as far as them learning, when my kids come home i look at what they are learning and some of it makes sense and some of it does not. host: any comments before martin in wichita? guest: i will stay away from immigration and marijuana legalization. it is a bit outside my expertise. but the comment about comments about revenues, that state and local school districts are having problems raising revenue to keep up with the demands of the public education system, it is very much the case. as i said at the beginning of the segment, the federal government has provided large amounts of a block grants to deal with this. the president's proposal is to continue this. there are some small bright spots in state revenues.

some of the state budgets -- states are experiencing some increases in their total state revenue. there have been a few cases around the country where states passed budgets this year, and that revenue has been slightly stronger. they come back and allocate at two education. some increases are coming from actual tax increases, but we may be just starting to now turned a corner by the road at cases for education. host: ronnie is an educator in baltimore, maryland. at what level? caller: 6, 7, 8. i have a couple comments. first, i know that in baltimore we have had no new school built

in 50 years. when i look at mcdonald's and walgreens rebuilding and restart it doesn't every 5-10 years to make companies more effective -- greece strategizing every 5-10 years to make it more companies more effective, why don't we do the same with schools? we give aid to other countries, to build schools and have their kids' progress. i wonder why we don't do the same thing in our country. why don't we build schools, instead of a band-aid politics? the school's 30, ford, 50 years old. how much do you think it the average school cost, and would be money well spent. guest: the stimulus actually included some money for school construction, somewhere around

$20 billion. we don't hear much about it because congress -- i don't know if it is inadvertently or it certainly -- -- or advertantly -- the sky's the spending. they created a tax credit credit on program -- they created a tax credit on programs to finance schools. the federal government, through a system of subsidies, pay interest on those bonds. it seems like most of those bonds have gone out. as you can imagine, it is difficult for the local school district to figure out all the rules and requirements. but that is something that i think we need to see more information on. the obama administration has not put out any

information on this program, but it ends with a dealing with the types of things this caller concerned with. host: the proposal by president obama to modernize 35,000 schools. you can see the numbers at there. about $60 billion of the $447 billion in the proposal is targeted towards educational needs. ronald is a student in atlanta. where did you go to school? caller: albany state in albany, georgia. host: all right, go ahead with your comments. caller: it is the two-part, on the way we educate. we have not changed our education system in over 80 years. we have children in 2011 who are learning the same way their grandparents did they don't think or act the way their grandparents did. that is part of the problem. the second part of the problem is the emphasis on standardized

tests. they of certain states that are the warring -- that are lowering the rates so that the kids can pass a test. we don't teach kids how to learn any more. we teach them how to memorize and pass tests. that is not helping the kids. we need to put in a system that shows them that learning is first, learning materials, and that will take the state government, because they have to meet certain standards to get federal money and the federal government puts in regulations that you have to pass this test to get the money. host: what are you studying? caller: psychology. host: jason delisle. guest: the caller is definitely talking about the no child left

behind act, the federal law from 20 12th -- from 2002 that requires states, if it is receiving federal money, $14 billion, a little bit more, for programs each year, they have to test their students in reading and math. that is pretty much the only requirement. as far as testing goes. it is not too much to ask, i don't think, that states passed their students -- states test their students and that that information be made public and disseminated to parents. that is a major accomplishment of the law. if you see president obama's proposal -- it expired a few years ago, but there are proposals from the obama administration and others in congress to extend it and make some changes to it.

you see in these proposals that we are still in this paradigm of if the federal government is going to provide this money each year, there are going to be requirements, and it is going to include some type of student assessment. host: after ronald's comment about teaching the way our grandparents learned, a lot of comments on our twitter feed about online studying. how popular is that? is it growing, etc.? guest: it is definitely growing. there is an integrity issue that people are concerned that the quality is not there. but it is providing a good alternative, both in kid-12 and higher ed, -- k-12 and higher ed.

there is the question of is it as good as traditional? maybe it is not a question of either-or. maybe it is a question of is a great supplement. host: another part of the $60 billion in proposed educational target funding is $25 billion to modernize the 35,000 schools, $5 billion to upgrade community colleges. what does "upgrade it" mean in this case? guest: my guess is that it is going to be fairly open ended. the requirements on the other school construction for k-12, we see this sort of standard-type thing where lawmakers want to sneak their agenda into all the funding streams. it is both to modernize schools, it is also to create and save jobs, and it is also to bring

schools to energy savings and energy-efficient technology. it is going to create some angry local school districts when they realized there are all these strings attached. host: michigan. joel is an educator. what kind are you? caller: school board member . kudos to the gentleman before who talked about how our students learn. i would like the administration to take a look at the expert on education and what it takes to educate our students. second of all, we keep looking at federal money in this new proposal to help fund schools. the problem with federal money is, for example, title 1, the

food and nutrition bill had never been fully funded. school districts subsidize to make up for the money the federal government is not sending to the school districts. if the federal government met their obligation and fully funded programs, the districts would have plenty of money left over to hire and keep teachers on instead of every year taking money out of our budget to subsidize the subsidies that the federal government isn't sending us. it is time to fully fund these programs, ida, title 1, food and nutrition, etc. 3, it is time for the administration and congress to meet with school board members. every year we go to washington, d.c. in february to meet with congressional members, and we

get the same old song and dance. they do not actually want to sit down and listen to what it takes to educate they are still way back when they were in school, what it took to educate them. host: mr. delisle. guest: the issue of fully funding these programs -- the title what program the caller is talking about, the main grant program goes out to just about every school district in the country that the federal government has forecast well, and is meant to provide supplemental funds for -- every school district in the country that the federal government has for k-12, and it is meant to provide supplemental funds. the concept of fully funding that is a rather nebulous. no one really knows what the right amount is. everyone seems to think it should be more. there is no real concrete target, the amount it should be.

again, there are requirements that go along with states taking the funding, no child left behind, but under the special education law, that is indeed a mandate on this school districts that they provide certain services the students identified as having special needs. there is a fairly good debate about how much does that mandate that cost and how much does the federal government provide, and it currently provides about $11 billion. under both of these programs, the stimulus bill in 2009, both of them were almost double in the funding to we don't hear a whole lot about that. many school districts and states were very, very cautious about using the funds because of all of the reporting requirements and what we call maintenance effort requirements that go along with those funds.

again, we have this tension about one of the federal government pushes money down through several layers of government and load on a lot of requirements, it sort of blunt the effectiveness of what lawmakers are trying to achieve. host: potential supplemental of about $60 billion, and you talked about the 2009 supplemental on education.. another supplementals. do you now how much national is spent on education? guest: i don't have the number. the federal government provides, for k-12, some are around 10%. but that is not the $70 billion, because the department of education includes higher education grants, telegrams and those types of programs. it is a signal -- pell grants and those types of programs.

it is a significant amount of money. states are providing about 50% of the funding, and we've moved away from his old bottle of people thinking that their property taxes are paying for the entire budget of the school. a lot of money is coming from the state's. school districts have to maintain a very large staff to interact with the state government and federal government in running these programs. host: donna, thanks for holding. apparent in new york. caller: hey, shout-out to albany. my son goes to albany, suny. the marijuana issue in our school -- legalize it and get it out of the heads of our kids. it would solve a lot of our problems. no. 2, the money -- i want an excellent, profound,

internationally recognized school system for america. is this still throwing money at our system? is there some change that is really going to happen with this? i hear about teachers needing to be laid off. some do, but some administrators needed to be laid off, too. guest: are we going to affect real change with it? there are requirements that go with this money. the obama administration calls them assurances. the state receiving the money agrees to implement certain reforms or abide by certain principles. congress and the administration

is trying to enact some changes. this is largely how the obama administration has been implementing its education reform agenda, programs such as it raced to the top -- such as race to the top, which was created in the stimulus as well. that is a much more targeted, reform-driven approach where you are getting states to compete for a small amount of money relative to the amounts we been talking about today. you are talking a few billion dollars over the past few years. but it is money that is forcing states to make changes to the laws and rules and policies of around teachers and teacher compensation and a data they collect to get the money. in some people's minds, this is effective. there are some people who don't want the federal government encouraging states to do anything with respect to how it

they rather education systems. congress adds requirements to satisfy the people, everyone is upset because they're all these rules for testing and requirements that go with the money. host: tweet -- f -- last call for jason delisle comes from michigan. jack on the educators' line. caller: i graduated in 1955 from a private college in michigan. at the time, i graduated in four years and i owed no money. i did not have a debt. it is impossible to do that now. why is the cost of education so much today?

i would like to ask another question. why are senators and legislators allowed to send their kids to private schools when that is not the true all over the rest of the country? host: you call in on the educator line. were you a teacher when employed? caller: i was a teacher, a coach, i taught in private schools, public schools, taught at the university level and i taught at the college level. host: thanks, jack. guest: this is one of the big questions, what is higher education costs so much? it is probably too big a question to tackle here as we wrap up, but in some respects, it costs as much as it does because people are willing to pay it. but usually when people talk about college costs, they are

focusing on the really in-need institutions. there are a lot of opportunities that have a very different cost structures -- community colleges, state schools that don't require students to take out as much debt as they do at these other institutions. it should be said that there are very, very expense of schools that an over backward to provide aid to students from lower-income families so that they don't have to have dead the caller is right that the amount of the dead students are taking on right now to pay for college education -- the amount of debt students are taking on right now to pay for college education is skyrocketing. it is a really big number of new loans issued each year. host: finally --

jason delisle, director of the federal education project, thank you for joining us. we will be looking at the number of uninsured people in america. in a report out by the census bureau -- a new report out by the census bureau. >> do you know what the second amendment of the u.s. constitution is? >> yes, i do.

>> it is somewhat open for debate, but pretty much proven just recently that it allows the right to bear arms to individual citizens in the united states. >> right to bear arms? >> right to keep and bear arms. >> do you feel safer carrying handguns? >> yes, because being a woman, i am a weaker target than any other man. i feel that with a handgun here, i would be able to defend myself a lot easier. >> if you are talking about a robbery, a french prison, -- a fringe person, an offender would not bother trying to rob you. >> that is one of the winners from last year's studentcam competition. you can see all winners online at studentcam.org.

this year's competition is under way. the topic -- "the constitution and you." in an election marred by a moral scandal and political corruption, james g. blaine lost in 1884, but he changed political history. he is one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series, "the contenders." live from the plane house tonight -- blaine house tonight in maine. c-span.org/thecontenders. more of thea bulloch political pundits and track campaign contributions with c- span's website for campaign 2012. easy to use, it helps you navigate with twitter feed, candidates bios, links to c-span media partners. all at c-span.org/campaign2012.

"washington journal" continues. host: this segment we are calling america by the numbers. there is a new census report on the health and injured in america -- health uninsured in america, and we talked to charles nelson from the census bureau's social, economic and housing division, about this new report. mr. nelson, what did you find about an injured in america today? -- about uninsured in america today? guest: it is about the same percentage as 2009. the number of uninsured rose from 49 million to 49.9 million between 2009 and 2010. host: do you doubt why the

number rose? -- to you know why the number rose? guest: to put the number in context, this is a year when the number of people in poverty rose by 2.6 million people, percentage rose from 14. three to six -- point whatrose -- r ose from 14.3 to 15.1% th%. health insurance is a reflection of people's economic well-being. host: demographically, how does that uninsured 16.3% break down? guest: there are groups with higher rates than that. one of thing to look at is children. children have a lower rate of uninsured that the overall population. their rate was 9.8% in 2010, not different than 22009.

children actually have a higher poverty rate than the overall poverty rate. their poverty rate is around at 22%. but they have a lower uninsured rate, and we think it is because there is a safety net out there, programs like medicaid and children's health insurance program, that keep the rate relatively low compared to the working age population. host: does that rate changed geographically? guest: there is certainly a regional element to the uninsured in the u.s. for example, in the south region, the uninsured rate is around 19.1%, and in the west, 17.9%, both higher than the national average. in the northeast, 12.4%.

below the national average. host: mr. nelson, you also reported on the type of health insurance people are getting. we have a chart from the u.s. census bureau that compares 1987 and runs through the grass to 2010 -- through the graphs to 2010. 1987, 75.5% at private coverage of some type. today, 64%. 1987, 62% had employment-based coverage. today, 55% have that trade government coverage has gone from 23% to 31% of those who are insured. by their any trends behind these numbers that you want to speak to? guest: certainly that has been the big trend in health insurance coverage, and certainly over the last decade that has been true that we have at dropped in employer coverage,

private coverage, partially offset by this increase in government coverage, particularly medicaid. meditate between 1999 -- 2010 medi -- medicaid between 1999 and 2010 rose to 15.9%. the children's health insurance program has been the one that has grown particularly fast over the last decade. host: two more charts i want to quickly point out. you divide it by race and income. what did you find by this? guest: by race, you can see that the health insurance is kind of aspect of economic well-being. groups that have the higher poverty rate also have the higher uninsured rate. the other thing to point out is

that since 1999, both the rates for whites and blacks have increased in this country. host: charles nelson with the u.s. census bureau, thanks for giving us a breakdown of america by the numbers when it comes to the uninsured. guest: you're very welcome. host: also with us is rachel garfield, from the kaiser commission on medicaid and the uninsured. why are 49.9 million americans uninsured at this point? guest: we need to start looking at how people do get coverage, and what the gaps in the system are. the first thing to look at is the fact that most people get coverage as an employer benefit through their job. what this means is that if you are not working, you lose your access to the coverage.

that explains one piece of it. another thing to keep in mind is that many people, even though they are working, don't have access to coverage through their job. either because their employer does not offer it, because they are not eligible for that coverage, if it is offered, or because they cannot afford their share of the premium. even though they are working, they don't have access to the coverage. another piece of the puzzle is we do have what we call the non- group market in the united states where people can go and purchase coverage directly from the insurance company on their own. but coverage in this market tends to be very expensive. many people. that makes it out of reach for many people. while we do have a safety net for public programs, there are gaps in that safety net, particularly for adults, and for adults, much relief for those

who don't have children -- particularly for those who don't have children. host: private coverage propping, employment-based coverage dropping. uninsured rate going up, government coverage going up. are companies dropping the benefit, or is the health care plan that passed in 2009 -- 2010 -- is it coming into effect and that is why government coverage is going up? guest: to start with the second part of your question, we passed the health reform law aims to greatly expand health insurance and that country -- in the country. most of the provisions of the law don't go into effect until 2014. while there are small pieces that go into effect that we may be seeing, we have not seen the

big jump on that yet. what we are seeing with the employment trend is what is going on with the economy, and in particular with employment rates. when people, as i said before, lose their jobs, the bank typically lose their access to coverage. -- they typically lose their access to coverage. when we think about the medicaid program and the chip program, we call these programs countercyclical, which means that they tend to grow when the economy goes down, and the reason is that people's incomes go down. it is not surprising that these are growing when we have this economic downturn. host: richard garfield from the kaiser commission on medicaid -- rachel garfield, kaiser commission on medicaid and the uninsured is our guest. we've divided our phone lines between the insurer th ande uninsured. of course, you can always send a

tweet, twitter.com/cspanwj. sharon on the insured line, you are for stop. calle -- first up. caller: back in 1999, i was paying $60, that worked for coverage. two years later, united healthcare reaised it. i got sick and i was applying for social security and medicare. for two years, i had no insurance at all. in another year, they moved it up again, at which time i had to drop. the drug coverage -- if that had not been for my mother, i would

not have had it no insurance at all for those two years. guest: this at caller makes a great point about the challenges people face when they lose their jobs the caller mentioned tha cobra coverage, which allows you to continue your employer-based coverage. the challenge with coverage that when you are employed, typically the cost of the premium is shared between the worker and employer. however, once you go onto cobra, the worker, or ex-worker, has to pay the entire cost of the premium. the average cost of the premium for family coverage is $14,000 a year. you can see why that would be prohibitively expensive to many people, particularly at a time when they are losing their income, because they lost their job. another thing that the caller points out that i think is something that is a good point is that we know that most of the uninsured really do want

coverage. it is just that they have trouble finding something that is affordable for them. host: to you know what cobra is an acronym for? guest: it comes from part of the budget reconciliation act. this was linked in with a host of other pieces of legislation. when we talk about program, which typically talking about the part of the law that had to do with the extension of the coverage after you lose your job. host: the kaiser foundation did a study on barriers to health care for non-elderly adults, where presuming everybody 65 and older has medicare, or the vast majority of people. this is up to 64 years old. you found a different reasons, and for the uninsured, the darkest lines here at the bottom, a note usual source of

care, 55% consider that a barrier. what does that mean? they did not have their own doctor? guest: that means when they are sick, they don't have a regular provider they call and go to. this is a measure to researchers use overtime to indicate how linked in some one is to the health-care system. the goal is to make sure everyone has a regular provider so that when they get a flu or something, they can call the provider and get quick access to services. this indicates people being disconnected from the health system. host: post parham seeking care due to cross -- postponed seeking care to the cost. guest: these numbers we see over and over again in studies. the goal of insurance is not just to have a card in your wallet. the goal is to have people access care when they needed and

provide financial production when they have to use services. we know from years and years of research that when people don't have insurance coverage, they say there are multiple barriers to accessing care even when they are sick. they will postpone is seeking care, and that leads to bigger problems down the line. host: oklahoma. rhonda on the uninsured line. rhonda? caller: this is shirley. host: where are you calling from, shirley? caller: shelly from maine. i got laid off and i cannot find a job anywhere. my car brought ran out in january. i'm a breast cancer survivor, so i have to up follow-up care and they do blood work. i also have high cholesterol, and they have to do blood work for that.

i cannot get the blood work done because i have no insurance. i cannot renew mighy symbalta prescription because i have no insurance. i'm kind of stuck here. host: shelley, when you are paying for your own cobra, what did that cost you a month? caller: i had discounted cobra, at least 347, and. -- i believe that three or 47 a month. host: what would your blood work cost you without insurance? caller: $168. i don't have a job and my on a plan it ran out. -- mike unemployment ran out. i cannot even get a job at mcdonald's. i applied for social security and disability income. guest: this story really echoes the story we're seeing, unfortunately, all over the country, which is that people

are losing their jobs and they are holding on to cobra while they can, but that is a time- limited coverage option. we are seeing people run up against the 18-month limit, and unfortunately, having to find some other way to fight the services they need. we do have a safety net that can help fill in services of community health carcenters and hospitals, but that is not a substitute for having insurance coverage, and as this color bang's story indicates, it is a -- not always as this caller's story indicates, it is not always available to people. host: you can see by this chart at the older people get, the more insured they are. 25-24-year-old, about the same.

45-to50-64-8 -- 45-to-64-year- olds, 16% uninsured. caller: mr. slen, i want to make a few points. i retired in my mid-50's. humana were charging me almost $300. my retirement is 1200. i stayed a couple of years, then i switched over to united you know, it is kind of a misnomer to say that i have insurance, because i have to pay everything up to $5,000. that is my deductible for network. the other point i wanted to make is i wonder what the overhead,

administrative costs, are for health insurance companies. from what i hear, the government really has less overhead with medicare. host: thank you. guest: i think this caller makes a few excellent points. most of the uninsured are living on low incomes, and we saw that with the numbers presented at the beginning of this segment. we know that again from years and years of the survey research that the majority of the uninsured are living on limited incomes, 45% below poverty. we would consider them to be poor. when people try to buy coverage, it takes up a big chunk of the low-income that they have. the other point ithis caller makes that is an excellent point is that it is beyond just having this card in

your wallet, there are costs that people face even when they are insured. out of pocket costs, like when you see your provider, you have to take a payment of $10, at $15, even a share of 20%, or they phase 8, deductible. we have seen out of pocket costs for coverage go up over the past few years, associated with the general rise of the cost of health care and health insurance in the country. host: rachel garfield is our guest, with the kaiser commission of medicaid and the uninsured. not associated with kaiser permanente -- guest: the only thing we share is our founder. we're not affiliated with kaiser permanente were kaiser industries. host: what did you teach at the university of pittsburgh? guest: i was on the faculty and

i got health policy and management -- i taught health policy and management. host: she received her ph.d. at johns hopkins school of public health. at harvard master's university. as she mentioned, here is the u.s. census figure on income. those who make less than 20 -- thousand dollars less than $25,000 -- less than $25,000, 26.9% uninsured rate. those who make $75,000 and over, .nly an 8% in shuninsured nancy on the uninsured line. caller: a couple of points. i had insurance back in 2009.

i got dropped. i was not told -- my husband and i was not told until june 2009. we were thinking we were injured all that time -- we were in short all that time. -- insured all that time. $250,000 that we all on hospital bills -- that we owe on hospital and doctor bills i have several problems. i'm in a wheelchair. i have had to pay out so much. the paychecks are gone. i don't get in short -- dont' get insured for medicare until 2012, january 1. i have to pay everything out of pocket. i tried to get on cobra, and it

was going to run me about $5,000 a month. i cannot afford that. insurance did not tell us i could get on cobra. what i did it find out that i was dropped, it was too late. host: ok, let's see what rachel garfield has to say about your comment. guest: there are a couple of things that come to mind when i listen to your story to the point about coverage, having access to coverage is for your husband's job. we talk about people mostly getting coverage through their work, and we also know from studies that we have done and research we have done that employers are more likely to cover workers than they art to offer coverage to the workers' families. this would be dependent coverage, coverage for the spouse and children. your story speaks to that trend

and what is going on in there. the at it in your story tells us talk about is the fact that -- the other thing your story helps us talk about is the fact that when people don't have coverage, they face significant financial repercussions. people who don't have insurance coverage face medical debt, have problems meeting even the basic needs for things, are more likely to be sent into a collection associated with bankruptcy. there are a host of economic problems that come along with not having health insurance coverage. it sounds like, unfortunately, this color bang's story is indicative of some -- of that. story is caller's indicative of some of that. host: is bankruptcy out in situations like that? -- allowed in situations like that? guest: i cannot speak to that in

detail, but research has shown that a lot of the reasons people are becoming bankruptcy is related to the medical debt they will. some research found that it was the leading cause of bankruptcy. i am not sure it is still the case today, but a is certainly something that is a problem. host: how aggressive are doctors, labs, hospitals in pursuing unpaid debt? guest: that varies, of course, but it is a little bit of a myth that the uninsured get free care. they are billed for those services and often pay about 30% of the costs for those services. when they go to seek care, it is usually something very high-end that they need. there are funding streams that can help fill in the gap for providers that see a larger share of uninsured people, but

those don't fill in the hope that. -- the whole gap. that is where we see people getting sent to collections and possibly even into bankruptcy. host: you mentioned that most of the provisions of the health care act take effect in 2014. looking at the horizon, what do you see that could possibly lower the uninsured rate and help deal with bills, etc.? guest: the two major coverage provisions that people have been focusing on are, first, expansion of medicaid to all people who are up to 133% of the poverty line. right now, the way the medicaid program is structured is we have done a good job of extending eligibility for children and a little bit of a better job extending coverage for their parents.

but for adults who don't have children, generally they are ineligible for medicaid coverage. what is expected will do is make those people eligible -- what this expansion will do is make these people eligible for coverage. again, we are talking about low-income here. the other part is the establishment of what people are calling health-insurance exchanges, basically marketplaces where people can go and buy coverage on their own. with the law does is provide subsidies to people who are moderate income to help make the coverage affordable for them. we are also -- experts expect to see many people gain coverage through that as well. host: do you see in 10 years, 20 years, whatever, employers no longer the basis for health insurance? guest: i think that is unlikely. the way the affordable care act is structured is that there are incentives to make sure that employers continue to

provide coverage. we are building on the current employer-based system we have. particularly large employers will have to continue to offer affordable coverage to their employees. if they don't offer that to their employees, there is a fine associated with that. it is expected the system will continue. host: sam in indiana, thanks for helping. thanks for- >> holding. caller: i have worked since i was 15. i became disabled. i had to wait two years for medicare to kick in. my wife and i got married, she was 17 and i was 19. our first son came along a year

later. she started to work, and he was getting sick all the time, in and out in the indiana cold. we decided to go traditional but she stayed at home, raise the kids. now she had some blockages in her stomach. i was working, had health care through my work at the time. she almost died -- host: sam, i apologize, but we are running a little close on time. could you ask your question or final comments? what would you like rachel garfield to comment on? caller: she cannot get coverage because my income -- there are states limits. we have no kids at home anymore. host: you don't have insurance

through your job? caller: no. i am covered for medicare now. -- through medicare now. i cannot find anybody to cover her for anything under $11,000 deductible. host: all right, sam, thank you very much. along with his comments, what about the pre-existing condition portion of the health care act, when does that take effect? guest: that has not yet taken effect, except for children. we have put that into effect for children but not for adults. but that is a provision of the law. that will help people who have, as you say, pre-existing conditions. the idea is that if you go to purchase coverage in the individual market, sometimes if the insurer knows you have some existing condition, you will be faced with a much higher premium. the ability to do that is going to end. you will not be charged more if

you come in with, let's say, a history of asthma or an illness like that. host: 2014? guest: yeah. the caller makes a good point about the gaps in the safety net right now. we have done a pretty good job in extending public coverage for low-income children. for some of their parents as well. but for adults without children, -- sounds like -- but for adults without dependent children, which it sounds like this caller is, the eligibility levels for coverage is basically zero in most states. that is something that the expansion of medicaid coverage it aims to address. unfortunately, there are not many options available to this caller right now. hopefully, we will see an improvement in this in a couple of years. host: michigan. julian on the insured line.

caller: my question is, i was laid off, and now i have medicaid. apparently they said it is the obama -- obama had changed -- i have to pay $15 a month, which is fine. however, medicaid it turns me off every month until i meet at $15. if i don't have a prescription or go see the doctor at the beginning of the month, i cannot meet that. if i go to the doctor, it shows i don't have medicaid and the doctor expects me to pay up front. if i could pay up front, i would not be on medicaid. if i have a prescription i have to get filled, my

prescription at the pharmacy right now is $200. i cannot pay for it. i have to take my $15, send it to my social worker, that turns me back on, which they have 10 days to do so. therefore, if the social worker does not want to turn it on or try to turn it on with in that tent days, i do not get a full month of coverage. like i said, my prescription is sitting at the pharmacy right now, $200 that i cannot get. i sent my things in to the social worker. it is not turned on yet. i have covered this with my state representative, david robertson, and i covered with -- host: we have got the point. thank you very much. rachel garfield, any comments for her? guest: yes. the medicaid program is a

complex program to understand, and people often say is 50 different programs because it varies in each state. most people who are in medicaid are covered for a continuous period of time. what is caller -- this caller is talking about is a special program, the medically needy program, where after you send money to your health services, that reduces your income to a level where you would be eligible for medicaid, then the program takekicks in and covers you. one of the challenges with the program, as the caller describes, depending on what the renewal period is, you may have a time when you do not have that coverage while you are still spending down. the program is currently, as i said, a little bit complicated. one of the things that we're looking forward to moving forward is trying to simplify that with this expansion of eligibility. host: michigan.

fred on the uninsured line, thanks for holding. caller: i am glad i got through. america is the richest, most powerful nation in the world. i would like all viewers to call their congressmen and senators and ask them, why is it that the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have health care for its people? all these other countries have it, and they are not going broke. their economies are growing, like germany, australia. how can they afford it for their citizens and not our country for hours? we are the richest, most powerful. guest: the caller makes the point that for many years, the united states was the only industrial country that did not have health insurance program that covered the majority of citizens. what we are looking to do it is

address that and expand insurance coverage to people. the reason this is complicated has to do with a long history of how we have buildout our current patchwork system, why some people get covered through their employer and some through the public system, and then the reasons why the system are so expensive are multifold and have to do with the obligations of delivering care to people, at the cost of technology, what is going on with health services more generally. host: if people go to your website, what kind of health care information and statistics will they fine? -- find? guest: they can find information on all sorts of health policy issues, medicaid policy, the issue of the uninsured we are talking about today. there is information on medicare for people interested in

attending the policy issues here. we also have a special page dedicated to explaining things related to health reform. if people want the most up-to- date information -- host: implementation. guest: polling results -- that is a great place to go to get the up-to-date information. host: jeff, a minute or so left. caller: i think the problem in this country is it for-profit health insurance. health insurance motto -- it should be "we dont' ca -- don't care, just send us the money." this should be a nationwide program starting from birth, like other countries have, instead of lining the pockets of the ceo's. i am boycotting.

i'm going to be 65 at the end of the month. they can cram it, i don't care. we don't work our whole lives to line someone else's pockets, that is what i think. guest: this is obviously a pretty heated issue. one thing i want to note in response to this caller's comments is that the affordable care act we have been talking about today also includes several provisions designed to lower the costs in the system. we're talking about not just extending health insurance coverage to people, but trying to deliver the services more efficiently and to hopefully lower the costs to people. again, it remains to be seen. we are still in the implementation phases of the effort. host: here are some numbers by the u.s. census bureau, where we began this segment. the u.s. census bureau reports about health insurance in the u.s., 2009, at 2010.

16.3% of americans uninsured, statistically unchanged from 2009 to the number of uninsured group of 49.9 million today. also, in 2009, 26% of all people in the u.s. experienced at least one month without health insurance coverage. you can see nationally, 16.3% uninsured. 12.4% in the northeast, 13% in the midwest, 19.1% in the south. any reason for the difference? guest: the regional variation stems from a couple of factors. one is the variation of the economy by region. we talked earlier about the main way people get coverage is through jobs. what you see is in certain

industries, like the service industry, agricultural industry, people are less likely to have employer-based coverage and so we see the rates going up. some of it also has to do with the distribution of poverty across the united states. we know that people who are low- income are more likely to be uninsured, and we see more people who are poor and low- income in certain areas of the country. the last factor is the availability of public coverage. the medicare program varies across states. whether or not you are going to be eligible for the assistance is going to depend on where you live. host: rachel garfield, please come back. guest: thank you, my pleasure. host: booktv kicks off on c- span2. silda n -- sylvia nasr will be

previewed. next week and, live coverage from the national book festival being with us on "washington journal -- thanks for being with us on "washington journal." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> we're covering a number of live events today. thomas donilon will be at the economic club of washington at 12:30 p.m. eastern. teresa may talks about united kingdom counter-terrorism

strategy at what hot on c-span3. and richard rookhiser talks at 12 noon. >> in an election marred by political corruption, james g. blaine lost. he is one of the 14 men featured in the new weekly series "the contenders." tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. learn more about the series at n.org/thecontenders. >> a soviet planner looking at the united states could not be assured of the outcome of an assault on a first strike on us.

>> malcolm wallace served in the senate and was a leading conservative. he was an early supporter of the star wars defense system. watch his speeches from the senate floor and other c-span appearances archived and searchable online at the c-span video library. >> gary motsek said united states cannot eliminate corruption in afghanistan, only reduce it. documents show $360 million in contract the money had gone into the hands of insurgents. this follows a report by the commission on wartime contract in showing $60 billion was lost over the past decade in afghanistan and iran. his testimony before the house oversight subcommittee is about 90 minutes. >> thank you, all, for being here.

apologies on delays. you're busy with important responsibilities, and i appreciate your patience as we had votes on the floor earlier. i'd like to welcome ranking member and other members of being here. we are overseeing the billions spent in military and civilian operations in ghanistan. last year, the subcommittee conducted investigations of the he's nation trucking contract. the idea was to remove this burden from the armed forces while at the same time promoting the local afghan economy. since inception in 2009, allegations surfaced that war lords, power brockers, and the taliban were seeking payments for safe passage through tribal areas. the result was a potential wind fall for our enemy. in short, the american taxpayer allegedly funded the same enemy our soldiers fought on the

battlefield. while the investigation did not yield evidence this occurred, the antedotal evidence was substantial. the oversight was woefully inadequate. despite whether the allegations could be sub stanuated, the oversight structure did not allow for review. there was a hearing last junein which the lders testified. the defense department established three task forces to examine these particular issues as well as corruption in general. today we'll hear from the defense department about fiings and progress with the hearing and with the recent revelation anywhere between $30-$60 # billion was misappropriated in iraq and afghanistan since 2001, it's critically important that the pentagon get this right. i hope it's made progress in this regard. i also want to commend my colleague, mr. tierney as he's

done work on this and glad to continue on the work that he initiated. i want to recognize the gentleman from massachusetts for his opening statement. >> thank you -- [inaudible] i'll put that on. we just marked the 10 anniversary of 9/11, and it will be a decade since the forces crossed the border into afghanistan. we entered theonflict for a cause, and the men and women greatly accomplishedded t mission of al-qaeda and the threat against the united states. i want to begin by honoring and how proud i am of all the people given service to the country, and i want to thank all of you for your sfsz to the country and for our soldiers, sailors, airline, and marines. i asked chairman to conduct the hearing to combat corruption in

afghanistan, and i thank u for working with us on this issue. last year, there was a six month investigation of the lo gist ticks trucking contract in afghanistan. our investigation found that the trucking contract spawn extrouterred contractors for protection payments to obtain safe passage. our investigion shows senior officials within the military contracting chain of command were aware of the problem, but did little to address it. in plain i think lish, the envies gages found the supply chain in afghanistan relieded on paying the enemy and fueling corruption in order to sustain the military footprint. following the investigation, general petraeus established thee task forces designed to address the problem and issued new guidelines to break down the silos of contracting and operations. they were important first steps. since then, the department provided multiple briefings to the subcommittee staff

demonstrating substantial progress identifying where dollars are going. i commend the department for that effort. unfortunately, the picture is not pretty. recent news reports stated the task force 2010 identified and traced over $360 million in ntracting dollars in afghanistan that had been diverted to war lords, power brokers, and criminal networks. the task force confirmed results of the subcommittee's investigatn finding many of the contractors were making payments to the hands of the enemy. the contracting looks add contracting in both iraq and afghanistan and estimated $$60 billion was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. i fear these reportsare only the tip of the iceberg. much of the afghan economy centers around the united states and military presence and contracts, but a significant portion of the funds end up supporting the dew buy real

estate market rather than jobs in afghanistan. there's weekly reports about politicians, brothers and cousins of politicians who have multibillion dollar contractings with the united states government. the contract is a moving industry. today, the business of afghanistan is war. how can we hope extra kate ourselves from the war when so many benefit from the insecurity used to justify or continued presence. we crossed a tipping point in which the size of the foot print fosters further instability. every additional soldier and supply convoy we send to afghanistan further fuels the cycle of dependence, corruption, and endless war. with that said, i want toocus today on the hearing on three basic questions. one, what is the scope of contracting corruption in afghanistan. two, what is being done to address it? three, how can we dramatically reduce it? i'm skeptical about the design of the united states endeavor

there, today's hearing focuses on practical solutions that can be implemented right away. congresshad an important role to play. this spring, i worked with the armed services committee to include the authorization act giving commanders in the field more authority to immediately stop contracting with companies that undermind our troops on the ground. i introduced a bill to install a permanent general, one of the key recommendations of the commissioner of wartime contracting. i encourage my colleagues here today to join me in that legislation, and i'm working 20 draft comprehensive contracting reform legislation to change how we do business in war zones. i'll close from reading from the contracting guidance released 234 september of 2010. he wrote, and i quote, "if we spend large quantities of international contracting funds quickly with insufficient oversight, it is likely that some of the funds will

unintentionally fuel corruption, financial organizations, strengthen networks, and undermind our efforts in afghanistan. we can't afford to fail of getting a handle on contracting corruption in afghanistan. it's unacceptable for dollars to make the way into the hands of those who use them to harm our brave men and women in uniform." i appreciate your testimony here, gentlemen, and i look forward to the discussion, and thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. any other member have an opening statement? mr. lynch is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank you for the hearing. i want to associate myself with the remarks of the ranking member who has done work, along with the chairman, on this issue, and his staff had the benefit of traveling many times to afghanistan in the company of

mr. tierney's staff, and on this issue, and i just want to amplify what was said here. i understand the mission and the president's approach, there is still, i think, a wide distance between where we should be in terms of watching our money and resources in that country, and where it is today. i honestly had eight or nine trips over to afghanistan, and many times on this issue and on corruption in general along with kabul bank, a whole other issue. i honestly believe at this point

that corruption, corruption is a greater enemy and a greater threat to afghanistan's stability than the taliban. i think the taliban can be beaten or co-oped. i think corruption in that culture, in that country, is a much tough road, and i just, you know, i applaud mr. tierney on his great work, and, you know, i see that the dod has made changes in the contracting protocol, and that's good, but don't think it's enough i don't think it's enough. i think we need a better handle on this, and i think it needs to be a tighter reign and o greater -- a greater concern for the theft, the theft of billions of dollars of american taxpayer money. the american people are doing a

good thing. they are trying their best to help a country gain stability, but our kindness and generosity is being abused in this case, and it needs to stop. it needs to stop. we need to put systems in place that will prevent that abuse from continuing. we're partners in this. we're partners in this the congress and the dod. we have to make sure that this system is tightened up, and address some of the concerns that mr. tierney has uncovered. thank you, i yield back. >> thank you. members will have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. mr. gary is the secretary of defense for acquisition technology and lo gist ticks. mr. kim denver and mr. stephen

townsend is with the pakistan coordination. pursuant to rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. please rise and rse your right hand. do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. if you please limit your verbal testimony to five minutes and whatever materials and statements that you have for the record will be submitted in its entirety. we'll start with gary. you're now recognized for five minutes. >> good morning, mr. chairman, ranking member. congressman lynch, i wish i would have written what you said. i tie myself to your remarks.

i appreciate the effort to reduce corruption in afghanistan. this is an update to the testimony we gave last june, an i hope ce with demonstte we've made progress. contractors continue to provide critical support to operations in afghanistan, the use of contractors in particular is a key to the counterinsurgency who coined strategy of our commanding general. they currently make up 47% of the dod contractor work force in afghanistan. there iso doubt that the strategy that promotes afghan first carries risk; however, it is clear that the coined strait ji is essential to developing a stable afghanistan. recognizing the central contractors of september 2010 was noted previously. the commander of iasp published his contracting guidance. this guidance stressed that everyone must understand the role of contracting

counterinsurgency and how it cannot only benefit, but under mind our efforts in afghanistan. due to no small part of the concerns of this committee, task force 2010 was established by that same commander to address contracting rungs and its neative impact to the coined strategy. the task force consists of individuals from uniformed services, union representatives from a variety of contracting, auditing, and investigation ancies. the te includes contract, forensic accountants who assist the task force in tracing money flu the afghan financial networks. i need notremind the committee that's the toughest part of the job as we all recognize. one of the key efforts of task force 2010 took was the assessment of the host nation trucng contract. we're thankful for the june 2010 report which served as an important resource. the ht nation trucking

assessment looked at a-prime compaes supporting the contract to evaluate the extent, if any, that the power brokers, and insurgents had on the execution of those services. i know one of the specific concerns of this committee was our use of a particular private security contractor, and during last year's testimony, i committed to ensuring action would be taken. immediately upon departure from this committee, we suspended operations with that contractor. on august 4th, 2011, the army entered into an administrative agreement wh that private security contractor stipulating he will not provide convoy security for a period of three years, and according to this administrative agreement, we ceased to use this security contractor for convoy security. there are a number of direct actions taken as a result of the 2010 host nation trucking assessment. the most significant action was the contracting command's

decision to have a new vehicle to address the challenges we had with the previous contract specifically the new vehicle expands the potential number of prime contractors establishes new standards of conduct, and a variety of ways of applying security. due to the complexity of this new contract and meet operational requirements, we continue to use host nation trucking vehicles with additional controls until the performance can be started under the new contract which is tomorro to address the concerns that you expressed wh the host nation trcking -- we put together a comprehensive strategy that should drive business away from the bad actors, enable smaller companies to prosper, and to meet the vast arrays of current complex needs. with the potential of money, we have to execute this program with care and vigilance. this is one of by several

actions taken by the task force 2010. other additional examples include the debarment of 78 individuals or companies, the suspension and pending debarment of an additional 42, and the refeferl to the appropriate department official of an additional 111 persons or companies. we continue to pursue a wide range of corrective actions. however, we can't do this alone as you're aware. task force 2010 is but a part of a larger organizion that is operating that. of crse, challenges rema and there are concerted efforts to control corruption and contracting must perst. with the commander's commitment that we have without any doubt and the participation of the international community, we'll continue to make progress. i thank you, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. mr. denver, you're recognized for five minutes.

>> mr. chairman, ranks member, and to the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today to talk about combating corruption in afghanistan. i'm here representing the contracting work force and soldiers relying on us for timely and efficient material, supply, and services in support of expedition their operationings. when the army deploys, they depend on civilian support from contractors. the last decade brought challenges to contracting. we operated in theaters where the culture includes corrupt business practices. army personnel strive to uphold the integrity of the procurement process. we appreciate the congressional attention by several amendments in the current version of the fy12 authorization act as well as the investigative reports last year on host nation trucking and private security contractors.

oversight has been a significant concern of the contracting community, the audit agencies, and congress. in response, we trained over 9600 contracting officer representatives cor,s is, veing procedures, and increased transparency by demanding governmental approval of our sub contractors. we're on the front lines of oversight for taxpayers' dollars. we rejuvenated the training by mandating that the brigades have 80 soldiers trained to cors. the vetting is a key element in ghting corruption and ensuring security for the reconstruction effort in afghanistan. it has been a struggle to create a process for a country that lacks universal identification criteria. identification is time consumes, but provides reliable means of security. the continued use of vetting

reduces risk to contracting of bad actors creating a secure environment. let me update on how we improved the systems and processes with respect to transportation contracts. chairman, ranking member, we paid serious attention to the findings and recommendations of the report. the national after can trucking contract, nat, addresses these concerns. there's new transportation contractors welcomed by the support contracting command last month including stricter oversight and performance controls than the previous host nation contract, h and t. nat ensures greater transparency into subcontracts, code of ethics, expands the number of prime contractors, ensures prior vetting, and establishes a teared rate structure based on security requirements separating contracts into sues to encourage others to participate. the contract ends today. execution of the nat contract

begins tomorrow. the increase in the number of available contractors from 8-20 on the nat enables greater competition leading to greater work. it also provides a flexibility to spend problem contractors and facilitate the development of the trucking industry in afghanistan. nat supports congressional recommendations on the role of afghan national security forces and highway security. nat inventories trucking assets available to dod on a regular basis. as a result, nat reduces cost, pays only for services performed, and gives timely delivery resulting in improved oversight anderformance. we continue to have more effective ways to get the most value of the contracting dollars and the most effective support for the war fighters. i cannot stress enough the requirements overseeing tens of thousands of contractors, and

awarding billions of dollars in an environment that is hostile on many levels. it remains a challenge to the contracting personnel t. takes time to change the environment. the u.s. army is committed to the protection of the united states, war fighters, and tax fighters through all contracting activities. thank you for your support, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. we'll now recognize brigadier for five minutes. >> thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our efforts to link contracting and the flow of u.s. contracting dollars to the counterinsurgency strategy afghanistan. bottom line up front is we must -- we recognize we must see and address the challenges we face with corruption and popular perceptions in afghanistan. even as our supplies are fluent to the war fighters, they arrive

wi good reliability, surprisingly little loss in u.s. lives and battlefield resources. the focal point for the coined strategy in afghanistan is to deny terrorist safe havens and secure the afghan people. our effective management of our government's contracting dollars is essential to the success of the strategy. as you all know, after 30 years of war and social devra davis revolution, congressman lynch said corruptios a greater threat, the stability of the afghanistan than the taliban. i would agree, and so would many of the other soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines i was privileged to serve with recently. this involves efforts at all levels so we can see where the money is going, gain an awareness of level of control

overred unintende consequences of our spending. we have, and will continue to ke appropriate steps to reduce the effects of corruption and be good stewards of the american taxpayers' dollar. the u.s. military greatly increased understanding of the problem and the contracting dollars' effect on coin operations in teater. this report was helpful to that increased awareness and understanding. since last year, you've heard here we've taken a number steps to combat corruption, joint inner agencies and that's helped to map out the criminal patronage networks that exist in afghanistan and to address corruption as a strategic problem. task force spotlight aided in tracking and enforcing procedures regarding private security companies, and task force 2010 has given us a better understandi with whom we're

doing business and providing commanders and contracting activities with the information they need to take informed action. i visited with task force 2010 just three days ago to see how they are doing. under army brigadier ross ridge, task force 2010's accomplishments include a detailedtudy of the ho trucking contract leading to identification key changes they made and contracting practices. thse were integrated into the new national afghan trucking contract. this new contract provides a better understanding to service costs and increases the number of prime contractors which you already heard. they al identified individuals and companies for referral and debartment. these are the preventative actions that they've taken. task for 2010 implemented,

including working closely with sitcom's command and share information cruet the theater to share with kabul, u.s.-aid, nato, and other partners. this vetting process helps identify high-risk contractors before agreements are entered. i've highlighted just a few of the efforts that dod is making to counter of the effects of corruptions on coin operations in afghanistan. these underscore or focuses to overcome the challenges we face in afghanistan to help improve how we perform now and in the future. thanks for your continued support of our men and women in uniform, and for in opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, genemen. i'll nowecognize the ranking member. as has been said before, has really done some very important work on the subject. now recognizing mr. tierney for

five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for the testimony, gentlemen. your testimonied height lighted the -- highlighted the creation task force 2010. it'sserious about attempting to understand the problems with corruption that are going on in contracting in afghanistan. i think those are good efforts. i praised them in my opening remarks, but i do a significant problem seeing tangible evidence of them really being put into serious action at this point in time. last year, when you were in front of the cheat, you did, as you said in your testimony here today, assure us that you are concerned about commanders and risk management taken seriously and that you would start action, and i understand that you did start action on debarment for those two individuals on that. in fact, the army announced suspension and debarment an made a big deal out of that fact, and it right any was.

the task force 2010 found significant sums of money from that company went 20 insurgents while theommander served as the principle security provider. now, the findings -- you understand that our committee investigation was a committee investigation, not department of defense investigation or doj's; is that right? >> sir, it's source document, that's correct. >> i was disappointed to learn without further investigation, this went to a hearing, and then the army basically cut a deal with the trucking company. they claimed they hadn't understood what was going on in the investigation which i would pose as nonsense, but at any rate, i was disappoied the army didn't do its investigation to nail down facts not tollow for that determination. they said, well, it wasn't much

of a punishment on that basis. according to task force 2010, a war lord, a bad actor, malign actor free to contract with the united states. you have watan free to interact. do you feel you fulfilled your promise to the committee? how do you feel about it? >> sir, when we came together we said we would take under advisement, and i used the term in your investigation, anything that was in there was actionable, we'd deal with it immediately, and so the short term solutions, as you recall, there were issues with army, the primary reason we were able to suspend the group at the national outset, and we continue to march forward. task force 2010 did, in fact, do

additional work with regards to bothcases that you talked to. what is important in my mind to remember is that debarment by the code of federal regulation and your own excellent congressional research service shows this over and over again should not be interpreted as punishment. debarments are there to protect the interests of the united states. >> well, you know, i'll grant you that point. >> sure. >> so the findings, $1.7 billion made in payments, passed on to malign actors. they found, in fact, he was not such an upstanding character himself working in concert with waton contracting company. assuming what you said is true, let's protect ourselves from coracts with them, and wouldn'that require debarment avoiding to deal with these characters again?

>> there's an independent suspension department official that makes the judgments based on facts presented to him. without reading into his decision, he believe, and he is the deciding official, that the government was protected because you cannot -- he agreed you will not go into additional contracts with them for a period of three years if they try to go around the corner, but -- >> he's fired for doing business there and given up with a host of others. the management company is the brothers; right? cousin to president karzai; right? get it on the table, there was a deal to appeal this, and they got a war lord of a malign character off the hook as well. i don't find that satisfactory, sorry, i just don't find it -- general townsend, i appreciate your testimony, but when i saw on page two, the afghan population perceives our money

is not positively benefiting afghan people instead of supporting malign actors. they found money was gng to malign actors. >> that's fair. it's a fact. it's also a perception amongst the people. >> okay. >> we're both going down on that. it's a problem here, and it has to b stopped. now, the other part of this thing is we have a serious iss on that. what are we going to do aut it? we have the task forceinding telling us that we have choices. we have use of united states or isa forces to protect the convoys, but we want to use them in other ways, and we don't have enough of them to put them into protection; is that fair to say? >> yes. >> the forces are not ready or able to in this point in time, is that a fair statement? >> that's fair for now. we're working on it. >> you're working on it, but

it's a ways from happening, so what does that leave you with to protect the convoys and to get this done? >> for now, private security companies as we build the afghan protection force. >> back to the same people involved in the problem who instigated the investigation. now, let's talk about -- one of the things found in the investigation was there was little going on to actually oversee and manage these contracts, and i know that some of the regulations addressed that, but let me -- tell me whether this is happening on the street. e people going outside the gate in observing those convoys, riding along on the convoys, auditing, and taking investigations and inspections to b sure they are getting from one point to another? is there physically people out there doing it or just relying on reports and somebody's word that these things have been done? >> i wouldn't say that every convoy is observed or escorted,

but i think significantly more of them now are than were a year ago. >> sir, if you recall last time i was here, our biggest deficiency with regard to the pse's were failing to follow our own procedures requiring the dual licensing process as you'll recall, but if you're going to use a pse, it must be dually licensed in the country, and we had a procedure we were supposed to follow, and in this particular time with regards to wanton as the subcontractor, we fail to do that. task force spotlight under general bore's, one of the primary functions was to get her hands around that licensing and vetting process which we should have done before. the other piece that has occurred since we discussed the last time is if you'll recall, we had temporary rules in the

federal code of regulation regarding the use of private security contractors overseas, and then they don't apply to us, but they apply to our sister agencies. since we've met, we've been able to finally push through the final rules which are a substantial improvement over the original, so they were published about six or eight weeks ago. that was not an easy process to get them through the cfr, and that's my fault, but they are out there, so that process and those procedures are i place. the visibility because of president car city's -- karzai's decree is driving this entire institution inside afghanistan to a different standard right now. as you know, we are not going to be giving up pse's as a nation overall the. dip maltic side of the house will continue to use them and in retrospect, yes, in the short term, we'll use them, but our intention is to have the options

to use the other two alternatively. >> i recognize myself for five minutes. can we get a grip on the dollars, and i want to understand what is also being transported. because it's by understanding there is a difference as to what the actual physical materials that are being transferred, so if -- do we have a sense of what we think we have lost? what has been pilfered through this trucking process? >> if i could take that question -- >> yes, sir. >> as it relates to the h and t contract, i'd have to take t question for the record in terms of getting you the specific items, but understand about 700 million has been paid out, and we've -- >> paid out? >> paid to the contractors for their services, for the

transportation they provided, but we have about 145 million in penalties and withholds that relate to lost equipment, pilferage -- >> do we have a total value of what had been shipped and what had been lost, pilfered, or simply didn't make it to the destination? >> i can get that for the record, sir. >> my understanding is the task force 2010 being stood up, a number of items have been recovered. do you know the value of what has been recovered? >> about $172 million in recovered losses. >> and what would be included in the list of the $172 million that was recovered? >> i think probably just about anything we transport. you know, a piece of anything we transport on the roads from unit equipment to general purpose supplies to kind of get at the question of a second ago, we

transport roughly 1.5 billion gal lores of fuel per day in afghanistan, and roughly half of the cargoes moving on the ground. >> there's certain cargo not transported via this. >> that's right. some of the recent press accounts talked about ammunition being transported in these con -- convoys, and that's not the practice in afghanistan. ammunition is typically transported only in a u.s. military escorted convoy and not in convoys 245 are secured by private security companies or moving unsecured. >> so, with these private security companies providing the transportation and security, do we do sensitive electronics in those shipments, jump drives, and those types of things? >> i think -- we have electronics that track what the electronics do. we have intransit vehicle

transponders that -- >> i'm talking about the content of what's behind those. >> so, the standard is no class vibe, no ammunition, and what we have is a class of supply called sensitive items. the simplest answer i would give you is things like night vision goggles would not be permitted to be transported by them. loaded computers would not be allowed to be transported by them. we could take it for the record to give you -- >> weapons on that list? >> no, they are sensitive items. they would not be transported by them. >> un-- uniforms? >> uniforms were transported in the convoys earlier in the effort. we've made large efforts to reduce that now because of problems with the -- >> reduce that or eliminate that? >> probably the goal is to eliminate it, but i wouldn't say we eliminated that completely. >> that's not too reassuring.

i appreciate the candor though. medical equipment? there's a "wall street journal" report i would appreciate you familiarizing yourself with. it came out in the last couple weeks talking about some of the horrendous and horrific situations that are happening in afghanistan. the article is entitled "afghan military hospital graft and deadly neglect. we are talking about the oversight issues. i would appreciate if you would look at the article dated september 3rd of this year as well. win of the other deep concerns here is that these -- that we're not doing our job on the ground, and i recognize in the theater of war and all that's happening there is an added degree of pressure that i'm sure only those in theater can appreciate, but one of these reports said that often the containers were never counted or reopened once

they got to their destination. what assurance can you give to the committee that you're actuaysolving that problem because it's pretty easy to tell -- you should be able to tell what left and what arrived, 5e7b yet the -- and yet the reports say that that check point at the end doesn't happen when our men and women receive these materials. >> i think i can -- the ground truth out there is the vast majority of everything that shows up at a base gets opened, checked, received, and looked out. there's a percentage of stuff that doesn't geteceived or inspected? yes, i'd say there is. one example to describe this from my own experience. we found in a yard, we took, you know, we did a transition with the unit before us. we started inventorying everything on the base, and found a series of containers

there locked up. what are they 1234 the last unit didn't take them. we opened them up and discovered parts that had been ordered overtime, you know, supplies ordered over a period of time, so the unit, so the unit ahead of us maybe didn't even order it. these things arrive, and, you know, you do your best toking the for your equipment, and now you start accounting for someone else's equipment that may be on your base. that's how it transpyres, but, yes, there's a tremendous effort for unites to account for their stuff. >> not just their stuf but checking the manifest as to what was shipped and did it arrive. >> of course. >> mr. denver, and then i'll yield back. >> if i may, chairman, let me talk about the process of what's happening and what we do in the contract to get our hands on the pilferage and address this issue. first, there's an understanding that the that is transportation mission request is sent to the contractors, and within that, identifies what is to be thans

-- transported and trucks we need to transport further. within the convoys, we ha -- if there's sensitive equipment or pilfered equipment, we seal the trucks so if they are unsealed, we're aware of it at destination. if we find a situation where that occurred, pilferaging or the seal is broken, that's a failed mission, then the contractor does not receive payment for that mission. the other thick that happens is they also, within the contract we built a d-duct relating to their total mission throughout each month, and if there's instances of pilferages, there's deductions that takes off their invoices from the monthly shipment, and we hold it from their invoices. we're taking a number of steps to identify that. the other thing we're doing i'd

say is with dcma. the intent on the previous contract is we did not have a random inspection method. in the future object nat contract, we'll have dcma at the ga, both in where origin and destination, and it will be random so that we can conduct spot checks based on what was shipped, the condition of the trucks, involving security personnel being checked that they are appropriate and banded and licensed, but the real answer is are we putting 234 the oversight? the oversight takes more than just contracting, takes a management agency, an officer, a requirement. >> do we have a log of what is missing and the value of it? >> i would have to take that for the record and get that back to you, sir. >> thank you. >> gentleman yield for a second? >> yes. >> it's the time to have this on

the record if i could. this is a sheet that the department made available to us with respect to oil deliveries. all right. it's a multipage item. in the red there's the amount of perctage of shortage of delivery. there's mostly zero. what should have been 100% is zero on that on significant occasions. now, we're also told that $25,000 is the penalty they pay for not delivering a full load, yet the value of this over $40,000 on the street, so i'm not sure we got our penalties aligned with the price on that and certainly there's 1100 trucks delivering oil that were pilfered. 5.4 mlion gal lores of fuel, gone, no explanation on that. i hope we address that and i ask the chairman to put that into the record. >> without objection, we'll enter it into the record. i'll yield back. yes, general? >> i just want to put that into a little bit of context.

you're right. fuel pilferage rates are higher than we want them to be. overall, pilferage rates on the ground locks in afghanistan is about 1% plus or minus, so that's overall context here. still, you know, the level of our endeavor in afghanistan, that's still a lot of stuff, 1% even. with fuel, it's up to 15%, and part of that is congressman, what you just pointed out there about penalty may not be offsetting the street value of this commodity, and this is a discussion i 4 with general ridge three days ago. he recognizes this and is working on adjusting that penalty. >> thank you. now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch for five minutes, or maybe a little bit more. >> all right. thank you, mr. chairman, i appreciate that. i want to thank you for coming before the committee and helping us. like i said before, this is one team, one fight, and we're all

trying to do the right thing here. we had an opportunity, myself, i elieve the chairman, and several of our staffers here. mr. alexander was there, mr. lindsey was there, but we went into kandahar and went down that route 4 that leads from karachi, goes up through qweta, and then into afghanistan. the major sea port there is in pakistan, and then these trucks leave, and the pakistani trucking outfits take over at a place that we went into. that's controlled by a fellow by the name who is now general razik. now, they had, you know, they had threatened if we went in there to do oversight on the trucking operation that they would shut the border down, and

there's thousands of trucks going through there, you know, in the course of a day, and so when we, on behalf of mr. tierney at the time who was the chairman, they shut it down just as they threatened. you kno first of all, we couldn't refuse to do our jobs doing oversight, but he followed through on the threat and shut the trucking center there, the border crossing down until we left. you know, we did as much oversight and inspection as we coul and then when we left, the oversit committee left, he opened up the border again, and, you know, myself, we had a striker brigade with us. we didn't go down there by ourselves, but god bless them. you know, that's pretty tight control when you can shut off the oversight of the united states congress and dod and the

military did what they could to get us in there to do the oversight, but that troubles me greatly that here we are spending billions of dollars in taxpayer mon. we go down there. we're elected by the folks that are actually paying the freight here. we go down to inspect what's going on there, and you got this -- he's a general now, he was a colonel back then. he's a war lord is what he is. he's got -- this is all sort of taliban controlled territory that we drove through from kandahar down to the pt, and i just -- i got to tell you, you know, it's a whole lawless area, and if the guy can shut off congress from conducting reasonable oversight, then what chance do we have of

implementing aystem where we actually perform due diligence on protecting the taxpayers' money. it's just a, you know, i just have great misgivings about this, and unless, you know -- look, we have some leverage here. they need our help. we need to use that leverage to make sure that they operate by our standards. we shouldn't be operating under the wild west standards that they operate under,nd that's sort of what's going on here, and, you know, i have to say it goes right from the top from karzai on down. it's just rotten from top to bottom over there, and, you know, the goodness and the generosity of the american people is being abused. here they are trying to do the

right thing, i know the president's going to withdrawal plan there, but in the meantime, he's trying to do the right thing. e average afghan over there is in a desperate strait, and we're trying to do the right thing from the humanitarian stand point, stand up the country to take care of themselves, but in theeanwhile, we're getting fleeced by the same people we are trying to help, a certain portion of it; right. i don't think the average afghan is really as malicious as these folks, but it's a game. it's a game. ..

this cannot go on. i appreciate what you are trying to do. i appreciate your tweaking the contract, going from a to 20. next time i go down, am i going to face the same situation where they are blocking the oversight committee from going on down there? very possibly. you hit the nail on the head. what we are doing before this hearing has to do with a couple

of contracts, but you get the larger issue. this is a society that is based on 3000-plus years of doing things this way, and we are not want to change it overnight. the metrics of the number of convictions i have are interesting and they are important, but the real issue is the efforts the larger task force is doing to change the tone so you have a judicial system that you can trust, you have a police system, you can trust, you have a leadership system that you can trust and it goes back to the comment about who is related to who and what is gone on. that is not want to happen overnight. >> i do not think it is gone to

happen in a thousand years. >> it may not come out of the fact, this committee, we are not taking a narrow view. that would have been the task force 2010 and the spotlight, but have the overarching view which pulls in our other international partners, it pulls in the isap side. we get the right words. make no mistake. we get the right words from the senior leadership about the importance of corruption. word to the senior leadership about the importance of corruption and controlling corruption. years ago we do nd to get the right words. my frustration and i'm sure everyone's frustratiois the same of yours is what is tolerable. my personal opinion is we are not going to eliminate corruption. we are not in our lifetime. our efforts righ now should be centered on primarily controlling corruption we can control so that our interest in dollars and values and our

resources are protect it as our our ales and resources. what happens to you as you go in and as soon as you leave, unless we have a presence there 24 hours a day seven days a week, we take risk double transition back exactly as you said. so we all share your frustration, but i would say that the fact that we are looking probably cannot is going to be very tough to measure. as you know, i can't give you metrics that says that the executive branch of afghanistan is now good because these for metrics. the proof will be if we can reduce the numbers. the only numbers they have to show you is a reduction in the number, the dollar value. that will be the bottom line. >> the gentleman's time is expired. i want to make sure we have time for the gentleman from kentucky. i recognize you for five

minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to use part of my time to make a unanimous consent request to sort of document into the record, last month ranking member coming request authorization from me to join the authorization to afghanistan led by senator wyden. the purpose of the delegation was to investigate allegations of contacting fred and corruption. as today's hearing demonstrates come the subcommittee is done great work on this issue and given recent media reports and to know to be here today, it is clear we must continue this oversight of this very important issue. as a member of the subcommittee, i wanted to join senator wyden's delegation to price u.s. officials for exactly the kinds of questions we examine today. that's why was extremely disappointed that chairman isaiah rejected my request. they should not be allowed to drink bipartisan delegation to

list a republican from a committee joins. this is a misguided policy that has no basis for rules and policies. the policy established by speaker pelosi and continued to speaker boehner is every foreign delegation must be bipartisan and include a republican and democrat from each committee. i'm sorry, not included republican delegation. it meets the standard because it has another republican house member from the david schweiker. but the committee and house administration opposite interparliamentary affairs have come from this misguided policy is not the speakers, the chairman isaiah's a loan. i ask unanimous consent to chairman issa to immediately reverse this policy. thank you. >> going to hold off a ruling on that. but you might have a chance to look at the letter?

>> certainly. >> you may continue. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this conversation that mr. lynch has talked about comments and misuse of tpayer dollars and a waste of taxpayer -- american taxpayer dollars that sometime go to where people are trying to help and according to the task force 2010 reports that task force 2010, it indicated that they have identified $360 million that has been diverted to insurgents and power brokers and warlords and so forth. some of that money, presumably funding the very insurgency that our counterinsurgency is designed to combat. so general, as he taught about the counterinsurgency strategy, i'd like to ask you, to what extent do you tink these diverted funds are undermining the counterinsurgency strategy

and to what extent they are being used to attack our own troops and you think we are doing enough to make sure we are not funding attacks on our own men and women? >> thanks for the question, congressman. i had this conversation with generabridge a couple days ago an the 360 million that they have identified, that was cited thayer, is a buck at $31 billion in contracts. 31,360,000,000 is still a tremendous amount of money. >> if it's correct, it's really bad. so, i don't know how you can quantify how much money. i think part of it is probably going to just simple prime that would exist in any society. some of that money for sure is going to ihink the insurgency.

i can't codify how much money it's going to taxa can thus versus some other insurgent purpose. it is clear to estimate the money goes in the insurgency and we have to dowhatever we can to stop that. we have to do whatever we can to minimize it. there's nobody in uniform over there. everybody in uniform as a taxpayer, two appeared to don't like to hear that our tax dollars to funding the guys were trying to say. what i can say is we've got the processes in place partially due to the efforts of this committee, with the process in place to address it. it'd be rd to quantify how much of the money is going to the inurgency. clearly some as too much. >> if you have a strategy or are working to develop a strategy to determine how it is getting to the insurgent and stopping that? the >> well, absolutely.

you have certain task force, you have to thought and integrate the efforts of some of the other organizations like 2010. they also integrate our efforts across not just u.s. government, the afghan government and also our nato and other partners they are. so there's other organizations over there. the afghan threat finance attended a briefing with chairman mullen just a week ago by the afghan threat finance and they are an intelligence organization in a regency organization their job is to delve into this and point folks out. i can tell you they're certainly taken action there. >> title ii the extent that you can't, you can report to the subcommittee is to progress you've made any discoveries you've made about how this process may be going on and whether you've had any success in stopping it. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

the gentleman yields back. the gentleman previously requested unanimous consent to insert a letter dated september 15, 2011 without objectns ordered. now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. cheney for five minutes. >> thank you. the problem is the money. nobody wants to lose the money, but the larger parties but is it doing to afghanistan in terms of this the angle that we've taken over there. one aspect of that firm jenner petraeus and songwriting that corruption is not going to be helpful is not the main things that has to have been for the counterinsurgency to be effective. the publicly available legal documents filed by wartime in the case said there is. the alleged tribes were not birds per se, but rather facilitation papers. they argue what tom had no case or to pay government officials and other groups for police

while transporting the united states military through this volatile war zone. do you agree that the security operators and contractors had no choice but to make those payments? >> i do agree that in many cases they don't have a choice in the percved they don't have a choice. they perceive they will be attaed if they don't make some of these payments. >> and mr. motsek, do you agree with the watan's facilitation payments or bribes of large sums of cash per by provincial governors to local police or warlords in order to ensure their trucks are bothered you think that's legal in united states law? >> clearly it is not. it is clearly counterproductive what we arerying to do. it's part of the larger systemic problem we have. >> so here is what watan's profile designed to stay. at last be whatever necessary to

ensure convoy security and prevent loss of life. the abnegation the affirmative misconduct encouraging private contractors to undertake activities that the army disallowed once they were exposed to the public. with the army aware of the common part is and does it encourage people like watan to make them? >> i am not familiar with whether the army had that information. i would tell you this. in conversations when i had a meeting but the department official, he indicated the same that you've heard today that the facilitation payments were necessary. so in that context, i would say when watan came to the table and identified what they paid, in that context i would say that is when we were aware. i'm not familiar as to whether we are aware prior. >> watan stated the policy made a policy demonstration at's cheaper than paying for the same

guns, bullets and bodies. the court goes on to call extortion payments the realities of afghan society and reality is that war. do you agree that it's simply the cost of fighting were? >> i am not sure i would agree that it cost of fighting war in afghanistan. it's certainly part the land keep in afghanistan. we took extraordinary efforts at the low tactical level to trade route out with your report that a check point was charging passage fee toll. we would go investigate that and go to great lengths to try to find out if they were charging a toll in ways we could mitigate that. there is one example of billboards with check point says that there's no total required to pass up such a point. then you have to do with the afghan literacy rate below 30%. >> somebody with a gun will

stand there and ask you flory told. >>here's no argument from us that the corruption is probably the big country because victims are the afghan people even more so than the american taxpayers. >> said there is a nexus between criminal enterprises, insurgence networks and corrupt political practices in afghanistan? we know they are relatives of people in high political offices that are involved in hese contracts and subcontracts in making these payments or whatever. my question is in order to break that nexus, what prosecutions have been? how many people are prosecuted? how high up the chain? canhey see an example of the well-connected people actually been brought to the rule of law or will they continue to be an impediment to our counterinsurgency because they think the whole game is great and the government says that if the taliban? >> i can answer that question him in the context of what were

talking about here, trucking, corruption. >> at the much larger picture. >> kabul bank, for example, there's a number officials under investigation with respect to the kabul bank situation corruption practiced very. and i think we are hopeful that the afghan government will prosecute some of those parties, but it's yet to have been. there's a numb of investigations, over 20 investigations and work with kabul bank were waiting to see what they do. right now the united states government is conditioning some of our support to see the outcome of kabul bank. >> well, u would hope so. reject to the airport to the capital of the cup and you can see hous that are well-heeled people living in that and the other people suffering and having a hard time making it an eye, too. i don't know he got the

confidence of that to support have in this country, around the move in the right direction without doing more in that regard. so i think you got your work cut out for you. we have to take a look at our mission and prospects for accomplishing well intended goals on this thing without really addressing the issue of the way i ought to be. another's people and for the watan case and that toll brothers and a good reason why people would be disgusted when someone should've been disbarred and all of a sudden they get a slap on the wrist. this is not good and i think we have to be cautious of that. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. i now recognize myself for five minutes. under the host nation tracking, wi a prime contractors. six of those they were found to have committed some sort of fraudulent behavior. the fraudulent paperwork, reverse money-laundering, excessive profiteering, aiding

and abetting. so now the plan is instead of having a contractors coming out with got to go to 20 contractors. one of the criticisms of the host nation tracking process was way too many contractors who can keep track of and sometimes people pay themselves only to pay themselves again and again and again. so what are you doing to alleviate this problem bcause you're expanding the number of contractors and at the same time, what are you doing to make sure this nefarious characters are not indeed getting on my thumb off a different name? >> fair, if i could take that question, as i indicated earlier, the real approach is ensuring that we have the right oversight. it is true that the number of prime contractors has expanded in the new contract and many of those contractorcame from the previous contract.

>> how many? >> i believe it's 11. 11 total play a primer subcontractor capacity, sir. >> how many of those have previously found to be involved quite >> none of those were involved in this. 11 contractors we know that they were conducting performance previously. >> my understanding is in order to be considered from you have to have access to 600 tracks. is that right? >> it may be across. i would tell you that -- >> and afghanistan, i have to believe the universe of potential vendors and contractors is fairly small. >> i have some information on the contracts. i would tell you it is a growing industry. but when we without the contractors. >> we are $.2 billion. if the growing industry.

probably the most enriched industry areas next to the poppies. go head. >> but basically, we asked contract is to come into the prime contractors and subcontractors to come in and identify with the capacity was in the contract. i would tell you that with sufficient tracking assets to be provided within afghanistan from the afghan firms. so it is a developing industry. i would consider it a policy they were able to grow the industry to show some success. these new companies now participate in the new contract has been vetted. and so, are you here to assure us that nobody who has been found to be fraudulent in the past is involved in this new contract? >> no, sir. >> how to get the assurance to get the case? >> i retired there's risks

associated we're putting the ovrsight. do not are they or they are not allowed to participate in this new contract if they're under suspension were found to be fraudulent in the previous contract? >> thereunder suspension, but there's ongoing investigations coming after the due process run. and he to tell you something couldn't happen in the future, but those companies gewirtz who are not excluded and were not suspended commissary. >> that continue to dive further into that. time is short. laughter, opose here again. there's two programs via the afghan first in the direct assistance something the state department is very adamant about pursuing. with those two programs, is there overlap of contracts here do we think will become increasingly -- we're asking for more oversight. we ask for more accountability

and yet at the same time the state department says you got to speed up pavements and make them direct. you've got to make sure -- and i see a cflict between those objectives under afghan first and direct assistance to opera trained to do can making sure that two plus billion dollars is accountable. >> sera, that's something we talk about a leader that is the two pending pieces in the nba are somewhat keen to address your concerns. the fact that -- i can't remember whether it's a house or senate version, but both pieces passed in committee. it gives them authority to delve deeper into the secondary, those tertiary contract or so we've never had before. as you know, we only have a legal relationship with the plan. the law changes as in the nda. that's number one. number two, you are going to grant if the law passes.

they command greater authority to take people off the table whichfrankly last legal proof that they are undeserving to continue or to operate with us, that we can actually use in our judgment process, intel and a variety of other methods to make that assessment. both of those pieces we talked about that the early testimony we promise to review proposed legislation and it always gets a little more -- advocates on the hill. fundamentally, those two pieces are in te nda. they are key for mr. denver to dig further into theecondary and tertiary contracts. the reality is trucking industry is a decentralized process and the bulk of your tracker is our owner operators like they are the united states and that is not going to fundamental

change. so these guys to get these contracts are able to pull tother 600 or 450 south tamayo 150. that's had to pull together resources to make this happen. that's the reality of the business com in the same way in the night stayed. the key come as mr. denver said is we're trying to set that guy before he ever gets a chance to come to the table and not after the fact that your legislation gives us greater ability to do that. >> what the gentleman yield for a second? >> as early as the summer of 2009 your frequent reports of subcontractors paid money to warlords and the taliban to guarantee safe passengers calm voice. u.s. army investigators had a briefing that was the point title post nation tracking payments to insurgents. the investigators estimated the going rate for protection was

$1500.1200 per track. i contractors and the private afghan security companies, allied with warlords are insurgents or in some cases directly to militias are told the commanders. the military maintained that the federal contracting rules do not reqire them to some interpretations prohibited a close look below the level of prime contractors. i mean, that's a disgrace to somee in the defense contract to my people go deeper into what was behind those contracts with the subcontract level. to better quarters from someone in the military said these people should be fired and sent home. the senior defense officials said the military overseas beatitude is crazy. it's okay to pay the enemy because they are better smacks of the congress travel unimpeded? i hope everybody gets that now. that kind of contracting is before first level law school. >> will not recognize someone from massachusetts, mr. lynch.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate that. gentlemen, the commission on wartime contrting which is an independent bipartisan commission recently published a report summarizing tir work in afghanistan and iraq since 2008. in based on their estimates in the last decade, the united states has spent more than 192 billion continuing contracts and grants. at the same outcome as much as 60 billion has been lost to contract waste and fraud. mr. motsek, do you think that's a reasonable estimate? >> sera, i think i hold the record for testifying. the answer is based on the way we discuss, the answer is no. >> what do you think the better number? >> i can't give you an exact number. >> edges had one question you

answered it. we need to move on. were short on time. i'm sorry. i don't mean to be disrespectful. you've been very helpful as a witness. here's my issue. read on to present a couple plants, one in iraq or afghanistan for reducer profile for the military actually is more and more contractors. and so we've got this problem at times, we've had more folks under contract than we've had in the military. so as this trend continues, they've estimated we already over reliance on contract is in iraq and afghanistan and it's going to get more so as we draw our troops down. and so, they put it this ay. the united states will lose much of our mission, essential organic capability and also it will create in afghanistan a rise in inflation and economic committees. you have some bad incentives are

there. how do we -- how do we facilitate this transition with greater subcontract or his? 80% are non-us citizens. so we had very little control over that, you know, accountability guesses what m looking for. but 80% of those under contract to non-us citizens, i'm very concerned about, you know, this corruption, you know, undermining the remaining african-american in iraq and afghanistan to stabize both those countries. where does that leave us? or does that leave us if we transition to a contrt are based -- contact your century -- a >> sera, we don't have capabilities into force today in many areas we are discussing. you would have to grow the department of defense to make that happen.

so that is the reality. so you're absolutely correct. we were attacked about the broad issues of what needs to be done. the microcosm in my mind to eliminate and to give competence to local national is twofold. number one, with regard to post nation tracking this example. we're not going to pay in dollars anymore. we're not going to pay in dollars. that's a blinding/of the obvious. so now it's not dollars in the country, which has been a problem to begin with. the second piece and i don't know how to resolve this in the short-term and long-term, but until you wish or payment to the individual without payoffs on the way down, we had this problem with the police. we have it endemc in the government. until you compare the person directly their money, there is no confidence in the system. we have gone with the

international community. we are paying some of the police on their cell phone because it goes directly to the policeman and it doesn't filter down to lose those dollars along the way. so there are practical steps you have to take them which are absolutely correct. it will be a contract centric attrition. iraq obviously after december december 31st as thgs stand absolutely. >> mr. chairman, my tennis about expired. having been enough time over there in afghanistan, if that is the situation is, it would be worse if we had u.s. personnel, military personnel, yo know, providing security of s convoys. the body count would be coming in now, totally unacceptable. so i appreciate the effort you've need to straighten this mess out. thank you. i yield back. >> i'm going to recognize ranking member tierney for just a momet here as they conclude,

we have folks coming up on the floor. >> thank you, mr. chairman. kulak continues to be providing security and norton afghanistan to this day. anybody look at the intelligence reports and our community about the background of this individual? >> sera, at the say this about roulette. can't go into a whole lot, but it's not a fair scope. >> but they get the gentlemen would provide in written form subsequent to this hearing, the amount of prosecutions tha are ongoing right now before this type of corruption and draft as well as the amount of money covered to date. lastly, to get an idea of who's responsible so when we look at this and try to evaluate later on, we can know who to call for witness is in his attacked you.

the 418 control battalion in charge of the contractors, is that correct? nobo here knows. that's one problem. they report the 143rd brigade, does that sound reasonable? >> sera, before you have your next hearing it will change as things rotate. i would caution about using the organizations for you and give you the hierarchy. >> what i have from the investigation we did is the contract signing is the immediate response of the bagram contracting thinner, who reports that the principal assistant responsible in iraq and afghanistan who gets authority for the army acquisition than a practical matter for centcom.

where do you fit in that chain? >> the commander of gtt -- commander joint contracting command admiral khalifa is the deputy and has detailed there to operate that. >> is he doing th regional contracting thinner and bagram? >> he owns hat. >> he works for me. he's been detailed forward. if i could quickly explain it, the army is the executive agent for contra in the conflict. we had to get the executive agency and it could've been a service, could've been agency. they tried many years to get away from that. because that, the army acquisition mr. denver's boss is the ultimate responsible agent

from a contracting standpoint. so the authority and the words of people to operate under the joint contracting command can't be at the army to spend money and so appeals and oversight -- direct oversight, with very few exceptions within afghanistan are the army's responsibility. i'll give you the wiring diagram, sir. >> that is true. oscappointed the army is the executive agency went to my boss. i am actually detailed those authorities for executive agencies and a good organization and provides broad oversight. were admiral khalifa is the head of the contracting officials to work for him. one in afghanistan, one senior contract official in iraq. the senior contract official

oversees those, the ones he referred to. but that is the contracting chain of command. >> i suspect we'll see you gentlemen back again since you have responsibility and i want to thank the chairman account for working with us on this and appreciate his hard work and leadershp on this matter. thank you all for participating. >> i want to thank you gentleman for your commitment to our country and for your service. we do thank you. the pentagon, the department of defense have to get this right. the state department has to get this rit. we are talking about elegance upon billions upon billions of dollars but unfortunately, we know, is going to feel some of the very people that we are trying to suppress. that is totally uacceptable. the waste, fraud and abuse happening in the theater of w is unacceptably high and we see that in report after report. i understand difficulties and

i'm trying to appreciate all the nuances and the difficulty of war. and there will be some small degree that happens in that theater. but when we hear that tens of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, it's unacceptable. one of the next hearings we will have in the subcommittee will deal with what is happening in iraq. we have to get the contract is part of the equation right. the transition states and the department of defense to the state department, the state department is looking to bring up some thing like 17,000 contractors. so the news clips may be that we are turning down in iraq, but the reality is we are high enough to the tune of 17,000 contractors in an unbelievable amount ofoney. we have to get this equation right. i thank you all for being here and appreciate the great work for mr. tierney and his staff in a very collaborative effort. we find republicans, democrats working together on

[inaudible [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up in about an hour, we will be live with a discussion on national security issues. thomas tom donilon is president

obama's national security advisor. his at the economic club of washington. his british counterpart will speak at the same time, talking about counterterrorism strategy in the uk. that is at 12:30 on c-span 3. in a half-hour, richard brookhiser will be speaking. here is what is ahead this weekend on booktv. >> best selling author of "a beautiful mind" talks about her latest book on economics and intellectual pursuits to achieve the lives helps people worldwide. it is one of the many nonfiction books and authors this weekend. we will also continue our series of college interviews with

professors from george washington university on their latest books about military intervention, a voter suppression, and modern afghanistan michael more recounts his life from started his own -- afghanistan. michael moore recounts his own life. but the complete schedule at booktv.org. >> nasa unveiled its new rocket for deep space missions on wednesday. it is called the space launch system and will include hardware from the space shuttle and the now-defunct programs. it will use a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to help cut costs. they were joined by kay bailey hutchison and bill nelson for this half-hour briefing.

>> the administration is coming forth with the plan to flush out what was passed in the nasa authorization bill one year ago. the plan forward, that keeping the international space station alive until at least 2020, with a series of commercial rockets taking crew and cargo to and from the space station then allows nasa to get out beyond low-earth orbit, and start to explore the heavens, which is

the job at nasa has always been tasked to do. this rocket is coming in at the cost of what -- not only what we estimated in the nasa authorization act, but less. the cost of the rocket over a five-to 6 year period was to be no less than a $11 billion, and this cost is $10 billion. the projected cost for the multi purpose crew vehicle in that timeframe is $6 billion, and then the reworking of the ground support to launch the new rocket and its facilities in the

modernization of those facilities as above two billion dollars over that time, or a total of $18 billion in the period of time. that is up to 2017. i would like to show you what the new rocket looks like. this rocket has a core that is a derivative of the external tank -- the apricot-colored external tank." the older external tank would come to about here, in the stack of the space shuttle, to give you an estimate of size. this is the smaller version, in

the range of 70 to 77 tons. the old and external tank would have gone to about here, so you can think of the entire stack of the space shuttle been about this high. you see the relative size of the rocket. on either side are rocket boosters, but ultimately nasa will run a competition for these boosters to be silenced or liquids. -- solid or liquid. there will be five space shuttle main engines, and on top of the accord is the second stage and an improved j-2x, which is already under development, then the crew module on the top with this case

-- escape system. now, what this does, is, you'll remember in the aftermath of the destruction of the space-bar columbia, -- space shuttle columbia, the emerald said you fly the shuttle as long as you have to -- the admiral said he fled the subtle as long as you have to to build the space station in building the space station, and replace it with a -- space station. you build the space station, and replace it with a safer rocket. that is how this is designed, with the crew on top of the rocket, with the ability to risk it. on the path, if there is an explosion, as well as all the way to orbit. so, i cannot say enough good things about the lady that is standing here next to me, kay

bailey hutchison has truly been a leader in not only our space subcommittee, but as the ranking member of the full committee. she, in large part, has brought us to this day. kay is claimed to speak in a minute, but we want the -- is going to speak in a minute, but we want the explanation of the entire system to come from the number one person at nasa, the administrator. >> thank you. as i am wont to do, i have a disclaimer. there is press availability at 11:30 where the team responsible for putting this system together will be available to answer specific questions about the

configuration, the schedule, and everything else, so i would defer to them. i'll give you a message i think is important and the message i want you to take to the american public and international partners. i want to thank all members of congress. the senator is right. i do not want to get in trouble here, but the queen bee of all of this has been senator kay bailey hutchison. she is another it is cotillion like me, so we have been worried about fires -- episcopalian like me, so we have been worried about fires in texas. we did not always disagree on things. the next chapter of the space exploration story is being written today. nasa has selected the design of its new deep space system that will take american estimates further into space than any nation has gone before and create jobs right here at home. private companies are preparing to take over transportation to

the international space station. satellites are on their way to jupiter and the moon, and plans for a human mission to an astronaut and on to mars are taking shape. with a crew capsule under development, extension of activities are a fresh focus on new technologies. the new space launch system is key to implementing the plan laid out by president obama and congress in the bipartisan 2010 net >> -- nasa authorization act. the sls test will be the cornerstone of the program. president obama has challenged us to be bold and to dream big, and that is exactly what we do. while i was proud to fly on the space shuttle, tomorrow's exports will dream of walking on mars. the sell-off of the video -- the

selection of what is needed requires a major contribution from the american taxpayer, so that is why we insisted on the diligence to get this right. we have been making steady progress toward realizing the president and congress's vision of deep space exploration in a more affordable way. we have been reducting -- reducing the savings on -- reducing the spending on the orion, providing transparency, increasing transportation, and handing responsibility to private sector partners so we can focus on deep space exploration. we are already building a space capsule to transport guests announce into deep space. now, we have selected a heavy-

lift rocket to carry the crew and capsule into destinations donations ever gone before. our decision to go with a liquid-hydrogen, liquid-oxygen, launch vehicle system was based on the analysis to reduce costs, increase flexibility, and leverage u.s. leadership in this technology. the development flight will ticket vantage the existing posters and other hardware what companies compete -- and an -- advantage of existing boosters and other hardware while companies compete. will be on target to reach and astrid and even march. -- an times and even mars. we believe the request for the missions are at the appropriate levels, and the commission has made a long-term commitment. in addition to these two

building blocks, we are investing in the technologies to allow humans to live and work in deep space which will allow us to reach destinations such as sam s. trade and mars. this is a great day for nasa and the nation. i want to thank the bipartisan leadership in the commerce for getting us to this day. -- and the congress for getting us to this day. we will answer detailed questions at 11:30, but is it -- it is my honor to enter this to you senator kay bailey hutchison for her comments. >> well, to live. -- thank you. this is a day we have been looking forward to for a long time. i think it is no secret that we hoped it would be sooner because we did not want to lose any of the deficiencies, and make sure that we did not run up the costs on necessarily. i had a meeting -- a necessarily

carry i had a meeting yesterday in which we hope third down on the timetable going forward. we want to be on the same page, and i have the commitments now from everyone in the decision making process that i believe really are going forward all as one, with one goal, and that was important to me, that the omb, the a administration, nasa, and the members of congress be altogether. i think, now, from everything i have been told, and the commitments that were made, that we are. i'm very excited about this rocket system. this is the piece that i believe is going to be the true long- term future. you cannot have the pre-eminence in space that we have the -- enjoyed over the last decade

without seeing beyond the immediate-term goal, which is of course the space station and making sure we fully utilize the space station. that is the intermediate go. the long-term goal has to be what is out there that we have not discovered yet. so, i do not want to raise the hopes that everything is going to go exactly in a box by outline that has been put forward, because we are pushing the envelope. we are going to the next iteration of space leadership, and this, today, i believe, is the commitment that america is making to a short that we are not going to be the also-brands. we are going to continue to be the world's leader in finding out what are the capabilities out there that we have not even discovered yet?

is there something in energy? is there something in national security? is there something in the geophysical on mars or and astroid that would help us on earth? so, it is a great day for america. it is a commitment that nasa is going to lead the pack. we have commercial crew getting the crew to the space station. that is great. we are committed to other parts of our science in nasa, but the leader is going to be the launch system that is being announced today, and of the next thing that senator nelson and i, and congresswoman johnson, and congressman hall -- everyone who cares about the vision for america to lead in space -- is going to be the timetable.

the timetable for the contracts to be modified so that our experience people will be tapped to help modify and design the -- kept to help modify and designed a vehicle that will take us beyond earth's orbit. so, the timetable will be what i am looking for. i want to see the contracts modified right away. i am told by all of those who can make this happen that we are mere weeks away, be one or two, from modifying the contracts, and assuring we have the contractors with the experience to take us to the next level. i am pleased to be here today, and have a new beginning. that is what we have been looking for since our last shuttle came down -- a new beginning, and i think we have it today. let me say to my partner here, bill nelson, he gave me credit, and i do not know if queen bee

is how i would like to be referred to -- your highness, it is not what i'm looking for, but i would like to say that with great support we have been relentless in assuring that america's place in space would be continued, and i could not ask for better partners. senator rockefeller, senator nelson, and senator bolton on our side have backed us all away, and i would also mention senator mikulski also has bought in whether%. she and i are the chairman -- 100%. sheehan by the chairman and ranking member on the appropriations committee. we are going to mark up tomorrow, and we will do what i think everyone will applaud, and that is a short america's

rightful place in both science and space -- offshore america's rifles days replace in science and space. >> she is not only the ranking in the science committee, but the appropriations committee. we want to hear from the other members of congress that are here. congresswoman johnson is the ranking member of the house science committee. >> thank you. -- i did not. there it is. thank you very much to of the people here. but me say that mr. hall, who is chair of the committee in the house is not able to be here this morning, but we work in partnership as the and the ranking member, in strong support of the space program.

this is a very special day for us because we are going into an area, just as we went into the area when we started space exploration, we are going down to the next level. we know that what was done in the past has been the most successful research in this country that we have invested in. what we have them concerned about is preserving our expertise in making sure the the people who are trained, the scientists that inspire our young people for the next level will remain in place. we considered this somewhat of a long time coming because we have known for some time that we needed to take this step. we were simply waiting for the white house's approval, and we are so pleased the white house has joined us in where we want to go. we are very excited about this next phase.

we know that research means exploring the unknown. we know what we have done in exploring the unknown from the past. we do not know what we will find for the future, but we are confident we will find a new information that will clearly take the lives of our people from around the world to the next level. so, we are very excited right now, and we are very pleased that the administrator bolden can move forward with his vision, and will keep all of our very qualified staff in place. we want to thank them for what they have contributed to the space program already, and for being patient enough to wait for us to come to this level where we are now. we hope we can be successful in making sure we can get the minimum, at least, amount of money to go forth in their

vigorous and successful manner. so, i am pleased to be here, and i am also pleased success i see other members of the committee from the house as well. i'll going to present to you now a senator who i worked with very closely in the house. we worked as chairman and ranking member on the subcommittee on transportation, and neither one of us said more than we had to, we were pretty quiet, but we got a lot of communication going. i want to present to you senator bolden from arkansas, my dear friend, so he can make remarks. >> thank you, you all. i am pleased, and very happy that we have a decision. the key to that is we now have a decision that will allow us to provide certainty, and that is so important, especially as we

seek to retain the best and the brightest as we move forward -- those employees said will help those get to the next stage that we go to -- those employees that will help us get to the next is that we go to. i look forward to working with my colleagues in the house, the senate, and the administration so we can work together as we build the infrastructure we are going to need to take us as we move forward into space, and most importantly to keep the world's pre-eminence as the leader in space as we move forward and maintain that. that has been such an important part of our history, and i think it will be an important part as we move forward into this next century. thank you. >> it is important to underscore the comment from the administrator about the work force. this is the most skilled workforce that is a national asset to this country.

with the phase out of the space shuttle, with the building of the commercial rockets scaling up as the space taxi, and then now, with the big rocket, the monster rocketed been set, and the contract, eds kay said, within a week, the contract being modified, you will see that work force start to scale up, so there is not just the precipitous drop. that you face from one into the other -- that was most important to all of us, the president, and the administrator made that comment. i just wanted to underscore that. we are pleased to have the

congressman from pennsylvania, the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee in the house. congressman? >> well, the general said he was proud to have flown on a few of the shuttle missions. he actually commanded two of them. i think you see a decision package come together parent as an appropriately, we are pleased to -- together. as an appropriators, we are pleased that there is an agreement that clearly identifies the president's goal of having just moved -- having us move from exploration of a low orbit, too deep space, with mars as the target. i am making this decision around

the launch system that really positions nasa to move forward aggressively. i want to thank the administrator for his leadership. i know that some of the toughness on the hill can be challenging. this is rocket science we are dealing with. so, it is somewhat complicated for those of us in the political realm, but we do want to make sure that our country leads the world. we have led the in an absolute way. we know we have others then join in this effort in terms of space exploration -- that i join this effort in terms of space exploration, but we intend for america to be number one, and we know as appropriators that we cannot do that on the cheap. it will cost money. we will have to invest money as a nation to continue to lead the world, and as an appropriate it is always helpful to have guidance and have an agreement

so we are not looking at cross- purposes. i want to thank senator hutchinson, and my good friend senator nelson who served in a different capacity and a previous time for their leadership, along with my colleague from texas, congresswoman johnson, who was done such great works in the science education area and on behalf of nasa. so, thank you. >> ok. questions,a few mindful of the 11:30 detailed press availability for the technical details. yes, sir? >> you talked about spending. can you talk about how difficult it might be in this budget environment to finance priorities, not just this year, next year, but the decade or so beyond? >> the question is the difficulty of the funding going

forward. this is why the president wanted to make sure that they had all crossed, so that he would be able, with vigor, to present this budget, and then defend it from the administration's standpoint. will it be tough times going forward? of course it is. we are in an era in which we have to do and the competition for the available dollars will be fears. but what we have here now are the realistic costs that have been scrubbed by an outside

independent third party and their study of nasa after nasa presented its numbers to the administration to the budget director. and so they have scrubbed these costs, and they think they are realistic, and they think that this is achieveible if america is going to have a human space program. and i can tell you in the abuse m of every american, there is a yearning for us to explore the heavens. and what you see over the next five or six years is a budget coming forth from the administration of about $3 billion a year for this system. do we think that we can maintain that? the answer is clearly, yes. >> let me speak to that as well, because as ranking member of the committee that is writing the budget.

i see a very strong bipartisan support. nasa, in its key roles, we will set priorities. and the administration has set priorities. it will this space launch system for the far out. it will be the commercial system for the interim term and the web telescope. and when we set those priorities, i believe that we will get the funding. i will just use this as an example. even some of the strongest budget cutters on my side of the aisle, they have put forth massive cuts. they have not cut the core mission of nasa, because they see that as part of the american spirit and most certainly part of the american economy and america's national security. which we cannot afford to be where we cannot afford to be in second place.

>> you and senator nelson had a press release where somebody was undercutting u.s. space programs. you also have an ongoing investigation into the delay in delivering this design today. will that investigation continue? and are you satisfied now that as you say, everybody's on the same page? >> well, i think we -- certainly the committee and senator rockefeller and i will discuss the investigation, and if there are parts of it that we need to close, we will talk about that. i haven't been privy to exactly where they are. we have been frustrated. i think that's no secret, by the time delays. i have felt that there was some

effort underneath somewhere to delay, delay, delay, until it was too expensive. and it came to a head when there was a leak that issued a hypothetical set of circumstances which would double the cost of this space launch system. well, no one ever suggested the hypothetical. and yet it was reported as, oh, my gosh, white house has sticker shock. and that brought it to a head, because nothing in there was factual and it was an erroneous leak, and that's when snoort nelson and i came out pretty forcefully and said this is sabotage. so i think that now that the administration has come forward. everyone is on the same page

with the numbers. the numbers are within the authorization levels, and i think we're now moving forward as a team for america, and that's where we all wanted to be. so sometimes the making of the sauseage isn't pretty, but we're at the right end, i hope. but you know, we're going to still see the timetable and assure that everybody is working as enthusiastically for all the priorities and when that is satisfied, i think we'll be in good shape. >> ok. >> thank you very much. >> we'll see you at the 11:30.

>> in about 25 minutes we'll be thrive hear from the national security advisor and the discussion on national security issues live at 12:30 eastern on c-span. yesterday jorn boehner spoke there and called for an overhaul of the u.s. tax system. this morning we got reaction to his speech from "washington journal" viewers.

which mr. obama has proposed paying for with tax increases. mr. boehner also described a broad mission for the joint commission on deficit reduction. tax increases destroy jobs, he said in a peach to the washington economic club, and the joint committee is a jobs committee, and its mission so reduce the deficit threatening job creaeags to our country.

host: if you'd like to call in and comment on that, here's more from speaker boehner. >> a poor substitute for the poor growth policies needed. let's remove barriers to job demreags america. the policies that are needed to

put america back to work. host: and little more from the "wall street journal's" article. host: first call comes from fort worth, texas. caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on this flat tax. i've been reading quite a lot about it. it seems to me from every direction it's rich people

trying to circumvent trying to pay taxes. as it is they have small taxes that allow them to go to other countries to avoid taxes. as a united states marine, i defended this country. very strange thing happening where the burden is being transferred on to the poorest and the middle class. and these corporations that have trillions of dollars in reserves, don't want to pay in addition. they just want to put it back when they are the ones benefiting the most from the system we currently have. thank you. host: next call comes from a republican in dallas. hi john. caller: good morning. good morning. comment is i'm really confused as to where the republicans are going, and i'm one of them. in the sense that we've got

people like warren buffett and all saying hey, we can afford to pay a little more in taxes. every little bit should count. why don't the congressmen start calling the special interest groups and super wealthy and say let's have a telethon and raise some money and get the country out of the hole it's in and see what they can do in that direction. they don't want to raise taxes on people of $250,000 or more? well, i haven't heard them say they don't want to raise taxes on the middle class or poor they just talk about not wanting to raise taxes on the rich. i don't get it. they need to wake up and answer to the people or be prepared to lose their jobs. host: john, would you be willing to pay more taxes? >> absolutely. if that's what it takes for

this greatest country in the world to get out of its problems, absolutely. they need get rid of the label of republican-democrat, independent. we are americans. step up to the plate as an american whoever you are, and let's do what it takes. and it needs to be done and led by example, and the people in washington, the politicians need to leave the party down the road. leave the parade down the road and say let's get some none here. host: philadelphia, mark, democrat, you're on the "washington journal." what do you think about overhauling the tax system? caller: i think it's never going to happen. i think let's face it. the fortune 500 companies, general electric and all of them aren't paying a dime in income taxes and they are using

the code to carry back and carry forward net operating losses, and they are getting refunds. now if the wealthiest people and corporations in this country are paying either nothing or effective rates that are lower than mine, my wife and i, you know, we're middle, middle income. warren buffett's effective tax rate is lower than my wife and i's. now, warren buffett's saying let the wealthy pay more income taxes, he's the only one i hear saying it. there's no way in the world this is going to happen. and it's nothing more than a smoke screen host: another mark from michigan. what do you think? caller: yes. i've been trying to press basically the reason why we have the tax system we have today is because of the supreme court. they have never accepted a

non-burdensome tax. i was hoping to install a seven-year tax cycle allowing one year where everybody would not have to pay taxes one year meaning everybody who works will be able to get fikea the other system could raise the tax as high as they wanted or buy the politician people's vote. then they would be able to afford something and the people would be able to get a rebate from whatever they think they can spend. hopefully gold standard for the united states having gold 30% better than oil and hopefully getting gas down to 99 cents a gallon again, and maybe we can have gas wars again. host: here's a little more from speaker boehner's speech yesterday. >> now tax increases i think are off the table and i don't think they are a viable option for -- tax increases destroy

jobs. and the joint committee is a jobs committee. its mission is to reduce the deficit and create jobs. we should not make it harder by asking it to do things that will make the environment for job creation worse. i hope the president will meet this standard when he puts his recommendation for the committee next week. when it comes to him reaching the $1.5 trillion target, he has one option. spending cuts and entitlement reform. the joint committee can achieve real reduction by taking real action to preserve and strengthen social security, medicare and medicaid. host: from the "wall street journal" economists say the u.s. recession looks more likely. economists see a one in three chance the u.s. will slip into recession over the next 12 months and doubt any steps the

federal reserve might take at its meeting to change that. those are the highest odds for the downturn economists and those have given since the start of the recovery and up 4 percentage points since last month's poll. host: from zapata, texas, john on our republican line, what do you think about the overhaul of the tax system? caller: i'm an 87-year-old marine, retired down here in texas. and i want to talk about boehner. you know, when ross pro-was running for office, boehner was on -- would go on all the shows, un, like you know, crossfair to and kept saying,

repeating, ross pro-'s crazy. you know? he's crazy. i wish they would dig up some of those tapes and run them again, he was going on all these programs talking about ross pro-being crazy when he was talking about all the jobs were going to leave the united states and go to mexico and there would be a big sucking sound and all that, and boehner just kept going around, and he was in congress at that time voting on all that stuff, send all the jobs out of the country. it was ok then. now everything is gone, and this guy is on tv talking about you know, what we should do about finding jobs in this country. but i wish they'd dig up those tapes of boehner going around talking about ross pro-being crazy. host: all right. thanks for watching c-span, john. want to show you this comment

on our c-span page. speaker boehner, you need to stop speaking. every time you do it's about the rich to get richer and forget about the poor and middle class and this tweet from member globalzer, i missed that up. >> bush tax cuts have not created jobs in the last years. why does boehner think they will create jobs now? >> i'm disappointed that speaker boehner would get involved with this in a public fashion. i don't think he should do that. i'm not going to do that. so i am confident that this super committee can come up with something that will stop squest ration. as to what that would be, i have opinions, but i'm certainly not going to voice them publicly. >> next call comes from judith, new york.

hello, democrat? caller: yes. seems to be that many of the callers in this morning have been hyping the whole process of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and the tax structure favoring the rich. this is no surprise, because lobbyists are doing their jobs and making sure that the politicians get re-elected. the incestuous relationship between lobbyists and politicians is going to bring this country down. so long as people get elected by begging for money from people who have interests, nothing positive will come of that. that whole system has to be revamped. there is one other tax that we are all paying right now and that is the price of gas. obviously it's not a real tax from the government, but ironically, the money is flowing into the oil companies, but you can't live a day after

day and be pumping more and more money in that car and expect that money will go into the economy and help it grow. it's all just flowing to the oil companies, and that is a very severe tax. host: from "the new york times" a new book tells of discoward in the obama team. a new book claims president obama's response was hampered by a white house economic staff play plagued by internal rivalries and a treasury secretary who dragged his feet on enforcing decisions with which he disagreed. a former wall street journal reporter quotes white house documents saying hesitate responses were are you teenly relitigated by the chairman of the national economic county critical, lawrence h. summers.

another article next to it. republicans push stop gap spending bill. last year's campaigns, republicans ripped into democrats for failing to provide money in a timely way --

host: that was from "the new york times." we're talking about speaker boehner's speech yesterday at the economic club of washington where he calls for an overhaul of the tax system. up next, garfield heights, ohio. greg, good morning, from our republican line. caller: good morning. we have to stop looking at trying to fix this problem around the edges. we need to get rid of the

income tax. we have fewer and fewer jobs trying to supply more money to washington, which isn't going to work. we need to institute the fair tax, which is a progressive tax because of the prebait feature that it has on it. which pays the poor up to the poverty level and then you start paying the -- tax to the government. so i would get rid of this. it's ar cake and from the early 20th century and doesn't fit today and i wish our politicians would seriously look at something like that. thank you. host: thank you for calling in this morning. bill beatty, one of our regular tweeters, tweets taxes must come down. we are in a world economy that is flattening. taxing more will just de moralize the middle class more. john boehner from yesterday.

here's a little more. >> we'll pass the reigns act which will pass a regulatory review for any that has a major impact on our economy. identifying dozens of job-crushing -- we'll repeal the 3% withholding rule which serves as an effective tax increase on those who do business with our government. we'll stop with federal regulations that inhibit our jobs. host: here's an email from pat in key port new jersey. tax reform is needed but it will never happen. even if the tax scode simplefied, the changes won't last. articlen, a democrat from trenton, michigan. how are you? caller: i'm good. listen, i am one of the ones

falling through the holes here in this country because of the wealthy getting wealthier and the poorer getting poorer. i drove semi trucks for six years and fell off a faulty dock plate and injured my back where i cannot work anymore, and my legs. i live on less than $700 a month because of the fact that i don't have a work history because i stayed home and raised my children which is what we were taught to do. consequently, my social security benefit is next to nothing. now they are wanting to -- they have taken five weeks of food off my table because of all this revamping that's hitting the middle and lower class. i live way below the subpoverty level and my income tax was $5,975 for the year. that is abominable in a country

that is supposed to be the richest in the world, and we are kicking our seniors and middle class and working poor right down the sewage system, which is also falling apart. mr. boehner, and i use that term loosely, mr. boehner and mr. mcconnell and the rest of those republican leaders that get their faces in every camera they can get them on and then turn around and say no, the bridge can't be -- the rich can't be taxed anymore. when i'm working as a truck drive and my tax rate is paid at 23% because i'm a single woman and the idiots that have got the money are paying nothing, they are not providing jobs. they are holding on to their cash. the lobbyists, i think lobbying needs to be disbanded in this entire country.

it is so typically unfair. the supreme court has taken a stab at the poor and middle class by creating businesses and calling them endties because they are now people. i don't know of any brick-and-mortar that can create a job or that is going to put a roof over my head when these tax cuts hit, and i'm caught in the middle and expected to live on not only less than $700 a month but less than $600 a month by the time they get done taxing. host: thank you for calling in this morning. bob tweets in, when boehner says tax reform he means entitlement reform. d.w. from seattle emails in, these calls for hyper simplyification are disingenuous given the power of lobbyists, if the rich really supported this, it would have

happened long ago. jasper, indiana, independent line. charles? all right. we're going to have to move on to el senor, delaware. john on our republican line. good morning, john. caller: good morning. i'd like to say that our country needs a fair flat tax across the board. and that entitlements in this country should pay a part of the taxes that they get their money from the taxpayers. and that maybe the politicians should pay a tax on out money they get from contributions. thank you. host: thank you for calling in. herman is a democrat. hi, herman. caller: yes, sir. i worked for 30 years and receive disability pension. from the military and social

security, but i also spend about $1,000 a year on public debt. i don't have to pay taxes but i feel like we should all pay something. secondly, i forgot what the title was, i'm too old, but basically, like i said, everybody should try to donate something to the public debt. host: herman, thank you for calling in and thank you for getting up early in california to watch the "washington journal." little bit more from speaker boehner yesterday. >> i'm not opposed to responsible spending to repair and improve our infrastructure. but i want to do it in a way that truly supports long-term economic growth and job creation. let's link the next highway

bill to an expansion of american-made energy production. removing some of the unnecessary barriers in our country from using the vast energy resources we have and also creating millions of american jobs along the way. host: from the marketplace section of the "wall street journal." loan was -- undoing, it was supposed to be an example of how private and public capital came together. instead the government loan guarantee so prized they have ultimately contributed to the company's undoing say investors with the knowledge of the company's operation. the new factory built with department of energy funds hoisted six costs on the company. what's more the debt paradoxly made raising more money difficult. once the government demanded priority in the event of

failure, private investors were less likely to prop up the company. one solyndra investor said that in retrospect, the worst thing that happened to sow lynn dray was the loan. sam, what do you think about overhauling the tax? i apologize to you. caller: first, good morning. i believe that the tax system needs to be overhauled from top to bottom by a fair panel. one that represents the american people and not the special interests. but the government or those in charge, have they realized that if they would increase the percentage of interest in our savings bonds, u.s. savings bonds, the american people would flock to try to help the american government organize itself in a way that would be beneficial for our government. america's and americans

supporting our own government for our own future. host: thank you. from the washington times, medicare premiums to drop in 2012. roles will rise. the obama administration says premiums for medicare advantage will shrink and enrollment will rise from frasming the news the new health care law won't but seniors out of the supplemental plan as feared. they expect premium costs to decline by 4% and enrollment to rise by 10% in 20 12.

host: michael in philadelphia, democrat, what do you think about overhauling the tax system? caller: oh, i think they ought to overhaul, and they got to stop following around with the politicians and big government that i are going around with all these companies giving them money and giving them money and then they close up and lose millions of dollars. they are really not helping us out. host: all right. gran barry, texas, mr. peterson. goon. caller: how are you doing, partner? host: i'm good. what's going on? caller: well, so what -- host: so what do you think about overhauling the tax

system? caller: do we? sure do. host: how would we do it? caller: i don't know. i'm not that smart, peter. host: would you be willing -- let me ask you two questions. are your taxes too high and/or would you be willing to pay for taxes to get rid of the deficit? caller: well, we don't have to pay but minimum tax anymore. caller: you're talking to two old birds here, peter. host: how are things going? caller: finally out of the heatwave of 70-plus days of straight 100 degrees. host: have you had any rain? caller: we're supposed to. host: fantastic. mr. peterson, do you pay too much in taxs? caller: no.

we are just on social security. host: so would you be willing to pay more tax? caller: no, i wouldn't. host: ok. all right. well, it's good to hear from you both. good luck with the rain down in texas. thank you for calling in. tom is a republican from fort lauderdale. good morning, tom. caller: i'm in favor of a tax overhaul, because i think it would introduce more fairness in competition between companies. companies like g.e. that pay no taxes. put anytime fair competition with other companies that do pay taxes. but i think it will be very interesting when constituents of the democratic party are affected by it. for instance, there was a bill years ago that would have taxed the large awards, the lawyers get from lawsuits. and the democrats were against

taxing their fat cat client lawyers in that case. and what about the fat cat movie industry? it will be interesting to see about the loopholes that are for that industry that are such large competitors to the democratic party. there's more than one kind of fat cat out there. and it will be interesting to see what happens in this fat cat overhaul who the democrats try to protect. thank you. host: john, democrat. you're on the air. caller: i would like to say that the so-called jobs creation -- >> you can catch all the "washington journal"s in our c-span library. we're going to take you live to the economic club hosting tom donnellan day. -- donnellan today. that is the cofounder of the economic club. he will be speaking with mr.

doneilon. >> i did a spectacular job of getting president carter reelected. that election didn't go the way we wanted it to go. tom helped him set up his post government career then went to the law school and became a head of law review. he served in the clinton administration as chief of staff to warren christopher and also assistant secretary of staff and was involved in that foreign policy operation as well. then in the obama administration he served initially as national security individualsor and about a year or gulf of oman so ago became the national security advisor as well. so he served in one of the few

people president sli a pointed to serve in the carter and clinton and obama administration. he briefs the president every morning and is the chair of the principles committee. and he thread principles committee meetings that led to the successful raid on osama bin laden and spent one day in that operation chairing that committee. he's been entry catley involved and in his spare time he has time for their two children and his wife is also the chief of staff for vice president joe biden so they know a lot about this administration. >> they at least get to see each other every once in a while. >> on campus. >> so you worked for three very

high-i.q. presidents. who was the smartest of them? [laughter] >> in staff preparation. i guess the answer to that question would be this, that one of the keys to being able to work closely in a senior advisory role with three presidents over 30 years is not answering questions like that. just answer the other basic questions. but i do think i have been privileged to work through three administrations and fairly closely with them with president carter and obama. and i am struck, david, increasingly by the burden we place on our presidents. you mentioned the bin laden operation. that's a good example. at the end of the day, that day, you mentioned we had a long principles committee meeting. the decision was made and the

president had divided council and sat at the head of the table in the situation room. our team of national security advisors were a team of prominent americans from vice president bide on the secretary clinton to then secretary gates and secretary panetta and others. and as i said, he received divided county sill. when he walked out of that room, it was on his shoulders. i was and am increasingly struck by that and struck by the fact that we have been exceedingly lucky in the -- those doing that job. >> in the bin laden matters. let me get to that if i could now. that night, the night before the president spoke at the white house correspondent's dinner yet he knew the raid was going to occur, he did a good job of hiding that these pressures were on his mind. did you have any doubt the raid

would not succeed? >> well, we had high confidence the raid could be with executed by the special forces that executed it. and stepping back on analysis, a couple of things. number one, the evidence with respect to osama bin laden being in pakistan was circumstantial. it was intense analysis and result of a lot of work that took place over two administrations. many of the same people who were working on it with president bush were working on it with us analyzing evidence. it became focused during august of 2010. and we worked it very hard. but at the end of the day, it was a circumstantial case. but it was the best evidence we had with respect to the whereabouts of osama bin laden since his getting out of tore aborja many years earlier.

so we had the best case we had had, but it was a circumstantial case. so looking at it, you said there's a slightly better chance, but to put points -- this is something -- it really is a judgment call at that point. but what the president had tremendous confidence in that goes directly to your question was the ability of the special forces to execute the mission. and that's one of the reasons he chose that option of a helicopter raid. our special forces had developed expertise through thousands of these type of operations and through the president's experience over the first 2 1/2 years to the experience he knew, through the quality of the briefing and rehearsals the special forces presented to him, what he did have was 100% confidence in the

ability of special forces to go in, secure the place in abod bod and get back. so an unclear judgment call on intelligence but a very high degree of confidence with respect to the ability of the special forces to do the operation. >> when you heard a helicopter had failed, did you relive the carter administration days and did you worry this was going to be another failed mission or have complete confidence it would succeed? >> well, in my job, i spend quite a bit of time worrying about things as you would hope, right? >> yes. [laughter] >> so you were worried? >> with respect to that specific incident, david, it had been a contingency that the special forces folks had thought about and had planned for. and the fact is is that even

when there was in the event that you mentioned, the he could that came down in the back back of the courtyard and hit a wall. i don't think that these folks missed a minute frankly. i don't think it delayed mission more than a minute and again they have tremendous adapt ability through what is really an extraordinary set of skills ands a set the united states has right now. >> the iconic photo where you're all looking at the screen, what were you actually looking at? >> i actually don't have the answer to that question. i was there for the entire day. so there were hundreds of pictures taken, but we were monitoring. >> the plan not to bring back osama bin laden alive, was that always the plan? or would you have brought him back alive if he would have simply said, i surrender? >> well, it was a military

operation against a combative enemy and a leader, the only leader. bin laden in that case did not surrender and didn't give any indication he was going to surrender. one of the hallmarks was a suicide vest and other kinds of booby trapping of the home and facilities where they work. so i think that our forces were within absolutely within their rights to take the action that they did. and indeed, because the president chose the option he chose which is the he could raid in, we were able to limit through again extraordinary efforts of the special forces, collateral damage and the protection of women and children, anyone who was not associated was protected and the actions took place against the combatants who didn't indicate any signal that they

had any thought of surrender. >> switching to gaddafi. if gaddafi is found, is the u.s. position that he should be tried in libya or tried by the international court? what would the united states prefer? >> well, again, the libyans, the libyan people would have to make the decision. i guess i'll say a couple things about that. i do think it's important that he is captured and brought to justice. i think he has shown over the course of his life that he is capable of exercising and taking actions with very negative actions including killing americans and would continue to be not a threat in terms of overturning the government, because the libyan people have clearly thrown him out but in terms of undertaking harassment and undermining the democratic government coming to libya.

so it's important to capture him, although this is not slowing down the development of the libyan government. again, with respect to the libyan people, i think with the leadership of the transitional council said was that he would capture him and turn him over to the international court. >> now sarkozy and prime minister david cameron were in libya saying they wanted to help the new government. is the united states ready to help the new government? >> yes. and we have helped. the transition national council in its effort to get to where we are today, which is a very successful outcome to date. we have been leading the effort and led the effort prior to the fall of the gaddafi government to recognize them. we have frozen under our laws here as you know, some $30 billion-plus dollars in libyan

assets. we did that immediately at the front end after it was said the president gaddafi should step down, the government undertook strong steps to freeze libyan assets and gone to the u.n. to unfreeze assets. that's an extraordinary resource to the libyan people and we will be working on that to get those assets to the libyan government. obviously we'll be working with them through the united nations in terms of their getting their government together. but it's a very big success for nato. the operation here, the president saw a potential real humanitarian catastrophe when gaddafi was threatening a town

called benghazi on the coast with 1,100,000 people. the president saw an opportunity to -- along in concert with other countries -- to protect those people. it was a well-designed approach where we decided military action could be successful. we set up that we would have guidelines and not have american boots on the ground. we wanted participation of those countries and burden-sharing. so the president worked with the leaders of nato and other countries a mission of labor and we did unique things only we could do. no other world's country could take down a country's defenses in a day.

then going to nateo in support with their very successful operation. we talked about burden-sharing for a long time and we were actually able to implement it here. >> by that logic, why not do the same in syria? >> well, they laid out the front end of the answer. there are a soviet criteria that you have to work through with respect to military action including a set of allies and partners you would work with, but also needs to be effective. syria is different than libya. >> you don't expect anything from us soon in terms of what we did with libya? >> no. we have organized an effort around the world to isolate that regime. he took a choice to representation. he had other choices in front of him. what he has done now is lost

even his neighbors who he had close relations with. turkey invested 10 years in really trying to develop a positive constructive relationship with syria, and during the last course of 45-60 days he demonstrated his commitment to recession and slaughtered people during the holy month of ramadan and rejected turkey and its efforts to seek to push him towards reform. he now has the european union last week putting in place oil and energy sanctions where 90% of their oil exports go to and succeeded in making himself a prya. >> do you think he survives? >> you can't put a time frame on it. but i don't think it will not be the governing body of that country. >> and now in egypt there's a

trial. does united states support those trilings? >> that is a decision for the people of egypt to undertake in accord with their laws. >> and do you have any gets about the way egypt was handled by the administration? sometimes people thought we were pushing him to leave. sometimes people thought we could tolerate him for a while. are you happy for the message that came out during that period? >> i think it was consistent with the set of principles we laid down in the arab world since the beginning of the year. which are these, we oppose representation and violence and we are for, and the president laid this out in his speech in may. we are forfreedom of assembly and freedom of speech and third we stand for reform, economic and political reform. i don't at all regret the way that we -- the united states handled this. i do regret this -- i regret that president mubarak did not take action sooner to be

responsive to what was going on in tahrir square. i think there were mistakes there that turned out to be tragic for him. one last thing on this question of the arab spring. obviously it's ongoing. it's very country-to-country, as we have been discussing. it is indigenously driven. obviously broader trends at work. government letting people down. communications now possible in and out of both countries which allow these movements to move forward. a couple of big strategic exacts, though. the contrast with the al qaeda. we talked about with the al qaeda narrative is really stark here. and this is a blow to the al qaeda fair narrative. the people in the tahrir square and syria and throughout the

arab world were not in any way advocating the violent really kind of no pause of agenda to al qaeda. it's also been a real blow to iran. but iran thought they were going to go take advantage of this and if you do an analysis, iran turns out to have been a very negative. >> but egypt now is forcing the israelis to close its ambassador in cairo. are you worried the impact from israel from the uprising in egypt? >> number one, the united states is absolutely committed to the security of israel. and i spend a lot of time personally on that issue. we have been de voted to ensuring israel's military end and worked on very important

projects like iron dome, protection against rocket attacks. we have very deep intelligence and security operations with this. so at the first principle of our middle east policy, israel is front and center. two, there's tremendous uncertainty along israel's borders. that's obviously the focus. the government and people of israel on working through these issues on dealing with this uncertainty. and as we work with israel on this security, the egypt security has been a pillar of -- for 30-plus years. and we have been working on both sides to try to do everything we can to preserve that. we had an incident last friday in cairo. the israeli ambassador is on an

upper floor of a high-rise building in cairo. there was general breakdown in cairo last friday of order. and those responsible for order were not enforcing it. and it migrated to the building and they started to push over a innocence and wall and threaten the israelis. we worked very hard that day and night to have egyptians meet their obligation which is the obligation of a sovereign country to protect the ambassador of another country in your country. that night we were able to evacuate the israelis who were under siege by the crowd. and we were able to do that working with the egyptian military leadership who run the country right now pending their moving to elections. we have been very clear with the egyptians on their obligations there, and they met those obligations. it was a tough scene, but

ultimately met those obligations on friday and we have also been very direct with the egyptians twropt maintaining their international agreements including their agreements with israel. flyer other issues at work right now given this slope of uncertainty, and there are multiple revolutions going on. so there's a very serious security situation going on for example that has really become difficult to handle in the wake of the events in egypt over the past six or seven months we've been focused on and asked the egyptians to be focused on resulting in the deaths of several israelis weeks ago. >> now you have a relationship with king abdullah of saudi arabia. i was told, or i read in the newspapers that he was very upset about the way we handled egypt. is that true, and is our relationship with abdullah different than before the

uprising in europe? >> well, number one, obviously there was tremendous uncertainty and tull multiin the region. they are moving towards elections. 89 important, good story in egypt. mubarak, president mubarak was as a leader long standing in the region had very close relationships in the region. it would not be the united states or any external force that led to president mubarak's having to step down. it was an indigenous eset of events. during that period, i would be less than honest if i didn't indicate there were disagreements about how the united states should go about handling that. >> disagreements within the administration? >> no. disagreements with other nations. i've said this before our con very satheses with the saudis about this were scratchy. third, i think since then,

though, i think it really had become clear to everybody in the region that these were indigenous forces and these forces were building for a long time. mistakes had been made by these leaders. i talked directly with the leadership there. i think because it is based in shared strategic interest. and i think you get past things like what happened at the beginning of this year. there's a recognition of these forces and mistakes were made in governance and other areas and they were not brought on by the united states or an exalternatively force. you reflect on these situations and these are conversations that i would have with my saudi counterparts that we have had relations for several years based on a set of interests that include the following and not having some other agent or group get involved.

we have a shared interest in counterterrorism interests and shared interest in global growth. economic growth. we have a shired interest in a secure and stable energy supply among others. so i guess to be >> yes, there were some issues at the beginning of the year. they have been worked king abdullah through king and president obama -- they have been worked through. king abdullah and president obama have a good relationship. we've reminded ourselves of the shared interests. as you know, at the end of the day, it's critical. countries do not engage with each other if it is not in their interest. >> do you see any prospect of a peace agreement between israel and palestine? >> that's an exceedingly difficult problem for us. we have pushed through during

the course of the administration quite a bit of change. we have focused on, as a principal strategic priority, renewing and restoring the united states prestige, power, and authority in the world. we were tremendously invested in iraq. there was a tremendous amount of capital spent, as well as blood and treasure. we have the global financial crisis -- we had the global financial crisis. we were dealing with all those simultaneously. president obama came into office and he sought to, and our principal effort was to restore the authority, power, and influence in the world so we can move toward addressing our national interests. that includes a lot. i will get to your question in

just a second. >> you did -- >> i assume we will not have a peace agreement between now and the end of the year. >> i think that's probably right, the end of the year. as we push through it, we obviously had a strong focus on restoring our economy, a strong focus on revitalizing alliances, which is something i would like to talk about at some point. the unique asset the united states has, focusing on the bidding partnerships with emerging powers and rebalancing our foreign policy. the drawdown in iraq, a renewed focus on asia, a tightening on our focus in an intensifying the counterterrorism efforts and focusing on the key challenges of nonproliferation. we have a lot of that down and on the right path. we have not been able to move

the middle east peace process. >> it is an difficult set of issues, choices. the president laid out in may and has done consistently his approach, which is a two-state solution. we will continue to be persistent. i cannot make any predictions. >> you mentioned iraq. how many american soldiers do you think we will have in iraq by the time of our next presidential election? will we be gone? will we keep 15,000 there? will we decide what we want to do? >> at the end of the day, iraq is a sovereign country. under the understanding that has been put in place by the bush administration and the obama administration, the united states will complete its drawdown. you're on track to do that. we had 145,000 to 150,000 when president obama came into

office. we now have about 45,000. those troops are on track to withdraw from iraq. that withdrawal will be complete by the end of the year. on the issue that you raised, like we do with countries all over the world, we will have a conversation with iraq about the nature of the security relationship we will have with them going forward in terms of the weapons systems, training and assistance, and things like that. those discussions are ongoing. bottom line, the united states is on track and will complete its withdrawal by december 31, 2011. with respect to the relationship going forward, that's a separate conversation that will take place. >> how many troops will we have in afghanistan by the time of the presidential election? >> the president -- well, when we came into office -- fewer. the afghan effort was really drifting strategically and other

resources. i don't think there's a lot of disagreement on that. that's the first presentation that i got during the transition. we looked at it very hard. we narrowed our goals down to two. that is, strategically defeating al qaeda and putting in place a security force in afghanistan and a support mechanism that would not have it fall completely to the taliban, providing operational space for a group like al qaeda. we aimed for those goals. the president announced in june, as he promised, that we will begin our drawdown. by the end of this year -- by the end of next summer -- september of 2012, we will have fully recovered the surge troops. 10,000 of those will come out this year. an additional 23,000 will come out next year.

at that point, there will be between 65,000 and 68,000 american troops in afghanistan. we will then set a pace from then -- the president's speech on this was very clear. we will continue a pace of withdrawal in afghanistan aiming toward 2014, when we will completely turned over the security lead to the afghans and the united states remaining force that will be basically focused on counterterrorism. >> you sit in meetings all the time with three people who ran against each other. obama, joe biden, and hillary clinton. what are those meetings like? >> as you said, i have to share these meetings. i have to be careful of my characterization. bottom line, there is one president. as you know, there is a sense

around the president of the fact that he represents over 300 million americans every day and makes these decisions. the president is obviously the leader of the group. now, these are not shy people with the rest of our group. it is a group of very experienced people, of people who express their opinions very forcefully. i want to say a couple of things. you mentioned the bin laden raid earlier. as i mentioned, we have had our first real focus on the task force -- a task in 2010 did we had 24 interagency meetings on this topic, leading up to the raid. we have half a dozen principal

committee meetings in the four or five weeks before the raid and there was not a leak. i think that really speaks well, obviously, of the commitment and seriousness of the group the president put together. robust debate, david. these are deeply experienced public leaders to bring a lot of experience to the table, but a real sense of trust. at the end of the day, the president's makes good decisions -- the president makes the decisions. we put in place a system and a process which i think has been really essential to our success in the foreign-policy and national-security side. have these elements. one process, the national security council process -- not competing processes. there were not back doors into the president. one process.

everybody sign up at the beginning. two, the decisions made would be executed by this group faithfully. 3, when you came to the table, you came to the table with a view. four, that decisions -- you have run large organizations. it's very important that the results of each meeting would be published in writing in 24 hours so that people could see but their assignments were and they could object, so there's absolute clarity. we also fully integrated the vice-president's national security team and our national security team. it is fully integrated. the system is robust. >> is that in contrast to other administrations? >> i just described the administration that we built.

i think it is important. i will tell you this. the system that we built is based expressly on our study of the gates model in the bush 41 administration. >> if you were to pick any person to be a role model for the ideal national security adviser, who would that be? >> that's a difficult question. each national security adviser serbs in the function or the manner the president wants him to serve. there are different approaches. i wanted to say something about national security policies generally. there really is a community of people in national security who have been in these jobs who understand them and work with each other across party lines. i get tremendous support from my

republican predecessors. i am in touch with them quite regularly and get very good advice. frankly, i wish we had the same sense of community and bipartisanship on the political side. >> there really is a sense of, you know, i've been there. i know what you are dealing with. i disagree with you on some policy issues, no doubt, but at the end of the day, we are all about protecting the country. i see these folks quite regularly. there's a community of interest s on the national security side. you ask about models. there are different models. in terms of process management, i do think -- i have studied these fairly carefully over the years. i do think that there's one person who has had the job twice and did put in place the

committee system in the late 1980's that we follow today. on the policy development side, -- again, dr. kissinger is a master of policy development and i have learned a lot from talking to him. it really is unusual. until you get there, it's an unusual community of interests. lots of disagreements about policy, but a lot of mutual support. i'm very grateful to my predecessors on both sides of the aisle. >> do you brief the former presidents of the united states? >> i have not. i am in regular touch with my predecessors. there may be specific issues a former president asked to be briefed on.

i will do that. sometimes there are projects we ask former presidents to undertake. there are a couple of examples. we work very closely with president clinton on his trip to north korea -- you will recall, to get back two young journalists who had been kidnapped in north korea. we worked very closely together with him on designing that trip and working through various aspects of it. we have done that. we have worked with president bush 43 on the haiti relief effort. the direct answer is it is project oriented. >> you've had two careers in government service. you have also been involved in

presidential campaigns. you have briefed president's for debate. you have briefed every president -- you helped president obama with his debate preparations. when you are in the oval office with the president and nobody else is around, does he ask what your political advice is? does he ever ask you any political questions? >> before i got deeply involved in foreign policy, if you looked at my political record, you probably would not spend a lot of time asking me about political advice. [laughter] in all seriousness, i got to spend quite a bit of time with president obama during the debate preparation. >> was he easy to prepare for debate compared to the other candidates? >> the last two that i prepared became president. they were pretty good at this.

you know, tremendous communicators, obviously, with president clinton and president obama. on the question you asked directly, i do not have political conversations with the president. >> given your political experience, you don't think he -- >> frankly, to be totally honest with you, i think that the work we have to do together fills up more than the time we have together. >> can you explain what it means to be briefing the president every morning? you tell him things that are not in the newspapers and nobody else knows. who else knows? what time does it occur and how long does it last? >> it occurs at 9:00 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. in the morning. the people who take part in this are the president, the vice president -- two principal

people. we will have intelligence come in, led by general clabber or a briefer -- general clapper or a briefer. david petraeus of the cia or one of the others. that takes place. then we will have a policy briefing that i would lead to we will have analysis of the intelligence, the implications, and then the three or four most important things going on in the world that day. there may be three or four decisions we want to come up with. the principal people who do this -- the head of the intelligence services, myself, the vice

president of the national security adviser, and that's the core group that meets every morning. i think it is a very efficient way. last between 30 minutes and 40 minutes every morning. it is an efficient way to have a conversation every morning and focus on the key issues in front of the president and the country. >> does the president prepared -- does the president prefer to read things or to be orally briefed? >> with respect to that, the president has read all the materials before. different presidents and do it different ways. some presidents prefer to have it presented orally and to have the book handed to them of key items. president obama has read everything that was prepared for the morning before we go in. we work from there. if you briefed on things that

are in the newspaper, it's not going to be a long career. we've had trade agreements with korea and colombia. do you think you can get those through this year? >> with respect to the free trade agreements, copper -- with respect to the free trade agreements, and there are three that are ready to go that have been negotiated and are ready for submission. i expect them to pass this fall. we would like to see them passed this fall. korea, panama, and colombia. they're very important. this would be the largest free- trade agreement by the united states since nafta. it is critical to creating jobs.

it's critical to integrating our self into the biggest economical -- if we do not do these, we will be excluded from the opportunity. it's important for our export industry and important for the creation of jobs. it is critically important for the kinds of efforts i described earlier in terms of rebouncing. when we came into office, you get the opportunity to ask yourself the following question. where are we over invested? where are we under invested? it was our judgment at the start of the administration that we were underweighted in asia. secretary clinton took her first trip as secretary of state to asia at the beginning of the administration.

that is the first time this has taken place since the unrest -- place since dean rusk in the kennedy administration. we have been focused on building. i think we've done a very good job at revitalizing the alliances. we have people here from japan, which are the core of our efforts out there. >> pretty good shape with china? >> an enormously complicated question. >> in 30 seconds. [laughter] >> are there any issues, ambassador? [laughter] as part of our -- again, the ambassadors are in deep experts.

at the start of the administration, we decided we wanted to increase our focus on asia. part of that, obviously, has to be china, but it was part of our overall strategic focus on maintaining great relationships. you have your great power relationships in a good place -- it is a platform from which you can work to attack problems. if they are not in a decent place, it becomes exceedingly problematic in terms of attacking problems. we have focused very tightly on improving our great power relationships. we have worked very hard with the russian federation on improving their relationship. part of that is china. we have spent an enormous amount of time focused on china. we have engaged in an intensive way. president obama and president hu

jintao have had nine face-to- face meetings. we continue to have dialogue. we continue to integrate china three we have been pressing with china on business practices and other things -- to integrate china. we have been pressing with china on business practices and other things that are important to us. i think the relationship with china has been fairly productive and constructive. i think it is in a fairly good place, but there are always a lot of challenges. >> time for one more question. my question is, what is it that keeps you up at night? what's the single greatest were you have s national security adviser with the things you have to face? >> we have a lot. we have challenges. you know, economic recovery is critical. the president said in a speech

last year that history does not really allow for a country to maintain its place without maintaining its economy. revitalizing our economy is absolutely crucial. focus onid, everyda day the safety and security of the men and women we have abroad and in war zones. i do focus and worry every day about our homeland security and terror threats. we have made tremendous progress. we have a situation with respect to al qaeda. we judged at the end of 2010 that al qaeda was in the worst shape. we took a big blow against them. we've taken a number of steps against them since the osama bin laden operation till it is still

a threat. in general, you worry about the dispersion of the means of violence -- technology. that's why the nonproliferation agenda is so important. >> if there is a second term for president obama, will you stay as national security adviser? >> i would say two things about that. i would argue with the if and when argument. secondly, that is up to the president. it is a privilege to serve. we have a great team. if you are in my position and you look down the table every day and uc vice president joe biden, secretary clinton, david petraeus, it's a privilege to go to work every day. >> you're obviously very articulate. i appreciate you doing this. whenever you have the national security adviser for an

hour, hoping nothing terrible has happened in that hour. [applause] this is a map of the district of columbia. this is the original district of columbia. thank you very much. thank you very much. appreciate it. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> you can see all of this event later on our program schedule

and any time at c-spanvideo.org. >> in an election marred by a moral scandal and political corruption, and james blaine lost, but he changed political history. he's one of the 14 men featured in "the contenders." tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. learn more about the series at c-span.org/thecontenders. >> the best-selling author of "a beautiful mind" talks about her latest book on economics. she is interviewed by "the financial times" editor on "after words." we will also continue our interviews as we talk with

professors from george washington university about their latest books. author, a filmmaker, and political activist michael moore talks about his life. he will also be our guest next month on "in depth." get the complete weekend schedule at booktv.org. >> this c-span networks, we provide coverage of politics, nonfiction books, and american history. this month, look for congress to continual -- to continue federal spending to keep tabs on the deficit committee and follow the presidential candidates as they continue to campaign across the country. it's all available to you on television, radio, online, and social media sites.

search any time with c-span's video library. we are on the road with the digital bus. it is washington, your way. the c-span networks, created by cable, provided as a public service. >> on this constitution day, a reminder that our new studentcam competition is under way. the topic, the constitution and you. you can get all the details now at studentcam.org. >> the new cia director, david petraeus, told congress today that while the country is safer 10 years after the september 11 attacks, al qaeda and its supporters worldwide remain a major threat. presence inqaeda's yemen. he was joined by james clapper

at a joint committee meeting. >> the committee will come to order. we thank our distinguished guests for being here today. with all of your great service to the country, please know americans are grateful for your continued service to the united states. i want to thank senator feinstein. we have had a great working relationship over the course of both of our chairmanships. this is the first time this committee has done a joint hearing in about 10 years. as some have said, the band is back together. we hope to do more to help the public understand and support the work of the intelligence community. with that, i will go ahead with

my opening statement and i will turn it over to senator feinstein from there. in the course of three years, the united states suffered september 11, 2001 -- in a daring, surprising attack, 19 al qaeda terrorists penetrated the nation's security, hijacked four airplanes, and caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 americans. not long after the 9/11 attacks, another massive intelligence failure occurred. the assessment of weapons of mass destruction in iraq was repudiated. in response, the congress and the president's enactment of a director of national intelligence and a national counterterrorism center constitutes the boldest strike at the reform of our national security infrastructure since and after world war ii -- when the defense department and cia were created to prevent a repeat of pearl harbor. as a result of 9/11 an iraq, -- 9/11 and iraq we've learned valuable lessons about our intelligence system, including the importance of information

sharing across intelligence agencies, the dangers of group- think, and an unwillingness to challenge conventional thinking, the critical need for addressing human intelligence to steal secrets, and the dangers of under-investing in our national security, as we did in the decade prior to 9/11. above all, we have learned, in the new world we face, intelligence is more important than at any other time in our history. in the cold war, in a sense, the job of intelligence was easier. we had a static enemy in the soviet union. we could train our satellites to stare at soviet armaments -- to foretell of any trouble. today, our national security threats are characterized by their diversity. terrorist groups that operate in the shadows of society across the globe and networks that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. authoritarian nation states practicing deception. a self-radicalizing, so-called homegrown terrorists.

this broad array of threats makes the mission more important than ever. the relationship is most important in the united states intelligence community. we have seen tremendous innovations and successes over the last 10 years. good intelligence has helped thwart attacks, taking terrorists of the battlefield, and led to the takedown of osama bin laden. the successes were attributed to sufficient funding, attention from the white house, and also the integration of all the instruments against the target. it enabled the repetition of these successes as we go forward. dni should allow greater flexibility. amidst debates on whether the dni is a leader or a court nader, i offer a new model.

should be in in a blurb. this means challenging fundamental assumptions, and at times, getting a side -- at times, it could mean standing alive. the dominant characteristic of the enemy -- they are in state of constant in evolution. in the years after 9/11, we hear al qaeda was only interested in large-scale events like 9/11. now we seem to be facing somewhat smaller scale tactics, like truck bombs and bombs on airplanes. we have heard there was a debate within al qaeda on whether the focus on attacks against the u.s. or to hold territory. elements of al qaeda now seem to be in control of parts of yemen. there's debate about the leadership. -- ofoticed some comments

great concern and may indicate some complacency that lies ahead. i've seen numerous suggestions lately that the threat from terrorism has significantly waned and that the terrorists could be near defeat. this is a dangerous assumption. the changes remind us of the need to challenge fundamental assumptions and to be flexible and nimble as we move forward. we want to help you meet these threats and address these issues. in the first meeting since our joint investigation into the 9/11 attacks. it's evident of a partnership between our communities and the vibrant oversight we intend to exercise over the intelligence community. because we asked the intelligence community to do dangerous things in strict secrecy, and the relationship of these committees is critically important. in that spirit of cooperation, i welcome the witnesses and recognize my colleague, senator dianne feinstein. >> thank you very much, mr.

chairman. it is really a special thing for us to be in the house and see these most palatial quarters. in the senate, we worked in a much more humble way. >> can i quote you? >> you may. i am pleased to join you and have our committees meet together since the first time since the 2002 joint inquiry into the attacks of september 11. i also congratulate you fun house passage of the fy-12 bill. thank you. i look forward to senate action and enactment of the third straight intelligence bill after a six-year highest -- six-year hiatus. i would like to welcome our witnesses, director clapper and director petraeus.

i believe important and substantial progress has been made in the united states intelligence collection and analysis in the last 10 years. we are often ask the question -- asked the question, are we safer today? i believe the answer is yes. this is not to say that terrorist attacks can always be stopped. it is to say that the intelligence world has learned and adapted to the challenge. stovepipes are down. intelligence is shared and streamlined in ways in never was before 9/11. the intelligence community learned of a new threat around the 10th anniversary of 9/11. that information was shared throughout the intelligence committee, with the congress, with the fbi, and the department of homeland security to take protective measures -- and with state and local governments. this was all within about one

day. that is real progress. i cannot detail the efforts here. intractable problems have been overcome to produce key information to policy makers. we have had some real counterterrorism successes. we witnessed the takedown of counterterrorism and the high number of al qaeda leaders killed or captured recently. in fact, more than 1/2 of al qaeda's top leadership has been eliminated, according to john brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. consider the following aqi leaders killed since last summer. osama bin laden, one of al qaeda's most dangerous commanders reportedly killed,

and the al qaeda -- the number 3 al qaeda leader killed. leader of aq in east africa and the mastermind of the 1998 bombings -- killed by security forces. all told, over the past two and half years, virtually every major al qaeda affiliate has lost a key leader or operational commander. more key, al qaeda leaders have been eliminated in rapid succession since any time since 9/11. other post 9/11 reforms include a new counterterrorism focus at the fbi. .e call them jttf's

they have grown from 35 to 104 around the country. the number of jttf personnel has increased from approximately 1000 before 9/11 to nearly 4500 today. the department of homeland security was established after 9/11 and it has developed its own intelligence components. there are now 72 fusion centers around the country to serve as the focal points for the receipt, analysis, and sharing of threat related information with state and local authorities. in the congress, both house and senate intelligence committees are working together and are now completing work on our third authorization bill in a row after a six-year hiatus, during which no intelligence authorization bills were enacted. vice chairman chambliss and i work closely together, as do our

staff. i trust him. he is straight forward. we discussed virtually everything. i know the same goes for the gypsy. that's the way i believe it should be. unfortunately, as our intelligence committee has made improvements, the terrorist threat has also changed. instead of fighting one enemy, al qaeda has dispersed. its affiliates have emerged in iraq, yemen, somalia, and north africa. there's a metastasizing set of groups in afghanistan and pakistan intent on terrorist attacks and violence against the united states forces, including the pakistani taliban and haqqani network. they have learned ways to evade surveillance and have developed ways to attack that are

difficult to defend against. this includes explosives that can be concealed within a body or in a package that are difficult to detect. we know terrorist groups are interested in attacks using weapons of mass destruction, which we cannot allow to happen. we must continue to improve and adapted an to do so at the same speed as small, nimble terrorist cells. we welcome the first public appearance of the new cia director, retired general david petraeus, who was one of america's very best. i read his biography last night and i did not know anyone really could accomplish as much as he has. he is noted for this outstanding service and most recently, his service in afghanistan, iraq, and at central command.

i would expect that director petraeus will in the coming weeks be reviewing the cia's mission in collaboration with clapper. it's important that you are approaching this relationship as positively and productively as you are. i would hope your review would include the following. continuing to increase human collection on hard targets, and continued improvement we have made to analysis. decreasing the number of contractors. continuing to improve language ability in those key areas -- needed to understand what's going on in key parts of the world today. the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of contractors were hired as a matter of convenience and for

their expertise. contractors were tasked to conduct intelligence operations, collection, exploitation, and analysis. all are critical tasks for the intelligence community and include inherently governmental functions that should be done by government employees at 2/3 less cost per employee. the office of the dni recently reported that for the fiscal year 2010, contractors accounted for 23% of the total ic human capital work force, down only 1% from a year before. the overall number of contractors is in the tens of thousands. the numbers across intelligence, defense, and homeland security is in the hundreds of thousands. we had an agreement in 2009 to reduce ic contractor numbers by

5% per year. it is clear that progress has not been maintained and sufficient cuts are not being made. we have seen moderate progress in improving overall language capability in robust -- in the last two years. of the several thousand military and ic positions that require foreign language skills, only about a half of the self assess requirements are being met by an individual with sufficient language proficiency. we must do better. we review sensitive programs across the ic to make sure we understand what is going on, that operations are carefully carried out, and are legal and effective. i am pleased to say that in almost all cases, we are fully satisfied. of most of the past two years,

the intelligence community has conducted extensive oversight of certain critical aspects of the country's counterterrorism efforts, especially along the afghanistan-pakistan border. these efforts are notable for their precision, effectiveness, and the care taken to ensure that noncombatant casualties are kept to an absolute minimum. there are a number of areas we've made progress since 9/11 to make the nation's safer. there are also issues that we need to continue to work on. hopefully, we can do that a cooperative leave with the intelligence community and the entire executive branch. gentlemen, my own view is a great deal of substantial, positive progress has been made. i thank you and all who worked for your communities.

i look forward to your testimonies. let me turn it to representative ruppersberger. >> i want to echo my colleagues and remember those who lost their lives and family members and first responders. it was a day that changed our lives forever. i have served the intelligence committee for the last nine years. i believe it is our responsibility to give intelligence professionals the resources, capabilities, and authorities they need to keep us safe and prevent another 9/11. thank you for testifying here today. director clapper, you have expertise in many national security areas. we can always depend on you to tell it like it is. director petraeus, you have a great reputation for service to your country. you have a unique perspective. your tremendous leadership in the military will bode us all

very well in your new role. i would like to thank the senate intelligence committee for agreeing to this joint hearing. my good friend, the chairman of the committee, chairman rogers and i have met with senator feinstein and senator chambliss. it's important that we communicate and do the best we can to continue to have the best intelligence operations in the world. the passage in the house represents a true bipartisan spirit. we must have this to meet our responsibilities to the nation and the intelligence community in our role of conducting effective oversight. it was ta good bipartisan product. we have a great staff. when democrats and republicans can find common ground, it's a big story. the chairman and i did a lot of work this summer working on the bill. we were on the hill the day of the earthquake.

15 minutes before the earthquake, we agreed to what was going to go in the budget. when we came outside, everyone was coming out of the building. when a republican and democrat can agree, the earth shakes. we're here to review. i applaud the work that has already been done and acknowledge that today. intelligence sharing, working together as a team in missions like the osama bin laden raid, and breaking apart stovepipes within the community. i want to talk about the incredible work that has been done to facilitate these changes. advances in technology have progressed at an amazing rate in the last decade. this allows the intelligence community to collect large amounts of information, but also brings the challenge of analyzing and finding a needle in the haystack. new software systems help sort out the unimportant facts to

key data that can save lives. the intelligence community has found technological roadblocks that do not address the way information is sent today. congress needs to help the community get through them while protecting privacy and civil liberties. we cannot fall behind. fighting new threats and the explosion of new technology requires our community to adapt and remain agile. we must continue to strike the right balance between investment, research, and development for the war of tomorrow while continuing to fight the war of today. the great issue for me is cybersecurity. i believe more progress needs to be made protecting our critical infrastructure and our nation's secrets. our corporate intellectual property is stolen every day. our ideas are ending up in

foreign products. we can also see the potential damage a sovereign attack can cause, like just recently in south korea, where the banking system was shut down. critical investment data was lost. we have long warned that an attack like this on the united states could have a devastating, long-term impact on our economy. i am encouraged to see that we're making progress. we have a new committee under the leadership of general alexander that leverages the brainpower of the national security agency. we also have an ongoing pilot program with the defense industrial base that shows progress for collaborative cyber-defense. the president said last week we continue to invest in education, science, technology, engineering, math, which will be the key to keeping us on the cutting edge. today, i hope you will comment on our progress against cyber threats and the direction

forward in this arena. finally, i would like to hear about how you both are continuing the progress of reforms after 9/11 to deal with future threats we might not even contemplate today. as i have said, i believe we should have an agile intelligence community, one that can adapt and remained ahead of nation states. have we learned enough? 10-years after terrorists attacked our nation, do we think about the next attack? do we have enough investment in research and development? the united states of america deserves nothing less. >> thank you, mr. ruppersberger. he has been a great partner. as you said, this is exactly the way it is supposed to be. another good friend of mine, mr. chambliss. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. it's good to be back on this side.

as a member of the last endeavor, i am very pleased to be here today with my good friend and my chairman, senator feinstein, and to publicly show the spirit and attitude that we now have. the four of us might have met a number of times to make sure we do the parallel oversight that needs to be done within the intelligence community. i want to thank our witnesses for being here today. i have known both of them for a very long time in a different capacity when they both wore the ofform of ththe united states america. director petraeus, since this is your first hearing as a civilian to testify before this joint committee, we welcome you today. we welcome you to the community.

obviously, you are certainly no stranger to any of us. it is kind of unusual to see you sitting there without a uniform on. we're pleased to have you where you are. to both of you, just thanks for joining us 10 years after the september 11 attacks. we extend a special thanks to the men and women of our military and the intelligence community who worked so hard every day. as our nation -- we are reminded of the lives lost and of the sacrifices made by so many to protect and defend this country. we all share the resolve that the sacrifices will not be in vain. we have made significant progress since 9/11. i concur with the comments made by the chairman.

the operation against osama bin laden was a great success, especially in terms of cooperation between our military and the intelligence community. we have seen amazing improvements in our ability to go on the offensive against terrorists. our counterterrorism analysis and collection has greatly improved. more information is being shared, especially between the cia and the fbi, which has made huge strides in transitioning to a full member of the intelligence community. as we look back over the last 10 years, there have been failures, as well, including the attempted christmas day bombing of northwest flight 253 and the attempted bombing in times square. these attacks remind us that more work needs to be done and that we must be vigilant and resist complacency. the stovepipes we worked so hard to break down cannot be permitted to slow the build up again. congress created the national counterterrorism center to lead

the fight against terrorism. still struggles to get access to some government information that could be used to identify terrorists. congress itself has given little insight into the'executive s counterterrorism strategy and spending. the lack of visibility is troubling, given the friday of threats and budget realities we face. we must make sure that our policies and laws promote the most effective counterterrorism operations, not those that are most politically expedient. the administration remains intent on closing guantanamo bay, even as we remain without a facility for long-term detention and questioning of terrorists, and even as the recidivism rate among former detainees continues to rise. given my concerns about these detainee's, i was pleased that the bill included several provisions to improve detainee

oversight. one of which requires documents related to the transfer of the guantanamo detainees. i believe this must be a part of any final bill, unless the the administration moves quickly to work with the committee on a reasonable alternative accommodation. congress has worked to do, as well. we must put an end to the repeated sunsets in the u.s. patriot act. our intelligence collectors need certainty, not short-term extensions that do little for oversight. each public debate about sensitive authorities raises the risk that our enemies will change their methods to defeat our surveillance. that's a gamble we should no longer take. gentlemen, thank you to you both for your continued willingness to serve our country. to my good friend, chairman rogers, thank you very much. thank you, chairman feinstein,

for convening this hearing today. >> thank you, senator chambliss. with that, we will turn it to director clapper for an opening statement. >> thank you. chairman feinstein, chairman chambliss, members of both committees, thank you for convening this hearing today and for the essential oversight. as i must say, the last time you have such a joint hearing, i was one of many witnesses in the 2002 time frame in another capacity. i am honored to prepare -- honored to appear before you and the american people. in my view, this nation, the intelligence community, the cia, and myself are all extremely fortunate