this would not succeed, but we also knew that if we did not ask, it would never happen. we wanted to make the issue in the forefront. it is not just that they have not made the joint committee, it is that they are maintaining the status quo. the status quo follows the budget. the status quo perpetuates old habits that we found were faulty. the other problem that you have is it also interferes with the ability of the dni to become autonomous, to break away from the traditional budgeting that goes with the rest of the intelligence committee. if i had to pick out one, that would be the most frustrating. >> senator gordon? >> -- senator gorton? >> it has been 10 years since

9/11. there has been one successful terrorist attack inside the united states in that period of time. that was due to a failure of intelligence. a lot of things have been done right in two administrations. if i had one failure that i put above any of the rest it was the failure to give the director of national intelligence troop control over the entire intelligence community -- budgetary control, more control over personnel. there is one major improvement, one way to see to it that everyone is singing of the same page of the hymn book, it would be to enhance the authority of the dni. >> senator lemon? >> i would like to emphasize the positive and the negative. there is much to be proud of as americans to see how many of the writings were implemented.

i think we are definitely safer. i would use in new york city as an example of a leadership that took everything we said seriously and implemented nearly all of that and did it very effectively. because of them following our recommendation, new york city is probably the most secure city in the world. that is a major plus. on the-, i totally agree with slate. the -- slade. the way dni was implemented was not intended. we intended to create a leader of the intelligence community that could pare down the fights and eliminate the bloat of bureaucracy that has made our intelligence community so dysfunctional in the past.

the positive of the effects of our recommendation has frustrated people. as good talent as we have anywhere in this country into the intelligence community. on the other hand, it has vastly increased the bureaucratic bloat that has made our intelligence much less than it should be. >> there have been four in six years. that is a symptom, not because of the problem. the fact that dni does not have the power it implies. the staff has grown to 2000 people. we had envisioned 300 paper it -- we had envisioned 300. the need for agility and sharing, it remains a very dangerous problem.

emer?bassador rome >> i am an optimist. i serve our country overseas for the last couple of years. i am very optimistic about what we have done over the past 10 years, how we have prevented through reforms to, it changes, and progress a catastrophic attack on this country. i was meeting with a very high- level indian officials the day after bin laden was killed. this indian official said to me, "this is precisely why the united states of america needs to be involved and active in the world because you have the tenacity to keep going after people. the training of your joint operations do it better than anybody else, and the moral courage to do it the right way." with that successful strike, i take it shows that the u.s. and

successive administrations -- the bush in administration and the obama administration -- have done things to degrade the al qaeda leadership and has helped put the united states in a stronger position. i would like to return to something. i believe as a former senate staffer and a member of congress, the single most important thing we need to see happen is congressional reform. why is that? because congressional reform can drive the dni and oversee some of the changes that need to be made. it can oversee some of the communications and opera ability issues, trying to find a practical solution. it can drive change in other areas. i hope we will talk today a little bit about the global strategies and what we said on the 9/11 commission about pakistan.

pakistan taking seriously some the problems it has in order to solve problems that generate outside of pakistan. >> the governor? >> i am happy to report to you that i agree with every single word said so far by my fellow members. why am i an optimist? because we are safer than we were 10 years ago. no major attack on our soil in decades. -- in a decade. al qaeda has been content to attack elsewhere in the world. maybe it is just locked -- luck. we are still foolish in a number of ways. our chairman talked about it earlier -- the inability of first responders, the police,

fire, the transportation, federal, state, local to talk to each other when something bad is happening. lives were lost on 9/11 because the police could not talk to the firemen. that should have been lesson number one. then comes katrina. another demonstration that first responders could not talk to each other to mitigate suffering and death. and now irene. they still cannot talk to each other. irene is unlike katrina -- irene is, unlike a china, a regional catastrophe. what is the answer to that? the answer seems simple. there is a block of radiofrequency that can be given to first responders.

why has that not been done? why has it languished in the congress for 10 years? because unlike members of the 9/11 commission, senators and representatives have constituencies. when we sat as commission members, we did not have a constituency. we had opinions. we have biases. we had answers, but nobody had to answer anybody -- answer to anybody. legislators do. this could still be solved. there are two answers. one, give that bought to first responders and have the federal government implement it. two, sell it to the private sector. they will build the towers for operability. the federal government will save money and the first responders will have an override when disasters happen. they are the people who get to use the radio frequency.

pick one. get it done. 10 years, we still cannot talk to each other when disaster strikes. >> let me get senator gorton in on this because that was one of your issues. >> it certainly was. i choose the second door. there is a dispute going on in congress about the d-block, which was originally reserved for the private sector. the private-sector definitely -- desperately needs it. it is worth several million dollars. in today's world, it is a fantasy to believe that that money is going to come from congress. we are in the midst of the greatest fiscal challenge we have ever had. that kind of money is not going to be given to local and state governments by congress to build out the d-block as a publicly

owned facility. if it is auction, it can do something for the deficit. second, the private sector can build it out. third, there can be an override in times of emergency in which it will be available to the public sector. in my view, that is the proper answer to the d-block. >> several of you mentioned hurricane katrina and hurricane irene. i was impressed by all of the local people i talked to watching the approach, how coordinated the local emergency officials were. i do not know whether they could talk to each other, but i was impressed by the -- do you think there are good legacies that have come from your good work and recommendations because the commission was prompted by the terrorist attacks.

there are so many disasters. >> we talked about the importance of the unity of command. when a disaster strikes, the most important thing is somebody is in charge. new york saw and that finally. the mayor said that the police and fire fighting over who is in charge could not continue. it is the police. they are in charge. it is a big step forward. not all of the committees have done that yet. there is not necessarily unity of command so if disaster strikes we know who is in charge. somebody has to be in charge. every community, small as well as large, should do that. >> look at the bp oil spill. the governor of louisiana said what we really need is berms. how do you get locally elected

officials who feel a tremendous responsibility to the voters that they see in the face every day to agree that there has to be a hierarchy and how it benefits them? >> i think that points to one of the real benefits of the way the 9/11 commission was constructed and carry out its duties. the book that we produce really educated a broad swath of public officials at the state and local levels. they have read it and taken it to heart. the public has a much higher awareness of that. in effect, you have decentralized the implementation of this. in new york, they were not going to wait for the federal government to sort out the d- band problem. they spent a huge amount of money with a defense contractor to come up with a much higher

tech frequency so the police can talk to the firemen and talk to them in the subways, the tunnels, and so forth. that is better than trying to have it done to a centralized bureaucracy. i think that awareness surrounds the country. >> one of the great things about the american people is we recall, i think, each one of us hearing stories about how the pentagon response was very successful in many ways. why was it? it was not because they read our book. it was not because of something congress told them to do for the oval office told them to do. it was the knowledge, experience, and practice of arlington, alexandria, the rescue crews, and the pentagon. they knew that unity of command may common sense. they knew each other by first names.

they were calling each other by first name when they responded to the pentagon. 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. it is one of the important things we can get back. >> 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.

-- bundlers 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.

-- 80 billion dollars total for igence. 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 societies and organizations may . 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. >> that is exactly right. [applause]

before things get too optimistic, i want to say to you that 10 years after 911 we are not yet spent the place in this country were the first responders can talk to one another. not ats after 911, we're the place for me know he was in charge of the site of a disaster pie 8. progress for sure. i do not think the comparison of on the back too strongly. these issues were no-brainers. first responders ought to be able to talk with one another. this is so obvious. not solve the problem.

there are so out of this to protect the american people. it has bought yet been achieved. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> president obama will talk about his jobs plan next week.

you have live coverage getting under way and in eastern here on c-span. the name conjures elegance and grandeur pit the queen mary was commissioned as a troop ship. from lectures, the integration of baseball by african-american women in asia. they are uncovering september 11. for our schedules and year and click feeler button.

he spoke in new hampshire for about 45 minutes. we are a small manufacturing company. we support industries that affect all of our daily lives that i don't think we've and

think about sometimes. some of them could be food- processing equipment, a deepwater drilling, tv broadcasting, and many others. i have to confess i have been a professional gambler around 35 years. my professional gambling is here at the company. we hire people, we purchase equipment based on what we think will happen, we pay 100% of our employees' health care, dental, short-term and long-term disability. we have no guarantee of success or any business continuation. we have no safety net. since july of last year when we had a little accident in the gulf of mexico and there was a drilling moratorium, my company lost $50,000 per week of sales and revenue of a very good fabrication work for us. really nice stuff. lack then there's been a of permits. they of lifting the moratorium, but they're not granting permits. government involvement in my work is a significant disincentive for me to take further risk. i am anxious to hear what the governor jon huntsman's plan is to improve the business climate in america. i turn you over to governor

huntsman. >> thank you. [applause] thanks, everyone. jack, is an honor to be with you and your colleagues and your friends. it is an honor to be in a manufacturing plant, a great one in new hampshire. i would like to outline my plan today to put america back to work and rebuild her economic engines stronger and more powerful than ever before. we have an economic crisis in this country. the marketplace is crying out for predictability, competitiveness, and signs of confidence. above all, people need jobs. as we gather this evening, 14 million of our fellow americans are unemployed. millions more are so dispirited that they have given up looking. our economy is often framed

through such numbers, get behind the numbers are human tragedies. families that are torn apart, relationships that are pushed to the brink, men and women struggling to maintain self- esteem, and the pride that comes with self-sufficiency. there's no more urgent priority at this point in our nation's history than creating jobs and strengthening our economic court. -- core. everything else revolves around that and is dependent on it. meeting our economic talent is will require serious solutions, but above all it will require serious leadership -- our economic challenge. it was just four weeks ago that

i was the only candidate to stand up and support a compromise to save our nation from the fault, which would have triggered calamitous consequences for our economy. president obama never even offered a plan of his own. all of my opponents supported default. even as far as attempting to undermine the deal at the 11th- hour. this simply does not cut it, especially in these trying times. the ideas i will discuss today are not radical or revolutionary. they are straightforward and common sense. many of you have heard them talk about before, maybe even

four years, but therein lies the problem. washington has never suffered from a vacuum of ideas. it suffers from a vacuum of leadership. i am not running for president to promise solutions. i am running to deliver solutions. some of my entitlement reforms come directly from the paul ryan plan. other solutions come from the simpson-bowles commission, a bipartisan group that last year put forth some very sensible tax reforms. my plan may be challenged by the special interest on the left and the right, but it represents a serious path forward toward fiscal discipline and economic growth. it also represents a very different vision for our country than the current occupier of the white house. the president believes that he can tax and spend and regulate our way to prosperity. we cannot. we must compete out way to prosperity -- we must compete

our way. manufacturing comprised 25% of our gdp when i was born. 10% today. this does not reflect a decline in american ingenuity or work ethic. it reflects our government's failure to adapt to the realities of the 21st century economy. we need american entrepreneurs not only thinking of products like the iphone or the segue, we need american workers building those products. it is time for made in america to mean something again. overseas i have heard our adversaries speak of america's decline as if it were predetermined. it is not. some say today's economy is the new normal, that all of us need to accept. i refuse to. it is time for america to compete again. here is how we are going to get it done. first, on the debt, let me start by saying that that is a cancer. if left untreated, it will

destroy our economy from within. i have been outspoken as a supporter of the rhine plan, which i believe begins to address the long-term problems that make our current course of spending absolutely unsustainable. -- the ryan plan. i support a balanced budget plan. we cannot restore our nation's economic strength by cuts alone. we must compete. second, over the last few decades our tax code has devolved into a maze of special- interest carve out its, loopholes, and temporary provisions that cost taxpayers $400 billion a year to comply with.

rather than tinker around the edges of what is a broken system, i am going to drop a plan on the front steps of the capital that says we need to clean house, get rid of all tax expenditures, all polls, all deductions, all subsidies, all corporate welfare, use that to lower rates across the board and do it in a revenue-neutral fashion. [applause] thank you. for individual taxpayers, i propose a version of the plan crafted by the simpson-bowles commission known as the zero plant. -- plan. we will have three dramatically lower rates. we will eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which is unfairly penalizing a growing number of families and small

businesses. we will also eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends, which will lower the cost of capital and encourage investment in the economy. the united states cannot compete with the second-highest business tax rates in the developed world, so i propose lowering it from 35% to 25%, one point lower than the developed world average. a tax holiday for repatriation of corporate profits earned overseas should also be implemented immediately. making between $400,000,000,000.-1319835503 dollars available to companies to make capital investments right here at home. third, our creative and entrepreneurial class is being strangled by a complex and convoluted web of misguided and overreaching regulations. one of the most indefensible examples is the national labor relations board's ongoing to prevent boeing from

building a new plant in south carolina. in an effort to block in the right to work states. if elected, i will immediately instruct it to stop pursuing this politically motivated attack on free enterprise. if they fail to do so, i will replace them. equally telling regulation we must repeal -- and equally chilling regulation we must repeal is dodd-frank. a 1600 page monstrosity that gives unelected bureaucrats unprecedented power over our financial system. another fundamental problem with dodd-frank is that it

perpetuates too big to fail. taxpayers must be protected from more bailouts. [applause] thank you. -- yet we must reconsider whether increased competition between smaller entities is more efficient than a vast new regulatory apparatus that will almost certainly produce more bailouts. we also must repeal obamacare, a $1 trillion bomb dropped on the taxpayers that only hampers businesses and job creation. we must end the epa's serious regulatory overreach, exemplified by its current effort to pass a new ozone rule, which would effectively stop new construction. we must also reform the fda's

ridiculous approval process that increases development costs and unnecessary delays on new products, particularly those that have a potential to cure diseases and extend human life. fourth, to free ourselves from opec's's grasp and create american jobs. we must end our addiction to foreign oil. every year america sends more than $300 billion overseas for oil. this is unsustainable and it is largely on the way to an unfriendly regimes. we need to expand and open up new sources of domestic energy, thus lowering cost to businesses and improving our overall global competitiveness.

[applause] thank you. we must start by expediting the approval process for a safe, environmentally sound projects, including our oil and gas reserves in the gulf of mexico and alaska, and appropriate federal lands, along with supporting the keystone pipeline project in cooperation with canada. we must eliminate subsidies and regulations that discourage domestic energy sources such as natural gas, biofuels, and cold liquids. here's one example. the united states has more natural gas than saudi arabia's oil, yet the obama administration just issued fuel economy regulations that effectively bar heavy duty trucks from converted to natural gas.

simply said, we can and must begin producing more energy right here at home. [applause] thank you. thank you. as relates to free trade, as a former diplomat, a trade official, governor, and business executives, i have witnessed the tremendous economic opportunities of free trade. 95% of the world customers live outside our borders. with the u.s. party to only 17 of more than the 300 trade agreements worldwide, opening more markets for american businesses should be a common- sense tool to spark immediate growth. for two and a half years the president has failed to act on free trade agreements with south korea, colombia, and panama. i would make them a top priority.

washington must also immediately start discussions with india to end in a bilateral free-trade agreement, strengthening our relationship with a friend who will prove to be critical to america opposes success in the 21st century. -- america's success. i would refer all of you to our american jobs plan. president obama's jobs record has been marked by failure. as the obama administration has dithered, other nations are making the choices necessary to compete in the 21st century. i have seen that firsthand. the capital of brazil and in beijing and in new delhi and seoul, south korea, our competitors are making the tough choices that will help ensure their children a better life.

if we fail to do the same, we are robbing our children of an inheritance every previous american generation has enjoyed. i am running for president because i am prepared to lead the american people do that better and brighter future. we are the most optimistic, common sense, problem solvers on earth. we can turn this thing around. i seek your votes to reignite america's light. ladies and gentlemen, we have no choice. we must unite and look beyond politics for real solutions. it is time for america to start building things again. it is time for america to start drinking again. it is time for america to compete again. -- it is time for america to start working again.

i believe with a new administration began do that. president obama won on hope in 2008. in 2012 we will been on real solutions. thank you all so very much for being here. -- we will win on real solutions. [applause] thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you. jack, i guess we can take a couple of questions now. >> keep it clean. i don't know who wants to ask what. anybody have a question? >> this is there going to block at&t takeover of t-mobile. at&t says we will bring back 5000 jobs to america. is at&t holding the people in this country and the government hostage by making that statement?

>> this has nothing to do with one company. this has something -- everything to do with a big picture approach to getting this country moving again. this is not about tweaks here and there. this is not about half measures around the tax code or individual company complaints or arguments about one company being in this country or another. we fundamentally have a problem with respect to competitiveness in this nation. we will not able to expand our manufacturing base. 25% when i was born in 1960, 10% today. you cannot live off services alone.

as good as we are in the services sector, we have to get back to where we can make things in this country. we are not going to be doing it by one-of conversations on individuals or companies. we have to fundamentally we make the tax code and address the various and red tape that stand in the way, called excessive regulation. it will get to the heart of dealing with the reality that we can create 500,000 jobs right here over five years. if we begin a transition tools like natural-gas that we have in abundance. it's clean and cheap and carries profound national security implications. instead of getting into an at&t discussion, i am here to tell you that we have no choice. we need a big picture approach to problem-solving in this country. we cannot afford to have mesa's aggie lager that will not do for the country what needs to be done. [applause]

thank you. >> yes, sir? >> i was in the navy when you were born. i cannot find anything that you said to disagree with. i appreciate your enthusiasm. when you get elected and what into the capitol hill, 80% of the people there now will still be there. how will you get all these things done? >> i was born in 1960. the u.s. navy paid for my birth. forever grateful. now i have two sons and a navy in a small attempt to pay them back. there's nothing like the voice of the people when they speak out. that is the ultimate attention getter in this country. we are still elected officials at the consent of the government. it is the people who speak can get things done. 2012 is going to be about nothing beyond expanding this economy and creating jobs, plain and simple. there may be some ancillary issues, but it has to be about

fixing our core, getting us back in the game, getting this country back on its feet, the economy and jobs. if the discussions leading up to 2012 will be a referendum on the things we discussed here. what are you going to do about taxes and obamacare and dodd- frank and looming regulatory measures that are crushing enterprise and ingenuity in the free market system? when the people speak in 2012 it will be an attention getter. i can feel it's already. that attention getter will speak to congress and will speak to the bureaucracy and it will say the american people want to get things done and we want to follow a particular course of action that will ensure prosperity for the american people. reverting back to a system of beliefs in our capitalistic traditions, for markets, innovation, inspiring deon turner nor and allowing the marketplace to solve a lot of our problems, i believe that

will be the message loud and clear. when that message is delivered, there will not be any. any -- any dithering. i believe congress will stay focused on the task at hand. that is the message you get on election day. let me tell you the reality. i found this out as governor. you have about a two-year window in which to get things done. then it closes and you know longer have an opportunity. that's a problem with president obama today. he has not expanded economy or done anything to create jobs, so now people are looking for alternatives. i believe there will be an alternative in 2012. you have two years after the stamps of approval by the people to actually get things done. i am trying to narrow the priorities for the american people down to get -- because that is the cancer that will kill people. we have to grow like a business to get out of this. we have to pay the bills. you cannot do that until you reform taxes, until you get a competitive tax rate.

you cannot expand the economy until you deal with the regulatory environment. third is energy independence. that is an engine of growth so powerful all by itself that those are the things i will talk about aside from getting our position right in the world. that is out there, too. but those are the compelling issues that will drive this country forward and drive the discussion around 2012, i believe. you'll get the stamp of the people of this country and you go to it for the next two years. that is what will turn this country around. thank you for your service to this country in the navy. [applause] >> [inaudible]

the loss of wealth in the american middle class has been disproportionate to the rise of wealth in the chinese middle- class. you are fluent speaker of mandarin and someone who understands the political and economical and social culture in china. what message do you bring to americans that would give them hope for a brighter future? >> maybe i could say it in chinese at the proper time after i am elected, with great clarity. there is always a fear factor when you talk about china. economic difficulties, challenges, closed markets, problems with intellectual property protection, currency problems with a deeply discounted currency giving their exports an advantage. they are all bad. we have to keep hammering on

those issues. if we also have to remember that on the other side there is an opportunity for the united states. you have the largest middle class in the history of the world, consumer class, i should say, in the history of the world that will form in china. they are going to be inclined to want to buy our products. to my mind, that means exports from the united states. as governor, china was now well on our top list of export nations. within just a couple years it went right to the top five and then the top three. for every state in america, china is a marketplace that will emerge as a voracious consumer. that means jobs, that means opportunity, that means economic expansion right here at

home. so you have to balance the yen and va -- the yin and yang. you have to have them encouraged to do things that suggest that they play by the rules. it will continue to be a challenge. you have to hammer home at that. but i will not miss the opportunity to see the reality of the growth in china. their growth will taper down as they transition from an export machine to more of a consumption machine. but as they move toward more of a consumption machine, they will be buying our stuff. i don't what the europeans to be as out or anyone else. i want to make sure we are on our feet and competing and ready to export and we have the wherewithal to penetrate the markets and make the cash registers ring right here at home. thank you. [applause] . -- thank you. >> final question?/ >> based on your familiarity with china, what are the implications of the one-child

per family program over the long term for both trade and as a market for our debt instruments? market? >> that is a sensitive one. i hate the one child policy, and so do a lot of people there, but i also have aaughter because of the one child policy. i have a daughter we adopted from china, and i have no doubt about her circumstances. her mother gave her life and decided not to keep her, which is sometimes an uncommon thing in china, and she was abaoned and put in an orphanage, and we took possession of her at a young age, and she is 12 years old, and every time i looked at her i think of the policy and how it is rbing the chinese people of life and opportunity and creating a disequilibrium

they will have to deal with in ways i do not think any social scientist has ever thought through, but it has given me the love of my life in my own daughter, and i wish you could see what a beautifulnd thoughtful 12-year-old she is. i call hery senior political adviser, because she tvels with me, and at the end of the day, she says, dad, you forgot to say this, you said that's wrong,nd i listened to her because she is right. an you very much. [applause] >> you have been terrific. thank you for being here. >> thank you for being here.

>> very nice meeting you. >> good luck on the campaign trail. >> there you go. >> my dad and brother used to .ork for your dad he was a chemist. >> he probably would have worked for chesapeake. i have worked better quality control lab -- at a quality control lab. good to see you. >> [unintelligible]

we lack confidence. >> it is easy to build on i that is part of it. there an opportunity we cannot forget about. >> i have worked in asia. there are good humans working together. they will work together really well. thank you very much. >> could to see you. thanks for being here.

china i quantified out what family is. that will do the trick. >> that will be interesting to watch. they are struggling economically right now. >> i have great and wonderful kids. i know what family is. >> the way you win new hampshire is by the math. you figure you have kids reaching out to every corner of the state.

>> is going to take awhile to get a balanced budget amendment. i think people have had enough of the large and unpredictable deficits today. >> one of the big problems is we have to ship jobs overseas because we don't have the technology. >> what about the visa program? we have the immigration debate. there is a legal side, too. we need brainpower. we have always relied on brainpower in this country. good to see you.

>> i encourage you to promote party unity. >> we need party unity more now than we have ever fore >> you got that right. >> at all cost. >> we will do our part and hope you do, too. >> i will. >> you are navy brat? >> i am. >> i went to the naval academy. [inaudible] my grandson is in the merchant marine academy. >> that is a great program. >> great to see you. >> i compare pictures of of me

at the academy with his. he joined the navy first and then he went to the academy. >> thank you for coming to new hampshire. i like your ideas on energy and commodities. >> [inaudible] >> i did not either until we actually did it ourselves. we are just scratching the surface of the potential that is there. >> i really liked your ideas. >> i have no doubt.

>> how are you doing? what ever you have got? whatever you like. >> what will distinguish your record from the others? >> you are talking about their plans or their records? >> your jobs plan and their records? >> i don't know the specifics of what they are offering, we will wait and see. i don't believe you will find any other candidate with a tax reform program that hits the mark quite like ours, where we are willing to phase out all the loopholes, all the deductions, corporate welfare, clean out the cobwebs completely, so that you can pay down the rates. you have to raise revenue. i do believe that is quite significant, and we may be alone in candidates offering that. >> simpson-bowles talked about

using -- -- talk about using some revenue for deficit reduction. you do not want to do that? >> i believe any extra revenue, we have used to buy down the capital gains rate. to the tun of maybe $800 billion. if you look at our plan, it is a hybrid, more or less. you have one aspect of simpson- bowles and that it has our own additions. >> relying on spending cuts and deficit reduction? >> spending cuts and growing, the rhine plan for spending cuts and tax reform and regulatory reform. energy independence that wl stimulate the economy and get a revenue flowed the old- fashioned way. you have to earn revenue so you can decrease the debt. our plan is comprehense in the sse that we are hitting on trade, energy, for regulatory refor tax policy.

everything is included that i think really represents not long term but short-term effectiveness in firing our engines of growth. >> you talk about taking away popular deductions like the first-time homebuyers. >> you have to start. -- you have to start with a negotiating position. i did the same thing as governor. we reform our tax code in a fairly revolutionary way. it had never been done to this extent in the history of our state. basically phasing out everything and moving toward a flatter, fairer, andore predictable tax, th the negotiations begin. sometimes you have a different in point. -- endpoint. people want their president to get things done. right now we are polarized we have the extremes. no one is moving the agenda

forward. a president needs to movehe agenda for and get things done. -- forward and get things done. what i have laid out today really represents our position going in. but there is the reality of the two-party system and reality of negotiations. i would like to take us as close to this as possible. if we can achieve something like this that it would leave the country with predictability for -- with a 21st century tax code that would fire our engines of growth and provide predictability for entrepreneurs and the creative class in this nation suspect people will begin hiring again and capital expenditures will be deployed into the marketplace. we are frozen right now. >> the simpson-bowles zero plan, did you look at what the effect of that plan would be and who would be paying more taxes? >> we looked at the scoring. -- the scoring that kind of went on with the congressional budget office. we have not scored hours

specifically. we can guesstimate roughly what the implications would be, but we have to do a little scoring. we are taking it off one aspect of simpson-bowles. we read the three primary proposals. this proposal was the one that met my own view of good comprehensive tax reform. i believe the system works and we will continue looking at the numbers. >> with this lower the after- tax income of the wealtest americans? >> it will provide three rates, as i mentioned. we will see what the numbers hold. getting to a simpler, more predtable tax rate. you can deal with how you approach psing things in and out. i had to do tax reform in the state of utah. it's never over night or one- size-fits-all. yohave to deal with the reality of different populations. all i'm saying is that this is my position going in. it's realistic and is a good

place to start. i would like to stick to it as close as possible. thank you all very much. >> [unintelligible] >> it's a global business. like any other global business, you have to meet customer demand all over the world. shoring up our manufacturing base. we have to focus. >> the timing of the president's speaking before a joint session of congress? do you think he is paying -- playing politics? >> i think it is political theatrics. if you don't have a plan, sometimes you fall back on political theatrics. you look at when the debate is taking place, you t forwa your own proposal? a lot of americans would find that as political theater?

>> what about the message of compromise that you have? you are saying that you are open to negotiation? >> i like the plan i p forward and i like the plan that i put forward as governor. you sit down and hammer out a deal. that's the way it goes. i will stick to it as closely as possible, just as i did as governor. if i think we got thbe tax reform in the nation out of it. if you look at what some of the analytical organizations had to say about its. what the pew center and the cato institute hato say. they do a pretty good of analyzing tax policy. we had the best tax policy in that particular year in the nation. i will let our track record speaks f itself. >> thank you.

plus links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states. >> the justice department this week filed a civil antitrust laws if to block at&t's because there and i'm than della takeover of t mobil usa james talked about the siege of

reporters on wednesday. the four largest companies provide more than 90% of mobile wireless connections. here's part of the briefing. >> there are tons domestication and telecommunication services and your everyday life picks a -- there are telecommunications services in your everyday life.

>> thank you, very much, gar thank you for that welcome. i remember a ghering 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 reductio so -- needs no introduction, 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. [laughter] good afternoon. let me thank the national consortium for terrorism and responses to trorism 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-teorism policies over the past decade. we have not had another major terrort attack on american soil since 9/11, and 10 years ago, no one would have dared to predict that with any nfidence. unfortunately, our success in eping our homeland say has -- keeping our homeland safe has also prompted some to question the seriousness of both the original thread and the continuing dangers. it has become fashionable in some quarterto characterize the past decade as a time in which america mistakenly exaggeratethe danger posed by islamic extremism and terrorism and overreacted in the wake of 11. this view is, in my judgment, profoundly mistaken, and its embrace would lead to aalse and dangerous road map to our future. the amican government pose a

response to the tax of 9/11 and -- the american government's response tohe attacks 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 -- real, brittle, and global with -- brutal, 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, 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. -- clearly not vanquished. 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 unite 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, telligence 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- -- built and unleashed 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. its a fairly which came -- affiliate in iraq, 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 -- justice 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 he 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 and 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 -- that seeks by 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 stat, 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 -- by the freedom deficit in 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, throught 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 -- of the arab spring 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 --

some of the courage and principle 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 safeas 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. -- just plain luck. had faisal shasad 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 benefitted from just plailuck. this is the challenge we face in a country as open-ended and free as ours is and want it to continue to be. it is difficult to be 100% secured. while high it is down, they and -- while al qaeda 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 ate sponsor of islamist terrorism and just about on every continent in the world, most notably in rent 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 wars 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 o at this event today. it is most important to note,

and i eak 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 botcarried out by radicalized muscle americans. -- muslim-americans. most people do not remembe 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 connecon with homegrown threats.

-- homegrown plots by american citizens. 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 -- in hegrown american terrorism is because our enemies know how much we have raised and broadened our guard, our homeland defenses against attacks like 9/11 here that is why home grown terrorism is a real and growing threat to america and why it demands very strong, methodical respse.

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 -- this homegrown threat, but to me, the report, which is entitled to "in poweringocal 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 sti 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 our enemy violent extremists 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'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, 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. -- overwhelmingly patriotic and nonviolent. 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 --i believe, 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 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 th 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 is a reluctae 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 e murders at fort hood. there was clear evidence they found that major hassan's fellow 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 beinlabeled 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 t 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, --

from t government's point of view, 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 atham's view today, -- islamist or jihadist chat rooms. 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 communitieto create positive content that counters the propaganda of the terrorists, 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 mement of see something, say something the islamic extremist and some who have explicitly declared war on us in 1998 -- osama bin ladenid 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 remembrae 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, andogether, united in this conflict, as we have been during its first decade. thank you ry 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 bieve 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.

a top of about this a little in my remarks. -- i talked about this a little in my remarks. 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 lst, 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 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 kds 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 -- homeown attacks, 1993 at the wor trade center with theruck bomb, and, of course, abroad with attacks on embassies in africa and the u.s.'s coal in yem. in 2000, we only believe will go aer 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 attack. 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 unconventional where we are fighting an enemy that does not come at us in the uniform tanks in uniforms and fighter planes and baleships. itomes at us from the shadows, essentially, wearing civilian outfits and aacking 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 transfortion 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 ut agency primary unit, whose aim is to prevent terrorism attacks on us, not to apprehend aer they occur. >> we have time for one more? ok, looking at places like the united kingdom where the government has recently been in

-- -- recently abandoned efforts to engage nonviolent islamic extremists, how do you believe that the added states should deal with domestic ideologues at preach radical ideologies but do not directly promote or engage in violent activities? >> this is a very thin line betweejust 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 -- up to a point 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 -- that particular person, whether it is a religious leader or just an individual -- undersnd 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] 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. transportay

ood.woullah this by pressing council on jobs was created by president obama. >> i have no position on who should win the game tomorrow night. i am honored to be here. we are holding what we call listening sessions on particular issues. the issue we're talking about today is infrastructure and its role in creating jobs and a competitive economy in the future. there is strong labor and business support for this. we have tom donahue and the chamber is a supporter it

infrastructure spending. i would like to think about the support. economists disagree on a lot of thing, but there is overwhelming support to the view that spending on infrastructure is a very efficient way to create jobs. and it also creates an infrastructure base for the competitiveness thfor the econoy going forward. we welcome you today and we are here to say something about what we're thinking about. but our ideas are in development. we are set up as a council to give the advice. as we develop our advice, we will hear from you about your ideas about how we should be basically addressing infrastructure. some of the issues we have talked about you will hear today. and what infrastruure

investment we should be making. how shall we finance it? 3, related to that, the role of public-private partnerships. we just came from a pretty bad at love field, a wonderful example of partnership between government and the private sector. it was a fantastic example. we talk about how projects should be chosen, the selection process by which projects should be chosen. financing, we talk about how we can move forward to get projects that are financed and permitted and on their way. these are things you hear about today. without further ado, let me introduce the panel. i have a very nice introduction for the president of smu. we will start with secretary lahood. he did a fantastic discussion

this morning at love field. >> thank you, laura. [applause] my first visit to your lovely campus, i was delighted that you had taken the time to be with us and to host to this and think you for your very warm welcome and to all of you who have an interest in putting americans back to work. my message is that, yesterday, we started off in the rose garden where president obama talked about the importance of congress when they come back next week, next wednesday, after the august work period, to come back and pass an extension of the transportation bill and then pass a long-term bill. there is no dispute anywhere about the fact that, if congress were to pass the transportation

bill, it would create jobs. the most lustrous way to say that is that the $48illion that congressllocated over the last two years under the so- called economic stimulus program went to the department of transportation. in two years, we took $48 billion and we created 15,000 projects and 65,000 jobs -- in two years. last summer, we saw an uptick in employmentn the construction industry and all of you were very frustrated as you drove around your communities to see the orange cones. every time you see an orange cones or an orange grove, you know that your friends and neighbors are working in good paying jobs. congress nds to pass an tension. the current bill will run out on september 30 i. and the taxes to pay for it will

run out on september 30. if that runs out, that means $100 million a day will be lost, never to be recouped, starting on october 1. what a tragedy. we just came from a project at love field. they have gone back to love field and invested millions of doars along with strong leadership from the city and a little bit of federal dollars that are collected on airline tickets to redo love field and make it into a magnificent facility that will serve the people of this region. and it has created 400 to 500 jobs. we saw the workers out the today. if we really want to get america to work, there are politicians,

congressmen and senators, over the last month, running around their districts and their state -- in the state talking about jobs. jobs is the party of president obama. jobs is the party of this administration. the way to create jobs is to come back to washington and do with these two gentlemen have done in a bipartisan way, setting aside politics, setting aside their own personal agendas, and saying to the american people that we will extend the current transportation bill and we will pass a five-year transportation bill with significant dollars that will put america back to work and create 1 million jobs in a very short time. i can go into a lot more detail and i know we will about how to pay for it, how much debate, but the simple solution to lowering unemployment and putting americans back to work is passing a transportation bill.

next thursday, the president will go before a join session of congress because he feels strongly that that is the best venue to talk to the american people by talking to their elected representatives and saying to them forget about the aisles, forget about the divisions, for get about political parties. let's do what is right for america. let's put our friends and neighbors back to work. how do we do it? extend the current surface transportation bill, extend the taxes, and then pass a fit vision for america. the way other congresses have passed a a vision for america -- i serve congress for 14 years. i served in transportation with my good friend bernice johnson. we served togetr in the committee. the one thing has always been bipartisan in washington is infrastructure. it has always been bipartisan. i served on the committee when we passed two bills 380 votes in

the house -- there were 80 votes in the senate what bernice said at love field is that there are no republican roads and there are no democratic roads. there are no republican or democratic produce. these are american roads and american bridges built by american workers. thats what we have to get back to washington, d.c. i will t into the specifics of how much and how we will pay for it. but i wanted to leave you with the idea that congress -- but i to leave you with the idea that congress can get this done. [applause] >> thank you. thank you.

>> now what i want to turn over to the president of the afl-cio. rich, to you. >> thank you for the introduction i want to thank president turner and smu for hosting us today on this beautiful campus. i want to thank all of you for being here. it is good to see you again, mr. secretary. i would like to thank you on behalf of allmericans for the leadership that you feel and the tenacity and determination you have shown in this issue. it is always good to see you again, tom. i think it is appropriate that you are on my far left today. [laughter] >> actually, froout there -- [laughter] >> for you, there probably is the right side. let me start off by saying two $0.20 trillion, that -- two

$0.20 -- $2.2 trillion, that is what we need for our infrastructure. that is what is needed to maintain, to keep our 20th- century inheritance from falling apart. not to get ahead. we need another $2 trillion to enter the 21st century and to build a modern, clean energy infrastructure. we need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars a year every year for the foreseeable future in infrastructure. instead, the united states is investing little more tn $50 billion per year in transportation infrastructure. our trade partners like china have been pouring investments into infrastructure. we do about two 0.4% of our gdp

for infrastructure europe does about 5% of their gdp for infrastructure. china does about 9% of their gdp for infrastructure. we are funding hours right now at the same level tha we did in 1968 when our econy was one- third the size that it is today and we had 100 million fewer people than we have today. what we're talking about is america's ability to compete in the global marketplace. if we want jobs in america, we have to be moving ahead of our competitorslobally in our transportation, energy, telecommunications systems, not falling behind. yet here we are, business, labor, and government -- we all agree that there's no dispute about t need for infrastructure. and about the danger that it poses to our country if we do

not do it. all we want to see is investment made yet this is not happening. we have a jobs crisis. there is massive work to be done to restore our competitiveness. and unemployment in the construction industry is at historic highs. congress has yet to pass any major infrastructure builbill. key congressional leaders have made it clear that they are opposed to funding infrastructure. there is no profound -- there's no greater profound logjam in america than this right now the idea that the focal process to address our nation's fundamental needs is not just about our future competitiveness or about the potential for job creation. the failure to repair our roads and bridges, our most basic infrastructure needs, is about

to cost this country 630,000 jobs next year. if the surface transportation bill is not done, we will lose 630,000 jobs. that is how many hardworking americans will be unemployed if congress fails to reauthorize the surface transportation act at current levels of expenditure. that is 490,000 workers in highway infrastructure and 141,000 workers in public transportation. at the end of this month, congress has an oortunity to reauthorized the surface transportation act and the federal aviation adminisation. without these, whose work the airplanes will not fly. we have to stop nickel-and- diming your country's public assets.

the surface transportation reauthorization should be multi- year and the funding levels that are relevant to a $2.20 trillion infrastructure deficit that keeps growing. that is what the president has asked for and that is what the country needs. we appreciate very much the leadership, but it will not happen unless those of us in this room, business and labor, getting serious about overcoming the partisan political art obstacles -- political obstacles that are standing inhe way. that is why the afl-cio is committed to working with our pension funds, with project sponsors in the financial sector and the clinton glol

initiative to a list $10 billion in our nation's public infrastructure over the next five years. that is money we will invest and hopefully leverage with public- proprietorships that we saw at lo field. the private efforts, quite frankly, cannot take the place of public leadership in infrastructure. the solutions we propose really must be on the same scale as the problems that will ultimately face. we can start by raising america's infrastructure grade point average from its current d gray, which i believe is a national -- d grade, which believe is a national embarrassment.

[applause] >> our last speaker of this panel is tom donahue, the president of the u.s. chamber of commerce. i want to emphasize something about the president's council on jobs and competitiveness. it is a council that represents business and labor. there is a large number of very important leaders in the u.s. industry and u.s. labor involved in making these decisions. it is really wonderful today to have an opening panel where we have rich and tom coming together to talk about this very important issue. tom donohue, please. >> thank you very much. i'm very pleased to join others on this beautiful campus. coming out of washington, it sort of soothes the savage beach for a short time. yesterday, the president, with a

rich and the chief operating officer of the chamber, began his push for getting the highway bill reauthorized. at the same time, he announced after a little bit of jockeying around, that on the eighth of this month, he will bring out his jobs plan. a number presidential candidates in the other party are bringing out their plans. people that are not even running for office are bringing out their plans. yesterday, the chamber sort o began to show that jobs plan that we will bring out on labor day. by the way, there are sixhings we can do that any federal increase in federal funds that will immediately start putting things to work. that is what we need. right now, if you connected some momentum on this, we are in real trouble. so all the people that have put

out their comments and their suggestions and all that will have as a part of that infrastructure. and that is because, when you look at the unemployment rate in this country, we know that it is higher than 9.1% becau you have as partially employed and those who have stopped looking. but the people who are really hurting in this country are people who were buildg houses, building infrastructure, and doing that. they are 30% unemployment. if we're going to do something, that is exactly where we have to start. the real question is whether the benefits? the benefits are clear. we put people to work. we make ourselves and far more competitive. we have to be careful of comparing the numbers. we started this was dwight eisenhower. the chinese started only a couple of years ago. they're moving really quickly. but we need to fix what we have. the only difference we will have -- and i will make a point

about this in a moment -- image -- where will we get the money. there are five things we ought to do. first, we need to pass the surface transportation reauthorization. i am concerned about doing a short term and then doing a long term. if you look at what will hpen between now and the first of the year, we will have this whole deficit and debt group out doing their thing. everybody will be involved in that process. it wl be very hard to get air time in the congress. this will not happen. but the right thing to do next week is pass a long-term bill. we ought to just do it because that will send the message. when you send a message to the states and to the local community that we just passed a three-month bill and we want 25% from the money from the states and 25% of the money from the local communities, they're not sure they're putting up their

money until they know the federal is in it for the long time. we also need to lock opportunities of global capital investmentn this whole system. i think the secretary has mentioned that. rich and i talk about it all the time. reduce support and infrastructure bank. but that is a year or two years in the making. by the time everybody figures out how they will fund and what the rules are, what we need to do is ght now. if we evehad the courage to go out and do this immediately, -- i even get in trouble on this -- we have not increased the federal fuel tax 18.5 years. we're getting a little bitore miles to the gallon than we used to. we ought to do it because that will put incremental money into the set -- into the system. you went down to love field. that is a great place. aviation is important. we put 88,000 people out of work

when we could not get that bill taken care. and there are some issues in that bill which you and i would argue about. but we want to put those people back to work and get some more people to work and stop letting that money go down the street because we failed to collect it. we're big on that. another place where there's a lot of money and there's all kinds of technology -- is there and it is cheaper -- we have to modernize the air traffic control system and that is more jobs. something the people do not talk about in the infrastructure system is water. we need to renew the water resources development act. it is unbelievably critical to this country. new york city, in some cases, not many, but it makes retelling, are still running on wooden pipes. we need to get under this water thing because it is a serious problem all run the country. although, now we have a lot more water than we did before following the events of last

week. and we need to fully use our harbor manus trust fund and leverage private activity bonds water is a great thing for this country and will create a lot of jobs. people talk about rearail. the freight rail system in this country is run by the private sector and they run it very, very well. they spend unbelievable amounts of capital every year keeping it up. there is an opportunity to get them -- in many places -- we have to build another railroad right next to the one we have. there are some tax things we can do over time to get that done sooner. i would say one other thi. broadband, everything i have learned about it is that it is a very important thing to do, but we ought to let the private sector do it. i am making all these comments so i can get to the real issue.

for us to create jobs and do something critical in this country is to expand the electrical grid and to approve the keystone peline project. that will put two hundred 50,000 people to work right away. to move forward -- you probably do not know this -- rich and i do -- there are 351 stalled energy projects in this country that have been held up by ermitting and "not in my yard" and "not in my town" and "not in my country. process ising insane. if you want to create a lot of things in this country, build the buildings, building the roads, you could spend six years to seven years permitting. for what? we're willing to give up the few jobs and get your permits to do less things but me and by saying

that we have been working on a project at the chamber and it is a transportation performance index. it looks at all of these issues of infrastructure and transportation, energy, and so on. it can calculate, based on e health of our system, what will happen to our gdp. woulwill it go up or down? if it goes up, we hire more people. if it goes down, we hireewer people. thank you very much. i look forward to the discussion. [applause] >> let me say a few things before i opened it to discussion turned there are -- to discussion. there are many things in the subgroups. when the president was speaking, he also noticed the council engagement on this issue.

the administration is now working on identifying priority projects that have already been financed. the financing is available but heldp somewhere in the permitting process. we will expedite -- the administration will be expediting the projects and also introducing a dashboard for interested individuals to actually follow the permitting process. the administration feels that the council has made a recommendation that can be actionable and have some of the emitted a fax that tom was talking about. so permitting is an important thing to discuss he. financing is an important thing to discuss here. public-private partnerships and how they were, how they can be formed is an important thing to discuss here. and i think i want to start with that set of ideas, oning it up for questions. remember that these are meant to be listening sessions. you have heard from us.

you have listened to this group could by the way, one other thing. infrastructure is more than transportation. right now, we have the surface transportation bill that is imminent. but broadband, energy, aviation, water, school construction, building and safety -- there are a lot of important areas in infrastructure. the next panel will be looking at more detail in some of these specific areas. let me open for questions. i will start right over here. this is becky mueller. >> i am the president of the texas afl-cio. welcome to our state, those of you who came from out of town. i would not be surprised to find that the field trip would be to love field. we have had a lontime relationship with southwest airlines. i am not surprised the that is where we were this morning.

but i am pleased to see you three up there. business and the obama administration working together tha. in texas, our unemployment situation is not as good as you see on the national tv. we do have 30% folks out of work in some industries. we have some folks, as always, who have fallen off the road. our numbers sound good if you look, but when you look deeper, we have families that are hurting turn we have families -- that are hurting. we are families who have difficulty feeding and clothing their children going back to school. it makes my heart feel good that we're seriously talking about this bipartisanship. but i have one question. how do we do it quickly? alk about families were school is started and they

nnot fight -- cannot buy food and clothing. how do we break the logjam in washington, d.c. how do we work together all up and down? you can come from b.c. and say that you three are walking, but how do we get to bernice johnson talking to the other folk whoo not care about infrastructure? how do we get that to happen? what ishe magic answer? i would like to ask each of you? how can we help you make it happen? what can we do to help you? >> i happen to agree that we should separate the things we can do very quickly. we get some motion and some momentum and things will happen. i think we should take -- particularly on the infrastructure side -- the things that we can do and do the right now. i agree. i listen tohe people in the affected committees on both sides of their talking about how soon they could move ts and what they have to do. i did n hear a great sense of

urgency. the plan that we will put out on labor day with a lot of ads around the country will suggest that the 3 million companies in america that can be reached my want to call their congressman and tell them that may have noticed -- not noticed -- tt this is very important. i think the hard thing for people is to separate what they can do in a big hurry and go do it. it is only a portion. if you put that on the blocks and startoving and bring everything along behind it. >> thank you, tom. i appreciate that. i to -- i truly agree with that. the country has a 25 million people either unemployed or underemployed. those 25 million people need services. they are not contributing right now. they have to take right now.

we have stagnant wages. we have a lot of people who have lost faith in washington, d.c. as a solution. we have one in five of our children living in poverty. and that figure is growing. if you're in the african- american community, it is three times that level. if you're in the latino community, it is three times that level. so there is a crisis out there. for the last 20 some years,hen it came to infrastructure, there has never been a bipartisan fight over it because it is a no-brainer. it is absolutely essential for the country. it is absolutely essential for us to remain competitive. and by not fixing it this year, you make it more difficult and more costly to fix it next year. and if you do not fix it next year, it gets more costly the

year after that. and the figures go up until they boggle the mind. i say $2.2 trillion and people say, oh, my god, that is a lot of money. is a lot of money. and if we do not tackle it next year, it will be even more expensive. and we will be less competitive. talk to your representatives. state, local, federal representatives, and tell them, for the good of the country, come together and create jobs. but the infrastructu. there is no business that can compete with infrastructure falling down. tom's members get further and further behind every year if we do not fix this stuff. so it is up to us to come together and say enough. let's attack the real oblem that we have. it is a jobs crisis.

if we do infrastructure, we do the faa, we do the stuff about water that tom talked about -- we lose hundreds of millions of gallons of clean water every day because the systems that they're traveling over right now let them go. so taxpayers pay to clean the water and then it trysts back out and gets lost. if we do not something with infrastructure in the next 15 years, it will cost taxpayers about $10 trillion in increased cost. we can do better than this. talk to your representatives. tell them that the time is past talking. come back and do what has been done f the past 30 years. with surface transportation, with a a, with clean water, and others, -- with faa, with clean

water, and others, we will be much better off. >> is there a chance of getting a long term bill right away? on the transpoation side? >>i think that the president will stick to what he was saying yesterday for the congress to pass a short-term extension. the current bill runs out and thtaxes to pay for it run out on september 30. as was mentioned, senator boxer and another senatorad a two- year bill. congressman mike the, the chairman of the transportation committee in the house, has a bill pending, which has not been considered by the house. given the fact that there is so little time in september when

congress will be in session due to the number of days that they will be working, it will be more realistic to pass a short-term extension and work on the long term bill through the months that the extension is going on. i woul not add anything in answer to the question. thank you for the question. i really cannot add anything to whatich and tom said. >> i would add a point to what was said before. working with aumber -- workg with the jobs council, the administration has really focused on the issue of expediting what is already there. i do think that we will make some real progress on taking some very important projects that have been judged as priority for creating jobs, creating competitiness, and

have fancing in place and expediting them through the permitting process. i agree that we have to do everything as quickly as we can. it is the immediate issue and then there will be $2.2 trillion that we are under investing. we have to do two things of the same time. back there. >> i live here in dallas. mr. secretary, thank you for your leadership. mr. donahue, i agree with you could i think it is time to look at the gas tax. when people were voting, they have agreed to tax themselves for transportation. this is day 3000 company industry.

it is about jobs. it is ironic. no, it is tragic. at a time when we have a lot of people unemployed, they need mass transit to get to work. tax drives companies away from this industry. we have invested more toward growth outside the u.s. than in the u.s. simply because the unpredictability of the short- term funding mechanisms that we are working with. again, i would like to ask the question -- i do not think washington hears us. i do not think washington is listening. use a talk to our elected representatives. what more can we do to get attention? >> i served in congress for 14 years. i do believe that your elected representatives have -- i do not

believe they have all been back in their districts during the month of august. i know many of them have had town meetings and many have been listening to theironstituents. i believe that most people are concerned about jobs. i think it is uppermost in the minds of people alover america. everybody in america knows somebody that is out of work. everybody in america has a friend, a neighbor, or a relative that is out of work. that is why it is such a serious issue. that is why i do think that, when members of congress come back, they will be paying attention to the idea that they have the opportunity to help create jobs in america. that is why the president wanted to talk directly to the members of congress next thursday night, a week from tonight. about the issue of jobs and what his proposal is and what his

vision is. and then let congress ha the debate, as they have always done, and pass a bill that will put americans back to work. on the issue of the gas tax, i will tell you this. the president has said, from the first day i started this job, which was january 23, two days after the president was sworn in, there was a very bad economy and unemployment and 9%. it is very difficult for the president to be proposing an increase in the gas tax when people are really hurting. that is what the president has taken the position that he is not in favor of raising the gas tax. but he is willing to work with congress on finding ways to fund the things that we need to do, the bighings, the big projects. the president has proposed an infrastructure bank, which is a mechanism where you can have a pot of money that leverages a

lot of other money, doing what they are doing at love field, leveraging private money against public money. doing what they're doing in denver, where was yesterday at the inauguration of a $3 billion transit program with six lines that connect six suburban areas into grand central station in denver and also >> people from the airport which is all the way at in kingman that -- in kingdom come all the way into denver. this is a classic examp of a public-private partnership. again, public-private partnership. thedea that the president is in -- is against increasing the gas tax, which he has been very consistent about, is also coupled with the idea that he has put out somedeas about how we leverage some of our federal dollars against private dollars

against state dollars and against municipal dollars. this is a very bad time to be talking to people, many of whom who have been unemployed for way too long, about raising the gas tax. that is why the administration has taken that position. >> we thought also that people in washington were not listening. so the afl-cio arranged over 500 events out in the field during the recess where our members and townsfolk came together, union and non-union people came together, and talked about jobs, jobs, jobs to our elected representatives. is there a town hall meetings or at other events that they were having -- either at town hall meetings or at other events that they were having, we met up and said, look, while you are fiddling around, people are turning. we ought to do better than this.

this was at home while they were back at their constituents. we hope it will have some positive effect and have some small contribution and break in the logjam in getting some of these things done that will benefit the country. and put people back to work very quickly. >> i just want to make one point. we're talking about jobs and infrastructure. many cities have been done on cost effectiveness in spending a dollar per job created. it is a very cost-effective way of creating jobs. it is important for us to focus on jobs, no doubt. but we have to focus also on the efficiency of the measures are used to create them. this is a measure that economists have lots of lots studies to support it. you get a big bang for your

infrastructure balk. -- infrastructure buck. you heard about spending more on the onset of the u.s. than inside. this leads to the desirability of creating an infrastructure bank. there are big pooof foreign money out there that would like an opportunity tonvest in u.s. infrastructure. we do not have the modality to allow that right now. we are missing out on a great opportunity. you hear about that in the next session. >> my name is bernard weinstein. i am an economist with the mcgwire energy group. of all the things i have heard mentioned today, i want to endorse mr. don hughes idea about the keystone pipeline.

this is a keep peace of mr. structure -- key piece of infrastructure. i do not believe it requires any taxpayer money. it will supply of oil from alberta, a friendly nation, to refineries along the gulf coast. economic security and energy security will be much beer off buying our oil from alberta rather than buying it from venezuela. last week, one hurdle was jumped. i believe the state department approved it, but there are other permitting isss. i want to emphasize that is absolutely critical and needs to go forward as on as possible. >> thank you. thank you for that.

yes, right over there. he is bringing a microphone down. uld you introduce yourself? >> mname is rob frank. i am chair of the coalition. we have a 28-le section that is part of the highway program. we have $192 million of locally generated money to fund this project -- no state money and no federal money. we are pursuing this as a public-private partnership. what is the policy and the perspective regarding low- interest loans to help closehe gap in advance in projects like this that is five to 10 years of construction jobs? >> if this is a perfect project, -- this is a perfect project for the infrastructure bank. it really is. it is perfect when there is a

surface transportation bill for bed and bernice to make it known. it is the kind of investment locally necessary. i have no doubt that, if there is a transportation bill, this project will become a high priority and you will be able to leverage federal dollars. right now, you cannot do it because we are operating on these short-term extensions. but once we have a bigger vision, a big plan, and other surface transportation program, a project like this will g forward. that is the reason we need them. i think there will be a number of ways for you to leverage federal dollars to make this project happen, which i know is very important. toiously, you do not need lobby your own congressman. she is once -- in such a great position on the traportation committee d has worked so hard

already this year to persuade her chairman to move the bill. once the bill is passed, you will be in a good position. you will be well positioned to leverage some federal dollars. >> yes, back there. >> my name is breadbox. -- my name is greg bachs. can you tell us what the chances are of high-speed rail in texas and would avert possible new positions that might create? >> high-speed rail is coming to america. there is no stopping it. we have made $10 billion plu worth of investments in high- speed intercity rail. all federal money. that is $10 billion plus more than has ever been invested i high-speed intercity rail ever

in the history of our country. it is thank you to the vision of president obama pick this is something that he -- vision of president obama. this is something that he feels very strongly about. the on's share of the money, over $3 billion, has been invested in california, where they will really have high-speed rail. it will connect the state and the trains will go over 200 miles an hour. we have made investments in the midwest, a train from detroit to chicago to st. louis. those investments are fixing up tracks along an amtrak quarter. we have made huge investments in the northeast corridor. i am very happy that the state of texas recently accepted high- speed rail money. there was not a big aouncement about it, which is fine with us. we are glad texas is in the ball game, one of the largest states in the country ought to get int the high-speed rail business,

connecting houston and dallas. it is a great project. we could not have done what we have done in america without our friends in thereight rail business. matt and others in the freight rail business have been great partners and will continue to be great partners. we do not have enough money in this country to build all new infrastructure. we need our friends in the freight rail business so we can make investments to fix of tracks, to u those tracks, so that trains can go faster because we do not have the money. we are being out-competed by europe and asia and those of you who go to europe and asia and come back and ask why we do not have passenger trains in america. because we have never made the investment. this is the president's vision. it is a vision that has never been articulated in america before, except on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains there.

the day after the storm hit, you could not buy a seat on amtrak on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains. texas is getting into the passger rail business. that is thanks to rail enthusiast in this state and i want to congratulate. we want to be your partners and passenger rail is coming to texas. >> the last question is over here. >> i am mike davis. i am on the fulty here. i appreciate your comments about bipartisan roads. but i have to observe that bipartisan roads need to be built in places like west virginia and other places where congressman are very powerful. this is not to make a starkey comment. i believe you all are very sincere in wanting infrastrucre money to be spent wisely. but what assurances can you give us about what moneys will be spent and that they will be

spent on projects that really need funding and not on projects that support a particular congressmen or sound really sexy like high-speed rail? >> because we e in the era of no earmarks in washington, d.c. we are. there are no more earmarks. when the next transportation bi is written, it will not have earmarks. the president is not for earmarks. congress -- most members of congress are not for your marks. senator byrd is no longer serving in the senate, in case you have not heard that. [laughter] and we are in a new era in america. note iraq's -- no earmarks in appropriations bills or infrastructure bills. they will be approved on their merit, not because they have a powerful congressman.

>> if you look at the figures, texas got the largest share of the stimulus money. thistate that more money than anybody else. i do not know if that is because of your present th tips or because bobby is no longer with us. but i think that is a good thing. a large portion of the texas economy is pumped by federal dollars with defense and forts and all the military bases that are he, pumping money from the to the government into the state economy, making it grow and allowing it to survive. i do tip my hat off to you for one very important thing. a number of years ago, you decided to do some very stringent regulation of mortgages for consumers, may be the strongest in the country. that helped you weather the storm. you did not take the hit from the bad mortgages that a lot of other states did because of the

strong regulatn you had. and i really take my hat off to you for that. >> let me just make one comment. i do think the secretary is right. i do not know what congress will do without earmarks. they will call it something else. [laughter] >> spoken as a true washinon senate. [laughter] -- a true washington cynic. [laughter] >> we will see. but i think there is a real serious issue and i think rich and i agree on this. we have to make the right decisions on where we need to put infrastructure for a totally interconnected countrywide transportation system. at the same time, there are massive pockets of unemployment. the question is, as -- we all started our comments on jobs.

if i have five things i can do with whatever money i have available and i have i'm for free, will i start in a place where the greatest number of jobs are needed? in this industry. that will be a real challenge. >> i think we're abouto shift to the next panel. we have time for continuing questions there. i ask everyone to give a round of applause for our panelists. [applause] and now i will invite up to moderate robert wolfe, my colleague on the president's council. he is president of the investment bank of ubs in the unitedtates. i have worked with him for the past few years. he is no more passionate advocate for public-private partnerships. thank you so much for your time. [applause]

>> we will keep moving right into the next panel. my name is don graves. while robert is making his way up to the lectern and as they get the stage prepared, i thought it would be useful for folks to understand what this jobs council is doing and why we're actually here. the jobs council was created because the president saw there was a need in this country. we have all seen where the economy has gone. he believes clearly that we need to focus all of our time and attention on job creation and get people back to work all across the country. the president has said is before and he is convinced and i think all of us who work in the administration are convinced that we will not be satisfied until every american that wants to work is able to get a job somewhere across the country. so the jobs council was created to provide direct guidance by somef the leaders from labor,

from business, for macadamia on ideas that will -- from academia and ideas that will help us continue to be the ader across the world. we have a wonderful group of folks who will be on the next panel led by robert wolfe, a good friend and leader in his own the bright -- in his own right. he is chairman of ubs americas. he is one of, if not the, for most leader in infrastructure investments and the financing of infrastructure in the country. we appreciate all that you have done and that ups has done to make sure that this is an issue that is in the forefront of everything we do. thank you, robert. [applause] >> maybe i could ask everyone to

come up. obviously, we had quite a passionate panel. if that group was set the smu game, there is no question who would win that. but i want to thank lohr, who has been my colleague on this for many years. i want to thank you for opening of this great session could dr. turner, we want to actually thank you for hosting us at peaceful smu. and we also want to thank the staff from both bmsf and southwest airlines for doing the day-to-day work in putting this together. thank you all. over the past three years, the president's council on johnson competitiveness, as well as the prident's -- on jobs and competitiveness, as well as the economic council, we

have received a d grading. over $2 trillion in investment is needed over the next five year that just begins to address this problem. as laura stated, economic models indicate that a dollar spent on infrastructure actually boost spending of gdp by 1.6 times. it is one of the larger multipliers on gdp and unemployment than any of the kind of spending we do in this country. in fact, the milton institute estimates that, for every dollar spent, every billion dollars spent on infrastructure actually leads to approximately 25,000 jobs. it may not be -- there may not be an industry that surpasses

that. we know that the recent market volatility and budgetary pressures we face today has forced us to seek alternatives in financing to address this problem. many believe, myself included, at the creation of a national infrastructure bank or a financing authority would greatly improve our nation's ability to attract private- sector dt and equity capital to help raise these important private capital is willing to fill the infrastructure gap where other funding sources. the burden cannot be on federal funds. actually, many industry consultants predict there is almost $150 billion of equity capital targeted for infrastructure and over $100 -plus billion has been raised to

date. it is important to align with long-term private investment that we have with a workable, regulatory structure. the u.s. could take critical first steps towards attcting this capital to rebuild our infrastructure. while the details of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority continue to be worked out and debated, i think we can all agree that we should have a broad approach and funding projects in areas such as transportation, energy, electricity, water and wastewater and telecommunications and broadband. these would have national significance. decisions would have to be merit-based using a cost-benefi analysis conducted by experts in the industry, not by politicians. to achieve these goals, it's

crucial that a national infrastructure bank be chartered with a clear mission, strict operational guidelines and frps via regulatory reporting. it would be complementary to fundingrograms to infrastructure. we aren't looking to take anything away, but looking to alleviate the burdens we have today and add to this growth. it would have to be policy-driven and aims would be such as releaving congestion, improving mobility, improving transportation networks or increasing national and regional and national competitiveness and add to jobs. the aim of this panel discussion that we are about to start is really to hear from key decision makers and thirst about the state of our country's infrastructure and their views

on how to address it. the first group will be the aviation sector and maybe i can -- [laughter] >> i have a few quees for each panel and open it upfterwards. first with aviation, we have gary, gary serves as the chairman of the board, president and c.e.o. at southwest airlines. southwest airlines is celebrating 38 years of consecutive profitabili. i may be off, maybe 39 and was named number one for customer satisfaction by the department of transportation. next to gary is the fst chief federal tech nick call officer for the united ates and promoting technical innovation to help our country meet its

goals d make government more efficient, and transparent. a few questions. the u.s. aviation industry has struggled for several reasons, including an inefficient air traffic control system and insuffient progress with modernization. gary, to start with you. could you give us background on next-generation air traffic control system and why is it so important? >> i would love to. [laughter] >> i have to chase down mr. secretary and tell him i can get him from dallas to houston in an hour. [laughter] >> first of all, it's a pleasure to be here and thanks for moderating our session here. our council is on jobs and competitiveness. i would turn that around. i think if we, as americans and as business, if we want to

generate jobs, we need to start with competitiveness and every day that's what we do when we come to work. at southwest, we are competing to customers, what is our competitive advantage and how are we going to make that happen. all of this discussion, i think, is framed around that and that's the way we should be thinking about it. infrastructure, obviously, is worth while in generating jobs while we are building a new terminal at love field. if nobody flies out of love field, it is wasted. we need to be investing in infrastructure that will be used and generate a return. and in the case of the air trafficontrol system,'m sure you all know the air traffic control system in the united states of america has fallen behind. we are using 1950's technologies

and techniques to route aircraft, aircraft zigzags through the sky. it wastes a tremendous amount of time. it burns a tremmedous -- tremenus of jet fuel and modernization is long past. our best estimates are that we could improve the efficiency of the syem by at least 15%. and over the last 15 years you have seen air travel decline in large part because energy prices have gone up, which, in turn, ve caused air fares to go up and if there is a discretionary product or service, i can assure you it is travel. as costs have gone up, fewer pele are flying than they were a decade ago. if we want to create jobs, our best idea to offer the jobs

council is to modernize the air traffic control system because, number onee, it will reduce energy consumption, which is certainly good. that is good for notnly the economy, but it's good for the environment and all of that will lead to better employment. so it's hard to find a reason why we should not modernize the air traffic control system. the other thing i would say is that while we need to do and make the investments for surface transportation that were being discussed previously, you're talking about a massive amount of money. hundreds of billions of dollars. you don't need that to modernize the air traffic control system. in fact, most commercial airliners are equipped today to take advantage of next generation air traffic control. the f.a.a. has what it needs in

terms of gadgets and software to take advantage of the next generation of air traffic control. we simply need to get it done. so a focus, almost like the pipeline discussion, except better, because you don't need to make much more investment, as we need to get through all of e roadblocks and all of the hurdles that exist in implementing new flight profiles and approaches into airports. safety is paramount. there are noise questions and there is the complexity of rewriting the highways in the sky, if you will. but it's something that needs to take place and something that would be extremely cost effective. travel and tourism probably contributes about $1.3 trillion a year in the united states of

america. and aviation, of course, is a significant component of that. it is less than it s a decade ago. and it's time to lower those costs by having a more efficient air traffic control system that makes us more competitive. all the ideas on the jobs council to create jobs in other ways -- i thought lawyer aver made the point earlier -- laura made the point earlier, all businesses need infrastructure. travel is going to be one of the enablers of growing jobs in every single industry that is out there. it needs to be one of the top 10 priorities of this country and especially if we want our country to be number one when it comes to competitiveness. >> i want to ask you, because i was very surprised by this, g.p.s., it's the only way i get

around today. it's used in cars, used in all types of modes of transportation and used in all types of industries, why is it taking so long to transition from our groundased radar system to a satellite g.p.s. system? >> i thank you for the question and i echo all the comments that gary made. part of the reason that the president has asked us is that our infrastructure and other aspects of government are injected with information technologies as an important component of the work that it does. you'll hear about that in energy, with the smart grid and impact on broadband and affecting hlth care. next generation of air traffic controllers is an capital of this. it is not the problem of having a g.p.s. chip in the plane. the challenge is building the

level of procedures that sit on top of that information so we can ensure we achieve the safety, the reliability and efficiencies of the routing. and what seems to be frustrating looking whack backwards but going forward, where t airline industry has made significant investments in elements of this program that allows them to run these modernized procedures. as gary said, the air traffic control system has its capability. we have the socket and we have to stick them together and make them a priority. gary was one of our hosts. we had nearly every c.e.o. that said let's collaborate with the f.a.a. to make this the proirt the president has declared it a priority for american innovation and take advantage of the win-win-win. and glide airlines into the

runways with less fuel and we can be much more reliable and in how we go about doing this. we made commitments to do this. we can do that because as gary said, investments havbeen made, let's put them to use and that's the commitment and secretary lahood has made this as made a commitment. is this a bummer we haven't made g.p.s., of course and we will see a focus because we have the building blocks in place. >> going back to next gen, everybody talks about it and according to the f.a.a., something like $1.3 trillion of economic activity is driven off aviation.

5%, 6% of the total economy. so pretty big amount. how can us -- waste the case nor next-gen for job creation? >> it's huge. i think aviation is a relatively interesting a small component of travel and tourism. the number you have there is more related to aviation specifically and includes all the aerospace manufacturing companies and those jobs. you look at airline jobs, airline jobs 10 years ago were around 800,000 jobs in the united states. and there are probably 5,0 today. so just the airline piece of this has the opportunity to restart its growth, get more -- yet more people need to travel. and it is very sensitive to

price. so this is simply a matter of making travel more affordable. it is amazing to me how much travel is simply driven by the price of the airline ticket. and people seem to focus less on the hotel, car, restaurants and other things i'm going to enjoy when i go, which is the csumer side. and consumers make up more than half of travel. business travel has actually wained. so we need to make it more affordable. there is a tremendous potential to grow that entire complex. but this is e of these investments you make for the future. it's not so much having a project to quote modernize air traffic control, it's not going to create one million jobs. that's not the point. you want to make an investment

that creates economic growth and vitality and that's the opportunity that you have here. look at how many jobs we had 10 years ago. where did they go? we need to make the case more forcefully to modernize air traffic control. and the focus needs to be on aviation. we have a high-speed rail system. it's already in existence and be redirected overnight. you don't have to have physical tracks. so there is a via strong case to be made that you don't need to make $10 billion worth of investments. you can take advantage of what has been invested. >> i'm going to have you put your government hat on. >> i am. >> and you just talked abo yesterday's meeting and the future and the need to accelerate, modernize next-gen

but given the lean budget environment, what can the federal government do to make this ariority? >> that's the beauty -- the government was about convening and my colleagues cl it a government is an i am patient convener. when you say we have no new money and we have some limits on what we can do in terms of changing the legal environment we are in, engineers can optimize and i'm pretty confident that there is enough, already invested capital that can be put to work if you think about making the plug in the socket come together in a more effective way. so part of that is the haven't's commitment to more open and collaborative government which means as we make decisions about specific activities we become transparent sohe american people can hold us accountable.

that happened yesterday. we are going to put up a project dashboard. you will see each and every one of them, click on them, get your input and see the progress, you can have that information at your fingertips because you are going to hold us accountable. that doesn't cost us money to hold us accountable. we will do the work we can in the convening role and that needs to happen, to make sure that the questions are answered, do this in a safe way, be energy efficient. and the answers are yes and yes and it's about getting the job done and i'm pretty excited that we will get the leadership excited. >> you have how many jobs. there are about 14 million jobs according to the u.s. travel association in travel and tourism. travel did not keep pace with the rate of inflation over the

past decade. it is probably below 30%. if you increase travel by 35 percent, it is a gigantic part of the overall economy. >> last question, you brought up noise and i don't want to make this about the environment, but just -- will next-gen have an impact? >> it's hard to find something wrong with it. it will be different. and you have to rewrite the lanes in the sky where the planes are going to fly. one of the very fundamental aspects of next generation procedures, it's not necessarily technology as you put the aircraft in idle, which is the

quietist mode and you gradually and descend to the airfield >> i'm feeling that right now. >> i get that. >> getting one of the simulateors. it's cool. >> you told to descend and go to 10,000 feet and hold, you have to power forward and maintain that same altitude, it is noise year. >> i was on vacation next to a glider airport base and you didn't hear anything. so you could hear that gliding. >> all the way around. energy, economy, environme and employment. >> we are going to move on to surface transportation and there will be questions at the end. matt is the chairman and c.e.o. of burlington-northern railway. he held various positions in trucking and rail and member of

the national surface transportation policy and revenue study commission. to his left is michael walton, who is a professor of civil engineering and holds a chair in engineering at the university of texas at austin and holds a joint academic appointment in public affairs for more than 35 years and has pursued a career in engineering analysis. we heard a lot from the first panel about surface transportation, so we are going to get into a little more detail with this group. matt, you have always accompanied any conversation about re-thorization about surface transportation programs with the discussion of reforms. and obvious wli the panel prior to us were cheerleaders for passing the re-authorization. what kind of reforms do you

think are the most important? >> let me start with when the commission i served on, we looked at the national infrastructure and broke it down to three r's, reform, rebuild was the second and revenue was the third. the commission got it on the reform. the american public has become jaded in terms of how we are spending our money and we can look back at whether it's the bridge to knowwhere or the projects that were put across these entities for political reasons and there is a real reluctance for the americans to raise the gas tax. if i can reduce my commute time by 10 minutes, would i pay more for that, it polls very well. you have to reform t federal programs. in the transportation bill, there is 107 federal programs

and i would tell you, you can't do anything well with 107 federal programs. i believe we are going to go into a period of time. i don't think there is going to be a lot of money that comes to bear and the federal programs have to be specific in casting the federal vision and driving performance and identifying what the future economy looks like. our economy has changed so much from a domesti economy to a global economy. the president hasn export goal to double exports by 2015. we don't have a transportation vision of how we're going to do that and do this with very limited money. so reform is going to be very important. permitting reform, a subject that i know a lot about. i visited the mayor of l.a., and we we have trying to permit a

mode alpha silt for 10 years. it was not shovel ready in the stimulus monies because we don't have project reform. so my point is we are going to have limited money. and you will hear people talking about the thing, the thing is to raise the gas tax, the thing is to toll everything. it's not going to be the thing. we are going to need money. we have a lot of projects and programs that are out there in terms of financing out there already that i always overlooked . private activity bonds. and i think we are going to have to get our heads around as a couny how to lay this federal vision out to allow the states and local municipalities to do what they need to do and do it best. >> dr. walton, to follow on from matt's comments, you worked

closely with a lot of states. how would you view his idea of reforms? >> well, first, let me say i appreciate being here and discussion began with the president talking about football. i want everyone to know who cares. texas is emphasizing academics this year. [laughter] >> let me make that clear. having gotten that out of the way. matt is absolutely on target and i think the comments that were made by the earlier panel on infrastructure correct. i do have the privilege and opportunity to work with 30-plus states and they are all unique and very special, but you hear themes over and over again and one is just as we were talking about project delivery, how do you expedite the delivery of programs. and could we not set a time for

example whe these decisions on personaling or approval process must be made, are there opportunities to push some of the decision process down to the states and perhaps the local level, not giving up any of the responsibilities or the end results or ocome that we need to have, but could some of those decisions be made more locally than not? so that's one area or a couple of areas. expanded funding options u hear that a lot. just as you were talking about infrastructure and we can talk about that, too. but the fact is that more funding options are desperately needed and flexibility in the funding options that are there. and matt is swlull right. all the various categories, couldn't it be simplified. i was reminded when we talked

about this, a statement almost 100 years ago, ladies and gentlemen we have run out of money and time to start thinking and that's where we are. there are wonderful opportunities of how we structure opportuties. particularly in the funding areas. mentioned one, that is a good example. there are rinements that could be made there. and in build america bonds and so forth, and of course, the private activity. all of those offer opportunities and have been useful but the public-private partnerships are an example. certain states have been able to leverage that. we can discuss whether that's a major source or not. so would say it's been about 4.5%, 5%, could be up to 9%. perhaps we could squeeze it to

14%. 's not the answer, but it's part of the menu that matt was talkingbo. and clearly, there is more that can be done with public-private partnerships and we have wonderful examples out there. if it takes an infrastructure to leverage some of that off-shore equity, fine. but we are leveraging that now. that money is coming from off-shore for the most part and not domestically. more clearly defined goals and perfmance measures. we heard about that. and clearly, that will continue to be a theme. but strengthening those partnerships, expediting delivery, keeping our eye on the ball and getting the job done. those are the things that i routinely hear. >> not to sound defensive, but when we think of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority, it would obviously be

complementary tohat existing menu. build america bonds, we think should come back and there is a haltbut it's in addition to, but take away the burden from the government. >> the devil is in the detail. we have a lot of detail for you. are you going to be in the audience asking questions? [laughter] >> matt, if we listened to the first panel, the re-authorization bill, it was quite a cheerleading -- and i think c-span is going to have something great to go into the president's speech, but -- so we know the program needs to be re-authorized. we know additional funding is needed. but, the big if. there isn't any additional funding, whether

re-authorization gets a mere extension. what next? >> i think large part of the problem we have today, if you were to go into these classrooms or maybe ask these audience how do we pay for our infrastructure, we have done a crumby job of explaining to the american public. and we have a great infrastructure system. every time you go to the gas pump, you pay. and it has worked pretty well. but part of the problem has been our success. we have a dependency on foreign oil and clean up the standards. we are getting much better mileage. that hurts the receipts coming into the highway trust fund. think about electric cars. thri if you had 25% lick cars running down the highway, what it would do to the highway trust fund. this isn't going to work long-term. and we have to