materials. it includes the quantities themselves, the number of sites, and whether or not the quantities are increasing or decreasing. this is important because it affects the overall potential for theft in a particular country. the second category are the security and control measures. this includes the specific physical protection measures, accounting practices, and whether or not security personnel are screened. these actions directly affect security of materials at a given site. the third category is what we have called global norms. it includes the relevant international legal agreements, voluntary commitments, and the level of transparency shown by a country. country takes its security obligations. the fourth category is

commitment and capacity. this is about the national level of implementation, whether it has an independent regulatory agency that oversees the security practices in this area. the national level implementation is required for an effective security program. the fifth and final category of what we call -- are what we call societal factors. it includes the level of corruption in the country as well as its political stability among other things. these measures provide an important backdrop to specific security practices that may be in place. taken together, these five categories comprise what we call a country's nuclear material security conditions. a brief court about the scope of this project. the scope of this inaugural index is weapons usable nuclear materials, specifically highly enriched uranium stripper -- highly enriched uranium, separated plutonium. it does not include low and risk uranium as is used in a

nuclear power industry. finally, countries with less than 1 kilogram of these weapons usable material or even known materials were evaluated against the subset categories in order to address -- i know this is charged maybe a , but shownlt to riead here are the overall scores and rankings for the 32 countries with greater than 1 kilogram of weapons usable materials.

let me briefly review these six columns. on the far left is the column shows the overall rankings and scores for these countries. the five columns on the right show these scores and rankings in the individual categories, starting with quantities and then the security and control measures, global norms, capacity, and the societal factors. recall that these five categories on the right contribute to the overall score based on the relative priority is determined by nit and eiu in conjunction with the international panel of experts. we will not take the time here to comment on individual rankings. what we would like to do is call your attention to a couple of examples to help you better understand the index.

australia is the top ranks country, ranked sixth or higher in every category, benefiting from small quantities of nuclear materials, strong societal factors, and high scores in the other categories as well. for the other top-rank countries as well, consistently high scores in all -- top-ranked countries as well, consistently high scores in all categories. the united kingdom is lowered to 10th overall by its large quantities of weapons usable nuclear materials that are a legacy of the cold war and the fact that the quantities of these materials are increasing, particularly in the civilian sector. if the quantities of nuclear materials in the number of sites were not included, as an example, the united kingdom would rank fourth overall. there is a similar situation for the united states. the united states is ranked 13th

overall, but the quantities insights were not -- but if quantities in sites were not included, it would rank sixth. in the global norms category, the united states has yet to ratify two global treaties. this most directly affects of the scores and what we call the global market category. for example, if india were as transparent as the united kingdom, its rank in the global arms category would move from 26th to sixth overall. a purple levels of transparency are critical because co independent of the posture on the ground, it affects the

international conference in the country's nuclear conditions. finally, for the lowest ranked countries, the index shows that these countries, with the exception of the material sites territory, generally have low scores in most, if not all, the indicated categories. it provides many of these countries many opportunities to improve conditions. let me transition to my colleague who will present the findings and the recommendations of the index. >> let me share with you today a selection of our key findings and recommendations. one of the feet -- one of the key findings is that governments have become more aware of the threats and the need to combat it. but there are far more troubling findings. for instance, although there is agreement about the importance of nuclear material security, there is no consensus about what

priorities should be for achieving security. furthermore, there is no agreed international system or global it acceptable practices for regulating the production of, the use of, and security requirements for weapons usable materials. you might think that this is a job already done by the international atomic energy agency. but it only has the authority to oversee materials in civilian programs and not the materials used for military purposes. as such, it does not have the mandate or the resources to oversee a comprehensive system covering weapons usable material. instead, we have implicitly part of the system that we need to tackle this problem. another finding is that a deliver lack of transparency makes it very difficult to hold states accountable. many should be protected so that

they do not become a road map for terrorists. but other information could and should be made public to build international confidence. i will address exactly what we're recommending later on. also worrying is that several states are particularly true cyber threats, either a cracker disgruntled worker -- either a corrupt or disgruntled worker accessing information. of those countries, several also scored poorly on the prospect of political instability over the next two years. the combination of those two factors significantly increases the risk that nuclear materials may be stolen with help from corrupt insiders or in the midst of government destruction or political chaos. finally, the index also revealed that the stocks of weapons usable materials continues to increase in certain countries.

coal stocks in japan and the united kingdom are increasing because -- total stocks in japan and the united kingdom are increasing because of civilian use. -- theree no illegal burial are no legal barriers. there are, however, a few other states that produce plutonium. because of the use of it as fuel in civilian reactors, their current material inventories are largely static. despite some positive developments, these findings underscore the need for urgent action. no state can address this threat alone. all states have the responsibility to work both individually and cooperative labor and specifically, governments must worth -- must work together to create the condition and system for tracking and managing these deadly materials.

done right, such a system could ensure all of us that each state is fulfilling its security obligation. in parallel, there are also steps that countries must take by themselves and without delay. let's first turned to how to create the foundation of a global material security system. how would we go about doing that? we must begin a dialogue that leads to a much needed global security. the summit process has the potential for being the right and possibly only forum for this discussion. our hope is that leaders at the next summit commit to an ongoing process to come to agreement about what actions matter most. additionally, there should be sustainable and effective way for benchmarking progress and holding states accountable to their obligations. our hope is that the nci index is a starting point and -- that the nti index is a starting

point. to that end, states must enact greater transparency practices, which would in foster greater confidence. three specific actions for government -- first, they should publish and provide access to their nuclear materials regulations. currently, 13 out of the 32 states with weapons usable material published both their regulations and an annual report. governments can and should do far better than this. second, they should declare their nuclear material inventory. again, there is no legal requirement for states to declare how much material that have for civilian or military purpose. however, nine states have voluntarily declared their civilian plutonium holdings and history for the u.k. and the u.s. military programs have been made public. more nuclear weapons states should do the same. finally, they should invite regular.

you, which is a service provided by the iaea for facilities that action contain weapons usable material. in parallel, with these collective efforts, there are several actions that states can take individually to improve their stewardship of weapons usable material. for instance, all states should stop increasing their stock of materials, particularly for military purposes. over time, those stocks should be reduced to the lowest possible levels commensurate with civilian energy or scientific needs. one of the best ways to objectively measure progress is to eliminate completely weapons usable nuclear material in as many states as possible. over the past two decades in 19 countries, the heavy limited their materials, including 14 states that have less than 1 kg. in many states, but not all of the state, they could be good candidates for the limited in their stocks in the next two

years. we should look to the 2012 nuclear security summit to see which commit to the cleanup of their materials. wilson know that two of the most important step -- we also know that two of the most important steps is to decrease levels of corruption and ensure political stability. the prescriptions for these issues are beyond the scope of this project. but we do emphasize steps for strengthening security and control measures, including physical protection, controlled accounting, and personnel measures at facilities. this are the first defense against the insider threat. today, there is no agreed-for a sign for control measures and place for all materials including plutonium. in the interest of time, i will now review each of our

recommendations, which are spelled out in more detail in our report. instead, i will focus on one last one. that is to target assessments to states that need help. the index has helped to easily identify 18 states that have provided financial regulatory or security systems on a bilateral or multi-lateral basis in the last two years. the index also identifies states that may be in need of assistance. our hope is that the knicks can be used as a resource to match those -- rope is that the index can be used as a researcresourc. no matter if a state is market the bottom or the top of the list, all states can do things to improve. page will walk you briefly through more. >> very briefly, let me highlight a few features on the web site. the web site is www.nti

index.org. you'll find electronic versions of the report. you will find downloadable versions of the model, the excel spreadsheet has the complete functionality. in addition, you'll find all of the most frequently used features on the web site itself. there are the overall rankings and scores as shown on the projector. the next slide will show an example of a country profile. there are specific pages that detail how each country did on all the indicators themselves. finally, there is a function where the user can change the relative priority is to let the user engage with the index to see how the scores and rankings change as a function of the relative priorities of the specific categories indicators. so please explore the website for access to all of these features. at this point, i think we will

take questions and answers. >> ok. thank you, leo and page and the tee. we will now have questions and answers. back on the back left. if you want to directed to a particular individual, do so. if not, we will feel it among ourselves. >> perhaps you could say why the countries lie at the bottom 32. >> the countries at the bottom? " yes. i know that objective standards are there. but what are the common characteristics which need repair? maybe you could talk about that little bit. i am curious to know whether any of the countries that lie at the bottom of the laws are among those countries that sought to get briefed by you or whether

they have ignored the results of your work or the fact that the work was in progress. thank you. >> if you're done your suspicions, i suspect they would all be correct. there is certainly a relationship between those at the bottom and, generally speaking, those that did not accept the briefings or have anywhere near full cooperation. i will defer my colleagues. i would say that the corruption, as has been mentioned, instability, those are two factors and the lack of transparency. if i had to sit with the three factors are, depending on which country, they vary. but those to be the three that would be the most prominent. >> let me briefly field your final question first appeared in terms of countries that agreed to meet with us, 28 of the 32 did, including many that rank very near the bottom. we were pleased to see that so

many were willing to meet with us. but i would second what senator nunn said. there are a number crosscutting themes, certainly in the transparency, not participating in a full range of what we call global norms, be they legal agreements or political agreements, and that has been coupled with sometimes very challenging levels of corruption and low political stability. so those things came together for those countries and resulted in them being right at the bottom of the index. >> i am not quite sure, senator nunn, whether it would be your one of the experts said. looking at all of the things you collected, there have been scattered reports or reviews that terrorists have some type of access or could be holding materials, not using it yet. is there anything you found in this research that does help to clarify that, whether any

terrorist organization has something that could be very serious? >> there have been a series of recent articles talking about what happened in terms of the last 20 years. there is a lot that has been done that has prevented weapons of mass destruction from spreading. we have had teams of u.s. and russian experts working together, military-military, lab-to-lab. we have had coronation among a number of countries in helping the former soviet union get control of their materials. khazikstan has taken the lead in this effort. khazikstan and belarus give up all their nuclear weapons. most people do not know about the fact that 10% of the electricity in this country comes from nuclear material that was only in weapons pointed at us from russia, ukraine, and others in the form of the soviet

union. then% of hours -- 10% of our energy is from this uranium. that comes from the dismantling. so a lot has been done. so whether there is material out there that nobody knows about, it is always possible. i would put it in the questionable or the assumption that terrorists had nuclear material, if they had a, they would try to use it. and it would use it as soon as they could build a weapon. building a weapon is not a piece of cake. but the hardest part is getting the material. so our operating premise has always been that protective material is the number one way to protect ourselves.

there is certainly a material out there, inventories, but hopefully this would be a dialogue that would lead to a baseline about how much nuclear material there is. if there is no inventory, no base line, it is hard to know when something is missing. that is part of this whole process. >> david? >> i have a couple of questions. one is a big picture question. president obama has promised a global cleanout in four years. i realize he is using different criteria. he has promised to lockdown vulnerable materials in four years. but does the work in this index give you an insight into whether he is getting close to that is he going to meet that goal? and a second question is more of a logical question.

it was very valuable because it was specific and pointed out quantities and locations and at least looked back at the last couple of years at the events, like the ones in south africa, for example. i am looking for a different kind of analysis that does not have that kind of data in its. i wonder why you feel that this is -- why you have shifted to this type of analysis. >> my answer on the second question, why we shifted to this kind of analysis, matt blunt, who help us do the securing the bomb report, was very much a part of our expert panel. we felt we needed a deeper job and we needed to let countries know what they could do to improve specifically, country- by-country, more than generically, which was the general approach. also, that effort started with a focus primarily on the former soviet union.

there are still problems, as you well know. but it is much more of a global approach. third, it is important for the u.s. and russia to work together. 15 years to 20 years, russia deemed themselves more of a supplicant. that kind of relationship was wearing thin. and i have felt of the last five years to six years that we needed to move much more toward a partnership as well as with countries all over the world and trying to address this problem. this is really try to take a much broader partnership-type approach. i would also say that we were inspired to start this index by the nuclear security summit that president obama had with 40 heads of state. that will be followed up with cars -- with our friends and south korea. there is an important meeting in march. we felt the site of the index would be a better tool for those countries attending that summit.

finally, i would say that we are not addressing radioactive material in year. 30 bombs, we're using index to look at weapons usable material. theds, we're using index to look at weapons usable material. all those reasons are the reasons. >> as the senator said, i think this report build very nicely on the great work that matt blunt .as done on securing the bonmnb there are a lot of specifics that we did not have time to cover here. >> what about obama possible? >> i applaud the bullpen -- what

about obama's goal? applaud the goal. the real progress has been made. without a goal, you will like a very far. i applaud the goal, but i would not bet a whole lot of money that he will complete it. for one thing, there are countries the do not cooperate, as seen in this index. you're setting a goal to secure all nuclear material, that would include north korea, iran, pakistan, and other countries that, at this stage, are not cooperating. i believe that this index -- this may be hope, but it is not hope that this index will alert countries that have not cooperated in the international community in terms of sharing and predicting material and best practices and so forth, will

understand that they have threats themselves. this is not simply doing a favor to the world. this is protecting your own security because countries that do not have good practices are also probably the most likely victims of material that we get in the hands of terrorists. whether it is a dirty bomb or weapons usable materials. i hope that those levels will go off, but i would not the money on that in the long term. >> firstly, can you speak a little bit about corruption vs participation in international treaty to decide that what they was more of a better indicator for the on the ground security? second question, you urged that the upcoming summit be used to

set global priorities. what do you believe the parties should be? thirdly, can you share whether pakistan, india, and iran were briefed on the index and what their reactions work? >> let me start with leo on that. then we may want to shove off a couple of those questions. >> let me ask the witness question. it is a good one. when you build an index like this, there are a number of ways that you can wait it -- weight it. we decided at the end of the day that some were more important than others. rather than us making that decision, we mentioned earlier that we had an international panel. reconvened that panel about five months to six months after we began the project. we show them some of the initial results. we essentially had a long full day brainstorming session where

we talked to the panel members. we really push people. and what you have seen here is the collective wisdom of about 15 to 20 people at nti, especially among the peer panel. if you look at our panel members, some of them have experience on physical protection. others have worked in governments at nonprofit organizations. they are all experts on this. rather than taking a mathematical approach, rather than simply saying they're all equal, we put a large group of very bright people in their room and we went round and round until we reached a rough consensus on this. so we are happy to pass a good approach. however, if you'd like to try another one, this model is a tool. you can actually go into this, if you would like, and change the weightings. it does not change our conclusions. the conclusions are what you see here.

but for those of you who are disposed to have a go at this and see how the ratings are changed, you can do that. >> in terms of global priorities, this framework that we put ford, particularly the five categories and the 18 indicators, to a large extent, that is what we're offering as the larger proposal. we're hoping that this will spark a discussion amongst other governments. are these the right things that we should be asking governments to be better on? are there other things that we should add? we're looking for to that conversation. of course, there is the prioritization. you want to see how much weight we recorded. mythical these things are important. but we're also mindful that states that do not have materials that were part of that process were scratching their heads a bit about what exactly do you want me to do? is it more important to take care of physical protection at the series that have materials or do training or what is the relative order of that?

in terms of pakistan, india, and iran, again, the issue invitation was for all countries to reprieved. all three of those countries also received the data validation. what we know is that those governments considered the request and the answer was not to enter our data validation request, either in whole or in part. our hope is that we can work with these countries going forward and see how the index can be a tool for providing assurances and building international confidence in the steps that they are taking around the materials, that they will engage with us if we do this again in using the tool to that end. and with the iranians, we issued an invitation to them in new york several times. followed up. never received a response. even though we were never able to brief them in person, there were given the same opportunity

to validate the data. again, we did not receive a response from them. with the north koreans, we issued the invitation. it was considered in p'yongyang for briefing them and we offered to go to new york to do that. they chose to not to the briefing. there were also offered the opportunity to validate the data. again, they chose not to do that. >> would like to add anything? >> may be one final an adept, out the issue of privatization. we have seen in our experience that, by creating the framework, it creates a space for a very productive discussion. as leal mentioned, we had a day- long discussion about the relative priority of these indicators and categories. they were very vigorous discussions about the relative priorities of things that perhaps we all take for granted. but we think that this framework will be very useful in terms of sparking this dialogue amongst the international community.

>> ok. back row, right under the camera. next here. >> my question is in russia. russia is not in the top five -- or even the top 10 in your index. it is actually ranked 24th. what are the major concerns that you have? you mentioned several factors like corruption, the lack of transparency. what are the major concerns? >> in general, i would say that i think we of to put in perspective what russia was 20 years ago and where they are now. if you look at where there were 20 years ago, the chances were pretty high that there would be some type of nuclear incident, if not a disaster coming out of the huge stockpiles of high pay the interest uranium and

plutonium -- of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. the fact that that has not happened, they had dedicated patriots during huge economic hardship where all sorts of temptations were put in front of them, put into perspective, where russia was 20 years ago and where they are now is a remarkable achievement. have they a long way to go? yes. but they are making a lot progress. one of the problems in russia, you alluded to corruption. president medvedev has spoken to the subject. prime minister putin has spoken to the subject feared they have acknowledged that that is one of the biggest problems of russia has, not only in nuclear security, but also in economic investment and support from abroad. i would hope that there would make progress on that. in addition, the military in russia has control of certain elements, including the weapons. there are other agencies that have jurisdiction over things

like research reactors were small amounts are. so there is divided responsibility in russia that i think probably needs addressing. with that, let me see if you want to comment further. >> russia scores very well in three of the categories, the security control measures, global markets, and domestic commitments and capacity. its scores were brought down as a legacy of the cold war. and by the loss of corruption -- and by the levels of corruption which implies russia should be extra vigilant. theet's see, somebody in second row. yes, right here. mike. >> there have been references to dialogue and establishing

priorities and minimum baselines. is the ultimate goal to have a global standard for nuclear security? is that useful? is that necessary? is that feasible? talk about that. >> i was on a panel -- i do not remember the exact number of the panel, but it was a panel of global people who were involved in nuclear security that was appointed by director al beardeberde. this is one of those jobs that eventually should be done by an international group. there ought to be international norms, international standards. we need to move to international approach to the whole question of the fuel cycle. we started that with a fuel bank that has been authorized in the iaaf which is moving fort on that. -- in the iaea which is moving

forward on that. the iaea or some other organization like it will have to be put in charge. they do not have it now. this is not their mandate. what safeguarding means, we explain this in the report and it is very important. people assume that it means security. it does not mean necessarily security. the example i have used before -- this was actually in the report to some extent -- i alluded to, if a safeguard inspector from iaea goes into a building and they're doing accounting, the job is to make sure that it has not been diverted to weapons. it is not to see whether there are lots in the door or holds of the ceiling, whether there are perimeter guards and four other people are secure. -- and whether people are

secure. their mandate is not broad enough and resources are not significant enough. at some point, the international community has to come together and decide who will be responsible for this. this is an ngo operation now. we are doing it because the governments are not doing it. that does not mean that governments should not do it in the future. perhaps that kind of discussion can be held in seoul, south korea. that could be a beginning point of deciding what authority by a a ought to have. i know that the iaea does not have the kind of resources they need to do a job on the security side, safeguarding being different from security. >> i will add a little bit to your question. i think we do need a global standard even chalet. what we have right now are states who are looking for some

guidance on what matters most feared if we had a global standard, we would -- what matters most. if we had a global standard, we could track progress. again, what we have done with this index is putting forward a framework that helps us get our minds and our arms around the scope of this problem. the other thing i would say is that we included in our index two relevant treaties. one of them is a convention on the physical protection of nuclear materials. the 2005 amendment is not in force. if it was, it would require states to enact standards are predicting materials while they're in use or in storage and not just when they are being transported. we still need over 40 states to ratify that. currently, states are not obligated to enact those standards and we clearly need to do a better job at getting us there. i think that is one clear step we can take. >> which can take a couple more

questions. -- we can take a couple more questions. charlie? charlie is on our board now and ran our organization for a long time. >> i asked for the mike because i want to share to the world they nuclear security which i think is relative, not to detract in any way from the comments for the need for a minimum standard. nti has not waited for that. it has catalyzed the creation of a world institute nuclear security to share best practices for the physical protection and security of nuclear materials worldwide. it has concluded its third year of operation. it has over 700 members from 53 countries. we are trying to improve the

practices of physical protection, security, while we await this more important international standard. but you can weight it because the physical protection concerns are so great. there. >> there is a great need year. over 600 members. roger was one of the members of our panel. that is a voluntary organization. it is certainly not mandatory. but we're hoping that it will grow and we are also hoping that it will be able to help develop best practices. ok, i think we have one more question. >> you mentioned that questions

were given the opportunity to tweak some of the numbers. to what extent were you for canada able to verify the fact that they only had 50 kilograms instead of 150 kilograms, that kind of figure? >> for some of these, it is difficult to verify precisely. what is important to understand is that we went to regulators within the countries. we're not necessarily going to people in political positions. you do not really know and it is almost impossible to know exactly what the quantities are appeared again, which took them initially from central sources. the central sources in some cases were fairly good. in other cases, they give ranges. so there -- so we went to the individual countries and said, would you be willing to offer us more information one-on-one than your normal providing to other people who collect information? in a number of cases, they were able to do that.

were we able to verify them in every case? not in every instance. but we ask them to justify it. we pushed them on points as well. if for some reason we were not a -- not satisfied with what they came back, we made the ultimate judgment on this. we felt by large that we had very good levels of cooperation. people took this process seriously. i would describe it as more of a technical process. we did not feel that this was a political exercise. we were dealing with technical people who said you are close on this, basically in the right direction, and we can help you refine it. we did not find situations where anybody tried to turn us around and say that this is completely wrong. we deserve a wonderful score. you have given us one before. it was not that of the vote exercise. it was more of a technical process. >> at some point, you will have certain categories in areas that are sensitive and will remain sensitive that countries will be reluctant to make public.

at least we ought to start to get the discussion going by sharing that kind of information with an international organization, like an iaea or a winslow organization or even share on a regional basis so there can be a regional conference building. confidence, and the middle east is a good example of that, you will see more precious proliferation appeared as that happens, you have more countries going into enrichment. you have more dangers of terrorist groups being able to buy or steal material. and the odds of an international disaster go up, of, of. we need to make that spiral the other way around -- up, up, up. we need to make that spiral the other way around. we do not see any other questions. if you have any questions, you can follow media page.

thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> in a report by reuters, rick santorum is getting the backing of a large group of evangelical leaders in texas. that support could help mr. santorum in races throughout the south, including next weekend in the south carolina primary. back in 2008, 60% of south carolina voters describe themselves as evangelical christians. tamara, we will hear more about political support from religious groups and what they are looking for. later today, at 5:30 p.m.

eastern, myrtle beach south carolina is our destination. we will check out a form for undecided voters, a town hall meeting with tim scott and his guest of virginia gov. bob macdonalnnell. that starts here on c-span at 5:30 p.m. eastern time. you can also pick it up on c- span radio and c-span.org. >> it is easy to follow the presidential candidates through social media. follow with the candidates are posting in real time. read the latest from political reporters. and what viewers like you are saying on facebook, tour, and more. access the mysteries and video from the candidates at c- span.org/campaign2012. >> we will turn to international affairs now with former senate majority leader and the first obama administration released on

boy george mitchell. he spoke at a forum on the prospects for peace between israel and palestine. this is one hour and 35 minutes. >> just take those open seats. it will warm my heart. we have one, two, three. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us. the atlantic exchange series is a new product of the atlantic, something that we're trying to put together, consequential people with consequential ideas. we have partnered with the abraham center for middle east peace. it is highlighting the four- part series that we have -- it is an important and a consequential look at this ongoing oldster in global affairs. we're so -- ongoing ulcer in

global affairs. these are meant to be informal, typically. we will get rid of the ties and jackets eventually it and make it jeans and t-shirts because this is a hot room. i want to recognize danny abraham. way to the crowd here. [applause] it is a real honor to have him with us. and james bennett is behind the c-span cameras. it is terrific to have c-span

with us as well. and i also want to pay respect to my colleague john gould. he basically runs the show. drawn runs theatlantic.com can he came to me and said that we have this four-part series. i then proceeded to provide an excellent team. we put together tonight's event. thank you all very much for this. you know the seven-term former congressman from minnesota and questions about the middle east peace was one of the most effective negotiators. of course, he is the new president of the abraham center for middle east. this is a defining challenge for him as i think it is, in my view, for the united states. jeff goldberg has written so much on these issues. he covers all of the terrain. i have written some about it. there is hardly an issue that draws out more of an energetic and vibe and sometimes a toxic vibe than this issue tonight. i think we will handle it credibly and with civility but with seriousness and really

drive down into some of the issues we think are important in terms of looking at this into the future. let's talk about this tonight's gathering. we will show a very short clip. >> it is truly an honor to be associated with the atlantic. two years ago, i left a job that i truly loved in the

united states congress. i did so to join an extraordinary man, a man who is, in his heart and in every bone in his body, an american patriot. he focused much of his life on one core mission, which is reflected in the mission of the outstanding abraham middle east peace, to resolve the israeli- palestinian conflict. and to do so in terms that respect both sides and have a dignified presentation in terms of the narrative of both people. when i joined the center, our

team -- and i want to thank tony for standing and sarah bergman. i want to thank josh cohen and madeleine schner. with all of us at the center, what we desired to do was fill a vacuum that we thought existed here and washington and quite frankly throughout our country. that is a space where the israeli-palestinian conflict can be presented in an objective fashion where the position of both the israelis and the palestinians can be outlined from an honest, factual point of view. on top of the presentation, in an objective fashion, offer the bridging proposals that some well-intentioned people have

laid out over the years. our multimedia presentation focuses on those four core issues -- border security, refugees, and jerusalem to sum it up, this is my own personal view. we will go to universities. we have set up nine or 10, starting with princeton. we will go through the northeast, down the west coast, and hopefully all of the country. will go to congress and set up meetings with staff people. we will go to organizations that represent the variety of opinion in the american jewish community. we will talk with religious groups of all kinds. we will talk with groups of all ideological backgrounds. with all that said and done, my personal goal is this.

the next time an american president bears to make a speech on the middle east -- theirs to make a speech on the middle east that includes the conflict and there's to say that the basis of negotiation will be the 1967 line, i want a consensus of the american people to applaud. and i do not want that president, whomever she or he may be, to be subjected to a false-that just does not reflect -- a false nar rative that just does not reflect reality. [applause] having said that, i want from danny's perspective and from all of us at the center for middle east peace to offer this very quick observation with respect to tonight's honored guest, senator george mitchell. in this town tonight, there is a avoid, a void of men and women who have the dignity and the integrity that all of us expect from our public servants, whether they be democrats or republicans or anything in between.

there is truly in fact one man who, at every stage of his public and private career, has embodied the kind of character and integrity and dignity that we all expect. whether you agree with him 100% or 80% -- no one agrees less than 80% -- his very purposefulness and the mission that he provides -- most of what comes up is honesty in my humble opinion. with that, we are truly indebted to senator mitchell for being with us this evening and thank you so much again to the atlantic for having him. [applause] >> we will show a two-minute clip. it just happened. [video clip]

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>> here we go. [applause] i think the next requisition request is surround sound and one of those giant screens. but thank you very much. when you go onto the website, it is a terrific expos say when you look at the four parts -- terrific expose when you look at the four pods.

as robert mentioned, one of the key participants in this administration and generally throughout his life in dealing with conflict resolution in stressed that circumstances, whether in baseball or firms, in the congress or the senate, or the middle east peace, as king george mitchell to serve as the special envoy for this -- asking george mitchell to serve as the special envoy for this mission. jeffrey goldberg will takeover and then we will have a conversation. after that, we will open it to the audience and all of you. it will get hotter. and we will have a good time with that.

without further ado, let me invite senator george mitchell. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presence. my thanks to the atlantic and to dan abraham and bob wexler for organizing this event. danny has been a friend for many, many years. he is one of the most ardent and persistent advocates for peace in the middle east. and i commend him for that encourage him to continue. i was pleased with some reservations, which will explain in a moment, to accept his invitation to speak here this evening. he served with great distinction in the house of representatives for many years. i know that danny is like to have them as we all are. i was, at first, reluctant to

accept danny's invitation to come here. i thought the atlantic, the abraham center for middle east, people who spend their lives studying this issue -- and i have always been somewhat intimidated being asked to speak an audience in which all or most of the members know about the subject and i do. >> but then i reflected on my first days in the u.s. senate. i entered the senate under unusual circumstances. i was serving as a federal district court judge in my home state of maine when one of maine's senators, ed muskie, was appointed secretary of state. there was a lot of speculation in the press about who maine's governor would appoint to

complete senator muskie's term. my name was not among those mentioned. there was a farmer governor, senator, congressman, all of them very well qualified. but i had been appointed a federal judge just the year before and so i -- no one thought that he was being considered and neither did i. on the night before the governor had said he was going to have a press conference at the state capital, the media was filled with speculation and so i, like everyone else in maine, went to bed wondering what the governor was going to do the next day. late that evening, my phone rang, it was the governor calling. he said i would like you to come down to the state capital tomorrow noon so i can announce that i'm going to appoint you to the united states senate. i see, gee, governor, this is a really big decision. i have only been a federal judge for less than a year. i need time to think about it. i have got to talk to my

family. i have got to consult with others. he said i'll give you one hour. [laughter] >> when i protested that the time was inadequate, he insisted, see, if you say no, i have to find someone else before tomorrow noon and it's already late at night so i can't give you more than an hour. i immediately called my three older brothers. i grew up in a very small town in maine. i had three older brothers who were very famous athletes, extremely well known, not just in our small town, but all over the state, indeed later throughout new england. and then i came along and i was not as good as an athlete as my brothers were. in fact, i was not as good as anybody else's brother. [laughter] >> and so very early in my life, i became known in our small town as johnny mitchell's kid brother, the one who isn't any good. as you might expect, i

developed an inferior orlt complex and a highly competitive attitude toward my brothers which persists to this day. and so many years later, now a grown man, i hung up the phone from the governor and i called my brothers ostensibly to seek their advice. [laughter] >> but i confess, that there was a note of triumhhlism in my views. when i called and said the governor called and wanted to appoint me to the united states senate, i said what you do guys think about that? well, the responses were predictably negative. my brother johnny said, look, everybody knows you are a born loser. no one knows how got to be a federal judge and you can't win a statewide election, stay where you are. my older brother elevated the

tone of the discussion. he said now let's look at this from the point of view of the people of maine. he said aren't they entitled to have a qualified person representing them in the senate? and isn't it obvious that you are not among them? well, after two minutes of this, i hung up the phone, i called the governor and i said, governor, i don't need an hour. i have already gotten all the reassurance i need of my ability to serve in this position. and i accept it and i went down to the state capital the next day. and the governor announced the aappointment and i got on a plane and flew to washington, went up to the senate. i was sworn in. the ceremony took about 10 seconds. if you turned aside, you missed it. as soon as i was sworn, in a young man came up to me. he introduced himself as senator muskie's former administrative assistant and

now he was mine. and he read off a list of things that i was to do for the remainder of that day. and then he said, we got a very interesting invitation here for you. i said what is it? he said there are 3,000 certified public accountants meeting in washington and they just called and asked if you would come down to the washington hilton hotel and speak at their annual convention and deliver the keynote address tonight. i said, gosh, that's amazing. i said until just yesterday i myself didn't know i would be here and how these guys had the foresight to hold this position open for me, i said it's nothing like that. they had four last-minute cancellations. they said they heard about your swearing-in and they thought you might be the only member of congress who didn't have anything to do tonight. so i said, well, ok. i said what do they want me to talk about? he said the tax code.

i said you want me to go tell 3,000 certified public accountants what's in the tax code? i can't do that. this young man looked at me and with a voice dripping with sarcasm and condescension and said you are a united states senator. you will be regularly called on in public to talk about subjects you know nothing about. so if you want to be a good senator, get started right now. get down there tonight and tell those 3,000 c.p.a.'s what's in the tax code. so i did that and here i am tonight to tell all of you experts on the middle east what's going on there. [applause] >> i'll get some questions here from people who really know,

but i did want to make a few remarks and i was told i'm limited to 10 minutes. that's kind of tough for a former u.s. senator. you know the senate has a rule of unlimited debate and as a consequence, i after many years including several years as senate majority leader developed the dubious ability and skill to be able to speak at indefinite lengths on any subject with no prior notice, usually neither possessing nor conveying any knowledge, but i have been able to full the blanks in any speaking program that has existed in washington for many years. i'm not going to do that tonight. i'm going to try to stick to the time limit that has been imposed on me, but of necessity, therefore, i can only speak briefly on the subject and in a general way. there will be many subjects

that will be of interest to you that i won't be able to cover in these few comments, but i will take questions later from you and from the moderators, but there are a few thoughts that i have that i want to express directly and that's the reason why i asked to say a few words at the outset. as we all know, the conflict is deeply rooted in history. it involves highly emotional issues, religion, national identity, territorial competition. right now, pessimism is widespread. there are many, many reasons for all of us to be skeptical about the prospect for success. the conflict has gone on for so long, it has had such destructive effects, the level of mistruct and hostility on both sides is so high that many and perhaps most here in our

country and elsewhere regard it as unsolveable. but i believe that the pursuit of peace is so important that it demands our maximum effort, no matter the difficulties, no matter the setbacks. the key to success is really easy to state, but exceptionally difficult to achieve. it is the mutual commitment of israel and the palestinians and the active participation of the united states government with the support and assistance of many other governments and institutions who can and want to help. they must address the task which is to reconcile the palestinian goal of a viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent state based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps.

and the israeli goal of a jewish state with secure, recognized and defensible borders. that should not be beyond the ability of political leaders if they have the will to do it. in january of 2009, just before leaving office, president bush spoke in jerusalem and he said and a part of which he said i will quote, "the point of departure for permanent status negotiations is clear. there should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. the agreement must establish palestine has a homeland for the palestinian people just as israel is a homeland for the jewish people. these negotiations must insure

that israel has secure, recognized and defensible borders, and they must insure that the state of palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent. it is vital that each side understands that satisfying the other's fundamental objectives is key to a successful agreement. security for israel and viability for the palestinian state are in the mutual interest of both parties." stated another way, neither israel for the palestinians can achieve their principal objective by denying to the other its principal objective. the palestinians are not going

to get a state until the people of israel have a reasonable and a sustainable degree of security. but i don't believe they can get that until and unless the palestinians get a state. there are ravegs to all courses of action. there is no course which either side can take which is wholly assured of success and free of risk. so the question is one of measuring possible benefits and potential risks. when taking office in 2009, president obama publicly reaffirmed the policy that president bush had set forth. it seemed there in early 2009 that the culture of peace which had been so carefully nurtured

during the oslo process had largely dissipated, replaced by asense of futility, of despair, of the inevitability of conflict. the fighting in gaza had just ended. the palestinians were deeply divided and the uncertainty of the israeli elections lay just ahead. few then believe that there was any chance of restarting peace negotiations, let alone achieving a peaceful end to the conflict. unfortunately, three years later, that remains largely the case. a solution cannot be imposed externally. the parties themselves must negotiate directly with the active and sustained support of the united states. this will require of them

compromise and flexibility and most of all, it will require leadership. the quartet is trying to get israeli and the palestinian authority back to the negotiating table. the recent meetings in jordan sponsored by that government in coordination with the quartet represent a step in the right direction. the parties should be encouraged to continue those meetings and we in the united states should do all we can to facilitate a continuing and meaningful director exchange of views between the parties. and difficult as it seems and i'm now responding to the question raised in the video, i still believe that this conflict can be ended. i believe that in part because while i recognize that there will be enormous political pain on both sides from negotiating

an agreement, but that pain will in fact be much less than what they will endure if they do not negotiate an agreement. there is a long while this has created a false sense of comfort and security, but if history is any guide, that won't last. and if the conflict resumes and continues, both israelis and palestinians could face a future filled with uncertainty and anxiety. that includes, of course, what we hope and pray will not occur, but we must consider it and that is the possibility of renewed violence. there are other dangers, let me mention just a few of them.

demography, there are now between 5.75 million and 6 million jews living between the area of the jordan river and the mediterranean sea. in the same space, there are about 5 1/2 million arabs including israeli arabs and palestinians in the west bank and gaza. overall the arab birth rate is much higher and within a few years they will be in a majority. ? demographic predictions published yesterday suggest that the populations will be about equal in 2015 and by the year 2020, they will be nearly a half million more arabs than jews in that region. it's a painful choice, but the

people of israel should not have to make. the second challenge is technology. the barrier was built and is largely succeeded in keeping suicide bombers out, but the real threat to israel now comes from rockets. ha mass has thousands -- hamas, has thousands, they're crude lacking in guidance or instructive power. but they do create fear and anxiety and some damage. and no one can doubt that over time, without any change, they will have more and better rockets. on israel's northern border, hezbollah has tens of thousands of them. they are more effective, but hezbollah has engaged in an effort to upgrade their systems to ensure greater accuracy and more destructive power.

and finally and more dangerously, iran now has rockets that can reach israel when launched from iran itself. they don't yet have the precision needed to strike specific military targets, but they could cause enormous destruction in cities. the united states is fully committed to israel's security and that commitment is firm and unshakeable. it has continued for 60 years and will go on whenever the administration in our country. to honor it, we have provided enormous financial and military support to israel and most recently we have assisted in the development of an effective anti-missile system. just last week, the u.s. and israel announced the largest ever joint military exercises focused on missile defense, but it is unknown and will be never known until the event itself, whether that or any system,

could intercept the potentially large number of missiles that might be launched in an all-out conflict. therefore, israel's very existence might be threatened and at the least it would face the possibility of severe damage. the third challenge is in isolation. it's true that israel's support in the united states is very strong, especially in the congress, but it's declining elsewhere. just a short time ago, israel had good relations with the two major powers in the region, turkey and egypt. but the relationship with turkey is has deteriorated and with egypt it's threatened and, of course, we all know what has happened in international forums in recent years with the very lop-sided votes on these issues. let me conclude with a few comments about the palestinians who also face very serious problems. not the least of which is the

indefinite continue use of the occupation under which they have not had the right to govern themselves for over -- for many, many decades. in 1948, the united nations propose aid plan to partition the area and create two states. israel accepted it. the arabs rejected it and the first of several wars began, all of them won by an increasingly strong israel. every sensible arab leader today would gladly accept that 1948 plan if it were still available, but it is not still available and never again will be. since then the plans offered to the palestinians have been less attractive and they have been rejected as well.

i told both chairman arafat and president apast director -- abbas directly that there is no evidence that the offers are going to get any better in the future. to the contrary, all of the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. they have got to sit down and participate in direct negotiations and get the best deal they can even though it's not 100% of what they want. they got to bring the occupation to an end and get their own state and then build on it as israel has done since it was established. under the outstanding leadership of prime minister fahed, the palestinians have demonstrated they can do it by laying the focus and building

the institutions needed for a viable independent state. unfortunately, while that state building effort must continue, it cannot be sustained in the absence of any progress on the political side. they are inextricably linked. in order for there to be progress on one, there must be progress on both. it's a daunting challenge to rebuild trust, not only between the political leaders, but between the two peoples for the long and bitter history of conflict. but they must find a way to do it to renew hope, to continue the search for peace, and we must persevere in helping them. thank you very much for having me and i'll be pleased now to respond to questions. thank you very much. [applause] >> now we're going to have a little bit here, we have our

friends from spanier to come up here. -- c-span to come up here.

>> we would like to start to thank him for helping move the furniture. thank you to danny abraham and robert wexler to help to con veer this, and steve clemons. steve is one of the only people in washington to get apac and the center for american progress in the same room. congratulations on that. senator mitchell, let's just jump right in. what i want to start is somewhat narrowly and broaden out as we go. but let me start way couple of events right at the beginning of your tenure as envoy. i want to talk about the settlement freeze obviously, but start, if you could, with

annapolis. condi rice recently in her latest book suggested that the obama administration missed an opportunity, that the previous prime minister of israel had put a remarkably expansive offer on the table before the palestinians and that the obama administration could have built on that. instead the obama administration reset the clock, erased the past in essence, demanded a settlement freeze. what happened? why did annapolis fall away? why did that offer fall away? >> it's a matter of well established public record, i went to the region just a few days after my appointment. it was in the midst of the israeli election campaign which was held on february 10 of 2009. about two weeks before the election, olmert made public

the details of the offer that he had made during the annapolis process in his discussions with abbas. immediately, the major candidates to succeed olmert, now prime minister netanyahu and the previous foreign minister livni rejected old mert's proposal and prime minister netanyahu said publicly several times and privately that he did not agree with old mert's proposals, was not bound by them, rejected them completely and would not accept them as the basis for further discussion. he told me that personally, directly. he said it publicly. numerous newspaper articles in that period which reported

that. you can agree or disagree with the prime minister's decision, but there can be no dispute about the fact that he has been totally consistent publicly and privately in that position and that remains the position of his government to this day. so the suggestion, the statement made not just by former secretary of state rice, but many others, columnists and others that somehow obama simply ignored this great opportunity is incorrect. i discussed it with them and it was rejected and it's a matter of public record, it was not possible to pursue, to pick up the negotiations where they left off because prime minister netanyahu said he would not do so. >> let me talk about the

settlement freeze for a second because that's one of the most per plexing episodes i think in the last three years. a demand was made to freeze settlements, but there didn't seem to be a plan in place for the moment when netanyahu rejected the demand for settlements. there was a temporary moratorium, of course, but the israelis never met the u.s. demand. you at one point hinted that there would be or could conceivably be punishment for not adhering to that demand. you brought up the issue of loan guarantees. almost immediately the state department backtracked from that and said he is just talking about historical context. why did the administration go publicly with a demand for settlement freeze without having a plan b when netanyahu couldn't fulfill that? let me add one thing, why did they answer the settlement freeze without understanding the limitations of netanyahu vis-a-vis that demand?

>> there are several questions there. >> yes, there are. >> might a begin by respectablely correct your statement that i hinted on it. the only statement i ever made on that was on the charlie rose show. and charlie rose asked me if there was any actions that the united states to take legally in this circumstance and i described what those actions were and then i said, and i invite you good good journalists to look at the transcript, i do not favor such a course of action. >> the state department did tomorrow back and say he really didn't favor that course of action. >> no, no, i don't recall any correction by the state department. it wasn't necessary. my position was i do not favor that. and so trying hard to respond earnestly to a journalist's question, i answered the question about the state of the law and then i made clear they did not support it. so now let me go back to your central question.

first, a settlement freeze, every american administration that has been in office since 1967, president, secretary of state, administration has opposed the policy and the actions of the government of israel with respect to settlements. without exception. every republican administration, every democratic administration. in the road map proposed by president bush, there is an explicit reference to a full settlement freeze. so president obama proposing a settlement freeze was not proposing anything new. it was a position taken by every prior american president demonstrate or republican over the proceeding 43 years.

secondly, the real mistake that we made and for which we bear responsibility is that we did not make clear that the proposal was in isolation to the israelis as opposed to in the context of requests made of all three relevant parties, which were made at the same time -- the israelis, the palestinians, and the other arab states. secondly, we did not make clear, as we should have, the non of those were preconditions to negotiations but were in fact an effort to establish a context within which negotiations could occur and have a reasonable chance for success. recall, if you will, because a

conflict had just ended. emotional conflicts were extraordinarily high. i travelled throughout the region several times before prime minister netanyahu took office. i met with the leaders of four arab countries, and almost without exception, their singular demand made right at the outset with great emphasis was that there has to be a settlement freeze before there could be any consideration of discussions. think about, if you will, what the reaction would have been had president obama become the first american president not to favor a settlement cessation. let me finish my answer. so we propose this. we made demands of the arabs. the president said that the arabs were proud of the arab peace initiative. he mentioned it in his remarks when i was appointed, and it

provides that at the end of a series of events, there would be full, normal relations between israel and the arab states. with the president asked was that the arab states take steps not to agree to fully normalize, but to take limited steps in that direction at the same time that the israelis were freezing and at the same time that the palestinians were acting in the way we felt they should to make negotiations more conducive. there was not a positive response from either side, and we did not get the result we wanted. we did get a 10-month -- i do not want to call it a freeze. a 10-month moratorium on new housing construction starts on the west bank, which was less than what we asked for, less than what the palestinians wanted, but was more than any government of israel had ever

done on the subject, and it was a significant action, which i believe the palestinians should have responded to by getting into the negotiations earlier. >> one more point on this just because i am still confused. abbas said it was obama who suggested a full settlement freeze and he said he accepted. we both want the tree, and after that, he came down with a ladder or was he under the impression that the settlement freeze was a precondition? why has he reacted the way he has? >> that statement was made in 2011, and it was an inaccurate description of what occurred in 2009. it was a mistake and recollection of what occurred. when i went over to the region in january, february, and march of 2009, in that with president

at this, his team, and all the other countries, and they said they needed a settlement freeze before they would even consider going back to negotiations. that is what happened. that is the record. >> do you think that settlements are the root cause of the conflict? >> there is no one root cause. >> do you think settlements are an important cause of the conflict? >> an important part of the problem. >> describe the various routes, if you can. >> they are in the video. there is the problem of borders, this agreement on territory. jerusalem is an intensely powerful and emotional issue on both sides. more than any other, complicated, because borders and refugees and settlements are all

palestinian issues. jerusalem is a muslim issue. it does not take just the consent of the palestinians to make an agreement on jerusalem. it takes the consent and approval of many others in the world of islam, so it is a highly emotional issue. i think it is a profound error to try to say, "this one is number one, that one is number two, this one is number three. they are all important and have to be resolved, but with respect to settlements, let me make a point now. i negotiated with the israelis. they would not fully freeze all settlement construction. they did agree, as i said earlier, to halt new housing construction starts for 10 months. that was very significant.

it meant that for the first time in 40 years, when a building was finished, a new one was not started. so had it continued, there would have come a point when there was no construction in the middle east because every settlement would have been completed. when we negotiated the agreement and announced it, the palestinians rejected it. they described it as worse than useless. that was the phrase they use. nine months later, when they finally entered negotiations, they said extension of the moratorium is indispensable. so in nine months, what was described as worse than useless was transformed into an

indispensable element for continuation. the real loss was the we did not get a full 10 months. we did not get nine months or eight months. we got one month. less than one month. it was just not enough time to gain traction and have the parties invested in continuing the process. >> let me ask you about demography. you brought this up earlier. you talk at some length about the demographic challenge, but you did not invoke the a word -- apartheid. do you believe israel's on the road to becoming an apartheid state? do you believe in the west bank right now, apartheid-like conditions prevail right now? >> the issue is complex enough without the use of inflammatory words and phrases was only result -- i will not say intention in every case -- is to

create aggravation and hostility. if you can say something two ways and one way is bound to antagonize your opponent and the other gets your point across without antagonizing your opponent, why do you choose the inflammatory way if you really do want to accommodate their concerns and reach an agreement? you do not settle conflicts by trying to figure out ways and complicated words to do it. i mean no offense to you. we never met. you are a good journalist. but the press likes controversy. it likes sensationalism. ->> i deny that. >> what i was majority leader, we were negotiating a very tough bill. i spent months negotiating with republicans on the bill, and we were on the cusp of getting it

done, and the "washington post" ran a tough story was focused on the 8% we have not done. the 92% they ignored. when i complained to the reporter -- i will never forget this -- he said, "senator, you had never seen a newspaper headline that reads 2 million commuters made it to work safe today." it is what makes news. i do not like to use inflammatory words. i describe the situation in a way that i thought was factually accurate and that did not arouse people's hostility, and we all ought to be thinking about that. >> let me ask you this, then -- do you believe that in certain parts of the west bank on certain days, a system of institutionalized discrimination against a certain ethnic group prevails? [laughter] i want to know how far down the road you think israel has gone on this question. more to the point, how

reversible is what you have seen on the west bank? >> i think that is the point. i think it is reversible. i do not believe that borders are the most difficult issue to resolve, and once you resolve borders, you resolve the settlements issue. that has been my plea to the palestinians. they keep saying they want a freeze, and the united states favors a freeze. i made that clear in the remarks earlier. president bush explicitly called for a freeze. but it is not forthcoming. the way to deal with it, i thought, sensibly, was to persuade the israelis to stop new housing starts, and during that time, use the time to reach an agreement on borders which would say, "here is israel and here is palestine. israelis can build what they want in israel and palestinians can build what they want in

palestine, and then, you do not have the issue. i believe it can be resolved. >> if it is the u.s. position that settlements either -- the use of the range of words from counterproductive to the legal -- what is the united states not to glissade to the israelis, "we have assessed that you have spent $250 million this year on the infrastructure for settlements, so we will stop that from your aid package quarter may? if you have that ability with prime minister netanyahu 10 years ago, do you think you would have gone somewhere? >> we do have that ability under law as it exists, and president george w. bush was the last president to impose the application of the law, which created a deduction from the amount available to insure guarantees for israeli housing. the israelis had not needed to

make a claim on it, it has lost its potency. it is symbolic now. it has no substantial effect and i do not believe would have had any significant effect in altering is really activity. i will say that in all the time i was in the region, for many arabs, there is a very simple solution to the whole thing -- united states cut off all funding to israel, and they will then have to do what we want. for many israelis, there is also a simple solution -- the u.s. cut off all aid to palestinians, and then they will do what we want. in relative terms, as many israelis have noticed, palestinians are much more dependent on our a than are israelis, although the public perception is somewhat to the contrary because the absolute amounts are different. but in my view, and as i said in my interview with charlie rose -- it to keep bringing that up -- that i hate to think that works. i do not think that works when

you're dealing with allies. i think you need a more positive case of appealing to self- interest, and i think self interest can be identified and appeal to in a positive way. we did not succeed. let's face it. we have had 10 presidents, 19 secretaries of state since israel was established. there have been many israeli and palestinian leaders. they did not get it done, either, but i think it can be done, and i believe it will at some point -- hopefully in near future -- be done. >> i want to get to iran also, but maybe that will come up in the q&a. i want to ask you this, and i am going to invoke speaker gingrich in this. have you met many palestinian leaders who believe that the israelis have a natural right to that part of palestine they currently possess? in other words, i read the palestinian press all the time. i watched palestinian tv. there is an overwhelming message

from the palestinians that peace is release are and invented people, that they have no legitimate rights. how important -- we understand what settlements due to the palestinian psychology. how important is the rejection of the idea of jewish national equality as and had it to making peace? >> i have had many discussions with many palestinian officials, including the two principal leaders, and many, many others. i confess to you, i have never had a discussion in which we discussed precisely the natural right of israelis, the term that you use. i can tell you this, that i'd believe that they understand and accept the reality of israel. they might not like it, but i think they accept it, the reality that israel is there, it is going to stay there. it is not going anywhere, and

that the only alternative for them is some form of reconciliation. not in terms of, "we really like you. we want to have you over for dinner." but in terms of, "let's live in peace, you there, we hear." >> two final things. you were a palestinian, would you accept 22% of mandatory palestine as your final, permanent deal? >> i am not a palestinian, and the answer to that question can come only from palestinians, just as the answers on issues like jerusalem and other issues of security that are so important must come from israelis. i was always conscious of the fact -- i spent five years in northern ireland and two years in the middle east. i always was conscious of the fact and kept reminding myself -- and this is over, i'm going

home, and they are staying here. so they have to make those decisions. not americans. what we have to do is to help create the context within which they can make those decisions. i believe that we can do so, and more importantly, i believe that no other entity than the united states government -- no entity, no other government, no other entity, private or otherwise, has the capacity to do that. it takes a u.s. government, the president of united states, the secretary of state, and those who they had to help them to accomplish that task. i think it can be done. >> does president obama like israel? [laughter] >> yes, i think he does. i think he is very determined -- absolutely determined -- to protect israel and to make certain that the american commitment is maintained. your question implies more than

the words themselves state, so let me respond. first, u.s. and israeli military cooperation and intelligence cooperation is the best it has ever been. last week, the two governments announced the largest ever exercise focused on missile defense, which is the real problem. because it is the real problem, president obama authorized over $200 million over and above the vast sums we already provide israel to assist in a more rapid development and deployment of the anti-missile system. i personally feel i have a very good relationship with israeli leaders. i spend a great deal of time with them. i think the president is determined to protect and preserve them, and i think he does like israel and israelis. >> finally, quickly, if you can, you have gotten to know the leaders very well.

describe for us the most admirable characteristic of benjamin netanyahu. >> prime minister netanyahu is strong, and he is consistent. he has told me personally, directly, many times, and he was very sincere about this -- he wanted peace. he wanted to try to get it done. i have to explain that by saying many times when i met with prime minister netanyahu, he said he was sincere and wanted peace. i believed him. i'd go to president abbas, where he asked me the same question in reverse. i think they are both serious about wanting peace. that is not the question. everybody wants peace on their turns -- terms.

the difficulty is achieving peace on terms that can be acceptable to the other side. that is the political problem. if you said to any israeli, "here is peace" enlisted the israeli terms, you would get close to 100% approval. he said the same to palestinians, do they want peace on palestinian terms, they would say the same. the public their dislike the public here are able to convey victories used at the same time. what they say to their leaders is they want peace but what it on their terms. the challenge and task of leadership is to reconcile those conflicting demands in a way that can make it possible for the other side to accept it. can i tell one more story? >> you have the floor. >> thank you.

>> it is relevant to the current debate. when i was set a majority leader, the first president bush was in office, and we had a terrific fight over the budget in 1990. we spent months. we even went to the andrews air force base and isolated ourselves in the vain hope the isolation would induce compromise, which it did not. i used to go back to maine every weekend and hold town meetings. after a couple of months, i went back, there was a large crowd, disproportionately elderly, as they tend to be on these congressional town halls, and i did not give speeches. i just took questions and comments. the first guy got up, very well- dressed elderly gentleman, and he delivered a scathing denunciation of me, saying how embarrassed they were at my behavior, too partisan, too much fighting, president bush has a home in kennebunk, one of that and there and settle it like

gentlemen, and the crowd reacted with a thunderous standing ovation, endorsing his repudiation of the. is it that was a statement, and he asked my question -- ask the question, what we were fighting about. i explained that our -- our differences on medicare and other issues, and then he got up and said, "senator, you represent us, and we are telling us, you go back, and you do not give an inch on medicare, and the crowd up, and i got a double thunderous round of applause." -- you go back and you did not give an inch on medicare," and the crowd got up, and i got a double thunderous round of applause. >> removing people from their homes and communities, when we look to what will be required in a sustainable two-day scenario, we are talking conservatively

about 80,000 settlers, some of our more ideological. you have done some of the best reporting on the movement. what situation would have to happen among israelis to countenance politically the difficulty, the trauma of removing this many settlers from the west bank to achieve a solution? >> let's be clear -- the figure you cited is an arbitrary figure based upon an assumed percentage of exchanges. it might be higher. it much lower -- it might be much lower. there is no objective number. secondly, i am not an expert on the subject. there are many of them in israel in the region.

there have been numerous studies made of the principal motivation that has brought different types of settlement to different places, and the potential willingness of some to move or not to move. third, the gaap operation -- the gaza operation was a unilateral operation by israel. there was no consultation or agreement with palestinians with respect to it, so there was no overall overarching agreement which the government of israel could point to and say, "here is what we got out of this. yes, we have to endure some pain, but there are significant benefits." there was nothing comparable then, so i am not certain it is really the kind of -- that it is an apples and oranges comparison. but finally, i do not think -- certainly, i have said nothing, and i do not think any

responsible person would suggest that this would somehow be easy or anything other than extremely difficult with careful planning and with a lot of assistance being provided by the united states and other supporters of israel to accomplish this objective. eithero not think that' the gauze or the web and on example are relevant here because in both of those cases, those were unilaterally without consultation with others, and without, therefore, any demonstrable benefit, any concession coming from the other side that could be used to justify it. i can tell you from my experience elsewhere, if you are going to ask a government, particularly in a very vibrant democratic society like israel where, as you know, everybody speaks out. it is a very vigorous debate in public. if you are going to ask people

to undertake a very painful course of action, it is far more difficult to do in the absence of an overarching program in which you can say, "yes, we have to do this, but we are getting this in return" and you have got some give-and-take. >> you know as well as anyone in this room that is really society has changed in the last several years. right now, you have a foreign minister that israel cannot dispatch to washington because no one will lead him because he is too right wing for most people's taste. you have in the settlements -- much of the army was the officer corps now lives in the settlements. you are not talking about the israel 20 or 30 years ago. you're talking about asking an army that is rooted in many ways in the settlements, to evacuate their own parents. talk about that, based on your experience of dealing with the

army. it does seem very hard to reverse this. >> first off, i met with the foreign minister many times. i had no difficulty meeting with him. he was the foreign minister. i respect the fact that he was the public official in office. >> but hillary clinton will not meet with him in washington. >> well, i am telling you i met with him many times. my view is that we have the right to choose our officials, and they have the right to choose theirs in their democratic process, and we're going to talk to whoever it is that they have. second, you say israeli society is changing. of course it is changing. every society in every era changes. with someone who came to the united states now not say, "gee, isn't american politics changing?

is the american society changing?" we should not expect israel to be static or lacking in dynamism or changed over time. you're right that some of the problems make it difficult. that is true on both sides. the plo started as a secular party separating church and state. one of the difficulties now is how much it -- how much thomas has made some gains because of the dynamic changes in the society. yes, it is more difficult, but that is not a reason not to do things, because they are more difficult. if they are the right things to do and if they provide an overall benefit to the society, and that is the important point to remember. israel -- well, many of you have been there. some of you are from there. for anyone who has not been there, i strongly encourage you to go. it is moving, inspirational what

has been done in the course of 60 years. it is one of the remarkable feats of history. it is a dynamic and changing society. if you believe in the security of israel, you have to except, in my judgment, the reality that one of the more important things to ensure it the security in the future is to make peace with the palestinians because there are other issues in the region, which you said you're going to get to. i am saying that it would be difficult, but if the reward were sufficient, if the justification were enough to persuade the people that it was worth doing it, then you have a possibility of getting it done. >> we apologize. i have time for two more questions. i told many of you that i will get you a question. i will lead jeffrey tate both,

-- jeffrey take both, and he will be blunt. [laughter] >> we're just going to negotiate this. >> i do not recall that my newspaper has denied the existence of israel. my question for you -- i was there you talked about a state by september 2011. does mr. obama like the palestinians? [inaudible] >> one question. >> [inaudible] and by how much.

>> my answer is, yes, i believe that the president is fully committed to a palestinian state. he has said that many times. president bush said the same thing many times. i believe it is united states policy. i do not accept the argument made by many in the region, as you well know, that the united states is incapable of serving as an arbiter or mediator or the intervening party in this context because it is so biased toward israel. it is true that the united states and israel are close allies and that we are committed to israel opposes security and existence behind defensible borders, but it is precisely because we believe that israel opposes security will be enhanced by an agreement that we think that

there ought to be a palestinian state along with the believe that the palestinian people are entitled to self-governance, as are people everywhere, as our declaration of independence so eloquently states. yes, united states -- but i cannot speak for the president. i am not in the government anymore. i believe the president is fully committed to a palestinian state and in the colloquial terms that you and jeff for years, that he likes the palestinians. >> looking ahead to the coming year, the macro issues that permits the issues, can anything be done by the palestinians, the israelis, and by us here to insure that we can stabilize the situation and prevent the backslide to the violence, that

you mentioned, which i believe is a possibility. >> yes, i do believe that there can be steps taken. there already have been. it is, i think, a remarkable achievement if you what has occurred in the west bank in the last few years over what went on in the previous 30 years. the organizing and funding and training of the palestinian security forces, which has resulted in, as you know, the establishment of stability and security in a society where it did not exist for a long time, has produced a secondary dynamic economic result in terms of the growth of the economy. it has encouraged many others to provide assistance, who were

reluctant to do so before, both among the arab states, the europeans, and the united states. i think that there are intermediate steps that could be taken, which we proposed. not to get too complicated or too long, as you know, not all the viewers may know that the palestinian territories are divided in authority between areas that are administered entirely by the palestinians and areas administered entirely by israelis, and areas that have mixed authority. one of the proposals we have made has been, as palestinians have demonstrated their capacity for self governance, to extend palestinian authority into so- called areas -- to a greater extent into areas b and c. particularly to the extent that it can exist in economic growth and development -- i can ask --

it can assist in economic growth and development, job creation. we all know there are economic factors underlying all conflicts and their very presence there. i think there is quite a bit more that can be done, numerous steps that can be taken to help prevent the outbreak that we very much do not want to occur. >> correct me if i'm wrong -- has netanyahu ever put down a proposal on borders, security, refugees, anything? our impression is that the palestinians have been quite forthcoming. they have given maps to the israelis, but that netanyahu has never done that. if that is the case, why is that the case? will there ever be an american bridging proposal that will say, "this is what we think is

reasonable? >> the prime minister did in fact make a substantive proposal on the issue of security. discussions were held between him and president at this -- president at this -- president at this -- president abbas. he did not make the proposal that you mentioned. however, he assumed and participated that -- assumed and anticipated that it would continue. it was my intention to encourage discussion on the other agenda items that the palestinians had presented their views on theory they had presented a full range of views to us, but because of the inability, the failure to

extend the moratorium, those talks ended. we did not make any bridging proposals because there was not sufficient engagement between the two at that time, and the palestinians would not -- that you have to that two pieces of land. >> there was nothing to bridge at the time. >> i just wonder, if i may just ask -- i just want to say -- airline >> if i could just finish the answer, we've made it clear to both sides that the talks continued, we would be preparing, when necessary and appropriate, to make these proposals. it did not reach that stage for the reasons i stated earlier. >> is that why you step aside? you mentioned that you spent five years on that, two years on this. you are clearly very invested in the topic intellectually and even more. was it a lack of support from

the obama administration for what you were trying to do? >> i said to the president and the secretary of state when they asked me to undertake this position, the i was willing, able to go, but precisely because i had been in northern ireland for five years, and said to the president, "i cannot do five years here, and i cannot commit to you to even a full presidential term." he asked what i would do as a two years and we would see what happens. it was very clear from the outset that i committed to two years, and i stayed actually two and a half years. >> we're going to do something unusual. we are right at the end. if you have a 30-second, it -- if you go over, i will turn off

the microphone. 30 seconds each, and as that comes in, the last big question is from jeff, which is iran, and then we will close it up. those three clustered together as rapidly as you can, and then we will finish with senator mitchell. >> we will see if it actually works. >> [inaudible] and my biggest concern is the shift in democratic values in israel. i think one of the biggest limitations in progressing with the democratic and design israel that prevent a prime minister from taking significant leads. are you concerned about those? >> when i was in the state department as a young man, there were 20,000 israeli settlers.

people back then in the cia and state department were writing that no good could come of this, and, of course, people at the senior levels did not want to hear that. now, we have over 500,000 settlers. the two main parts of the road map for security on the part of the palestinians, and then the end of the settlement activity on the part of the israelis. my comment is -- why do we think anybody is going to trust us in the future? that just a second -- >> are you expecting me to answer these questions? >> as you like. >> [inaudible] tell us very quickly on israel was the isolation, but can you put it on the bigger frame of the ever-changing face of the belize? does it complicate it or make it a priority? and where does the initiative

stand now? >> we have the arab spring and arab peace initiative. why should anybody trust the process and democracy in israel? >> you get more time. >> you can intimidate them into 30 seconds, but you cannot intimidate me. i will answer the question. what was the first one? the third one again? >> arab spring. >> yes. a couple points. first off, it is human nature when there is turbulence and uncertainty and anxiety, to pause, hesitate, hundred down, to not take any dramatic steps, so it is really clear that both

the government of israel and the palestinian authority have been affected by this. although they disagree on many things, a killer of both of their policies in the region was their relationship with the government of egypt and specifically with president mubarak. that is gone. so it is natural that they are going to want to pull back. it would be unnatural otherwise. we have to understand that, even as we encourage them to take steps. with respect to the arabs spring, just a few general points -- first, it takes a long time. i know all the press operates under a deadline, but revolutions do not. in our own country, between the time the fighting stopped at yorktown in the creation of united states, nearly eight years elapsed, and that was it much less complicated time than currently in the middle east.

secondly, there is an almost naivete in thinking when would oppose one guy comes of the us has to be better. history is filled with very bad governments that were toppled by revolutions that replace them with worse governments. let's not hold the arabs and arabs bring to standards that no one else in history has met. we hope it turns up the right way. we should do all we can. i think it will take a long time. there will be success of revolutions. usually, they occur like earthquakes the follow-up of less severe but still disturbing events. i think some will turn out well and some will turn out not well. it will be a huge test for us in terms of our policies towards the region. the next test -- i have to say to you, you pose a question -- the palestinians said they would

do security. israelis said they would do salads. palestinians did theirs. they did it on the west bank. they have not done it in in gaza. the israelis were hotly dispute the premise of your question and say that they do not have security and still have people in gaza. i am not disagreeing with you. we have not been able to get it to change, so the result is get in and negotiate with your agreement, -- get in and negotiate an agreement, and get it done. and i think it can be done. i had in my office at the state department a stack of proposed maps. you are one of the few experts on the region who did not send me a region. i wish you would so i could complete my collection.

>> [inaudible] >> i leave that to the israelis. it is a very difficult issue, but as i said earlier, i try very hard not to interpose myself into what are really internal matters. let him have his say. >> [inaudible] >> i believe in democracy. i support democracy, but i also think that the right of self- government means what it says -- self government. people decide their future. this goes back to the arab spring. what is most powerful about the arab spring is that it is entirely indigenous. it came from within. it demonstrated both a longing and a capacity that many felt that not exist or has been

suppressed for a long time. it is not for the united states to tell the people of israel how to run their affairs and it is not for the united states to tell the people of egypt or other countries. we should encourage them. we should support them. we should particularly praised democracy because we believe in it. we think it is all right. but in the end, they must decide their future is themselves. >> we will let you go to dinner. >> ok, good. you are very good. >> just address two sides of the same question -- what are the consequences for the middle east and for the peace process in particular of a nuclear-arms iran, and what do you think the consequences are of a pre- emptive strike by israel or the united states to stop iran or at least delay them from developing nuclear weapons?

>> while clearly there is no benefit to taking options off the table until you are forced to do so, i do not think anyone who is a proponent of a pre- emptive strike has so far made a sufficient case to justify it at this time. i think there are too many imponderables in terms of uncertainty in terms of the status they are in, and second, with the effect would be. secretary of defense gates, who is widely respected both in and outside the united states, as it clearly and emphatically that we could not assure the full termination of their program, that the best we could do is to set it back. you always have to ask yourself, "what about the next day?" one thing we have found that is true historical is it is awfully

easy to get into wars and very difficult to get out of them. i made the point in my remarks that iran now possesses rockets and they have gone from liquid fuel to solid fuel that can reach israel from iran. if you think that they are unstable enough to launch a possible first nuclear strike on israel, you certainly have to believe that they would launch a massive missile attack if they themselves were attacked in retaliation. not nuclear, but just a massive minute -- massive missile attack which could do tremendous damage. so i do not think the case has been made. the one issue which you did not ask, which i think is also of sufficient importance, is if iran gets a nuclear weapon, not only will it be a hugely destabilizing force in the region, and it will be a setback to the peace process, to answer

your question. it will make an already difficult task much more difficult. it could destabilize and cause the disintegration of the non- collaboration regime that the united states has led for the past 50 years. there are now nine countries with nuclear weapons. iran is trying hard to make it can, but there are many more who have the capacity to create nuclear weapons to have refrained from doing so i alliance of american leadership and the nonproliferation regime. the break in the dam could be iran getting weapons because what would turkey do? what would he did do? what with saudi arabia do? what would many other countries do? once that happens, it is not difficult to conceive -- you discussed earlier how societies change, how israeli society has changed. it is not difficult to conceive in societies where it has been inconceivable that they would develop nuclear weapons, even though they have the capacity,

that a political leader or movement would emerge on the grounds that "we have got to get a weapon." i believe it is partly still true that in the countries that have nuclear weapons, most of the people of that country think their country should have them. it is just did not think others should. i think most americans think united states should have them. if you ask questions or chinese or french or british, you get pretty much the same answer. it would be just a matter of time until the plant would be pulled. that would be a huge danger, the risk of leakage would increase exponentially, and we would confront a world far more dangerous than exists today. >> that is a very happy note. before i thank senator mitchell and so many others, i want to encourage all of you watching on

c-span to go to the website, theatlantic.com, look at what has been laid out on the question of refugees, borders, security in jerusalem, and we owe a debt of things to the designer of the project. not know where you are, but we want to thank you so much for the project team that brought this together, and to thank the center for middle east peace for putting this together for us. big round of applause for senator mitchell. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> you may have just heard george mitchell talking about israel and iran's nuclear program. "wall street journal" reports israel is preparing to take military action against iran over u.s. objections. president obama, defense secretary leon panetta, and some

other top officials have been sending private messages to israel, warning about the dire consequences of a strike. the u.s. wants israel to give time to let sanctions and other measures were against iran. that is just some of the latest news from the "wall street journal." later today, 5:00 the east than -- eastern time, c-span will be in myrtle beach, south carolina, for an undecided voter town hall meeting with congressman scott and his guests, the virginia governor, the chair of the republican governors association. it is part of congressman scott's series of town hall meetings with political leaders and part of the south carolina first in the south primary series. again, their primary is next saturday. you can watch at 5:00 eastern time on c-span or check it out on c-span radio and c-span.org. on the campaign trail today, a quick look at most of the candidates. they are in south carolina and headed the state's primary next

weekend. front runner mitt romney is in the central part of south carolina. you talk as a former governor starting the day further south in charleston. the former house speaker is spending time in the state capital for a call-in town hall meeting. rick santorum is at a volunteer rally, and texas governor rick perry campaigning near the coast in georgetown. there is one candidate not joining the others in south carolina -- texas congressman ron paul, who is back home taking a few days of the campaign trail. >> in this episode, we will look at rick perry's surprising, it's on climate change and the science that is behind the research. >> i think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data. >> what i'd do is i rate different comments by politicians on a one to four scale. if you say something outrageous that is completely inaccurate, you get four pinocchios.

if you get something slightly misleading or out of context, you might get as little as one. >> of glenn kessler evaluates and rates the truthfulness of political figures and others. >> whether or not they are deliberately lying -- i do think that if a politician says the same thing over and over again, even when it has been pointed out that it is untrue, that they know that they are saying something untrue. and they are just going to say it anyway. >> the "washington post"'s glenn kessler, said it added 8:00 -- sunday night at 8:00. >> it believe it is important to emphasize that while it is great to have this memorial to his memory and great to have a national holiday and great to have streets and schools and hospitals named in his honor all over our nation and world, it is also important to not place too much emphasis on martin luther

king be idle, but not enough on the ideals of martin luther king, jr. >> take a look at the life and legacy of dr. martin luther king, jr., the civil rights movement, and race relations in america today online at the c- span video library. it is what you want, when you want. >> next, we will look at a proposal to register internet domain names beyond the ones currently used like .com, .net, and the board. this is just over an hour. -- and dot order -- and .org. >> thank you for coming up. it has been a busy year, and it

will be a busy week. we are especially pleased to take time out to talk to us on a topic that is, i think, close to my heart and probably close to his. with that, let me turn it over to rob. [applause] the center for strategic international studies has done such great work to promote international understanding around the world. i am particularly honored to address all of you today. i checked the list of attendees, and i see we have all five regions of the world represented here. but america, south america, africa, europe, and asia. i want to abolish the white house, state department, the

government of australia, and other governments around the world -- i want to acknowledge the white house. have agreed appreciation for the work that jim has led year. when he led particularly the commission on cyber security for the 44th presidency, i think that was very important, seminal work the that has made a contribution globally to better understanding on the internet, and commenced particularly a report that was written on security in cyberspace for the 44th presidency that is still often referred to. that has contributed much to the global dialogue that is going on about the internet and about the future of the internet and how it is used by mankind and by all the different aspects of society. we are here this week to make an announcement or because of a significant change in our world of technology. what is happening this week heralds a new era for the domain

name system and accomplishes a new milestone in the history of the internet. that is, namely, the opening up of the new generic top-level domain system of the internet in the third round and the most significant opening in the history of the domain name system. so what is changing? and who decides what is changing? the first context i want to lay out that i think applies well to this institution is that the internet, as we know, was initially developed in the united states of america, and the internet was 100% american, and it is becoming 100% global. what is happening this week facilitates that continued transition and change, which is for the betterment of the world and mankind. the globalization is just one aspect of the program, but it is a critical aspect because when the domain name system was created, initially, there were

some top-level domains that were limited only to this national geography. top-level domains such as.gov come to mind. the others that were established were operated by operators in this geography. of course, the domain name system has been opened before, so there are other registries being operated around the world the.asia, which is -- operated around the world like .asia, which is operated in hong kong. how does this this change was developed by the community. it follows on the trajectory established in the late 1990's when the first policy concepts were developed for the formation and transferring of

the coordination of the global domain system from the united states to the world. it was with a multi-national body headquartered in the united states, mainly icann. in the documents, it stated this new body should open up the top level name space to provide consumers with more choice and insure that there is more competition in the domain name market space. how has that worked out? we estimate average prices of the main names in the generic top-level domains have dropped 70% since icann's founding. that is a significant wealth- transfer to the benefit of consumers and users of the internet around the world. this multi stakeholder body has

different formalized components. there are three policy accordance. there is a group called the country code name supporting cordon is a -- organization. these are the country code registries of the internet. that community has over 100 members. one of the founders of that community is here with us today. we also have the generic name supporting organization. it is a group of participants in the generic space. .com, .net, and .org. they do not pertain to countries. there are civil society organizations, intellectual property constituencies that have strong views and interests on the topic of new generic top-

level domains. that is the policy group out of the three that initiated the new program. the third policy development organ is called the aso or address supporting organization. that is for all of the internet addresses in the world. there are five regions in the world. each one has a regional internet registry. that is the committee coordination body that allocates. all icann policies start in one of the three vehicles. this policy being implemented this week was developed starting in 2005. it was approved in paris in 2008 and approved by the board of icann to go into operations in june of 2011 in singapore.

that is how we develop our policies around the world. every year, we have three big meetings. they rotate around the five regions of the world. it cycles systematically around the world. when the board approved this program in june of last year, it was decided the launch date would be two days from today, january 12. 12:01 utc to be precise. that is when the new program will open. when we think about the internet in the context of this solution we usually refer to the internet as the internet. that suggests one thing. we think of it is one thing and referred to it as one thing.

if you think about what comprises the internet, it is millions of private networks and billions of privately-owned devices, sometimes owned by governments as well, phones, ipads, tablets, pc's. users are growing rapidly with the advent of smartphones and tablets. we're likely to add several billion users to that number over the next 20 years. surveys around the globe shote 75% of the people in the world have a very strong opinions about how access to the internet should be handled. that suggests the actual utilization is much higher than the numbers suggest. the internet has become pervasive. why do we refer to the internet as one place? it is really millions of private

networks. the answer is that there are three things that unified the internet. those three things have to be coordinated globally for the internet to operate as a unified global whole. those three things are domain names, network addresses, and the protocol and parameters registries which are like technical settings and standards for the internet. those are the only three things in the world that make the internet look like one place. the icann community and hundreds of organizations and more than 100 governments formally involved in icann are the stewards of those three resources we called the unique identifiers of the internet. to keep the internet whole and

not have a fractured or blocked, filtered internet requires an enormous, ongoing effort and collaboration of all of those parties globally to keep the system working and the evolving to meet the needs of mankind, our commerce, society, and individuals. that is what the multi- stakeholder model does. this new program is an example of what the policy development process produces. in the case of the new program, there are more than 45 public comment periods when anyone could share their opinions, fox, write papers, -- share their opinions, write papers. there were more than 2000

submissions to help shape this program. the summary analysis of those suggestions is 1400 pages long. the icann meetings around the world are attracting about 1400 people at each meeting. there are many more people. you can participate. at the meetings, the microphone is open. there are many concurrent sessions going on about security intellectual property issues. at any session, the microphone is open for anyone in the world to come up and speak and share their views. that has been the case for six years in the development of this program, the new gtld program.

icann is an international, a consensus-driven organization committed to a secure and stable global, unified internet. we talked about the organization. let's talk more about the program. let's talk about globalization. where are the users of the internet today? half of them, 1 billion, are in asia. approximately 500 million alone, 25%, are in china. today in the internet, there's not a single generic top-level domain in chinese characters or those for the hindu or arabic languages. there are country codes. we introduced those successfully starting in 2009. we have one in 20 -- we have more than 20 countries

recognized with the extensions. that is a critical move in the international is asian of -- internationalization of icann in the domain name system. it is the first time that china or another country can apply for a top-level domain name in their own language scripts. it is absolutely vital. i have traveled through 27 countries in the last few months and met with companies, nonprofits, governments in 16 of those in probably close to 200 meetings over the past four months to talk about this program. i can tell you there are definitely parties interested in beijing, new delhi, catarrh --

the united arab immigrants, and around the world. there is interest around the world. there is a sense from the users around the world that this is fair and right that they should have this access to the internet. i remember meeting with the minister in france last year. she asked me why it was taking so long and when we would finally open the new gtld program. there is a lot of controversy and parties opposed to aspects of the program. that is the sign of a healthy multi-stakeholder model. the debate never stops. it is just like congress or politics. it goes on and on. icann has been in the limelight. there has been a lot of interest over the last few

months by parties who want to share their views. this program has extensive intellectual property protections. we of intellectual property protections -- experts on our board. we have great experts in our community that have been deeply involved. the greatest reason that has taken so long to develop the program was attention to intellectual property issues. attention to government issues and concerns about do graphic naming issues, the treatment of cities, the treatment of capital cities, the treatment of national names, the treatment of state names, all of these issues are complex and difficult because they involve different

treaties and bodies of law of around the world. governments have been concerned about law enforcement issues and how you increase the standards in the domain name system and particularly in new gtld's. this has more intellectual property protections than any previous program in icann's history. there is better care and handling on law enforcement issues. there are different constituencies. you have privacy constituencies and civil rights constituencies with different interests than law enforcement might. that is a healthy tension. much of it works through the icann community to grind out policies.

for the sake of the global policy interests, you have to decide when policies are considered, there comes a time to make the decision and move forward. the icann board made the decision to move ahead with this program formally last year in singapore and charged the organization with gearing up to handle the technology needs, contract in cover arbitration to be prepared for a launch on thursday of this week. let's talk about some of the enhanced provisions in the program to address intellectual property issues and other things. we are doing criminal background checks of the officers of applying organizations. we have communicated with interpol and are taking their suggestions on how to identify

the right parties to engage with. we do background checks. we're taking a list of all the strings applied for. any top-level domain name applied for around the world, we take all of those applications. we close it in april. in may, we will publish the list. anyone in the world can go into any single application and state your opinions, support, indifference, concerns, whatever it might be. that is open for 60 days. we have a special window for governmental advisory committees, the more than 100 governments formally involved with icann. they have 60 days to give as early warning.

we have different advisory committees. when advice comes from the governmental advisory committee, the board is compelled to either accept or reject the advice and state and explain the rationale why is being rejected. there's a high standard and expectation of care that must be given to those recommendations. they have 60 days to issue a preliminary opinion on all those strings and flag any they are concerned about. they reserve the right to come back in the future and express an objection. it is part of the process to formalize government involvement and review. for seven months, anyone in the world who has an objection to one of the strings can file a formal objection. you will have to pay for that. there will be a loser-pay structure. there are four different types of egyptians -- objections it

can be filed. there are intellectual property objections. there will be independent experts independent of icann who will determine the winner and loser in the process. if an applicant loses, they are gone. they have lost the application and are out of the process. the application fee is $185,000. that sounds like a lot of money, but that is priced to cover criminal background checks, supporting the technology processes, the public, it processes, the outsource processing of the application, the development of the system, and many other checks we have to do. it is priced to break even. 1/3 is risk contingency because icann does face litigation and other risks.

if there is certification, the community will decide what will be done with the funds. they do not going to the general fund. this is run on a purely break- even basis for the benefit of the world. for seven months, you have an opportunity to file objections. they will run different courses of time depending on the nature of the objection and the timeframe set by the panel of experts and processes defined. the next thing that is very innovative is a global trademark house. it is hard to watch what is happening among domain names. de- requires human effort -- that requires human effort. we decided to build a global data base. any party can register in the database and get alerted if anyone in the world registers

that at the second level for all of these new top-level domains. if we create 500 new top-level domains and you register 10 trademarks in the system. if anyone in the world tries to register your trademark, you will get notified. you can communicate with the party directly and say cease and desist, please. if they do not listen, you can file a formal arbitration claim under the uniform dispute resolution process. that is the basic arbitration process for name dispute. it is used roughly 5000 times a year today. in more than 80% of the cases, the party that applies winds and control of the remaining changes. parties will generally only have it and the other party does not. arbitration works and is less expensive than litigation.

some parties were concerned it is not fast enough. it can take a number of weeks to resolve the issues. we developed the uniform rapid suspension system for clear-cut cases. those will be resolved in 21 days. that is another protection. for the protection is sunrise registration rates -- for the protection is sunrise registration rights -- further protection is sunshirise registration rates. right. it is time when only trademark and service mark holders will have the right to register. that was another protection mechanism sought by the intellectual property interests and communities. finally, there is something we can think of as the nuclear option.

that is called pddrp and is a resolution procedure. if a new registry operator has demonstrated to allow for engaging in abusive behavior that is not in global interest and is not respecting the contracts and policies of the global internet community, we have the right to shut down or take back the registry. we would hope to never do that. it was a hard-fought battle by members of the community. it will provide an incentive for good behavior. we do not want to see malicious conduct and behavior that is not good for users of the internet. let's talk about some of the positives. it is easy to focus on the negatives in policy discussion. what are some of the positive

reasons this program is moving forward besides globalization? another reason is innovation. whenever you create new standards in the internet, whether you open up -- whenever you open a standard, there tends to be innovation. what will it look like and where will it go? none of us know. that is why it is called innovation. it is uncertain. it is about creativity. there are a lot of creative ideas that parties have around the world that they will want to bring forward in the expansion of the name space that we have not seen in the past. that is what makes the future so interesting. it is also what makes the internet so exciting. you design all the protections you can in the program. you have to remember there are very creative people who are not sharing their plans yet. a number have been bubbling up in the last few days.

parties are beginning to talk about some of their plans for new top-level domains that were not speaking before. we do not have a specific forecast of how big this round will be. we planted on 500 applications. -- we plant is on 500 applications. the highest number i heard was 4000. -- we planned it on 500 applications. our goal is not to create the number of applications. our goal is to serve the global public interest and administer the program barely and professionally -- fairly and professionally while ensuring the stability and security of the global internet that has become so vital to our lives. we think this innovation will create new jobs. we do not know how many.

clearly, new businesses are being formed. new top-level domain registries from the new registrars. it is creating new businesses and new jobs. the reality is great ideas do not last forever. the name the main system may seem very similar -- domain system may seem very familiar. that is what was created in the past. it is it important to open up to users around the world to see what they want to create for the next generation of the internet domains system. the next benefit is competition. not everyone has the main name that they want today. one of the reasons is the fundamental mismatch with the way the trademark system developed. the trademark system is

fragmented and/categories and geographies. united states has over 40 different categories for filing trademarks. those are different industrial categories. exactly the same name or term can be filed by different companies in different sectors. take that issue and roll it around the world to more than 150 countries and you are talking about well over 5000 different entities that could have the right to exactly the same trademark or term. the domain name system has integrity and is unique. every domain name is unique. if you take example.com, there is only one in the world. that is why the work of our community is critical in coordinating the internet to maintain the integrity. when someone sends an e-mail to

your account, it gets to you and does not go to five other people in the world that have chosen to use the same name in the system that lacks integrity. the domain name is unique. it has naming integrity just like the addressing system. that is what keeps the global internet unified and working and scaling for the benefit of mankind. there will always be a pressure between the trademark system /categories and geographies. you can imagine the competition for some of those strings. it may be financial or policy competition. that is some of the heat you are hearing in the last few weeks. the fourth primary benefit is consumer choice. maybe you did not give the domain name you want to become someone else with your family name grab it -- grabbed it in

1994. you will have another bite at the apple with the creation of new top-level domains. you may be part of a group or city that will have a top-level domain name where you can get the name you want to have. it provides more consumer choices. some people ask if these will be successful or how many will fail. how do you define success and failure? who will decide? the users of the world will decide. organizations will decide what succeeds in what is not successful. then's concern is not about individual business, marketing, or organizational success of a top-level domain.

it is that the global main system beat secure and reliable. that is what the checks are for the system. the community cares about protecting rights holders of light treatment. there will be some successes and failures. we will probably see some innovations we find it hard to think about today. some things are predictable. having spent a week in beijing and month ago and hearing a number of parties will be applying for generic top-level domains, it sounds like that is reasonable. we will see. we have no opinion about anybody's concept or idea for a new gtld. we will take the applications and process them fairly according to the rules. the final decider will be the board of directors of icann.

they do not intend to weigh in on individual decisions. they intend to except the process of the panel. and our chairman is here with us today. he leaves the board. -- he leads the board. icann is a consensus-driven and focused on the global unified internet. the program has been developed to support all three of those. it was developed for consensus policy development processes. there were many hard-fought battles over years. it has an entire set of protections that previous gtld rounds did not have. i will not get into too many technical details, but there are additional security protections. it clearly should serve to

support the global unified internet by helping to meet the needs of users around the world who would like to have some of the same choices that people who live in this geography in jury today. -- enjoy today. how will live look in 10 years? i think we can say it will be more ubiquitous. there will be more domain names. there will be more devices. there will be more network addresses. it will be more global. the highest growth rate in the world of internet users is in asia, very significant growth. it will be more diverse. you will see more different tools, applications, devices, domain names. you will see more different languages. he will see less latin as a portion of the mix, i would predict. it will look more like the world and lessi think that is a good r

the internet. i also think if we meet here in two years and have this discussion and we look back on this program, today many people ask the question why are you doing this program? i think in two years time and a lot of people will say, how could do not have done this? how could you not have opened up the internet to this? i am thrilled to be here with you today. maybe we can move to question and answer. thank you very much. [applause] >> it occurs to me i did not introduce rod when he came in. i assumed everyone knew who he was. if you do not know who he is, the knee after. let's take a few questions. there are microphones if you could wait for them.

please introduce yourself when you come to the microphone. >> thank you. >> hello. you say the process can about consensus -- the consensus pot -- process that c is supposed to make decisions by. can you answer critics who said he did not follow this process and have called for you to delete it? >> shore. the policies were developed and it took three years of hard work of that group, multi stake models that have gone through a two significant revolutions. our design is organic and devolving. it was developed through that process and reviewed in depth by

our board which is a multi stakeholder consensus body itself. board members are elected by a policy development organs that i have mentioned here they are also developed by an advisory committees that engaged in these policies. security experts from around the world. the at large advisory committee that includes over 150 civil society groups around the world. he and the government advisory committee, the gac. all of them weighed in. if you look at our engagement with gac on this alone, for the first time in history we get a pre formal consultation just on this program. more than 40 countries represented, i think we had 18 out of 22 icann board members and liaisons'.

we worked with over 40 changes that came through the gac and we were able to accommodate over 70 of them. that does not mean in a multistate older model reaching consensus is not unanimity. this program was not approved with unanimous vote. i know around one was. the first round -- this one had a dominant majority. it is all on line and is all transparent. some of the parties issued letters as a part of this program. there changes were accommodated.

no process is perfect. and by the way, this process can still change or the program can change because the board of icann, icann is an organization that reserves to change its right in the future. we need to do that for the security of the stability of the internet. we do not know what kind of issues can develop tomorrow. >> is there any reason you had to stick with this particular date? you have members of congress asking you to slow down and answer questions. >> there was a date approved by the icann board. many participants feel they waited for many years already. there was no reason given for the delay. there is no new information that has come in the last few months. the same set of arguments, most of which have been heard up to five and six years. it is just like congress

finally enacts legislation, that does not stop the lobbying of special interest saying that is wrong, you should reinterpreted. i think it is the same thing. i want to stand up so i do not lockyer shot. he said this debate has been healthy. projectiothere has been controvt the internet and icann is to dominated by the united states and the u.s. government. the way you explant the revolution of this program, it appears to have international support but has run into criticism in the u.s. congress. you have members of congress saying the department of commerce should order you to slow down. this criticism coming from

within washington, does it make it more difficult for you to say that icann is not dominated by washington? >> yes. icann is a global institution. it says that in our bylaws and by the papers that were a joint effort by the department of commerce and the white house that shipped us initially. there is a natural tension. that is why it is all the more important we be true to the global public interest and not the interest in anyone geography. i want to recognize there have been concerns from trademark and business interests around the world. it has not been limited to north america were washington, d.c. it has been focused here. i think even that is healthy. even the debating and engaging on these issues is leading to a much better understanding of

icann. icann is a complex institution. the same thing is true of the idtf , the critical organization that the fund's most of the standards of the internet and the ones we seek to follow. a lot of pressure and tension. it forces a challenge for icann to find out what it is. are we a global organization or will be -- will we be a national organization? i can tell you under my leadership, i cann is a global organization. >> randy bachman. he addressed the ftc letter and

said most of the things they said were either on founded or addressed by europe mediation process. one of the things i did not see, even though you said they trusted it trademark group, there is no mention of the domain names and ip addresses. are you planning on including that in as well? >> let me first respond, i am not familiar with the comments he made about jeff moss. i will not comment on them right now. i will say we are addressing the letter in depth. >> the thing to address most of them. the one i had not seen it was odd the ip addresses. >> that is not part of the new program. i think that would have to work through a different policy. >> i did hear you are going to have to include -- encouraging people to be part of --

>> is required. it is required to support which means if you are a top-level domain, anyone that rocket -- registers at the second to levels should have a choice. he will have signed -- >> you are looking at names and not numbers? >> this is a domain name aspect of the system. we have mentioned that they should both support and that protocol for. i think the blocks of internet addresses and a group addresses and how that secured, that is a technical discussions in the itf and other bodies. once they come up with their set of guidelines, the next step is how does itf look at standards

and policies to support that. it is an important policy, and we appreciate your support for that. >> hi, i am in the business of protecting my trip marks and the brand name. we recently did one of the first triple xx x -- is the process for the gtld going to be set up similarly? will this be rolled out to other top-level domains? i thought it was a very effective process as an alternative to a udrp. >> jamie, are you in the room? are the mechanisms the same? >> i am not going to comment on whether or not they are the same year it >> if you can start --

>> they develop those independently from the new program. the urs was developed under the implementation of the new program. it applies to top-level domains that are prudent for the program. it does not apply to existing top-level domains. whether that happens in the future will depend on the community for that objective. >> hi, i am from the association of national advertisers.

you seem to be glossing over some of the level of criticism coming out. the ftc did not to say there were some problems, the chairman said this would create a potential disaster for business and consumers. also in that report it talked about he icann review team that stated the truth that the current system is broken and it needs to be repaired. these are international organizations, the u.s. and,the who, nato, and more than 28 other organizations that thought this rollout was premature. the gac which provided 12 proposals to protect the system from the internet crime said that only three of those proposals had even been looked at.

these sounds like -- these sound like very serious concerns when you are rolling something out that will fundamentally change the running of the internet. what are you going to try to do to meet some of these concerns or the old stories that do not meet any concern now? >> thank you for sharing that. i am very proud of the work that the review team has done that. they were formed after the affirmation of commitment we signed with the department of commerce that changed the oversight and reviews of icann from the u.s. department of commerce to being done by the world. groups are comprised of other stakeholders around the world. i and the coast elector of those teams. i think there is a lot more work to be done. you have law-enforcement constituencies with an important set of concerns and issues and you have civil society groups

and privacy parties that have very different views as well. trying to find the right middle ground is one of the great and important challenges we have as an organization. more work has to be done there. a lot of work is being done right now as we discussed in our most recent meeting when we met with the governmental advisory committee and they shared their view that three of the concerns were in the process of being addressed. there were concerns about other things that have identified. we initiated a review of our fundamental contracts with the registrars. parties like godaddy or anyone you register a name with. he the country codes are different. we have different contracts. we are seeking at this time -- we are in the process of detailed contract negotiations with the registrar constituency to change and amend the

contracts to provide better protections. we are very much hope will -- i know it is something our chairman care is strongly about and the support -- something i am very concerned with since i came in. i think we will see some progress there. hopefully by their cosa rica meeting. we invite all of you to join. that is when there will be the next in-depth level the date on where it goes. a lot more work needs to be done. i think there are other party is proposing new ideas. new ideas that want to consider to prevent defense of registrations. icann is an open committee -- committee driven process. >> i will try to answer them

with brevity as well. >> gravity or brevity? >> i will strike for both. >> because of your background, i would like to know how you have seen the filling of the whole swiss cheese of security and what you think the current state is and how much has changed from what you are doing? >> sure. that is the mother of all questions. that is a huge question. security is so complex. who is a security expert when it is almost impossible to truly secure anything attached to the internet. internet security is a great challenge of our time and it is something we have to work on together. the role that icann plays as we are a bit like switzerland when it comes to neutrality. we are the neutral ground for every single country edit

territory in the world that lincoln and have some kind of work together to keep the domain name system going. everyone from syria, iran, many of these countries are members of our advisory committee. we welcome that. all of them we have contacts with because we have to coordinate the internet. we maintain our neutrality. you might read some interesting stories of the role that icann played it to help link to the other 100 countries around the world to combat pernicious botnet. when you are that neutral there are other things you cannot do. that is fine. i think we have a world. i would not pine on whether the internet is getting more or less secure. we have enhanced the technology

by cryptic graphically citing the internet. we have more than at 70 domain names assigned by them now. adoption is a slow at the second level. adoption by users is slow. we really need the help of everybody to advocate it which prevents man in the middle attacks. that way when you attack a domain name you actually get to that side and somebody else cannot jump in the middle. it is one critical piece of the internet infrastructure. what the gentleman mentioned from the ftc and adding security is another key component that must be done. in the work is underway, but working this through standards bodies and building international consensus takes time. more work to be done. we hope we are contributing.

>> please remember to introduce yourself. >> i am and judy harris. i employer, and unfortunately i think like one. -- i am a lawyer. here in the united states, we have a role making process. an agency that will make policy has very specific processes they follow. they solicit comments and then they make decisions based on the comments. there is a recourse to the court of appeals if there is a belief that the decisions that were made, the policies that were put in place were arbitrated capricious and not keeping with the comments that were filed my question is, you have talked a

lot about the ability to write letters. you have talked about the open process you have with people submitting comments. you talk about the ability people are going to have to send reactions when the applications come in. . icann have any application to do more than listen? is there any obligation to demonstrate that your decisions were based on the preponderant of the evidence in the record. is there any recourse to anyone anywhere in the world to challenge that finding? >> thank you. key simplify your question, it has two key pieces. are there review processes and procedures to appeal decisions? the answer is, yes, on both. structures are a little different than the u.s. government.

they differ according to some of the departments and agencies under a different authority and titles. as i mentioned, there were 45 late developments -- different former all public comment process. what happens if the board makes a decision someone thinks is wrong? this has happened. there is an independent process called an independent review panel where arbitrators can review any decision by the eye can board. we had this case with .xxx. they voted down .xxx because they felt it did not meet some of the criteria. the party that applied for the domain disputed it and filed the first formal complaint under a review panel. it took a considerable amount of

time to work through. i want to say a year. we spent millions of dollars on the effort and we lost. when we lost, by the way, by and general counsel, may in california and said i cannot believe this. we just lost. i said good, help goodtweet it right now. -- help me tweet it right now. we are writing a tweet asset with just lost the decision. by tweet went out within minutes of that finding the decision. the board reconsidered the decision, laid out the process for evaluating it with the community, to cut public comment for considering the decision. in the and we ended up approving it. the board did not have to change the decision carried the

independent review panel forced the reconsideration. the reason is for legal reasons. the board of icann is the judiciary for making decisions for the organization. it is not possible in california law. [inaudible] >> my first question is, does icann have an obligation to take in comment but to make decisions based on the preponderant -- i understand you will never have a perfect consensus. could you choose to make your own decisions and ignore those comments? >> the icann board has the responsibility to make decisions in the global public interest.

we reaffirm that responsibility when we signed the commitments with the department of commerce. that means at the end the board must do what they believe is for the highest good of the public interest. that was the litmus test on this program and the debate and discussions that we went through as a board and reaching the decision. >> we have three more. go ahead >> this will be very brief. just a minute ago you were talking about the complexities of securities. going back to this "who is" problem. that is a problem that is not very complicated. it is a problem that has been around since 2002 when they had issued warnings about the fact that this system was woefully

inaccurate and contain a marietta of errors. in 2009 and law-enforcement and recommendations -- when law enforcement had recommendations. currently we have all of this talk and none of the law enforcement recommendations developed. we still have registrations to mickey mouse, donald duck,god, you name it. for those type of registry errors that could be easily screened out by a simple data base query. is this even something you propose to do? >> let me say, i invite you to step into the room at icann and pull in the civil rights and privacy groups, law enforcement, registrars, and come out and tell me this is

easy and there is a set of recommendations everyone can agree on. i have not seen in. i do not develop policy. i support the policy development process. one of the key things i focus on as ceo is not trying to steer policies of icann by trying to turn up the development process and support organization so we do not have an organizational skew. >> going back to the stakeholders who had named, the first amendment constituency would be worried about proxy registration. --. law-enforcement would be worried about screening out these types of plenty if you will start reasoning this out, please come to the. i think progress does need to be made in. has agreed progress can be made a. there is a middle ground that can be found. having watched the battles go on and the positioning and

lobbying, i have never seen a group say, we got it. it is really simple. kasich, i do not like that. i will not live with that. what does icann live on? we live on the trust we work with our partners globally. we have to be fair and respected. we have to act in a trust for the fashion. that means that we have to keep pushing on these kind of issues to enhance things like "who is" even when it is easy for everything to gain ground down and stock in. that is part of the valley that the board of icann has and as ceo i value and sticking things sometimes. if you think it is simple, write it up and get everyone on board.

>> i am joe, you talk about national governments be in one of the biggest likeliest purchaser of these top-level domains. there are also many .gov and a number of governments trying to pare down and rationalize web presence is right now. i am wondering if you would expect this expansion of domains to change the way government manages their web presence? >> first i mentioned some geographies where there seems to be an interest in creating local languages scripts for creating local.com, .org, .gov. we will see what happens. a lot of governments will look at how to create higher security is ounce or networks he know how they do that. some of them are related to

this. most of the government interest we are seeing are by cities, a very strong interest by a lot of cities around the world in all five geographies and also by states in some geographies. i think he will certainly see cities. you will see states. i know some of the cities are struggling with issues of how we manage this new top-level domain, who do we let in? do we wanted to be open to everyone or do we want to have some quality control? as soon as you do quality- control you are doing editing and choosing and raising difficult issues. this is an area of innovation i think will be interesting. >> one more? last call? caught me ask you to join me in thanking our guest. >> thank you all very much. [applause]

h [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we will take you live to portal beach, south carolina. the son is starting to go down. undecided voters are gathering for a town hall meeting. his guest today will be virginia

gov. bob mcdonnell. this is part of the series at town hall meetings with political leaders and gop presidential contenders in the run-up to south carolina's " first in the south"primary. we are taking a look at folks gather as they get ready to hear from a virginia gov. bob mcdonald. mitt romney was in the central part of the state today hosting a forum. jon huntsman started the day further south. he was in charleston, south carolina. newt gingrich spent some time in the state's capital for a town hall meeting. works santorum held a volunteer rally in the mt. pleasant. rick perry was in georgetown.

texas congressman ron paul was not in the deep south carolina today. he was back, taking a few days off the campaign trail. you can check out all of our event and lots of video that c- span has covered. you can check it all out in one spot. it is c-span.org/campaign2012. this form for the undecided voters gathered here in myrtle beach, south carolina. in a report by reuters, some news on a rick santorum, he is getting the backing of evangelicals and texas. a group of about 150 conservative leaders have chosen mr. rick santorum as their presidential nominee over their own gov. rick perry. that could help him and races throughout the south including here in south carolina's primary this weekend. back in 2008, about 60% of south

carolina voters describe themselves as evangelical christians. we will take a look here and watched the crowd gathering. the event is supposed to start at 5:30, a couple of minutes late. we would just watched as people gathered here in myrtle beach, south carolina.

>> again, we are here and myrtle beach, south carolina with the voters who are undecided in who to vote for in the republican presidential primary. he will seek gov. bob mcdonnell from virginia. -- bob mcdonald. he is attending this series hosted by tim scott. tim scott is letting voters ask questions of political leaders to come to know we will have live questions and online questions submitted by voters

who are not sure who to vote for. it was turning out to be a controversial one. most of the candidates did not get on the ballot and virginia. we will hear from the state's governor. yesterday judge ruled against rick perry to sue to get on the virginia ballot. the candidates waited too long to sue and they knew what the rules were to get on the virginia state ballot. we will see if that comes up as an issue when we hear from republican governors association chairman bob mcdonnell.

>> again, just waiting here as the sun goes down in rural beach, california. we will give you continuing

coverage of the road to the white house. you can see bob mcdonnell. he is the guest of tim scott. onay's series focusing undecided voters, people who have not made up their mind in terms of who they will vote for. that are expected to take the podium in just a couple of minutes. we will watch as they walked up.

>> thank you for coming in and this. warm weather. this is a great day. part yawl warm? i am a big believer and positive attitude. you guys who are next to someone, run against her. if you are married to her, it is better. let's add another row of chairs. we will get started in the two or 3 minutes. [applause]

[indistinct conversation] >> you can see him talking with undecided voters.

just to let you know as we are waiting here, most of the candidates are here in south carolina. mitt romney was in central south carolina to host a forum. jon huntsman started the day here as well. he was in charleston. newt gingrich spent some time in the state's capital. keith boast -- he hosted a call in town meeting. rick santorum hold a rally in mt. pleasant. rick perry campaign near the coast. there was one candidate who did not join the others, ron paul is back home. he is taking a few days off the campaign trail. ken scott from south carolina hosting a first in the south -- tim scott hosting a first in the south town hall meeting.

[indistinct conversations] >> if you guys on this side,, and. we have seats right over here so you feel like you are in the front row. i still have some great seats right here. why do you not come over.

you guys standing under this one, there are still four or five seats together. a family that sit together stays together. ladies, you have greatcoats. you do not want to be standing there. why don't you come over he cut -- there are -- why don't you come over here at. there are many better guys over here under the tent. >> hello, everybody. about two hours ago i agreed to and see this event. emcee this event.

those of you could know me i hate it when politicians read from notes. i have to do it because there are things i have to do from here. the lots are so bright, all i see our faces. i want to welcome you to celebrity square. this is an amazing weekend to be and myrtle beach. whoever wrote this is really boring. >> it is an amazing week to be in myrtle beach. [applause] >> it is all about delivery. >> ok. i can talk like that. we are pleased to kick it off with a town hall. i want ta future vice-presidente

united states of america. [applause] by the way, you guys are much too easy. tim scott's first in the south presidential town hall series has hosted a presidential candidates and a leading voices focused on defeating president obama in 2012. [applause] there are a bunch of republicans who are involved in this. they are the co-sponsors. i am going to mispronounce all of these. de fer county, -- beuford county, carolina patriots, charleston county, charleston te a party, george town county, georgetown patriots, 912, goose

creek, the mount pleasan t912, the myrtle beach tea party, the north myrtle becah tea party, the south myrtle beach tea party. the walk, neck gop. who has a cell phones here, raise your hands? carl them a way. can you all please silent your cell phones -- throw them away. i know we have some of ron paul people. i want to encourage them to come join us.

you are part of us. rather than shouting from outside, come into the tent. we invite you. [applause] i would like to introduce pastor al allen to lead us in a prayer. >> thank you. let me see if i can find my notes for the prayer. what on to myrtle beach, south carolina. no other place to be this week because it is a critical crossroads for our country. may we parade. -- yay we pray. we thank you for all of your love and blessings pita we pray for our country and need your help @. i ask that you would call upon all of our patriots and stirred their hearts and souls and let

them know that the time is now for us to stand up and be heard and be counted. our country, its future is at risk. get us the courage and the strength and the bold so that we might stand up and not take no and not be turned it down. we are willing to take this banner and march forward. help keep alive the dreams and the plans that our forefathers sacrificed so deep -- so deeply for. bless our troops. be with them. keep them safe, charge your angeles to protect them. plus their families here at home. be with us now lord as we take upon this serious challenge to help turn our country upon the path of righteousness and help us to start here and start now

to put the pews back into our politics. we know that we are the country we are because of your blessings and because of patriots all over this country being obedient on to you. out leftists and encourage us and help us set the world stage as to what you would be pleased with. encourage hearts and souls here tonight. give us wisdom and knowledge and understanding so that we might be able to reach out and help others. take that stand for those who are not able to. be with us and help us be your ambassadors. we ask all of your blessings upon this mighty country we call the united states of america. we ask it in your name, amen. [applause] >> and now i would like to

introduce john a. bellamy to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> i did want to say, frank, this is the independent republic. will you join me. [pledge of allegiance spoken] >> thank you. one more announcement. these policemen you see around here, they are armed and dangerous. i would like to introduce somebody who i have gotten to know over the last year. i have worked with probably 100 members of congress now. some are better than others. you should be very proud.

there must have been some sort of divine intervention because something good happened in the first congressional district of south carolina. i had a chance to get to know the congressmen. he understands policy. he understands people. he understands the country and what it needs. there is a lot of anxiety and division in this country. if there is anyone i know from this new class that has the ability to get them together again and confident again, it is because of congressmen tim scott. please welcome him. [applause] >> thank you. good evening and myrtle beach,

south carolina. what a great evening. i will tell you, this kind of reminds me of my high school football days. a little nervous thinking about what needs to happen next to get us on track to win the game in america, we are playing pretty state that matters. how many of you realize this is probably the most important presidential election and all of our lifetimes? [applause] we need a president that may need to read the notes, but he would not need a teleprompter. we have had a series of town hall meetings. i thought to myself, i would love for my constituents to hear from a governor who understands how to actually cut spending. a new concept and washington. a cut is off of the imaginary number that never exactly consisted pita we will cut spending for where it might go

but up from where it is. challenging math that is only understood in washington, d.c. but in virginia we have a governor that took a $6 billion shortfall and turned it into a $1 billion surplus. we have a governor who understands the necessity of infrastructure and make decisions on investing in it to. we have with us the next speaker he will hear, not only is he the governor of virginia, bob mcdonnell, but he may just be the balancing act necessary to bring the white house back to our site. he may be the next vice- president. you never know. for gov. bob mcdonnell. [applause]

thank you. >> how great to be back. i was telling tim when i was a young kid, my parents would bring the family down here every year. how many of you remember the old crescent beach? that is where we were every year for about a decade through the 1960's and early 1970's. i have some money fund -- fond memories. that is why 73 was a pretty good idea because i remember how long it took to get here. thank you for hosting these town halls and allowing me to be here. you have had so many presidential candidates here already to give south carolinian is a firsthand look at the candidates. i cannot tell you how much i appreciate what he has done. he can to campaign for some of our candidates in 2009 and 2010 in virginia.

he is a great conservative vote in the united states congress who sticks to his guns. it is why he has already taken the stand to do things we need to do like cutting the corporate income tax rates so we can have more american dollars to be reinvested and being able to expand them around the world. thank you for your leadership to get a you have done a great job in a short period of time. [applause] doctor frank luntz who has done a great job with some of the focus groups over the years and has been helpful to me and has given me advance -- advice be n. i have already run into five of virginians. thank you for coming. on behalf of the 8 million people in virginia, i want to

deputize all of you as honorary virginians. i come from the state or the first two governor's where patrick henry and thomas jefferson. that is the get i got. i know that you guys are all freedom loving people who understand the american dream. all of you buy those gas lamps, i suggest to be a little careful. a catch -- a uses natural gas which is a terrible fossil fuel. we may have the epa come down here and put us out of business. i've read a couple of people down here with me. my campaign manager when i ran for governor who is now the executive director of the american governors association, that is phil cox. thank you for coming. i am from the government and i

am here to help. ronald reagan said that and i thought it would be a good opening line. i know what he meant. it is only helpful when it knows the will of the people and respects the constitution of the united states of america. we take that we take that seriously in virginia. we were the first day to file against obama-care a year ago. -- the first state to file against obama-care year ago. i know your attention is on the critically important goal of winning back the united states senate. and more importantly, elected a new commander in chief. i think it is our top priority for our country. i think there are three things that will determine the outcome that are vitally important.

one, we need to get the greatest country in the world back to work. this chronic unemployment rate that has been over 9% for 32 months is just unacceptable and unsustainable parentsie. it quashes the ability of the american people to pursue the american dream. this president's policies on jobs are horrible -- new spending, new taxes, new regulation. failing to recognize is the brilliance of the entrepreneur that really gives access to the american dream. we realize that are in a virginia. we made jobs are top priority. our campaign bumper sticker was bob for jobs. we have the lowest unemployment rate in the se, 6.2%. we are the most business

friendly state in america. we get it. if you keep taxes and litigation low, and say the risk takers and people there want to have health is good, then we will have people that will invest in your state. secondly, we have more debt and more deficits with this president than have been racked up than any other three-year period with this president's leadership. that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. we are mortgaging the future of our kids. we are 15 million -- $15 trillion. there is no way to spend our way out of this problem. we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. we need to say what is right for our country and spend accordingly. [applause] so we will realize that. we have a $6 billion budget deficit.

when i became governor, my former governor was tim kaine, who was head of the democratic national committee at the same time, left me with a $6 billion deficit and a tax increase to try to spend it. we said no. we cut spending, and balance the budget. we have $1 billion in surpluses. that is what can be done with leadership like tim's in congress. the third thing is the most important and that is leadership. leadership really does matter. who sets the rules for our country really does matter. that is why these elections are so important. the outcome really does matter. this president has blamed all the problems, whether noble. unemployment our jobs, it is the fault of the tea party or the house republicans. i say, mr. president, you are the commander in chief, take responsibility. set parties, cut spending and

get results. that is what you should be doing. we need a leader that wants to put in place results oriented conservatism. that is to stick to your guns but quit making excuses. get things done. what americans want is people that will get the basic services, the statutes and convert -- plus a togiola requirements -- constitutional requirements done well and then stay out of their way so people can be free to use their god- given talents to pursue the american. that is what we need to do. i look forward to your questions and participating in this town hall. when all this hot air from is politicians, we will warm this place up pretty quickly. thank you very much. >> we have just been joined by the chairman of the south carolina gop.

[applause] the way the format works is pretty simple. u.s. the questions, i am your conduit, -- u.s. the questions. and i will articulator to the guy out there. -- you ask the questions. the first question comes from michael and tracie christig riffin. thank you for being here. mr. vice-president -- [laughter] i would like to get used to the new titles. recently, the president has talked about downsizing the government. what are your thoughts on whether or not he is sincere, and how would you encourage those of us on the right to join him in an attempt to reduce the

size of government? >> thank you for that question, because talk is cheap. actions and results matter. what we have seen over the last three years, congressman, despite your best efforts and your colleagues, particular your freshman i made a house, we have three from virginia -- i hope they are helping you -- is just the opposite. we have seen some of the greatest expansion of government power in history. look at what he tried to do it in south carolina with the nlrb. could not get things done like card check. so he tried to do administratively with three unelected people inth the nlrb and try to stop blowing from coming to the west coast to south carolina. the obama-care legislation creates i do not know how many dozens and dozens of new agencies and programs.

so what we have seeing is more spending, more government solutions. and so here we are 10 months away from an election, i think we will see him go to the middle to create common sense policies, because everybody knows we have to do it. we are broke. $15 trillion in debt. i have to say over the last decade, republicans have contributed to some of that debt in the early part of this decade. we have not want the clock back if we go from where we were when obama took office and to almost $5 trillion of additional debt in three years is unbelievable. it is more taxation, more regulation, more unionization. these of the things the president has promoted. it is the opposite of what you need to do to encourage the entrepreneur to take risks and grow, borrow capital and create jobs. he was to heard

consolidate the small business administration, department of commerce and elevated to cabinet level position and create efficiencies, and if he is serious about it he says it will save $3 billion over 10 years. then fine, i applaud him. but that is a drop on a the bucket compared to what needs to be done. as long as he does not change his view that we cannot cut entitlements, it will not work. everybody knows you cannot balance this horrific $1.50 trillion a year deficit if you are not serious about entitlement reform and government reform across the spectrum. and so i hope he is serious. i hope that when he is right, that we find that common ground and cut government, but there is so much more to do. i do not think on the big stuff the president has a real interest in reducing government. most of the solutions are just the opposite -- a big government, as opposed to more freedom. >> thank you, governor.

one of the great challenges we have had over the last year is that we like 80% of what he says, but we 89% of what he does. next question comes from victoria williams. in victoria? thank you for being here. victorious says, virginia has done a fantastic job as relates to the unemployment rate -- 6%. our state is 10%. our nation is at 8.5%. how can we model our economic attitude and our behavior is after the great state of virginia? >> i love the softball questions. he was so much. keep throwing them up here. honestly, i do not think it is that hard. we know what works. we have been the greatest country on earth sends our foundation to london 35 years ago. we understand these basic principles of freedom and

federalism and limited government and understanding that free people, where we promise opportunity. that is what we guarantee -- opportunity. we do not guarantee of come fundamental difference between us and other socialist-style country. we promise opportunity to pursue the american dream. so i think that is what we need to do. the best way we can do that is some of the kinds of things that you do. we of the second highest corporate income tax and all of the world. no wonder if capitalism -- capital is fleeing america for europe and asia. you've had one of the great ideas with your rising tide legislation to cut that 35% federal income tax so we do not force american businesses to go to singapore or china or tie 1 or some other country, where those rates are lower. the president of coke said a

couple of months ago says it is easier to do business in china then to do business in america with this president. shocking. i was in china on a trade mission six months ago, and they want to do business with america. they are cutting bureaucracy and trying to find ways to model themselves after what we do in america. they are learning a lot from us. so we should not be having the kinds of policies. so what we have done is we have tried to cut taxes in those areas that impair the ability of businesses to create and grow access to capital. we tried to create some targeted incentives by looking at what is virginia good at. we are guided advanced manufacturing and cyber security and modeling and simulation and wine and tourism and film. we just had that steven spielberg do his lincoln movie in virginia. imagined a liberal democrat during a movie about a conservative republican president.

we thought it was great. we are promoting new incentives focused on those industries. you know what is most important right now? this president is spending most of this time attacking people that are successful. the president is a nice guy. he is a good family man. his wife was just in virginia with my wife doing things for veterans. that was common ground heard about his policies are just flat wrong. he is attacking people that are successful. creating this class warfare argument that if you have been successful in taking risks and been blessed in return, that somehow you are stopping on other people's rights. we should condemn the. that is absolutely wrong. that is not the american formula for success. tim, what i say is, look, if you want to come to virginia and relocate your business, we love you. come on. we have people from california, people like hilton and northrop grumman and other major companies that have relocated

because they do not get it when it comes to taxes and regulation and we do. we know this is a competitive marketplace, not only for ideas but also for jobs. the more you can make your stay in business and family and bring in those job creators, the better off you are going to be. these are pretty elementary concept curres./ tim gets it. we put them in place in virginia. your governor is trying to do that. chris christie and mixed scott are doing that in their states. that is why you see that some of the most pro-business states in america are headed by republican governors. virginia has been ranked number one this year, but those other republican governors are doing the same things. >> thank you, governor. another amazing challenge comes from chasten watson. are you here? thank you. he is a commercial fisherman. a lot of time, he deals with the

regulatory environment that is getting worse and worse on commerce. specifically, catch limits of that impacts offshore fishing, but more important is the regulatory environment that has stifled growth throughout this nation is doing it more because in the last 12 months we added 70,000 pages of the compliance cost of $95 billion just to comply. could you talk about that? >> yes. i mentioned i think the great cancer that undermines on to preneurship is regulation. in some cases, it is unionization. because he cannot do certain things done on various

environmental front like cap and trade and certain union areas like card check, he tried to use the administrative process act with bureaucrats, but you try to get them to pass of volumes of the regulation that enact some of these policies. i think some of these are beyond the scope of what congress intended and permitted our people to do. so regulations, as long as they have of valid consumer protection or public safety impact and do it in the least intrusive way, upon the citizens, then it makes sense. but some of the regulations we have seen over these last couple years, particularly with the gobs of them being promulgated for obama-care are a hidden tax. they add to the cost of doing business. and who pays for it? you do, because it is passed on as part of the cost of doing

business from the businessman. it is the same thing in the fishing area. i think we do need to balance the sensible goal of protecting our environment and protecting our natural resources with the needs of commerce. and for a long time in most states in the nation we realize there has to be some limits on catches of all kinds of things. we have some of those limits in virginia. if they become excessive to achieve a political objective on behalf of people that are far left to it comes to environmental protection, then entreprene on to eurship. goal. should be our >> our next question comes from tom middleton.

here's a question about voter fraud and the federal intrusion. in south carolina, our immigration law, our voter id, are some areas where we see the federal government coming into our state or suing us were trying to steal our jobs. his question is, how do we stop the voter fraud and how do we stop the intrusion that the federal government seems to be doing rapidly throughout this nation? >> one of the great hallmarks of the american republic is that for the most part, people have confidence in the outcome of elections. you see these horrible images and other countries that were these totalitarian regimes get 99% of the vote and everybody knows what is going on there. and having that principle of one man, one vote, be counted is

so important to our founders. it was one of the things our revolution was about -- those colonists were denied representation. they decided they would make their stand and fight for it. so making sure that everybody cast one vote and not more than one vote is also important. we have done some things like some basic voter identification requirements at the polls, just to prove to you are cured without doing anything to suppress voter turnout. it is a common-sense way to do it. i think a lot of states are doing that. with regard to the overbearing federal government, that would take the rest of this town hall and beyond. you know, when the 10th amendment was adopted, it meant something. it meant that article i section 8 of the constitution was the box the federal government was suppose to be in. that articulated those limited

powers of what washington was supposed to do. when the federal government gets outside of that box and tries to be all things to all people or to do what ever the courts allow them to do, it really tramples on what the 10th amendment was all about which says what ever they cannot do it is left to you, the people and the states respectively. i think an important part of what we are trying to do at the republican governors' association is to help to re- balance those powers between state and federal government. what medicine and mason and jefferson and others wrote a lot about. -- what madison and mason and jefferson wrote about. limiting the federal garden is a lot of what those first 10 amendments were about. it is to guarantee those individual liberties to the citizens and to the states

respectively. i think we need to have a louder voice. we will be doing a lot of that at the republican governors association, especially when we see the results that states are getting individually with republican governors compared to what we are seeing coming out of this administration. individual governors are closer to the people. that is what jefferson really believe, the government closest to the people really does work. it is more responsive, more attentive. just like these meetings we are having here. tim believes that. these limitations that go into the constitution really do mean something and we should restore them. >> tom, thank you for the fraud.n on voetter 91 people that a and died before 2008 were able to rise

from the grave and vote for barack obama in 2008. let's turn our attention to the comments about who makes a good president. you suggested that being a governor is a very good road to the white house. [laughter] >> of course. >> that's the easy part. governor perry, governor romney .nd governor governhuntsman governors make a good president. the three things we talked about and frank, you talked about a lot of this is your focus groups, is when people say what we need to do to restore the great country of is it the american engine of opportunity back to work with more jobs. get our fiscal house in order.

families and businesses are doing it. the federal government should do it, too. it is what states have to do. we have to balance our budget. they print money. tim has been a good voice for not doing that. republican. >> we have self and forced debt ceilings. they do not. we need voices like tim scott up there and being able to say how we get that in order. and then leadership. those of the three key issues i see coming up this year. i said i am somewhat partial to governors, because when i see the failures in leadership and a failure in direction this administration, the skill said that i think is best suited to fix that is what governors really have to do every day. and we have to balance budgets every year. you cannot spend more than you have. you have to account for. which means you have to increase taxes or cut spending. in virginia, we cut spending.

that is our road to getting out ballots. secondly, when your unemployment rate is 9%, you cannot be blaming congress or the man behind a tree, you to take direct responsibility for how competitive are you making your state. what are your regulations? are using their business and jobs are a good thing? are you engaging in class warfare? we do not do that. and so, because governors are held directly responsible for the unemployment rate, they will have the best ideas on how to get that under control on business development, on energy policy. so i am a little partial to governors. i could say that you have three governors in the race. most of them have good records on jobs and business when there were governors of their state. governor romney in the private sector with what he has been able to accomplish, running the olympics.

i think all of them have a good view when it comes to spending. they understand you cannot spend more than you bring in. they had to govern that way by their statutes or their constitution. and so that is exactly the kind of leadership that you need. this administration thinks that you are their piggy bank. if they cannot get an of spending out of congress, there will run up the debt. and that is exactly the wrong approach. we are mortgaging the future. i think it is flat immoral that this of debt is running up, because some of us with gray hair, you are passing on to your kids and your grandkids. that is the wrong thing to do for america. moody's downgraded the federal government. s&p just downgraded about 8 european countries, starting with france and portugal. this is what is happening in the west now is that we have lost as a basic understanding of fiscal responsibility that most american families and small businessmen get. you have to live within your

means and set parties and balance your budget. that is why i said that the governors will do well. we have a great canada its across the board. you'll see the monday night. everyone of them would be better than what we have and the white house now. [applause] >> greg carter moon? sent us a question over facebook per do you support the webb- warner bill regarding offshore drilling near the coast of virginia, and what cautions which you take to protect the environment? >> absolutely. we have tried to position ourselves in virginia as the energy capital of the east coast. no offense to south carolina. we've got great coal and natural gas reserves. major nuclear capacity

in lynchburg, virginia. you know what the most productive nuclear reactor in the united states is a a? it is called the united states navy aircraft carrier. that is where the nuclear power is the best. we have more of them and norfolk, virginia, then any place on the east coast. as an aside, i am the son of an army officer. i served 21. my daughter spent a year and a rock as an army platoon leader. we need to do everything that we can to make sure our veterans are protected and will serve -- well served. and so, if we are going to have american energy independence, a lot of people talk about it. again, you have to deliver. and this administration has been hostile to caooal. they have tried to prevent hydra fracking. they have failed to provide a

suitable place for disposal of spent rods. they have pulled the rug out from under us in virginia in offshore drilling purdy know what? that is 97% of the electricity generation capacity in america and this administration is attacking it. i have never seen a windmill on top of a car be able to work. i'm for offshore wind, but not on top of my car. i think we have to realize it -- back to the question about the webb-warner bill -- i do want us to be able to drill off the atlantic coast. we need to use all of our resources in america as we do not have to depend on dictators around the world for oil. [applause] i think the people say we need in america first, domestic, red white and blue energy policy that uses everything. why should we hamstring our own country and force us to go and buy from other countries?

offshore drilling, i think we did learn a lot of the deep water horizon and secured it was prudent to slow down and find out what new technology and new regulations were needed to put in place. but to say after drilling 4000 wells on the gulf of mexico for 40 years, that we cannot do it safely off the atlantic coast i would say is flat wrong. that shows no confidence in the great american mines and technology and no confidence in the ability of government to get the regulations right. that is not america. we did not do that after the space shuttle disaster. that's absolutely wrong. i have more confidence in americans than the president. so i think we do some -- we ought to drill off the atlantic coast. the people leading the charge are senator mark warner and jim webb, two democratic senators

from virginia, who are trying to get some common-sense regulations in place for offshore drilling. we can do it. we need to do it. it will be a tremendous job. there would be 18,000 jobs in virginia. 7000 jobs in south carolina. tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues. that is how we grow. new industries and reduce our reliance on foreign countries. >> thank you, governor. we will have dr. frank luntz take over and get the audience involved. we will come back with a 10 minute wrap with the governor. >> i will ask you a question and i want you to respond. we have c-span cameras on. if you can move away from those things. it is ok. i want a show of hands. how many of you are better off than your parents were when they were your age?