the spread of islamic extremism in africa, as evidenced tragically by the bomb exploding in the building last week, current political realities really remind us that

this war is not over. in addition to those threats from abroad, we also, as you well know, face a new and ominous threat at home from so- called home grown terrorists, so called lone wolf terrorists, and i know that has been one of the topics that you focused on at this event today. it is most important to note, and i speak to the chairman of the homeland security committee, that the two islamic attacks in which americans have been killed inside america since 9/11 were both carried out by radicalized muscle americans. most people do not remember bledsoe, but he was a convert to islam and spend some time abroad and got up one day and walked in on an army recruiting

office in little rock in just shot the recruiter and killed him simply because he was wearing a u.s. army uniform. the congressional research service reported that between may of 2009 and july 2011, about two years, 31 arrests were made in connection with homegrown threats. many who had direct contact with al qaeda or other violent islamist groups in yemen, pakistan, or elsewhere. by comparison, in the more than seven years before that from september 11, 2001, through may, 2009, there were 21 such plots. i think one of the major reasons we are seeing this increase in home for an american terrorism is because our enemies know how much we have raised and broadened our guard, our homeland defenses against a tax

like 9/11 from inside our country -- a tax -- at tax -- a tax -- attacks like 9/11 here that is why home grown terrorism is a real and growing threat to america and why it demands a very strong, methodical response. in that regard, after promising to do so for quite awhile, the obama administration recently released a new strategy that seeks to address this honed grown that, but to me, the report, which is entitled to "in powering local partners to prevent violent extremism in the united states, was ultimately a big disappointment. the thrust of the report and the strategy the administration announced in it is that we need to engage domestically in the

war of ideas against the islamists and recognize that the terrorist threat is not just coming across our borders but that there are americans who are subject to radicalization and attacking our homeland. that, of course, i agree with. that is true. the administration's plan, however, for dealing with that reality i think suffers from several significant weaknesses. the first is that the administration still refuses to call our enemy by its proper name -- violent islamic extremists. you can find words comparable to that, but not the ones the administration continues to use, which are violent extremism. there are many forms of violent extremism. there is white racist extremism. there has been some environmental extremism. there has been animal rights extremism. you could go on and on. but we are not in a global war

with those. we are in a global war that affects our homeland security with islamic extremists, and to call it violent islamist -- to call our enemy violent extremism is so generally vague that it ultimately has no meaning. the other term used sometimes is al qaeda and its allies. that is better, but still, it is too narrow and focuses us on groups as opposed to what i would call an ideology, which is what we are really fighting. i assume this refusal of the administration to speak honestly about the enemy is based on its desire not to do anything that might feed into al qaeda's propaganda, that we are engaged in an "war against islam he gave that is so evidently a lie that we can and have refuted it, and i think we

have done so effectively. -- that we're engaged in a "war against islam." that is so evident realize that we can have refuted it, and i think we have done so effectively. in the poll of muslim americans, there was more than half -- i have forgotten the exact number -- felt the leaders of their own community were not doing enough to attack and criticize and distinguish between them and muslim extremists. to me, that whole -- the poll was just an expression of a reality that i have seen very clearly in my own interaction, with the muslim american community, which was extremely overwhelming.

but the problem here is as we know, when you are dealing with so on conventional and brutal an enemy, it takes a very small number of people to do very great harm, so the numbers i referenced a moment ago from the congressional research service are significant to us. in fact, our most important allies in this war, it lead, are the overwhelming majority of muslims and communities around the world who want the same basic things people everywhere want -- a life of freedom, a lot of opportunity for prosperity, a chance of -- a chance to raise their children in freedom and safety and give their children the chance they deserve, exactly the opposite of what the violent islamic extremists offer them to the arab uprising is this your the best proof that the muslim majority in the world understands that. to win this struggle, it is vital that we understand, as i said a moment ago, just fighting

an organization, al qaeda, but we are up against a broader ideology. if you will, it politicized theology, quite separate from the religion of islam. success in the war will come consequently not with a single terrorist group or its affiliates are eliminated, but when the broader set of ideas associated with it are rejected and discarded. there are reluctant to a benefit -- a reluctance to identify our enemy as violent islamist extremist makes it harder to fight this war of ideas. let me give you an example from our senate homeland security's investigations into the murders at fort hood. there was clear evidence they fellowthat major hassan's

soldiers were very concerned with his increasing public identification, statements with violent islamist ideology. at one point, for instance, he stated in front of a group of them that he thought a muslim american soldier would be justified in killing his comments in defense of islam. but rather than reporting that immediately, they kept quiet. major hassan was actually promoted after making statements like that. how could that have happened? maybe some of his other statements just came from ignorance about the whole reality of islamists radicalization. some of the rest of it came from

a fear of making waves, particularly making waves that would cause the people who were making them -- put them in jeopardy of being labeled as prejudiced. to its credit, the administration's strategy does outline a community-led a push to countering homegrown violent extremism. the federal government plays a significant role in fostering friendships, providing support, sharing information, and helping to build trust between local muslim communities and law enforcement. i applaud that. the strategy also reaffirms its commitment to promote american ideals as a counter narrative to be bankrupt ideology of the islamic extremists. i applaud that, of course, as well. but the document never states what we were hoping for on the committee, which is who is in charge of these programs. it never defines what resources are needed to make them work.

it does not list specific actions that should be taken by specific dates that combat the clear and present danger of homegrown islamist terrorism. these, to me, are significant omissions. there is clearly a lot more work to do before we have from the administration the kind of clear, national strategy that will make sense from the government wanted you but, frankly, also from the point of view of the muslim communities we are trying to engage in america in this fight. i think such a strategy also must address the role of the internet in radicalization and what we must do to counter it, and the report does not really do that. our senate committee released a report in 2008 on this subject, which showed the importance of cyberspace to the self- radicalization process.

three years ago, terrorists communicated mostly in password- protected chatham's view today, they are spread out over the web and are very adept at using social media to train and recruit. to address the strategy, we need a plan that will define how the government can work with the private sector internet companies and others to remove terrorist content as best we can from these sites, although that is not easy to do because of the openness of cyberspace. not easy to be permanently. we also need to facilitate, i think, new partnerships between the internet companies and muslim american communities to create positive content that counters the propaganda of the terrorist, and we also need -- although the report suggests one, but a better organized national engagement with muslim american communities who, i repeat, are our most powerful

defense against homegrown terrorism because we obviously hope that within the muslim american communities, leaders and members will be educated and community members will create an environment in which individuals who know of others who seem to be radicalizing will come forward and report them to law enforcement. this is the ultimate in the growing and important and construction movement of see something, say something. the islamic extremist and some who have explicitly declared war on us in 1998 -- osama bin laden did that here they have already attacked as with a declaration of war, and then brutally attacked us on 9/11. these people will not soon surrender their fanatical ambitions. that is what it is and where we are. as we approach this 10th remembrance of 9/11, looking back, we have reason to be

grateful, i think, for all that has been done together to protect our homeland and our people and to deny the islamic extremists the victories they have sought, but it is also clear, though not pleasant to say, that this war goes on and will go on for quite a while. in the years ahead, we and our allies throughout the world must remain engaged, strong, adapted, and together, united in this conflict, as we have been during its first decade. thank you very much. [applause] them that if i understand correctly, senator lieberman has just a little bit of time to answer questions. we solicited questions from facebook, twitter, and our own

list and got quite a response. i do not know if you are able to answer at least a few of these if time permits. first is -- "do you believe there have been sufficient attempts by u.s. government at all levels to reach out and educate the u.s. muslim community about radicalization, and do you believe they have shown the right sensitivity to the culture and religion of most americans? >> the answer is no, not yet. this goes back now a few years, but i had leaders of several muslim american groups testified at a hearing at a committee and asked about their interaction with the federal government and i, at least, was quite surprised that they all said that the most and best interaction that they had with the federal government was with the fbi. interesting because the fbi established was part of use in centers across the country and have established an outreach program. strangely, and our committee

created the national tourism center, the responsibility for overseeing a lot of the out -- and a lot of response to confront terrorism has gone to the ntpc -- i have a lot of respect, but it did not make sense that that should be the case. this report from the administration does not make that clear, either. i think -- i will go back to another theme i stated in my report. i think we can do better at interacting with the muslim american community, and it is critical to dealing with this homegrown terrorism problem. i think one part of it, if i may just repeat in summary, is to make clear that there is a distinction between muslim americans and this minority of violent extremists who have taken the religion of islam and made it into a radical,

political ideology. so i hope we will do better at this in years ahead. >> what is your response to criticisms that the u.s. counter-terrorism approach is reactive ion that the focus and resources always seemed to shift to whatever group has conducted the last major attack, rather than strategically looking at all kinds of future threats? for example, the as increased focus on right wing terrorism immediately after oklahoma city, and after 9/11, the focus shifted almost exclusively to islamic terrorism. >> we were being attacked, as you know, through the 1990's. you could go back further if you go back to the hezbollah attacks inspired by iran on the marine barracks in beirut in 1983. and you could go back to lockerbie with americans on that plane, but in terms of home broadcasts, 1993 at the world

trade center with the truck bomb, and, of course, abroad with attacks on embassies in africa and the u.s.'s coal in yemen. in 2000, we only believe will go after 9/11 because it was such a monstrous attack, but it is true, during that time we were not focused at all. i concluded based on my own work and really being greatly affected by the report of the 9/11 commission that 9/11 was a preventable attacke. i believe if the federal government on 9/10 had been organized the way it is today, we would have prevented that attack, but since then, i think we have been quite broad and strategic and perhaps the most significant thing we have done -- in any war, intelligence is important. in this war, so when conventional where we are fighting an enemy that does not

come at us in the uniform in tanks in uniforms and fighter planes and battleships. it comes at us from the shadows, essentially, wearing civilian outfits and attacking civilians. intelligence is critical, and i think the most significant changes we have made, improvements we have made in the last decade, and these have really been strategic and not reactive -- for the improvement in our intelligence community and the coordination of our intelligence community components. just to mention in the sentence, there has been a remarkable, generally unheralded, not totally perfect but i think overall good transformation -- dramatic transformation, historic transformation in the aforementioned fbi, which went from its historic role of being an investigator of a set of crimes after they occur and then

turning them over to law enforcement to now seeing our domestic counter-terrorism unit agency primary unit, whose aim is to prevent terrorism attacks on us, not to apprehend after they occur. >> we have time for one more? ok, looking at places like the united kingdom where the government has recently been in efforts to engage nonviolent islamic extremists, how do you believe that the added states should deal with domestic ideologues that preach radical ideologies but do not directly promote or engage in violent activities? >> this is a very -- the line between just about all muslims in america and this minority of violent islamist extremists is a pretty clear line, to me. i spent a lot of time on this. this group is a difficult one because it is right on the line.

they are extremists. they are very provocative. they have a right under our constitution up to avoid to be provocative, and yet, they would claim that they are not violent, not preaching violence. it is a very hard line. i do not have an easy answer. i would try to engage, but i would do it with great care and kind of skepticism because once you are preaching an extremist ideology full of hate and saying you are not calling for violence, that is a tough line because you are not sure that the people listening to that particular prison, whether it is a religious leader or just an individual -- understand that all the hatred and extremism that is being preached stops at action. that is very hard to do. so i have engaged with a lot of

skepticism and doubt. >> i think that is all the time we have. i want to give a rousing round of applause. thanks for your insights. [applause] them at 10 years after the september 11 attacks, two analysts next debate the question -- are we safer? it is 50 minutes. >> my only task here is to introduce the moderator of the debate, a distinguished professor of homeland security and counterterrorism at the national defense university, before joining the nvu faculty, he was professor of the jews to form a home security and prior to serving as assistant secretary, he was the deputy mayor for homeland security and public safety for the city of los angeles, but the part of his record that i think is perhaps

most interesting and impressive is he has a two-month old brand new daughter. [applause] its going to moderate debate this afternoon title "are we safer?" >> thank you very much. if our distinguished debaters could please take the respective lecterns. and thank you for mentioning my brand-new daughter. if i doze off, it has nothing to do with the speakers. 10 years after the horrific attacks of 9/11, is america safer from terrorism? that is the question that will be debated here today by our distinguished speakers during this session looking at issues 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. as gary manchin, i am on the

faculty of the college of international security affairs, and it is my distinct pleasure to be today's moderator for the chair for what will undoubtedly be a lively engage in debate between our two terrorism experts. before i introduce our distinguished debaters, i would like to quickly outline the agreed upon question and format for this debate. the debate question is -- 10 years after the tax and 9/11, is america safer from terrorism? this is limited to terrorism against the united states and the u.s. homeland, not against u.s. interests overseas, such as embassies or military bases, and it is limited to terrorist attacks, not covert attacks by nation states -- nation-states. we are referring to the likelihood of potential severity of a possible terrorist attack.

the debaters arguments will compare the two points in time -- today, september 1, 2011, and the day before 9/11, but arguments may also include how america's current volatility, if any, may be exploited in the future. format of today's debate is, after a provide brief introductions, each for this event will have five minutes to make opening statements, setting forth their position on the question. then each participant will have three minutes to respond to the opening statement. after the openings and responses, we will then have a question time, and as chair, i will ask questions of each participant, allow them an opportunity to respond, and then i will solicit questions from the audience to ask the debaters. the rules require the questions from the audience be directed to me, as the chair, and i did receive permission to do this. [laughter] then i will ask questions of the panelists here obviously, given

the short time we have, all questions should be exactly that -- questions and not commentary. finally, each of our debaters will have two minutes for a final summation or closing argument. gary is here before me. he will be showing the time, and he has assured me that if we go over, he will give us a very nasty look. finally, one of the most important parts of today's debate is actually at the end when you will have a chance to vote for the argument you thought was most persuasive in answering the question. voting will be conducted by text messaging, and instructions are on your cable, as you can see. there's an old political thing that you make sure to vote early and often. we ask that you not take this saying seriously and that you instead wait for the conclusion of the debate. now, to our distinguished guests -- representing the position that america is safer from terrorism since 9/11 is peter, a

familiar to many of us at cnn's national security analysts, but he is also an award winning author having written extensively on al qaeda, osama bin laden, counter-terrorism efforts in the united states viewed his most recent book is filled with " the longest war: enduring conflict between america and al qaeda -- his most recent book is "the longest war: enduring conflict between america and al qaeda." please join me in welcoming him. [applause] to my right, represent the position that america is not safe from terrorism since 9/11 is david, a senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracy and internationally recognized author, educator, and expert on counter-terrorism issues. he has consulted on a range of issues including hostage negotiations, to developing stories for major media companies.

his most recent book was released -- i believe two days ago? >> monday, actually. >> monday. entitled "bin laden's legacy: why we are still losing the war on terror." please join me in welcoming him. [applause] >> presumably you think it is more safe because you have been involved in making it more say. let's review what happened on 9/11. four planes crashed into targets in washington and new york, killed 3000 americans in the course of a single morning, and looking more direct damage on the united states than the soviet union had done during the cold war. as of right and manage to do since then during united states? the answer is nothing.

there has not been a single successful attack on the domestic united states for a decade. the idea that there would be one in the future it is fairly implausible, and if it does happen, i think it will not be something that completely changes our national security as 9/11 did. furthermore, there have only been 17 americans who have been killeding heidi terrorist attacks since 9/11 by people motivated by al qaeda's ideal jean-pierre fort hood, texas, the most obvious. more americans die in their bathtubs by considerable numbers than in terrorist attacks. we should not fear of heights if you're their ability to try to do anything in terms of catastrophic tax or anything relatively small is very constrained. why is that? the difference between 9/11 today and -- between 9/11 and today. on 9/11, there were 16 people on the no-fly list fear now, there

are thousands cheered on 9/11, the work is currently a task force is pure enough, there are about 100. on 9/11, the cia and fbi did not talk to each other, and one of the reasons help al qaeda successfully attacked was because it was on form to the fbi that they were in the country until way to lake erie joint session operations which killed osama bin laden was something that was almost never used. now, we have had thousands of operations and have killed thousands of people in al qaeda and affiliated groups. think about the fbi, where there were almost no analysts. now there are about 2000 year that is probably too many, but the fact is there's a much larger analytical capability.

think about the u.s. public fear they were not aware of the problem. who disabled the shoe bomber? it was, of course, the public. who disabled mutallab? it was the public. people on the plane who disabled him. public awareness is a very different situation. and finally, we have the tsa. we may debate help perfect an organization it is, but it exists and did not exist on 9/11, and certainly, that is a good thing. we may hear that al qaeda has a tough but we clever idea to bankrupt the u.s. economy. there are several problems with this idea. first of all, the american economy is very large and al qaeda's members are not economists. just for historical reference, we spend 9% in gdp in identity during the vietnam war. if they were economists, they

would recognize that the war on terrorism has been benefiting what some people in this room. it is no four incidents that five of 10 of the richest counties in the united states now surround washington, d.c. far from bankrupting us, it has been from of the budget -- from an economic perspective healthy. sher al qaeda says they have the great idea that they will bankrupt us and it is part of the plan. remember the east coast blackout in 2003? remember al qaeda saying they were responsible and, of course, that was not true? the subprime mortgage, fannie mae, tax cuts at a time of war, the entitlement programs -- you know what the real problems are. they are not caused by al qaeda. and we have killed 20 of the top leaders. that famous figure soft on terrorism guy said yesterday

that al qaeda is on the road -- on the ropes. finally, david petraeus, and other peoples of on liberals the said they are facing strategic defeat. so they are facing strategic defeat. to fear them would be merely to do their work for them, and we do not want to do that. >> thank you. [applause] >> i understand general petraeus is watching, so it will be interesting to see his reaction. david, you have five minutes for your opening statement on what you believe america is not safer. >> 10 years after 9/11, the united states is a far weaker country. everyone in the room knows this year -- heidi terrorist groups on the other hand are not significantly weaker and may in fact be strong appear therefore, we're less safe. it is that simple.

i first sent to the global context in which the fight on terrorism moving forward will occur, and then i will talk about why it is foolish to count al qaeda out. we know that the u.s. economic was feared an economy in shambles, in national debt of over $14 trillion. this debt threatens our ability to maintain our current security apparatus on which peter is staking his argument and also our ability to project power. a decade ago, we derived safety from our ability to massively devote resources to this, which is exactly what we did, but in the coming decade, we had fewer resources to devote to it, and we may well have dramatically fewer resources in the current concern about the u.s. but the credit worthiness. this occurs in the context of global austerity with every country trimming its intelligence budget, as there is not just diminishing capabilities but also and threatening its ability, as we saw in the riots that threaten britain. moreover, in the context of

resourced is a beef with everything from oil to commodities to food with skyrocketing prices, there would be further constraints of the u.s. ability to deal with terrorists and further instability. not only does this mean we will be more hard pressed to counteract terrorism, but it will be much more difficult to absorber another attack. our resilience has eroded. peter is right -- al qaeda did not cause all of this, but it is here, and for that reason, we're less safe. what about al qaeda? what peter is talking about about how i hate it is on the books should be viewed with skepticism because we have heard all this before. president bush boasted that of 2/3 of al qaeda was a new leadership -- no leadership has been captured and killed. in 2006, the u.s. intelligence community by consensus held that al qaeda had been defeated. president bush and the u.s. intelligence community then overstated al qaeda's weaknesses. in july 2007, the national

intelligence estimate was forced to conclude that al qaeda had in fact projected or regenerating key elements of its homeland attack capabilities. there's no reason to think that right now the intelligence community has so much better understanding of al qaeda. the consensus view that the law and could be funded to federally administered areas of pakistan and the majority view the he was merely a figurehead -- he was not. in fact, peter referenced his death. john britton said that we do not know who will replace him. this shows the weakness of our intelligence. moving from these shall we unverifiable proclamations about whether i'll fight it is on the votes, let's turn to objective indicators. in the 9/11 commission report, in analyzing what al qaeda and other groups need to execute catastrophic attacks against the u.s. concluded that they require physical sanctuary. 10 years ago, they had won in

afghanistan here today, al qaeda affiliate's enjoy four -- somalia, yemen, pakistan. you look at the geography, it is not going in our favor. nobody has the plans to dislodge of fighting leadership from these areas. and they retain the capability to understate catastrophic attacks. beyond the threat of a massive cash as traffic attack, al qaeda's overarching strategy is going fairly well. the group is undermining our economy. peter is right -- this is what i am going to say, but it is also true. the group has turned toward what they called a strategy of 1000 cuts, emphasizing smaller, more frequent attacks, many of which are designed to drive up security costs. al qaeda of the heated goods have gotten three bombs onboard passenger planes in the past three months. the fact that nobody died does not mean those attacks failed.

the ink cartridge plot presented a dilemma, to be the spend billions of dollars to inspect each and every package, or do nothing and keep trying. the argument about how small this is in comparison to our economy ignores our $40 trillion deficit. the fact that we will not be able to keep up this level of security spending, and also be added that there is some sort of keynesian affect ignores the fact that this is not productive spending. we're not building infrastructure and road and the like. we are really preventing a terrorist group from hitting us. one final factor is home grown terrorism. there were 13 operational the heidi von braun terrorism cases in 2009, representing at the time over 1/4 of the publicly reported cases of g. hardy radicalization and recruitment since 9/11. 2010 figures were still greater than any other year. as one is deemed terrorists analyst said, when it comes to the threat of home grown terrorism, there's no denying that it is increasing. that is deemed analyst -- peter

bergman himself. [laughter] the bottom line is that al qaeda did not pose a threat to us 10 years ago. but they may however pose an existential threat today, primarily because the position we are now in relative to this group. >> thank you. [applause] >> david talked about al qaeda's strategy of 1000 cuts. this is more like 1000 begins with a feather duster. nobody died. come on. an alternative history of world war ii were germany does not invade belgium for france or poland or czechoslovakia. we would not be writing the history of world war ii as of the nazis were a serious threat. the fact that he mentions the cargo plane fox, the urban warfare plan he mentioned in european cities in the fall of 2010 -- what do they have in

common? they all failed. so this is a record of abysmal failure. the safe haven these groups enjoyed in somalia -- they just withdrew from mogadishu. they called it a tactical withdrawal, but it looks like safe haven is beginning to fail. of a bat in arabian peninsula has had a safe haven for a time in yemen, and it is expanding, but what have they been able to do? there has not been a successful attack by al qaeda and its affiliates in the west since 2005. this is really a record of failure and a record of failure that is likely to continue here not to said that there might not be a small scale terrorist attack at some point in the future, but nothing that would be oriented our national security policy as 9/11 did, and nothing that would allow us to say that we are less safe, which is really the burden of proof. you have to prove that we are blessed. it would be one thing to say that the war on terror is overblown, but to prove that

we're less it is it pretty high bar that he has yet to jump over. >> thank you. david, you have three minutes to rebut peter's statement. >> the burden of proof lies on peter's said. a resolution is is the united states safer from terrorism? he argued that it is. all i have to show is that we are not, and i have already shown that. peter has not refuted the fundamental argument, which is look at where the u.s. is now and its capacity to deal with the problem here our capacity is far worse than it was 10 years ago. all of feeders arguments prove that al qaeda was not an accidental but 10 years ago. they did not prove where we are going forward. he talks about how nobody died as part of 1000 cuts fewer not quite true. he did reference the 7/7 attacks. massive attacks in madrid. they have shown ability to carry out attacks outside their own territory with you got a tax. if you look at european blocs, which peter somewhat derived,

the reason we are able to learn about this is from detainees being held in afghanistan who gave intelligence officers in afghanistan the name of a name that was not previously known to u.s. intelligence. we are drawing our assets away from afghanistan. will we be able to find out about this plot moving forward as resources devoted to the problem become less? that is the fundamental problem. he talks about withdrawal from mogadishu. ok, but they still control the west of somalia outside that one city, which is with the african union forces are able to operate. bottom line is this is a very easy debate. peter has not repeated the argument that we are in massive financial trouble, which means that more resources are drawn away from intelligence, which means we are less resilience against the problem. he has not answered at all the arguments advanced quoting him the home grown terrorism is an increasing problem. it is not just words like g. hardy terrorism groups fear you have right wing extremism at home and other types of political extremism at home.

the attack in norway shows you cannot ignore other non-g. hardy groups, and our capacity for all these groups is never less. he ignores the argument i made about how our allies also, will rely upon for vital intelligence information, will also have less resources in this era of austerity. it makes the entire system more unstable and gives more room for violent, non-state that is to operate. this is very clear. he also did not answer the arguments that i made about why we should not trust the intelligence community now. debate is very clear. at the end of the day, the consensus view among people is that the threat is less than it was before, but the facts just do not bear that out. it is one of those situations where we saw some of against the ropes in the 1970's in a homily against george foreman, but the heart of george foreman punched a homily, the more he became

tired. of the past 10 years, we wore ourselves out against al qaeda's rope-a-dope. >> i am going to ask you a related question. you indicate that we are safer because there have been unsuccessful attacks, but yet, when there are one of these unsuccessful attacks, at least the consensus among many is that it generates an incredible amount of fear among the populace and does create a reaction, at least in the political world. how are we safer when our reactions -- in other words, the objects of terrorism -- is actually, one would argue, been successful? >> i there was a huge reaction because of how the system works. new yorkers were back taking the

subway in the morning. they were not terrorize. he said they have the thing coverage. it is pretty low. this will change that. americans are preoccupied by things like the khardashians. that is a sign that we have one. idea has specifics. >> you mentioned that al qaeda

does pose a threat. existential us in the assistance of the united states. do you think it does address? >> i did not say they pose an existential threat. i said they may. if they do, it is because there's a different right now. if you go back 10 years, we testified it. we could absorb another 911. 10 years ago because the summer between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. it would be much harder for our economy with the massive debt to absorber an attack they have.

has the billions >> but what effect has the billions of dollars that have been spent on homeland security terrorism on the threat? you seem to suggest that has minimal impact. >> i'm not saying everyone in this room is wasting their time by their jobs by any means. in fact, the fact that we haven't seen another successful attack that's large scale against the united states is due to the hard work that the security apparatus have done. it is hard work. not just our war against al qaeda but so many things over the past 10 years have weakened us. 10 years ago one reason that al qaeda was something we could absorb is because we had the ability when we

needed to to ramp up our resourcings. we can't do that right now in other parts to the world. if pakistan implodes, what can we do? that's a country with nuclear weapons. we have so fewer options to deal with a dangerous world. that's also the case when it comes to terrorism. i don't need to win in this debate that al qaeda poses an existential threat, just that terrorism is more of a threat now or at the least that we're no safer now than we were 10 years ago. >> al qaeda has proven to be somewhat resilient. it has exist is -- existed as an entity for many years. what do you think would happen if the american people become complacent and the security an rat issues not as robust as it has been over the last 10 years? >> this is a straw man.

there's going to be some reduction in expenditure in this country. we're spending at least double what we're spending today that we were spending on 9/11. the idea that we don't have the resources to do so. after 9/11, we put 300 u.s. special forces into afghanistan. in the immediate aftermath. president obama recently authorized 100,000 men and women to go into afghanistan. so we do have the resources if it's such a serious problem. stabbletsing afghanistan is certainly one of those problems. we have the resources and the political will. yes, there are resource constraints, but does that make us less safe suddenly spending 5% less at the d.h.s.? >> i won't answer that question. gary, how many more minutes do we have from minutes? >> about 10 minutes. >> ok, we have 10 minutes.

as i mentioned we would like questions rather than commentary. an old crugsy just once told me, questions start with who, what, when, where, and why. we have one question here, the gentleman in the suit. anybody else over here? uh, in the suit. as opposed to the man without the jacket. if you could please stand up and introduce yourself and address the question to me. >> rick with bio prep watch. we've seen over the last six to nine months, the arab spring, summer, fall and soon to be winter. given that level of instability would the panelists expect incidents of terrorism to increase or perhaps decrease? >> and you violated the judge's order immediately. but there's one other

question and then i can -- right here. the lady who's wearing a suit. >> what role would we place religion in the mix? the fact that whether driving terrorism is giving us increased he -- religion around the world. >> what is driving the impact of instability around the world? >> it's hard to make predictions, particularly about the future and this is what david is trying to say, the future is very grim. let's look at the arab spring. not a single picture of osama bin laden in any of the protests. not a single american flag burning or israel flag burning. al qaeda's leaders and ideology have been

conspicuously absent and this is a good thing. that's the only place where we're seeing al qaeda can extend its reach in the world right now. and whoever place there is going to get a strong warning from the u.s. government that by the way, the war on terror is going to continue, including our drone and special forces program. i think al qaeda may get some temporary bump right now but they're going to be under tremendous pressure. it doesn't really matter what the political future of yemen holds coming directly he from the united states. >> first of all, the idea that there were no pictures of bin laden is false. in kuwait in the square there were a number of pictures of bin laden that were displayed. this is an -- there have been protests that have

been sympathetic of bin laden, but when you look at the overall picture of the arab spring, there's certainly reason for hope. but there's also reason over the next five years or so to be concerned. first of all, the operational capacity of al qaeda is very much increased with the violent people that have been released from prison. the talent pool is much larger and it's a fair question now, especially as you see the growth of al qaeda in the sinai. it's a fair question on whether there's for quoid on the ground in egypt than in yemen. in libya, they made a break with al qaeda but they also said they weren't going to fight gaddafi's regime, which is something they went back on. in terms of the idea that the arab spring is going to

provide a hopeful alternative. it's also about food inflation and unemployment. the trends are heading in the wrong direction. when you look at countries like tune tamisha and egypt, dependent on tourism. tourism is drying up. one thing you're going to get is the discontents of the arab spring. historically when you have sky high expectations, reality is going to step in and fill in the void. we may well see that. >> thank you. with respect to the question on religion. david, i'll ask you first. what role do you think religion has in making this assessment of whether we're safer since 9/11? >> when we talk about religion in the context of terrorism, which is only one of the facets of terrorism that we're talking about. domestic right wing streamism is another that

is part of this debate. we're talking about a particular part of religion. there are several terms i use. one is the jy haddy view. in the studies i've done, religion seems to be more of a factor than a lot of analysts who tend the downplay the role it plays. i will say there is an ideology, grunes like al qaeda and this i arab spring where it's flourishing as people hope their hopes have been dashed. >> muslims have relidges views and they have views about groups like al qaeda that claim to speak in their name. the groups that supposedly

defend islam is not as impressive. al qaeda, suicide bombing has cratered in every country around the world. to give you a data point. think about pakistan. 1 0 million people there. look at the protests that followed bin laden's death. scores of people, maybe hundreds if you're lucky. the sympathy that existed, the robin haad hood image he once had is completely evaporated. while there may be increasing religion in the muslim world, it's no. transported to people admiring their handiwork around the world. >> we have time for a couple more questions. a question from the man in the tie. and if there's anybody else back in the corner, if we can position the other microphone. >> the 9/11 commission noted that we not only had a lack of intelligence but we also had a lack of

imagination. have we be sufficiently imagine ty or not to avoid the consequences of an action? >> please state your name. >> i'm a docket ral student at george mason. given the islamists or terrorists' justifications for the use of w.m.d. against the west, how does this affect the debate? >> peter, i'll start with you on the 9/11 commission. you've been part of the bipartisan policy center with governor cane and lee hamilton so you're very familiar with what they have and the scorecard. one of the questions was the lack of imagination. isn't that a concern what we don't know in the future? >> i'm more of the evidence-based community in the sense that i don't believe that what we don't know is a thing we need to fear. that was kind of the rumsfeldian idea, that the

unknowns. this is not the right way to think of the world. we know a great deal about al qaeda. we have their crown jewels, we got the treasure-trove. the treasure-trove from bin laden's compound shows that they had nothing real in terms of ideas. they talked about the w.m.d. and it bought into their own propaganda point. when they actually had a w.m.d. point in afghanistan, which we olit rated when we got rid of the taliban. when you look at the 188 jihadi terrorists trials and convictions in the united states since 9/11, a really interesting point, not a single one involved chemical, radiologyal or nuclear weapons. for all the hysterical

concern. a book was written, we're due for a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons 10 years from now. we're still waiting for the evidence of this. it's very difficult to assemble any sort of mass destruction. aaron has been trying for years to get nuclear weapons without success. while governments need to be concerned about it. as a real issue, the idea that somehow weapons of mass destruction are going to be taken by terrorists into the united states, apart from a rison attack that might kill a few people, it's nonsensical. >> peter answered both questions. how do you respond? >> peter talks about the rumsfeldian school of freak out about what we don't know and invade other countries. the school of that has actually made us less safe over the past 10 years. that's part of what this debate is.

it's the doctrine that peter is critiquing right now. it's not about freaking out and imagining the worse. it's about how safe are we compared to what terrorists can do? 911 was a failure of imagination. the fact that the only person in the administration who had thought of something like this was richard clarke and that's because he read a tom clancey novel where that same thing occurred. you can see it in commentaries about the arib spring where people can't imagine how al qaeda could capitalize on that. al qaeda is trying to do just that. you've heard we're safer, al qaeda is on the ropes. whereas all the external evidence you see is in the other direction. who are you going to believe? me or your lying eyes? you can look out in the world and see that al qaeda in terms of geographic

scope has gained ground. yes, there are areas where they're more unpopular but they've always been a vanguard movement. their support has often by small -- soft support. setting up with a small group 10 years ago and remains a small group today. what is our capacity to deal with them? it's so clearly lower. >> i'm going to exercise the chair's discussion and have one concluding question. peter, what would it take to maintain the safety that we've achieved since 9/11 and for david to answer the same question after peter has a chance. what would i -- it take to become safe since 9/11? >> we're never going to be absolutely safe. but we can -- what the government has done is clearly over the last decade is clearly made us more safe by any metric.

the facts speak for itself. if we were less safe we would have had multiple al qaeda terrorist attacks on the united states. none of them have succeeded. even the near misses, al qaeda's attempt to bomb the manhattan subway. even if it had worked in 2009 it would have killed perhaps two or three dozen people. >> the question is how do we maintain that safety in the future? >> it's about the public understanding that there's a threat which still exists. it's about not cutting d.h.s. by 5%. it's about maintaining our superlative special operations. the idea that our intelligence isn't very good flies in the face of what was one of the great intelligence victories of all time, which was hunting down bin laden. there's going to be some appropriate downsizing. everybody is going to have to pay at the bank on this one. there's no reason why the

security apparatus shouldn't. as we know from the private sector, sometimes a little bit of belt tightening is useful. it gets rid to have programs which are unnecessary and the core mission is still there. >> thank you. and david, since you don't think we're safer, how do we achieve more safety? >> you mean what should we do now? >> we should we do that's not being done now. >> the rope-a-dope analogy of muhammad ali and george foreman and what ali did in countering against the ropes. it turned foreman's strength against him. over the past 10 years, the correct thing to do is recognize that al qaeda is a small add versarery and not overspend and make the war broader, which is what we've done. the reason why i say we are

not more safe, in that lies what a proper road ahead would be. >> so we now have the closing arguments. david, if you could begin with a two-minute summation. >> five minutes? or the four-minute change? >> oh, ok. >> sorry. >> you'll have two minutes for your summation. >> sure. this is not a debate about whether we should fear al qaeda. this is also not a debate about whether al qaeda is an existential threat. it's a very simple debate. are we safer 10 years later? as i had just said, al qaeda employs essentially what is a rope adope strategy. let the united states hit it and hit and it eventually we get exhausted. $14 trillion national debt. we shall exhausted. peter never answered the

question. the intelligence community is not going to be cut that match. that's very much an open question. it's not just us. it's our alliss. it's also the fact that we're drawing down assets in afghanistan. . i talked about the example of the opt a active who was part of the european and found him based on picking up a detainee here. peter's never answered the fact that our resilience is much lower. also, when it comes to trusting the intelligence apparatus. we've heard all these claims before about how al qaeda has died. it's not just jihadist terrorist groups. right wing extremists, other terrorist groups. overall the relative strength of the u.s. in al qaeda is very clear. al qaeda hasn't died. it can very much capitalize

on the arab spring. that's something everyone in this room understands that they have an increased capability and if the arab spring turns out to be a good thing in the future, which it may well be. the u.s. is less prepared to deal with this dangerous world. the bottom line is that al qaeda's rope-a-dope worked very well. the u.s. is very much whooo! depleted and in -- -- very much depleted and non-state actors can pose a major threat to us now and all of peter's arguments about the last 10 years, only proves that al qaeda didn't prove an existential threat doesn't speak to our problem now with the diminished supplies and the arab resources we're entering into.

>> peter, you get the final word and two minutes for your summation. >> the question are we safer today than we were on 9/11. let's look at what happened on 9/11. 19 hijackers were training and living in the united states. i think the f.b.i. and the d.h.s. and others would be all over that right now. money transfers from dubai to the united states financed the operation. i think the treasury would be all over that today. they had a training base in afghanistan. they had commander control in germany. i think our liaison services in germany would be all over that now. clearly things have changed. something like a 9/11 can't get through and if the record on the failure of the chemical, biological and nuclear front that i earlier outlined independence indicates they can't get something big like that through either. the question of homegrown

terrorism. there were cases in 2009 and 2010, 6 cases. but there's been a dim in addition in 2011. there were -- diminution in 2011. there have been 11 cases. an analyst said it was increasing. that analyst was david. he said -- american flights are safer than we were september 11. and finally, the big one, al qaeda at the end of the day is not going to win. >> i do have to commend you on your preparation given that you probably reeled the work of each other stensively. we -- exstens -- extensively. we really appreciate the time. all of you have the unique opportunity to vote on which side of the argument was most persuasivive.

if you agree with peter bergen's position that america is safer since 9/11, there are instructions on how to do that. if you agree with david's stand that america is not safer, there are instructions there. and although you may be tempted to vote for me, there are no instructions for that. but i want to thank everyone for what i thought was a very engaging and interesting debate. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the senate is back next tuesday, the house back next wednesday and both bodies will hear from the president in a joint session on jobs next thursday, september 8 at 7:00 p.m. we'll have live coverage on c-span, also c-span radio and c-span org. tonight jay lahood joins a panel to discuss creating jobs through infrastructure

investment. this is a meeting that took place today at southern methodist university in dallas. they've been holding listening sessions around the country since it was created in january. you'll see today's meeting this evening at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. also, book prime-time gets underway with some of the year's bestsellers. "how the west was lost: 50 years of economic folly and the stark charges ahead." then at 9:00 "the origins of political order." and at 10 -- "sex on the moon." it's book tv prime-time all this week starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> mack envelopey has become an aject active. i doubt there are very many people in this town would

like to be described as that. i have a feeling some people have it next to their bedside. >> his name is synonymous with scheming and the selfish pursuit of power. sunday night, the author offers that mack envelopey's theories maven a response to the corruption around him. >> this weekend a three-day book holiday on book tv. ray nagin and randall kennedy on the influence of racial politics on the first african-american president. and live sunday, former columnist for "newsweek" magazine, ellis cose on race and the media.

>> next, federal reserve board member elizabeth duke calls for more government assistance to homeowners. she noted that the current economy is hampered by low demand for homes and in order to reverse this trend, homeowners should be allowed to modify mortgage loans. this is half an hour. >> thank you. i hope you all enjoyed the program so far this morning as much as i have. this helps us advance our policy dialogue and thank you all for being here. i want to thank the speakers this morning for their honesty and openness and comments. i want to thank our economy team for their foresight and activity in organizing today's program.

we have a staff of housing and community development experts in the division of community and community affairs that are committed to examining the concerns of disadvantaged communities. today's program is just the beginning of a fall lineup of many other programs that include small business entrepreneurships, the use of data, disposition strategies. so we'll be having many things throughout the fall so stay tuned. i'm looking forward to seeing many of you back again for those programs as we move forward. so i have the distinct pleasure today of introducing governor betsy duke. governor duke has helped lead us through some of the most dramatic changes that we've seen, i think, with the confidence of a seasoned leader and an eye towards really practical solutions. what you may not know about her, though, is that from the beginning, many of us

have aforgetly thought of her as the -- averagesly thought of her as the housing governor. but regulatory oversight. governor duke has helped us maintain a steadfast focus on restoring a functioning housing sector. she served on the board of neighbor works america through the first two years of her term, during which she developed a keane interest in neighborhood spablization efforts and went out to many communities around the country. in 2009 when everyone was talking about preventing foreclosures. she recognized then that r.o.e. was a critical issue and institutions needed to come up with good strategys for efficient policies.

governor duke, i had the pleasure of working with her and stabilizing neighborhood activities in areas designated by local communities by h.u.d. exactly one year ago she gave a speech in this very room, highlighting best practices from the field for the disposition of r.e.o. and vacant properties at a summit we held on that subject. she shared the perspective, neighborhood stabilization is not just sound economic policy. it is rooted in a vision of our shared future, our sense of community. today's forum is designed to challenge us to think beyond the conventions that we've known and look toward the future with fresh perspective. i can think of no one better to take us into the next phase of our dialogue today than governor elizabeth duke. please join me in welcoming

her. [applause] >> hey, there's nothing better than being introduced by someone whom you have oversight. good afternoon and i'd like to join my colleagues in welcoming you to the federal reserve board where lively viewpoints and discussion are a way of life. the housing market going forward, lessons learned from the recent crisis has been designed to connect the recent pass with policy that may affect the market for use to -- years to come. determining the issues and getting this connection right are important but perhaps not as easy as it might sound. i'd like to offer some suggestions that i think could help. i should clarify that the ideas that i'll be discussing do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my colleagues on the federal reserve board and these suggestions should not be construed as policy of the board.

as we saw in the last panel discussion, there are many interpret tages of the dee factors that led to the current state of affairs and there are a similar number of visions about what the future should look like. but while it's important to learn from and avoid the mistakes of the recent past, we should not forget what did work for many years in the housing and housing finance market. an important starting point is to carefully analyze what we're solving for. certainly we want a solution based on private cal -- capital but the role of government in housing markets will need to be defined. any policy solution will have to be evaluated on the context of its affect on both owner occupied and rental housing markets. and it will also be important to maintain a focus on the demand side of the market, which is to say all of us as consumers of housing.

finally, it should also serve the segments of our citizenry that has been long underserved. longer term solutions are critical but before we get to those we need to deal with the unprecedented number of foreclosures still entering the pipeline and the affect of a high percentage of distressed sales on house prices. regardless of how we got here, we as a nation currently ha have a housing market that is so severely out of balance that it's hampering our economic recovery. to many, the story of the recent financial crisis and its afteraffects of the housing market is one mainly atranscribe thed to sup prime lending. today about 2/3 of

underwater mortgages or loans in foreclosure are actually prime or f.a. -- f.h.a. mortgages. this suggests that previous issues are not sufficient. clearly the market is not functions as it should. despite near record low interest rates, credit remains tight. more over, the lack of sufficient buyers and sellers may limit price discovery, which heightens uncertainty about the right price for a given piece of real estate and further limits activity. in addition, the large number of foreclosures and the process has led to an unprecedented level of bank-owned homes, a level that is likely to persist for some time. so how do we move forward? these difficult circumstances? the economy has self-correcting mechanisms. typically a drop in price

stimulates demand and brings new byears into the market. in the case of houses, price declines often occur in broad based weakness in the overwhelm economy. in response, the federal reserve generally the -- can lower the federal funds rate, which can be expected to lower mortgage rates. the combination makes home purchases more affordable and helps revive the housing markets. indeed, most recent recoveries have been led by housing. for a variety of reasons, these mechanisms are not working in today's economy. it's helpful to look at areas where we can operate more productively. one way to reduce the flow of home foreclears is to ease the loans, which can

be accomplished by refinancing loans at lower rates. the federal reserve has already acted through the purchase of longer term treasury skirts, agency backed and agency mortgage backed scurlingts. in i guess so to enabling more byears to purchase homes, they act to reduce the debt service costs of existing household debt. while recent activity has picked up in response, it's been subdued compared with past low rate environments. that is, even though mortgage rates on many outstanding loans are above current market rates, many have not been able to take advantage because they have lower equity in their homes or other obstacles. to facilitate, the administration's home affordable refinance program provides streamline refinancing if the borrower

meets certain qualifications and if their existing mornings are already guaranteed by freddy may or freddie mac. so far more than 800,000 borrows have refinanced this way. one question is why more have not benefited from this program? four million borrowers appear to meet the requirements. given the potential savings to households, the relatively low take-up on the program warrants another look at the fricks that may be imprecede peeding these refinancing reactions. responses revealed four possible frictions. number one, loan level pricing adjustments. llpa's. they're up-front fees added to the refinancing costs of loans such as higher loan

to -- devalue ratios. the fees can raise the cost by thousands of dollars and discourage borrowers from participating in the program. when the lender or gaurn or already owns the credit risk, refinancing a low or no-equity loan can reduce risk because it reduces payments and thus makes default less likely. number two, limited competition -- competition due to lender concerns about putback risks from previous underwriting. that's the possibility that the loan originator will have to repuffs the loan because the underwriting violated guidelines. lenders who process harp refinancing have putback risks both from the refinance and from the original underwriting.

even if the understood writer did not underwrite the original loan. the risk may make lenders reluctant and limit participates in the program. programs participation cob increased have a minimum number of timely payments could be used as a proxy to relieve the liability for the mistakes of previous lenders. number three, junior lien hold,. in some cases, holders are refusing to let their liens remain subordinate and number four, some mortgage insurers are will not agree to underwrite their loan policies. the common theme in all these frictions is that in each case the parties tots tran db transaction are applying standard tools that would normally apply

to -- but they're applying them to risk. the existing risk skoshe of all credit risk holders decreases. to the extent that widespread refinancing reduces mortgages. it also leads to lower house prices. and finally, removal of barriers to refinancing would boost the impetus to recovery approvaled by lower long-term rates so thus finding different approachs would likely provide some support to the economic recovery while improving the circumstances of homeowners and reducing the overall limit of credit risks borne by the varies holds. -- various holders of property risks. real estate owned or r.e.o.

one million more properties will likely pass will you r.o.e. in 2011. r.o.e. properties are weighing heavily on the markets for owner occupied houses in at least three ways. first, they increase the total inventory of properties for sale. we estimate that in the second quarter of 2011, roughly 500,000 to 600,000 of the two million vacant homes for sale in the united states were r.e.o. properties. the extra supply is particularly problematic because demand is quite low. high up employment and stats are currently precluding many from buying homes and others may be staying out of the market due to uncertainty about their incomes. even due to the large backlog of diss tressed loans, the current inventory of existing homes

for sale represents approximately nine months compared with a norm of five to six months, suggesting additional pressure on house prices. second, the downward pressure on prices is compounded by the high proportion of sales considered to be distressed sales. currently around 40% of all sales transactions are considered to be distress sales and third, high vacancy rates and the low level of maintenance make a neighborhood a less desirable place to live and thus depress the value of surrounding homes. the market for rental housing has been strengthening of late. apartment rates have turned up in the past year and vacancy rates on multifamily properties have dropped noticeably. it shows increased demand as families who are

unwilling or unable to purchase homes are renting properties instead. it's also been supported by families who've lost their homes to flore closure. the majority of these people moved to rental housing. unfortunately these conditions supporting rental demand may persist for some time. the weak demand in the owner occupied housing market and the relatively high demand in the rental housing market, suggestions that transferring some rental properties to r.e.o. housing might benefit both markets. and it might be in the best interests of both lien holders and gaurn torreys. over time, as financing conditions ease and the number of r.e.o. properties for sale declines, it will adjust. small investors are already converting some foreclosed properties to rental units on a larger same.

slarger scale has been hindered by two factors. first, managing single family rental homes is expensive unless the properties are concentrated within a geographical area. second, regulatory guidance and standard servicing practices have encouraged servicors and financial institutions to consider rentals only as a short-term income generator while the properties are marketed. in august, the federal housing finance agency, working with the treasury department issued a request for information seeking ideas for the disposition of r.o. -- r.e.o., including ideas for terming these properties into rental housing. together, they may be able to aggregate enough

properties to facilitate a cost-effective rental program in many markets. i want to three highlight -- highlight three possible design considerations. first, achieving a cost-effective program may require obtaining a critical mass of properties. perhaps a couple hundred or more within a limited geographic area. in this respect, the comparative interest of government is in solving the aggregation problem. combined portfolios of the g.s.a. and f.h.a. are large enough to achieve the necessary scale in a number of markets. however, it might require the flexibility or a pooling entity to acquire wo properties from more than one seller or to contract for the acquisition of a minimum number of properties over time. the scale could be supplemented with properties from servicer or financial institution portfolios. second, it's important to

insure that -- ensure that such rental communities are in the best interests of renters and local communities. replacing the blight of a foreclosed home with the blight of a rental property would give little assistance. it is crucial that properties are well-maintained. better recoveries may result from renting properties rather than selling them. however, in other markets, converting r.o.e. properties to rentals may not be in the best interests of mortgage institutions but to local communities. it may be possible to consider the role of new incentives and what role they might take. while existing statutes and regulations do not prohibit financial institutions from renting r.e.o. properties,

supervisors encourage buying. in light of the rental market along with the potential for a g.s.a.-f.h.a. program to solve the problem of infivet scale in some markets, it might also make economic sense to clarify existing expectations to recognize that in some cases, converting a portion of residential r.e.o. to rental may be a reasonable option for financial institutions. i believe that it could allow for better outcomes for institutions. a spearier net present value compared with traditional approaches and at the same time contribute to market healing. however, to be effective such an approach would require supervisors to clarify current supervisory guidance or explain how it might apply compared to

rental. the fast ball institutions with large portfolios might be able to achieve scale in some marks on their own or possibly leverage the scale of a g.s.e.-f.h.a. program. they should be able to act in acorns with conditions in their local markets. in addition, there are steps that all r.e.o. holders can take today to ensure they're not contributing further to the problems. they should make sure they're adequately monitoring any third party vendors with which they contract to maintain market or sell r.e.o. properties. severe consequences can result from failing to monitor them. r.o.e. holders could also consider first-look types of programs, who enable public entities and

nonprofits windows of time to build on available properties. a number of institutions have used such programs with successful results. and r.e.o. holders who sell large numbers of properties to informsors should screen and monitor investors to recently assess their maintenance and disposition after acquiring the properties. so far i've talked only about r.o.e. as a solution but that's not going to work every. some property are too damaged sor too low valued for either. we estimate that about 5% of the properties in the r.e.o. inventory are appraised at less than $20,000 and in some markets the share is significantly higher. in many of these cases the cost to repair or demolish existing structures exceeds market value.

in recent jeers -- years, local governments and community based organizations have struggled to control the effects of foreclosure on neighborhoods. one tool to controlling is the use of a unique entity known as a land bank. they're typically created to deal with properties not dealt with adequately through the standard market. the notion of a land bank rather than a land trust is that properties are brought in and moved out of a land bank's portfolio rather than permanent lip preserved. a community can gain control of low-value properties that may otherwise sit vacant and cause problems for surrounding neighborhoods. options available include physical rehabilitation. some period of rental. fail to new owner occupants or investors or in some cases demolition. such a strategy would help

some communities deal with a short-term crisis and ultimately allow for the disposition of properties over the longer term. while few land banks surnl have the resources to operate at significant scale, the land bank model has shown some success and it could help many communities stabilize properties if used more extensively. however, the current infra structure for land banks is limited. first, not all states have passed legislation that will allow them. more technical assistance would be needed to scale these up to an adequate level. this approach appears to be an instance where relatively modest investments have the potential to produce

significant benefits, such as lower municipal costs. to provide services to neighborhoods that are largely vacant. higher property revenues and other benefits that may be realized. these are my thoughts on some of the things that be be done in the near term. an immediate priority is rebalancing supply and demand in a market overwhelmed by financially stressed homeowners, tight credit conditions and an unusually high number of foreclosed homes. it's an important part of rebuilding our market but it's only a part. in addition we must think carefully about longer term policy and market changes that may affect america's housing for years and even decades to come. this is an important mark and i appreciate your participation in the forum today. thank you. [applause]

and it looks like we do have time for a couple of questions and can day -- stay on schedule. please raise your hand to get the microphone. thank you. >> thank you for that. the two million houses that you talked about were r.e.o. for sale, meaning on the market. do you have an account for properties not on the market but already defaulted? you've given so many great ideas about how to deal with -- where do you see the housing market going assuming none of these great ideas that have been instituted.

[inaudible] >> to your first question, i'm not going to cite a statistic off the top of my ahead. the two i referred two for vacant homes for sale, not r.e.o. to your second question -- we've thought a lot about this and there's been an awful lot of attention paid to loan modifications and less attention to what happens to the loans that can't be modified for whatever reason. we're getting to the point where addressing that part of it is critically important to getting back to whatever the market is going to be going forward. there's nothing in here that would clear all of that inventory but i think

it's going to take a number of small things, all of which will help and complement each other in a strategic sense so they work together to get a little movement from i've looked for things that are not necessarily incentives but places where the market itself didn't seem to be working the way you would expect it too. >> governor duke? >> nice to see you again. i was pleased to hear you mention the disparate impacts the crisis had on lower wealth people, people of color and female-headed households and i wonder which of your policy solutions that you discussed would most help

those populations? >> i don't think there's anything in this group of policy solutions. i think there may be some other things that are specifically directed in that area, although i do think paying attention to both the needs of rent others and owner-occupants is going to be particularly important because there seems to be a growing demand for not justify rental properties that are multifamily properties but also those that are single property -- single family properties in the same neighborhoods are -- where foreclears are taking place. this would provide housing options again in the same neighborhoods. >> can we get a microphone over here? >> thank you.

governor, jarrett seaburg with m.f. global. you talked a lot about this refinancing program. one of the counter arguments is that if there is a mass refinancing that could cause m.b.s. investors to either flee the market going forward or to demand a higher risk premium that could raise housing finance costs across the board. how do you raise those potential risks against potential benefits? >> when i used to buy mortgage bake backed skirts i always knew this were subject to refinancing if rates fell below a certain level and i think that's been the case. prior to the last couple of weeks there had got on the be within the market a pricing of these fricks into those mortgage-backed skirts. in other words, on assumption that the refinancings would not

occur at the rate that might be expected. i don't view changing that dynamic as being harmful to the markets. >> thank you. >> one more? or maybe not. ok, thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> tomorrow on washington journal, fred barnes of "the weekly standard" gives his reaction and thoughts to former vice president cheney's memoir, "in my time." then a discussion of the demographics of life expectancy in america, and our series "looking at the weather" wraps up tomorrow with national weather service director jack hayes. plus your email, phone ca