how do you think this is going to affect world war ii research? considering the lack of service records. how do you think people are going to start using it now to back up their research? >> michael and i will both

in terms of world war ii, i work with the army and track down soldiers unaccounted for. i will be looking to each -- to find the soldiers that are still on accounted for. we are trying to bring some soldiers home. >> the world war ii years were a

period of enormous movement. we will be able to see some micro patterns of movement. >> i will not ask about the website. i will ask about the indexing project. what aspects of this indexing project will be a manual process versus something that will be automated from static text? >> i can address that. the 1940 collaborative community project will be computer

assisted in the sense that there are online indexing softwar = es at we will -- softwares that we will be able to index. it is easily laid out by nine so you can efficiently -- line so you can efficiently index. there will be two people indexing every line and there will be a comparison. if there is a conflict between the two, there will be an adjudication. there is an accurate way of indexing the records. that does not mean there will be no errors. the error rate will be low. we need a tremendous amount of bolland tears.

-- amount of volunteers. there are some fields that can be useful for research purposes. we may be using some intelligent character recognition. it is not worth having the volunteer's time dedicated to it. it does not help you find the record. for research purposes, it could be useful to have an indexed one. >> we have a question over here. >> i write a genealogy blog. i hear that people from the netherlands are accessing the site fine.

[applause] >> thank you very much. >> you have localized -- vocalized the problem. >> i have a question for connie and michael. what was your ah-ha moment? >> we had been looking at farmers in a certain county. it said they had zero for income.

it said how much money came out of wages and salary. if you were self-employed, you got zero. that was my big ah-ha moment. [laughter] >> tell them about the num erator. >> it is in lakeview. you know that someone is bankrupt and someone is living in a tree. i have never seen that before on a census before. >> this is something the director of the census bureau does not like to hear. [laughter] >> of all of the dozens i have ever looked at, it is the only one. >> tell them about the 1935

entry for the one person. >> we saw one man who was born in poland. in 1935, he is in vienna, austria. in 1940, he was in brooklyn new york -- brooklyn, new york. he is a rabbi. i did not want to write his name down during title 13. >> talk about some of the famous folks you found. >> we found the president. he is in the middle of the page. we found myrna loy, artie shaw. let's see, who else? bella lugosi, boris karloff.

there are these rich movie stars and they are making $5,000 a year and more. they have no staff. there are no shofar -- there is no shofar -- no cooks. there are the people are extras and make $300 a year. it was not wonderful for everyone in hollywood. >> i am from the family's search international. we are crowds forcing this with 300,000 volunteers. i would like to commend john spottiswood for his wonderful description of how did -- how it works. many have volunteered for this effort. we need another 200,000.

1940census.com is where you go. there was something else, but i forgot about it. we are probably going to be starting this week. we have the same problems everybody else has. it is just like the harry potter problems at the center. the more volunteers we get, the faster we get them, the quicker the indexes will be online. not everybody will know how to get the numeration district. not everybody's ancestors will be on page four. the user experience that the archivist was talking about is so much better for the average american is all you have to do is employed a name and then the

index results -- is input a name and the index results come back. you click on the right spot on the page. that is what we want. we need your help to make these records easily searchable. >> once you get to that one line, please look at the rest of the page. it puts them in context. you want to get to that one line and spread out. >> we will be linking to the archive through the citizens dashboard. if you are on the homepage, there is a link. we encourage you to check out all our offerings. >> thanks for being here. please join us for coffee and j

uice. i want to thank the national service for archives for providing the refreshments for us. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> tonight on c-span, a debate on civil liberties, including the head of the aclu and the former solicitor general. >> in those cases, you are talking about the most critical assertion of government power. the number of individuals directly affected may be several hundred, 150 at guantanamo. when you have the highest rank of government decide to hold individuals without charges of trial, to ship them off to black sites, to authorize torture, which was illegal, and then endeavored to obfuscate that from the press, lawyers, the public, you are talking about a high stakes game that can literally change the course of american history. >> you are thinking about the civil rights of this individual who is preparing. >> anthony says before the missile strikes, he is having a conversion and he is equipped and other individuals have been equipped to kill other americans and that is already

underway and is going on. now you have the rights of that individual to something and then because judicial process/ >> you are saying this should be decided by the generals? >> this is not an easy thing to answer. you put those civil rights against the people you are sworn to protect from acts of despicable terrorism. you do not have a choice to do it the way everybody would like, which is to bring somebody to court and to have all of the witnesses -- all of those kinds of things. you do not have that choice. you allow that to happen until you can do the thing you cannot do, which is to bring about this judicial process, or you use a drone or some of the process of killing that individual.

you can see >> the whole program at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span -- >> you can see the whole program at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> an increase of cyber related attacks was predicted. we also heard from the fbi cyber division assistant director. this is about one hour and 18 minutes. -- and 15 minutes.

>> it is my pleasure to introduce our first keynote this morning, the assistant director of the counterterrorism division of the federal broke -- federal bureau of investigation. he has served in various leadership positions. in april of 2011, he was appointed deputy assistant director of the strategic operations branch counterterrorism division at fbi headquarters. on december 12 of last year, he was appointed as assistant director of the fbi's counterterrorism division. in his keynote session this morning, the assistant director will highlight the top priorities of the fbi in regard to terrorism threats and in various ways the fbi mitigates potential threats.

he will also share with the audience some recent successes the fbi has had in stopping terrorist attacks. please get a warm welcome to ralph boelter. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. can i be heard? good. if i try hard, i can almost see the back row. thank you for coming today. i know we are now 10 years plus after the tragic attack on 9/11 in 2001. i often wonder if there is terrorism fatigue out there in the country. i am pleased to see we have

quite the crowd today to listen to my address and my colleague's address. good morning to all. it is a pleasure to be here today and to speak to you about the fbi's continuing efforts to address the persistent threats to terrorism -- from terrorism to the united states. terrorism is a national security issue our challenge. it is a complex asymmetric threat that has challenged and hurt us overseas and at home. in the years since 9/11, we have come a long way to be sure. we have accomplished much in that time. even so, on the road forward, there is much to do. as our adversaries adjust and

evolves their strategies and tactics, as they move to greater degrees into cyberspace, for instance, where physical distances between people and places are less relevant, there are challenges before us, significant challenges. after the demise of osama bin laden last may, president obama reminded the world that america and her allies will continue to be relentless in pursuit of al qaeda, its affiliates and adherents. the achievements that stand as a reflection of that commitment are significant. the ranks of al qaeda core leadership have been degraded substantially during the last few years. likewise, many prominent figures or operatives and plots or groups affiliated with core al

qaeda have been disrupted. numerous violent extremist plots in the homeland have been identified and the destructive, including the recent plot by a double-disrupted, including a plot by a group in florida that planned to attack a commercial district filled with restaurants and clubs during its busiest hours to inflict mass casualties. and a separate plot by another extremist on the capital was disrupted a few weeks ago. these and other achievements are the product of a composite of measures and actions that have improved the effectiveness of the fbi and its many partner agencies through enhanced intelligence analysis and information sharing and of protocols and infrastructures

that facilitate that. through those improvements and a high degree of interagency collaboration that exists today between our local, state, and federal and international partners, we are better able to identify and locate our adversaries and better able to discern existing and emerging threats, threats that we can strategize and mobilize against and disrupt before harm is inflicted on americans, at its interests -- its interests and its allies. director mueller has described the enemy as primarily focused on criminal matters -- described the fbi as a robust intelligence

agency. we are focused first and foremost on protecting the united states from terrorist and terrorists and other national security threats. i have served in two fbi's, the bureau that existed before the 9/11 attacks and the bureau after that seminal day. i stand as a witness and a participant that it -- of the transformation the director often speaks of, including the establishment and the maturing of the director of intelligence within the fbi, a new creation for this organization, and a creation of the field intelligence groups that are placed in each field office

across the country. these constitute significant steps in developing our capability to understand and share the intelligence we collect. the necessary expansion of the size and capabilities of the counter terrorism division and the increase in the number of joint terrorism task forces around the country gave us the capability to investigate terrorism leads and cases in a manner that is more timely and more consistent and more effective. are staffed with local police officers, state officials, and other federal law enforcement officers and intelligence agency

representation. weis through the jttf's that have strengthened critical -- hened critical partnerships. we continue to evolve to further refine our analytical capabilities. for example, about a year ago, in my division, the counterterrorism division, we established the strategic operations branch within the division. the branch that is dedicated solely to assessing the existing and emerging threats around the world. the threat that implicate the homeland. not only that, it assesses our posture against each of those

threats, identifying where we are well-positioned, where we are strong, and where we need to redouble our efforts and where we need to become stronger. this branch slowly -- solely works on those issues, assessing our posture and driving resources decisions that i make to allocate the resources available against the threats that confront us. we are not just operating bid, as i like to say, showing -- big, throwing a lot of resources at a particular problem. we are operating smart. we are surveying the landscape and focusing on the threats that impose the greatest risk.

i recently read the biography of steve jobs. an aneddote in that book tells the story of jobs try to encourage his engineering staff to speed up the boot up of the mac. he says to his engineering staff, if a life was at stake, could you make it boot up faster. his engineering staff told him it would be difficult to do that. they told him, yes, if a life was at stake, we could do it. he knocked a significant amount of time off of the boot up time in the mac.

when i was reading that, i imagine we do not have to imagine if a lot were at stake. because a life is at stake. many lines -- many lifes are at stake. when we look to improve, i think of that an adult and i apply it to my work force. let me -- what i think of that and t don't -- anecdote, apply it to my work force. we will not stop to celebrate successes. why? because america is still at risk. even as we have improved and evolves and sharpen our focus,

our adversaries continue to evolves their capabilities. they are still committed to attacking us. that is clear. the terrorist threat has become more centralized, more complex. with the establishment of al qaeda affiliates around the eastern hemisphere, 10 years ago, the threat emanated from the region of asia -- the afghan region of asia, and that is what we focused on with laser focus. al qaeda is still committed to attacking the u.s. and the west. it still presents a danger to of us. the al qaeda affiliate based in the arabian peninsula actually constitutes a more serious threat to the united states today.

it was aqap, as the affiliate's is commonly described, that attended the bombing of flight 253 in december of 2009. and it was aqap that attempted to bomb carter flights bound for the u.s. in 2010. and other affiliates, such as the times square bombing attempt by the al qaeda affiliate, ttp, in may, 2010. in addition to spreading out around the globe, al qaeda has employed new methods and new tactics. of particular concern today is their use of on-line forums, website and social media to recruit and radicalize followers to commit acts of terrorism. in this way, terrorist

organizations seeking to hamas have, like i said earlier, dispensed with the limitations imposed by geography or distance. in fact, they can reach inside our borders and attempt to influence and direct their followers, or others who might be susceptible to their methods of promoting violence. similarly, aqap has produced a full-color online magazine, highly professional production. it is full of propaganda, extremist propaganda, and available at the click of a mouse. terrorists are not only terrorists are not only sharing ideas, they are soliciting information and inviting

communication. they are improving their communication methods. they are becoming more secure. the al qaeda affiliate in somalia uses twitter to taunt its enemy in english and encourages terrorist activity. the increase in online activity by extremists coupled with the rapidity that one can be radicalized presents a significant challenge for us. that is a concern and a focus of ours today. in the case of zachary chesser, the sentencing judge observed that chesser's transformation

from high school athlete to highly energized traitor of his country was startling. how quickly this young man went from high school athlete who was dedicated to the principals advocated by al qaeda, the violent rhetoric and ideology. chesser himself was surprised looking back at how quickly that transformation occurred. let me just say a few words about home grown violent extremism in a broader context. because that is a threat that we are quite concerned with today. again, the home grown violent extremism that arises from within our borders. it provides us fewer opportunities to discern in a timely manner.

and disrupt before harm is inflicted. it is home grown violent extremists, hve's. they come in all shapes and sizes and they come from various backgrounds. trying to assess any commonality between them for which you can develop an effective strategy is challenge challenging. yet we are doing this just that. we are analyzing every one of those hve's from where they became, how they became radicalized, how they mobilized so that we can better understand it going forward and become more effective in dealing with this threat.

as i indicated hve's are challenging because they are already in country. there is no travel involved necessarily on their part. they are familiar with their targets. they understand the culture. and in the case of lone actors they can operate in relative isolation. they can present few signals that they are out there, few signals of what their intentions are. and they can use readily available weapons or materials. when i talked about the attempted attack in tampa. i was talking about an hve. somebody who radicalized here. they can self radicalize or be radicalized online by somebody else and mobilized. that is what we dealt with there. same here in washington when i talked about the case or the threat on the capitol.

these are examples of hve's. there are many more. this is the trend. in the last, since 2008, there has been a substantial uptick in these hve cases. so the trend is, and the internet has a role to play in that. the trend is that the threat inside the borders is a significant one-and-one that is occupying more and more of our attention.

understanding why people get radicalized and doing so in ways that are effective. the need for community engage sacramento significant. the f.b.i. around the country have stepped up their efforts to engage in the community. to understand the community better and to convey to the community what our intentions are and what our interests and concerns are. it is imperative in this day and age with the threats that i have described to sensitize the public and law enforcement officials alike. to hve's. to signs of mobilization. to maximize the opportunity for disruption before harm is inflicted as i said before.

these are the challenges today in short order. we are looking at them and we are confronting them. let me just close by saying that i worked in counterterrorism for the last year as a assistant director and more recently as the director. and i have had the personal exposeure to hundreds of counterterrorism professionals. people that dedicate their lives to this. working counterterrorism is not a 9-5 job. it is an every day job. and i feel that i would be remiss if i did not give a nod to the people that hi the pleasure to work with in the last year. and to make you understand and

to convey to you that this country has fine individuals on the frontline. great sacrifice to keep this country safe. with that i want to thank you for your time. we will take questions i understand after my colleague, gordon snow, delivers his presentation. i will look forward to that time. thank you so much.

>> any questions? i think i can hear you. good morning. can you talk about cyber attack soon replacing terrorism as the agency's number one concern? >> yes. the question was about cyber sort of eclipsing terrorism in a sense. as we go forward. and that is our belief. as time goes on terrorism or rather cyber issues, cyber crimes which by the way cyber

tends to overlap many of the programs, counterterrorism, counter intelligence and criminal programs. you will see a greater prevalence of cyber-related offenses include cyber terrorism. what we are doing to address that is within the f.b.i. there is much more cross programatic coordination. so, gordon's people who work cyber issues and my people who work terrorism now work together. anybody else?

>> i can't hear. >> now do you hear me? mark rockwall with government security news. can you comment on the reports that there apparently have been extremist websites, a series of

them have been taken down in the last month or so. there is speculation that it was a cyber attack. i know you might not be able to comment specifically but how are the websites seen? as a domestic threat or international threat? how is that handled? >> that they were taken down? are you asking is that domestic or international? >> can you comment specifically on those reports. and also, and it is a second question. how does the f.b.i. see the websites? are they a domestic threat directly or are they more of a broader global threat? >> well, i think they constitute a global threat. the websites you are talking about are extremist forums. so they carry propaganda. they publish articles on the websites they really serve the

interest of our adsharies. >> do they have an active program to reach out to the websites or are they monitoring them? >> anyone can go to the websites. yeah. we monitor. we go to the websites and we do the content on the website just like you would. >> ok. thank you. >> thank you. >> you did mention earlier al shebab. what are they doing to -- first generation americans, those still connected back home to the groups and certain religious ideologies? >> i have a great closeness to that issue because i was the agent in charge of the

minneapolis division before i came here. i think the most effective answer is that we are dialoguing with the so community there i took much of that on myself when i there was. without talking about law enforcement or terrorism, taking those topics off of the table and building trust and understanding, at the same time conveying what i was concerned about and what the f.b.i.'s concerns were, i think that is the best approach. to get that message out in that way. obviously people have been arrested, indicted, prosecuted and convicted in that sense

there is a deterrence as well. we have seen a slow down in that phenomenon of somali americans desiring to go to the horn of africa to fight there. thank you. all right. >> i would like to introduce the assistant director of the cyber division of the f.b.i. he began on march 8th, 1992. in january 2009 he was appointed chief of the cyber division, the cyber division cyber national

security section and the director of the national cyber investigative joint task force in november 2009 he was named deputy assistant director of the cyber division and in april 2010 he was named the assistant director of the cyber division. how the f.b.i. is continuing to innovatively develop new techniques and resources to protect citizens from these crimes. please join me in giving a warm welcome to gordon snow. [applause] >> good morning. it is my pleasure to be here today among the outstanding

professionals dedicated to protecting the nation's homeland security. during the speech he said in the not-too-distant future we anticipate the threat will be the number one threat in our history. what is the threat? no surprise we are living in a high-tech world. there are more wireless devices being used in the united states than there are americans. it is estimated by the end of 2012 the number of mobile connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth. with the constant connectivity comes increasing vulnerabilities for and you your networks. the challenges presented to law enforcement are some of the greatest we have encountered in a century. at no point in our history have we had to stretch our awareness, capabilities and understanding of a threat more than we do now. we learned of the potential

threat to vsd, businesses, national economies, infrastructures and even to our governmental stability exceeding financial calculations. several think tanks actually tried to quantify it. they found there are more than a million victims of cyber crime every day. a study released last august found the number of attacks on companies was up 45% from last year and the cost was 70% more to fix. on average the attacks took 18 days and $416,000 to repair that. is just the beginning. cyber criminals are using multiple attack factors including supply chain, proximity attacks that target the network and the valuable data. the threat is the real and intrusions in personal computers and governmental systems are occurring every day by the thousands. in the cyber criminal world we

see three primary factors. foreign intelligence services, terrorist groups and organized enterprises. they have assessed the capabilities and the victims are government networks to private companies from which they steal secrets or gain competitive nations for their own nation's advantage. as a primary investigative agency of the u.s. government the f.b.i. is well accustomed to changing pace to meet new threats with both national security and law enforcement responsibilities and authorities and capabilities that allow to investigate and target criminal, foreign intelligence and terrorists alike the f.b.i. is prepared to address the cyber threat. when the f.b.i. looked at it as a criminal element in its own right it was 2002 and the methods used were straightforward and the threat was more localized. now the internet has over 2

billion users and a variety of criminals. dangerous, often highly organized criminal syndicates that bring together members with specialized computer skillsets such as coding, hacking, system administration and phishing. it has proven very successful. between 2009 and 2008 computers in atlanta georgia were hacked and a.t.m. cards were reverse engineered using stolen account numbers. in 30 minutes they used cards to withdraw more than $9 million from 2,100 a.t.m. in the u.s., russia, ukraine, astonia, italy, hong kong, japan and canada. the f.b.i. led investigation brought together the u.s. secret service and international law

enforcement teams got the indictment of the ring leader. one of the cyber crime takedowns to date f.b.i. agents in omaha, nebraska were alerted to some batch payments made to 46 separate bank accounts in the u.s. f.b.i. teams partnered with numerous partners in the u.s., netherlands, ukraine and the united kingdom to identify the operators responsible for stealing banking information and $70 million from individuals, churches and small and medium-sized businesses. the teamwork enabled the disruption of a large organized criminal group. 39 arrests were made in the united states alone. clearly high-tech criminals are evolving. whether it is bank fraud, counterfeit trafficking most of wa we see involves the same type

of crime that takes place offline. it is now fueled by the global reach of the internet platform and the immdediacy that the online area provides. some of the trends includes the advanced targeting of smart phones and tablets. we will see targeting of public safety infrastructure. the threat of a terrorist attack to develop a national infrastructure continues to be a great concern. we have seen criminals so adept at developing malware they market and trade their own products with other would be criminals using their own forums. now they can purchase technical tools and some malware can even be rented. it is quickly changing the playing field and players in

cyber crime. because the tools are easy to use it is possible for everyone with intent to engage in cyber crime whether the motives are financial, activist, political or otherwise cyber criminals are quickly discovering ways to combine the tool to get the most from their investment. botnet lets criminals further reach their goal. harvesting p.i.i. and credit card information to conducting d-dos attacks. it is introduction of malicious code by email phishing and other techniques. they work from global locations and they are able to control the network remotely, log the victim's keystrokes and steal corporate secrets. the value of the intrusion far

exceeds that of the physical bank robberies many times over with hundreds of millions stolen from various institutions and their customers. they increase the cost of doing business and put companies at a disadvantage and create significant drain on our economies. i told you about the threat. what are we, the f.b.i., doing about it? the f.b.i. made changes to the structure of our organization. we place cyber personnel in each of the 56 field offices more than 1,000 advanced trained specialists and forensic examiners. we selectively seek candidates with technical skills and enhance cyber training. we employ a more multifaceted approach leveraging law enforcement and private sector partnerships more than we ever have before. at the heart of the f.b.i. cyber

response effort is the national cyber investigative joint task force just outside of washington, d.c. they provide an operational foundation with f.b.i. led task forces that investigate all types of cyber threat. task force members may become part of a defined team called threat focus cells. each threat is composed of a team lead investigative agents, intelligence and technical analysts, engineers and other specialists and a diversity of skill sets. through the threat focus cells the f.b.i. collected real time efforts. we developed a strong relationship with the private sector and through the information sharing we prevented attacks before they have occurred. the work with the international

law enforcement partners is key as well. since 2010 we embedded full time cyber experts with our partners in romania, astonia, ukraine and the netherlands and continue to expand the program paying special attention to noted threat regions. we are positioned in 75 countries and special agents and support personnel in consulates around the world. we are training with program 500 law enforcement agencies in more than 40 nations in cyber investigative techniques. the close relationships created in this way act as a force multiplier by increasing our time to react and expediting international communications that previously have been tied up in an international lengthy legal process. expertise is shared through public and private partnerships is an intergal factor in bot net

takedowns. we are working cases with a number of industry groups, anti-virus software companies that have a vested interest in internet security. they have broken some of the largest cases to date. in early 2010 for example the f.b.i. collaborated with a private sector partner and authorities in spain, slo ven yeah and arrested 17 key players behind the butterfly bot net. mariposa infections, the infected computers linked to 13 million unique addresses and resulted in over $35 million in losses and damage. this investigation remains significant, not just because it was a highly successful international team effort but it

targeted the programmers of the bot net as well as the operators. in another investigation in 2011 we saw 800,000 victims within the u.s. and upwards of $20 million in damages overall. they logged keystrokes to harvest usernames and financial information of victims and it was cleverly designed to run repeatedly whenever an infected computer was rebooted. for the first time in the u.s. the f.b.i. and justice department were granted permission to intercept communications between infected systems and the servers controlling them and send a remote stop command to victims machines that allowed anti-virus software to begin to remove the software on them. while there hasn't been arrests in the case almost as important

as prosecution has been the ability to mitigate the damage done by a powerful bot net. beyond taking court action and seizing critical hardware in the u.s. owners were identified and contacted about the intrusion. the f.b.i. worked with authorities outside the u.s. to notify non-u.s. victims. with the help of astonia and russian officials the members of the community was able to shutdown a massive fraud scheme. malware was delivered using bot nets that hijacked more than 4 million computers. it rerouted through domain servers operated by the subjects. the bad d.n.s. servers manipulated information and paid for click advertising resulted in more than $14 million in

gains. as government security professionals, we are in a unique position to address the cyber threat. we have a special awareness of certain threats. we must couple it with specialized technology to increase the effectiveness of our cyber security practice and must recognize that we share the challenge and divide our resources and effort to reduce the threat. what would you do if i told you right now as you sit here today a criminal gang is in your office reading your emails, copying your business plans and stealing your research. i imagine you would call the police to report the crime and work with your company to address the consequences of the theft. i am telling you that theft and intrusion is happening today. yet we are not calling law enforcement. we are not addressing the threat. in february of this year "the wall street journal" broke a story about a large telecommunications company whose network systems were compromised

for over a decade. during that time chinese hackers downloaded technical papers, research and development reports, business plans and employee emails and other documents. stories like this one stories like this one expose the uncertainties in reporting requirements for company officials to discover the networks are infiltrated and the gap in our treatment of cyber crime compared to traditional crime. we must increase our vulnerabilities, harden the targets. more importantly, we must be smarter about what we store in our systems. we have to make a cultural shift from protecting these systems to protecting the information. we must prepare to manage the consequences of cyberattack. we must minimize the potential for damage, whether that means in printing data are having redundant systems that can be reconstituted in the event of an attack. as we move further into an

information-driven future in which our work, social, consumer, and so many other aspects of our lives offline intertwine with activities online, cyber challenges will continue to dominate. from the law enforcement perspective, we can expect there will be investigated the growing pains. along with the threat, the scope of our responsibility will continue to expand. this is to ensure the safety of our citizens, businesses, and government. we can expect that there will be cases in which minimizing the impact of the victims is the resolution and that legislators around the world, with additional time and encouragement to agree uniform laws, they clearly defined boundaries and penalties. despite these challenges, improved information sharing and strategic planning a month public, private industry, an international investigative partners is already providing the expanded technical expertise, approved a mitigation, and foundation of cooperation the knees to be in place if we are going to keep pace with and control cyber crime. this must continue to the

security of our networks is very much a shared challenge. i thank you for the important part you each play in it. by working together, we can advance the security of our nation's networks and infrastructure. thanks. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we will take a few questions and answers at this time. please step up to the microphone. >> this is for gordon. i was wondering, when you do your investigations for cyber division, you do have currently the problems of independent hacker groups such as anonymous, and how much does this involve tracing of ip addresses and how much involves human intelligence and how much

does it involve getting other nations to cooperate with getting access to these targets? >> it involves everything that you just referenced. heavy forensic review, good victim, investigative cooperation. the international partners, and everything else that is bundled with that. it is a large breadth and scope for those institute -- investigations and suddenly need to keep digging into. one thing you mentioned that i think is critical, and i tried to talk about some today, is just the way we treat internet crime and traditional crime. in many of the cases, it has been basic tackling for investigations. you know, see who we can find, see where the humans are. at some point, somewhere in this whole echoes system, there's somebody behind this keyboard tapping away at keys -- summer in this ecosystem. we need to find the undercover

platforms. the human answers information and intelligence to make sure we can dismantle any organization we can look at, from the activist to the national security threat. >> yes, mr. snow, i've got a question on how much the fbi may be working with operating system at the vendors to tighten their defiled installs. most users, including the average americans at home, have no idea about computer security other than anti virus or spamware. and the default, after the fact security that we are applying does not work as well as if it was built into an image or installed as a security platform. have you made any headway with

the vendors on this? are there any plans to push that effort? >> let me break it into a couple pieces. one is, your comments are exactly right on target but there are a lot of things that many of us in the cyber security realm need to do in the entire ecosystem in the u.s. and globally. the fbi does attribution and person, so the investigation portion of it. department of homeland security does the mitigated efforts. and the contact and outreach with private industry. but since it all overlaps, we all work in that realm. at the national cyber forensic training alliance that we have partnered with our private sector partners with, and great effort these centers of excellence, across the nation for nsa and dhs, and also for those501c's, like the center for i did could be at the university of texas and many others is were there addressing

those issues. a lot of it happens to be awareness. some of it happens to be awareness. others is exactly what you are talking about. but we are still a market-driven society. until we get the awareness fully dead center in everybody's mind that everybody understands that the cyber threat is everybody's responsibility, i do not think we will be crying out for those products that will be so fearful for the industry which runs 85% of the network to develop. but we are looking at it from a security aspect in all those places i talked about as one team. >> thank you. >> good morning. you mentioned about the new trend of the threats, one with the manufacturers. when it comes to cybersecurity, what is the greatest threat from china? and how do we -- what is needed to meet the threat, and how difficult is it to accomplish that? >> it is difficult to talk about

the national security side on this forum, but let's do it in a different fashion to all countries face the national security threat to include china. when i look at a threat from any one of the nation state actors, i tried to determine what it is that is really at risk. so the biggest threat is just the hack. the biggest threat is the compromise. not really looking from a technical scope or view, but let's say the compromise of the computer is the largest threat. that can be done by any number of means because of the gentlemen that was with the before talked about the security implications and protocols that could be damaging. and we all know that phishing or an e-mail coming through your firewall can have executable malware. the threat is to compromise the

computer and the loss of everything that your company, your corporation, your agency would hold the most critical and valuable to you. if you have growing concern or you are a continuing entity, corporation, our business, any of those threats, those plans, research and development of the cutting edge technology, you're reintroduction of your product, all that information is very critical. does that answer your question? >> yes, and you also mentioned the -- that the fbi worked with other nations. are we cooperating with the chinese law enforcement agencies to address this issue? >> we are cooperating with the chinese in many different aspects in law enforcement. hopefully we will see that continue to improve in the internet space and the cyber realm. we have the liaison officer that is over there that works in intellectual property rights

concerns. obviously, china and the u.s., for a loss of intellectual property. and we look at it -- we have worked with the chinese in all realms and spectrums across the bureau. i would just hope that that would flourish and at one point this global environment would understand that that threat is to all and we have to partner closely. >> thank you. >> certainly. >> good morning. i am from seoul security agency -- administration. you talk about frame tech out in the field and partnerships with state, federal, local authorities and other agencies. are there any hackers, white hats, reform hackers, or ethical hackers that are in your employee or with other agencies? >> other agencies, that we have hired, people we have recruited. white had hacker, for everybody

here, is just the person that is a member of the league of justice. they're using their powers for good, not legal. as opposed to the black hat hackers. i would consider all my individuals that have that skill and technical expertise to be white had hackers. obviously in this environment or that skill is so widely sought, many times we partner with them in private-public partnerships. security venues to make sure the things we're looking at are thinking about will be the most beneficial and have the most impact. >> thank you. >> thank you for the question. >> i am part of the national initiative that cyber security education. one of the questions we get quite often this, what kind of

education are you looking for and where are the jobs? >> the education i would be looking for, and this is just gordon speaking. i do not want to speak for the entire u.s. government. but gordon speaking, you know, looking at my work force, i would start with a couple things. let's start with the nation. i would want to make sure that that technical and mathematical, scientific background that we had so many years ago would be replicated and become stronger here in the u.s. so that those skills that we need would populate automatically. i would like to see education and awareness for everybody. you know, i think a large percentage of the population still believe that a laptop really does not provide any threat to them because it is inside their house and behind a locked door. we go wherever we want and surf where ever we want to, and it lasts about two or three years. pretty soon we get the blue screen of death. then we go to best buy and get

a new one. i kind of want people to understand that the threat is out there constantly, on your tablets, on your smart phones, in your computer systems. everything you touch at work or at home in the internet, from the counter-terrorism threat to use the infrastructure to attack our infrastructure in homeland all the way laterally to the child predator that is out there. i kind of on a lot of that information to come out. then i would want to structure k-12 to make sure we're building that strong core and substance that we will need to repair, 6, protect our network in the future. i would -- repair, fix, and protect our network in the future. i'd like to see education that is developed -- we talked about cyber network operations traditionally, we talk about cyber network attacks, cyber network defense, exploitations, and we do not talk about cyber

threat investigations. i would like to see that skill set be developed so that we can -- instead, i go out and find technical experts and teach them and bring them into the cultural mind-set of doing investigations. i would like to see that not only for ourselves but for other agencies and companies and corporations be instituted. you know, the technical people in the u.s. have some of the most expansive experience and training, but since it is not done on a traditional four-year died degree or program, it really is not recognized for what it should be. i would like to see some of the restructured. >> thank you. >> good morning. this question is mostly for mr. boelter. what about online

radicalization, engagement, and dialogue? >> it is a difficult problem, because, you know, the radicalizers can change. there is not a single source of this. it is very dynamic environment. the audience is a very broad. so i think -- a truly, i think we just need to assess and get out, as i said before, a counter-message. and we are doing that. i am talking about the entire u.s. government. but i think we need to step up the game and to do that at a more effective level. frankly, it is a vulnerability, clearly, and it is a difficult challenge for us. thank you.

>> i do not know at this microphone is on. hello? yes, a question over here. we have got millions of people out there with computers and we heard the discussion about not having the right protection on those computers. as we move toward the cloud, and i am not sure where that is going, are we going to end of everyone having terminals at home working on that big central computer in the sky -- how will that affect computer security? >> i think it will have a huge impact. which way the impact goes will depend on how we structure the cloud. as i look at the cloud, while it has some great characteristics, you know, efficient, effective, agile, lower-cost for corporations and entities, i just want to ensure in this awareness peace we talked about before that we are not driving toward the bottom line of cost-reduction and not

thinking about security. so if you look at the contractual products, i guess that is the best way to put it, if we look at the contractual relationships that are built between the corporation or an entity going into the cloud and the service provider, you know, there are some very critical things you should know. it looks overall like the corporations and companies are outsourcing the information but retaining the liability and the risk. and if you do not look at the contract close enough, you will see that the cloud computing service, depending on how the contract is written, may have no responsibility for security and may, in fact, have no security available at all. it would be something we would want to look at very closely to

see which way this is going to tip. if it tips in the direction of strong security, a very good managed services, and as soon as that it can protect the network, then that is a good thing. if those add-on features are included in the service, then you may find out that you do not own the information. you may not have access to the information. and if the information is taken, then you may not be able to retrieve it. so before any and to become a corporation, business platform went into the cloud, i would just say that the awareness part will be very important and a strong rebuke from technical experts on what that contract is providing is also going to be very important -- a strong revealed -- revealed important. if the information is outsourced into a country that does not have a long reach of the law, it means i may not be

able to provide you any assistance if you are intruded on. does that answer the questions? >> thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning. i am an account. i am also a senior in my computer forensics education. and seeing these two merge together brings forth this circle of life around the cyber crime, terrorism, and now the advent of the cyber terrorism. in that, i have been tracking money for a very long time. how is it our governments and our partners across the ponds help in this regard in tracking the money which funds a lot of this crime, and how are we better equipped to deal with that? is that becoming better? >> it is. and thank you for the question.

a lot of great efforts by col. just like in any other traditional crime, to follow the money. there is mutual legal assistance treaties that we use with other countries, depending on where they were signed. it kind of discusses how much force and power is in it that -- you know, what challenge of sovereignty is there to another country when we're talking about money? and how effective their relationship is built on any one of the many nations that we would be looking for assistance from? we have to remember also that, just like the cyber criminals intrude the computers and still the personally identifiable -- identifiable information and the credit card information to drain your resources, they also still that information to buy the infrastructure. sometimes i may follow a long path and track the information

that comes back to tell me that is a stolen credit card or stolen money or it is an identity that does not exist because it has been stolen before. so it is difficult. it is difficult when we are tracking that money, but all the efforts are getting better. i think from the awareness -- and keep going back to awareness. not because i am trying to hammer that in, but it is an important part. as globally our partners become more aware, i have seen in the efforts from all law enforcement and intelligence community partners get even closer. a lot of times we have policies in place from either the law enforcement side of the intelligence community side that there therefore obviously good reasons. maybe decades ago when systems were not interconnected. and i see a lot of good efforts from all the global partners to bolster those down to make sure we cannot have been stronger efforts and impact going

forward. >> as the economy has slowed down and over the next couple of years we are looking at a lot of reduction in fiscal creance for homeland security, how do you see this affecting the local law enforcement participation and some anti-terrorism teams? >> well, i am not unconcerned about it. i am concerned about the changing economy. and the resources available for counter terrorism as a result. within the bureau, we have, obviously, counter-terrorism has grown over the years. i am not anticipating the continued growth going forward. back to my comments, we need to be smarter. our analysis needs to be sharper. it really needs to drive our operations so that we can maximize our effectiveness. we do not have the luxury

within the bureau to sort of waste any resources on this problem, because the problem is very dynamic. i am looking out across the landscape, and i mentioned the fixed -- of the 56 field divisions that we have and support, and i am looking for any sort of beginning of a trend or local law enforcement is drawing from the jttf, taking members away. i have not seen that yet. but i am is sensitive to that possibility going forward. as far as grants in terms of homeland security, i am not aware of any sort of degradation in resources yet going to counter terrorism. i've been it is such a high priority at this point, i am thinking that we will not see that in the future, but i do not know at this point. i am is sensitive to those different things. >> we have time for one more

question if there is one. >> both for cyber and for counter-terrorism, can you talk about how you might be interacting with and supporting the multiple fusion centers around the nation? and especially with respect to spatial awareness to intelligence when it comes to cyber and counter-terrorism. >> quickly on counter- terrorism, we have a very close relationship with the fusion centers. the fusion centers are all a little bit different. they are not uniformly staffed. >> or uniformly funded.

>> yes. and their missions very greatly. i have the minneapolis a division and we had three fusion centers, so to speak, in that territory, but they were all very different. and they operated under different restrictions, different rules. so i think it will very fusion center to fusion center, but we are committed to working with them across the country. that is really handled a lot of intelligence that manages the fusions a relationship. but i know from my days in minneapolis, and now we engage with the fusion centers where ever possible. los angeles, new york, a very robust relationship in the counter-terrorism realm. others, you know, they are at the other end of the spectrum as well. it is not at all the classified environment. there is only so much that you

can undo. >> from the cyber realm, not as much interaction with the fusion centers, although that seems to be growing. we have not had a large state and local law enforcement population in the cyber security area, although you have seen probably in the last four years that has started to grow. a lot of police agencies and local departments are putting in their own high tech crime centers, including intrusions. we had in springfield, illinois, original concern that the water treatment facility had been intruded, and one of the water treatment poms had been taken offline by an asian state actor. that was original reporting from the illinois state police fusion center. they came out quickly. at allow everybody to respond. i think i would expect that to increase as of the state and local law enforcement entities

started dealing with the attacks that are more localized. and we will be there to try to offer that the funding and helping in direction as to move forward. from the g.o. special realm, and as you know since you're asking the question -- thegeospecial rahm, we have entities that do analysis to help construct systems, give us assistance, and for us to look at it from that realm. it is a quick way to route through and go through huge amounts of data. >> thank you for attending. join me in a round of applause. [applause]

>> this concludes the program. enjoy the rest of the show. thank you. >> sunday, shaun donovan joins us. he will talk about the settlement with the mortgage lenders, and what is ahead for fannie mae and freddie mac. "newsmakers" airs at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. >> tonight, the president of planned parenthood, cecile richards, talks about women's health care and politics in america. >> i think most of us believe health care should not be politicized and it does not come with a political label. i just left arizona.

we just voted down the birth control ban hin arizona -- dan in arizona. good things can happen. in arizona, planned parenthood was started by peggy goldwater, barry goldwater's wife, right? and we have hundreds of thousands of republican supporters. we are republicans, independents, democrats, because we believe women's health care does not come with a political label. >> you can see all of her remarks tonight on c-span. >> the world affairs council on thursday hosted a debate on iran code of nuclear program. two professors argued for and against the attack at this event in washington, d.c.. iran, and the five permanent

members of the u.n. security council has scheduled talks for april 13 and 14. >> good evening. world few television, each sunday morning. as a courtesy to our audience here and at home, i have asked that you turn off your cell phone, and also, during the questions and answers that will follow the debate, the microphone will be placed appear in the front, and i ask that you come to the microphone to ask your question. i am president of the world affairs council. it is my pleasure to welcome you here. our program focuses on the sanctions imposed by iran by the united states and others, and

the prospect of military confrontation. the program is the latest in a series of programs the council has hosted have looked at america's ongoing problems with our relations with the islamic republic of iran. the program has already been broadcast on our weekly television program, and it can be viewed through the council website. tonight, we have a debate that will address the effectiveness of the sanctions currently in place, and the wisdom and involved in military action in an attempt to deal with nuclear development. the doctors will be our speakers, but i will leave it to our moderator to introduce them. it is my pleasure to introduce our moderator, beverly kirk. she is the ceo of a media

consulting and professional services company. previously, she anchored "live tonight" for news channel 8. she hosted hourly news briefs for pbs stations around the country, and spent six years as a correspondent for nbc news, covering national stories included the september 11 attack, the 2000 olympics, the 2000 presidential election, the clinton impeachment, among other stories. before joining, she was a local government reporter in lexington, kentucky, where she also produced and hosted the stations monthly minority public affairs program. she hosts a master's of arts degree in international politics from the university of kentucky. she is also a graduate of

western kentucky university with degrees in history and broadcasting. please let me -- please welcome our moderator and our panel. [applause] >> thank you, heidi shoup. our debate could not be more timely. the talks between iran and the permanent five members of the un security council in germany are expected to resume this month, although if you have been following the news, the time and the date is still being worked out. assuming that they do happen, they will take place against a backdrop of sanctions that iran calls a bullying tactic, and against the threat of a possible u.s. or israeli military action if iran does not stop the activities the west suspects are intended to produce nuclear weapons. iran claims sanctions will not

deter them, and that their program is peaceful. so, how effective are the stations, and what impact have they had on the development of the nuclear program in iran? is a preemptive military strike necessary to stop program? would it be justified? taking the position that the military action is premature and might not be effective is an associate professor at georgetown his university edmund a. walsh school of foreign service, dr. colin kahl, who is also a senior fellow at the center for new american security. when compared arguing that time is running out to stop program and that a military strike is less risky is dr. matthew kroenig, an assistant professor at the georgetown university department of government. he is also the author of exporting the bomb, the spread

of nuclear weapons. he is also the council on the fellow. there will be making the opening statements, followed by some questions and answers on the sanctions, and you will also have the opportunity to ask questions before we wrap up with closing statements. i want to begin with you, dr. matthew kroenig. >> thank you very much for that introduction. it is a pleasure to be here. i think many of us would agree that iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program poses perhaps the greatest emerging challenge to the country, and deciding on how to deal with it is the most important issue facing the united states government now. as i see it, they're all in three ways this issue will be resolved.

first, a diplomatic settlement, second, acquiesced to a nuclear iran, or we or israel can take military action. i think a diplomatic settlement would be ideal if we could get it, but i believe there is good reason to believe that we can not. it is hard to a mention any overlap to what the supreme leader would agree to in terms of constraints on the nuclear program that would reassure washington and the international community that the nuclear program is no longer a problem. as beverly kirk pointed out, we plan to return to negotiations with iran, but they said they would not be willing to talk to the enrichment program. a european diplomat said "maybe miracles happen, call on the prospect of a deal. i think there is good reason to believe we will not get a diplomatic settlement. so, that means the u.s. will

have a choice to acquiesce or take military action. a nuclear iran would pose a threat to u.s. security and lead to proliferation in the region. it would lead to further proliferation around the world as the global non-proliferation regime is weekend. and, it would be more aggressive. right now, they restrain their policy because they fear retaliation. with nuclear weapons, they would feel emboldened to push harder, engaging in more forceful diplomacy. as around throws around its way, we could see more crisis-prone middle east, and with other nuclear states in the region, any one of the crises could result in a nuclear exchange. given the small size of israel, it could mean the end of the state of israel and once

missiles are capable of reaching united states, which could be as little as five years, there could be nuclear exchange and u.s. soil. if so, it is a grave threat, has u.s. president barack obama said, it is unacceptable. that leaves us with the military option. is not a good option. there are significant downside risks, but it is better than the alternative. the united states could almost certainly destroy key nuclear facilities. this would set the program back. it is difficult to estimate, but i estimate between three and 10 years. this creates space for iran to end up without nuclear weapons permanently. there are also many risks, but i think they're less severe than many might imagine, and the united states could push a place -- in place strategy to mitigate those risks.

with the top of a strategy to mitigate those risks, and how the u.s. manages them. in short, if diplomacy and sanctions bring down, if the united states finds itself making this a difficult choice between simply acquiesce into a nuclear iran or taking military action, the united states should build a coalition, conduct a limited strike against key nuclear facilities, pullback, and absorbed and inevitable round of token retaliation from iran, and seek to be a split the crisis. is not a good option, but it is better than dealing with the challenges posed by a nuclear iran for decades to come. >> thank you. a column called? >> thank you, beverly. in my brief remarks, i want to advance five points. but first i will make is that

the iranian nuclear threat is growing, but it is not imminent. so, it is premature to talk about military action at this point. u.s. and israeli intelligence officials agree that it would take iran at least one year from the time it supreme meter makes the decision to go for a bomb -- it would take at least a year to produce a crude technical device. it will take several years for them to create a vice sophisticated enough to be put on the tip of a mistrial. , although there is no doubt they're positioning themselves to have this capability, u.s. intelligence officials have testified there is no evidence the supreme leader has made the decision yet. there is good reason to believe he will not make a decision is in this decision in the near term, the most powerful argument is that to build the bomb he would have to use declared in

richmond facilities -- in richmond facilities -- and enrichment facilities, and he is not likely to make that decision soon until he can compress the timeline or do it in complete secret, which is likely quite some time off. the second point i would like to make is that a nuclear arms iran is a significant challenge, would be a challenge to our interests. there's a lot of hyperbole. i think some of the arguments actually heightens the threat. i think the possibility of a regional plan for ration cascade is unlikely. there has never been a cascade in response to any preference. israel developed weapons and that did not develop a cascade. there was not a chain reaction

in east asia. there are reasons to believe the situation with iran would not be difficult. the main candidates are a long ways away from a bomb. egypt is internally focused. turkey has a nuclear umbrella from the united states. the most likely candidate is saudi arabia, because they would try to buy one from pakistan. of course, the pakistanis would be nervous about providing this, marking themselves as an outlaw, and it is not clear there would be willing to do that either. most scholars have looked at this did not believe iran itself would use the weapon. to use a weapon against israel, the united states would bring massive retaliation and the end of the islamic republic. that is not the scenario we are talking about.

iran already does this without nuclear weapons. this is not a danger that goes away if you stop iran from getting a nuclear bomb. the real question is whether they would find themselves in a situation. that is it that we need to look at seriously. the good news is the only mechanism for a crisis to happen is support for proxies' and terrorists, but the reason it supports proxy's and terrorists is because it seeks to avoid direct confrontation with more powerful states like israel and the united states. he does have the unlikely that these crises would turn into the nuclear crisis, the nightmare scenarios assume. leslie, there is concern the united states would be cowed by a nuclear iran. i find that are likely.

the third point, a description of a surgical strike holds a lot more risk than matt since. it would be difficult to keep escalation within bounds. there is a lot of room for this calculation. there would be action that could set off a reciprocal fears. i think it would be a widespread affair. and lead to retaliation and widen the war in the middle east. there are reasons not to invite such attack. the fourth point i would make is that it does not solve the nuclear problem.

the 10-year estimate is not likely. the effect on iran would be kicking out inspectors, and they would double efforts to build a program in facilities that were not destroyed. so, really, you're just buying a few years. it does not soften nuclear intent. the good news is we have some time for diplomacy. sanctions are having a devastating effect. oil sanctions that the united states have put in place, have not even fully be -- ban and plant -- impacted. -- implemented. we're looking to see negotiations in the near term. i did not think we'll get it right to, but i think there is

confidence that the iranians will start dialing back their enrichment of uranium, and taking some other steps building confidence toward a lasting solution -- solution. we have to let that process play out and not rush to employ a military option, which should be our last resort. thank you. >> thank you. we'll talk about the military possibility of a strike in just a moment, but there was an article that said confrontation might be delayed because the sanctions are being deemed effective. what is your response to that? >> well, it depends on who you think will initiate the strike. i think we would both agree that the prospect of the near-term u.s. strike on iran is relatively low. the prospect of an israeli strike is considerably greater. i think israel will be looking closely at the talks, and if the

talks go catastrophically bad, that could add to the high incentive to take action into israel's of hands. basically, the red lines are to the left of where u.s. redlines are, so they are if you're on the trigger finger. >> i would agree with everything colin just said. he said the sanctions are judged to be effected. it depends on what you mean by effective. they are having an effect, but not the effect that we want. they are hurting the iranian economy. the currency has collapsed, but we see no evidence that has changed the calculation of the nuclear program, and at the end of the day that is the objective, not just to force them to come to the negotiating table, but to put serious curbs on the program. i think it would be nice wish list from the united states point of view, such as stopping the activity at the facility

buried in the side of the mountain, and some other things that we would like, but i do not see any reason iran would agree to those. the primary strategic goals for iran are to protect the regime, to continue to exist, and to become the most dominant stake in the middle east. getting nuclear-weapons gets the bulk of those things. citing a non-proliferation treaty with the country they call the great satan does not serve the supreme leader's interest in the same way. i think which all hope we can get a deal, but i am pessimistic. >> let me follow-up on that. this story is changing constantly, but there has been movement. more countries have suspended their implementation of iranian crude. south africa, greece, japan, just to name three. do you not think that given enough time that kind of significant economic pressure might not push the ball further away?

>> it is worth a shot,, but again, i am pessimistic. iran has been under pressure for years, and nothing we are done has changed their mind. the currency is collapsing. if they see what is going on, and we do not see any signs they are changing the way they think about their nuclear program. i will come back with something colin about having plenty of time to let the sanctions play out. i think we have less time than he thinks. let me back up. in order to build nuclear weapons, iran would have to get enough highly-enriched uranium for a bomb, second constructed into a weapon, and third get some kind of delivery vehicle. so, a think colin and others point out as long timeline of years, but when it comes to nonproliferation policy, all that matters is the first step, getting the material. once they have the material, the

military option is off the table. we can bomb facilities to stop them from producing materials, the was to have a material, our policy is praying they did not construct a weapon. so, the question is how long until they have enough material? the estimates by the best experts outside of government are that if iran made the decision today, it would have enough material for its first weapon in four months, but they asked by -- estimate that timeline is shrinking. they estimate by the end of this year, the time would have shrunk to one month. we are running out of time. i do not think it is too early to start thinking about plan b. >> dr. colin call -- dr. colin kahl, how long is israel willing

to wait? >> we do not know whether the sanctions are going to work or not. matt suggested that the logic is some of the census would get them to stop the sanctions would get them to stop. -- the sanctions would get them to stop. if there is every reason to believe they will work in a nonlinear way. that is as they have been ratcheted up, it does not necessarily create a linear response. it is only across a certain threshold of pain with the iranians are likely to cry uncle. we have to see if the threshold has been reached in the coming months. matt is right that the regime wants to pursue capability, and get to the point where they have the option to develop nuclear weapons for the reasons that matt suggests, but they have to be conscious of domestic unrest, or bring in about a military

strike. that is why they might dial back the program, to avoid the threat to the regime that emanate from the sanctions and the possibility of military action. we are about to go through the experiment to see if the costs are sufficient. i agree that we are not likely to see a breakthrough in the coming months, but i disagree on whether or not we will be able to build a confidence -- get a confidence-building measure. president ahmadinejad floated an idea. there is evidence it might not just be a pipe dream. it is important. the one-month scenario that matt suggests include -- includes that they have one--- one month's worth. the last point i would make is that the united states has enough military force in the region to go to war with iran within days. it does not take months of

learning to be able to do this. we still have time to see whether we can get a diplomatic solution, or start to build process -- progress. the problem with starting to build a coalition is that if you convince the regime, convince them that there will be attacked no matter what they do, it could have a perverse incentive on their willingness to engage in some compromise, not largely because of a threat, but because it creates a domestic environment in which is difficult for the regime to save face by backing down. >> one of the issues that iran has for a long time thought is that the west is simply only about regime change. is this not something that would just play into that? i should ask you, since you are arguing that the military strike is something they should be considered and time is running out for anything else to work. does that not send a signal that the west is only interested in

reaching change? >> i think if we end up going the military route, that is something we should be concerned about. one of the concerns about military action would be what iran could do in response militarily. he is important to point out they do not have the powerful conventional military, so that is not a response option. it has been investing in asymmetric capabilities. they have proxy groups. if they have ballistic missiles. they could cause problems in the persian gulf. that would be in the retaliatory options. so, i do think that in the event of a strike, and there is a final showdown, they could exercise some of these more extreme options. that is why it is important we are clear that we are only interested in is limited -- a

limited strike against key nuclear facilities, not coming after the regime, and i think iran can get that message. we of a number of ways of communicating with them. we can also play on their fears. pour yourself in the shoes of a supreme leader. the primary goal is to for the regime continue to exist. if you wake up as your nuclear facilities are destroyed, but your regime is intact, how're you going to respond? i did not think irresponsibly to pick a fight with the greatest superpower on earth -- your responses to pick a fight with the greatest superpower on earth. rather, i think you will aim for a calibrated response, and i think we can play on the fears that way, sending a deterrent message, and make it clear that if they close the strait of hormuz or retaliate with terrorist attacks in the united states, the united states would be willing to escalate and respond with more devastating use of force. if they are willing to retaliate in a token way, i think that

would be a good way -- could trade -- nuclear facilities, the threat to the country, foretoken retaliation. >> forget me for being a skeptic, -- forgives me for being a skeptic, but this sounds great on paper, but as we found out over the course of the last 10 years, what happens on the battleground is different than what happens on paper. how do you sell the american public on this kind of military strike in a strike that has, for lack of a better term, wore fatigue? >> that is a good question i'm not sure it would be that hard to sell to the american public. if you ask who is the greatest threat in a public opinion poll,

iran is the response. if you ask how to resolve the iranian nuclear issue,, but if you ask about using force, a vast majority would say they would be for that. you alluded to iraq, and have we not learned our lesson, essentially. not the words in your mouth. many people draw the comparison to iraq's, and i understand that, but it is misleading to do so. there was a great book written called "analogy's at or." -- analogies at war." it argued it was a mistake to seize on superficial similarities and missed the underlying details that really matter. what i'm talking about with iran is different than iraq.

iran is much closer to declare weapons than saddam hussein was, and we know that because there were inspectors on the ground this in the facilities every two weeks, writing detailed reports every three months, and second, the reason iraq was so expensive in terms of blood and treasure is because we put 100,000 troops on the ground and stayed for 10 years. nobody is talking about that with iran. this is a limited strike. we are talking about six facilities and the air defenses to get there. this campaign could be over in days or weeks. >> is this realistic? >> i think he is right that the prospect that there is no appetite for that. interesting the on/off, the vice

chairman of the chief of staff testified -- interest in the and off the vice chairman of the chief of staff argued that the only way to end the program is to invade iran. short of that, all you will do is delay. the first iraq war related to the weapons of mass destruction program was not in 2003, or 1991. it was in 1981 when the israelis strike -- struck a nuclear facility, the did not stopped the program, but drove it underground. in 1991, he was a lot closer to a weapon because he had a clandestine and the structure that nobody knew about that was spurred on by the israeli strike in 1981. we have 12 years of containment, isolations, followed by a ground invasion in 2003 and regime change. so, the lesson of iraq is you might be able to start this with

a surgical strike, but that is not where it will end. if we are going to contemplate military action, we have to be open to the possibility that this would be the opening salvo of the decades-long campaign. so, if you're going to go down that path, you should do it with your eyes open to the enormous cost. obviously, you have to weigh the costs of doing that verse is doing nothing, but the costs are substantial. the other point i would make is depth matt admits that the beijing thought we were coming after them, the regime would/-- that if the regime thought we were coming after them, they would lash out. they already think we are coming after them. they already see, even minor action, as about regime change. if you hit the crown jewel of the regime, their nuclear program, they will see this as the opening shot in a regime

change campaign and are likely to respond in the fashion that one would find if we were going after reaching change. the last point i would make is we can send all the signals, but once americans start dying in iraq or afghanistan, at the hand of iran and proxies, or threatening stripping, there are scenarios for this calculation, escalation, and thus being drawn deeper into a conflict

those types of things. they are much bigger than they were in the 19 eighties. -- and 1980's.

i think there will be careful not to do that. there are likely to threaten that. they are likely to threaten it because they want to bring international pressure on whoever the combatants are to do you delay. at the same time, that they will start to do things for defensive purposes that will be very difficult for us to interpret. they will start dispersing their missiles. they will start dispersing their mines. they will do all of these things for defensive reasons. in the context of the tensions in the aftermath of a strike, the u.s. military will see all of these moves as threatening. they will have an incentive to destroy those capabilities. do i know they will do that? i do not know, but i can tell you the prospect of miscalculation is very high,

even if you presume the iran and do not intend to close the strait. >> if iran and tries to close the strait, that is part of the reason that -- they would be unlikely to do it. unless the stock -- unless they thought it was a final showdown. >> they threatened us. is that something we should worry about given the economic situation? even the threat, even if they do not really close it, assuming we can pass back whenever they throw our way. i assume that israel would be

working with us. that anxiety, is that something this country and the rest of the world can handle given the economics of the global market right now? >> something that is important to understand, i laid out these three options in the beginning, and they are all bad options. when you are comparing these options, you need to compare them to each other. a u.s. strike on iran possibly clear facility would lead to a spike in oil prices. -- koran's nuclear facilities would lead to a spike and will facilities's nuclear would be to a spike in oil prices. if the conflict died down quickly, the price of oil is

likely to return. in nuclear armed iran would likely lead to spike in oil prices. oil traders would have to factor in a huge risk premium. you are dealing with the middle is -- the middle east. if we think about these threats, the united states can say, we will reopen it. iran has nuclear weapons, that is much more complicated. would be -- what we really be willing to risk nuclear war? a nuclear-armed iran would lead to long-term risk premium being built into oil prices. on oil prices, we are in a bad situation regardless.

>> the best outcome is a diplomatic outcome. there is a lot of anxiety causing the oil prices to pick up. a military strike on iran -- the folks i talk to set a strike could easily push gas prices between $5.60 dollars a gallon. -- $5.60 dollars a gallon. 5.00 and $6.00 a gallon. you could see this happening over many months. you start to see the possibility of slippage back into a recession in the united states, and europe.

the market is incredibly tight because iranian oil is being taken off the market because of sanctions. we have a strategic petroleum reserve, but that cannot be used for indefinite crisis. the economic consequences are substantial. this is the reason we should give diplomacy more time to operate. >> the potential for this to be a broader conflict. it would not to stop with a surgical strike on iran. what's the likelihood of that? there are experts that do not think that is something that would happen. it would just be limited to the u.s., israel, and iran. >> i am laughing if israel gets dragged into the equation, this

is an entirely different ball game. i think if we did it, we would make sure the israelis did not go along with costs. we want to have a large coalition as possible. the israelis have an amazing military, but they do not add any capabilities that we do not already have. if the united states went alone, however, israel would still get dragged into it. the iranians did not draw any distinctions between israel and the united states. they think the great satan and a little segments are at the same entity. -- satan are the same entity. what they want to be able to do

is position themselves against the zionist crusader. the way they would try to drag israel and is to get groups like hezbollah and hamas and others to do rocket attacks into israel. once you start that bolt rowling, there is a chance of a war -- ball rolling, there is a chance of a war. i have travelled 13 times to israel. they believe, at some point, it is real have another war which has allowed. -- hezbollah. once that decision is made, why does the war and? it is not about a conflict in the gulf, it is a conflict that involves israel, lebanon, maybe

syria. i am not saying this will happen, but it is very much could happen. these are the types of widening of the conflict that could have effects on markets. >> do you agree? do you think that is not likely happen? >> i think it is not likely. >> why? >> the united states can do quite a bit too mitigates these kind of worst-case scenarios. the first thing we would do is we would need to go to israel and make a deal and say we will be willing to destroy iran is key nuclear facilities, but you have to be willing to absorb some level of retaliation. that is a deal we could strike. we struck a similar deal in the first gulf war. if that is a trade that israel would be willing to make. i already mentioned the reasons

why i think iran would have to respond in a calibrated way. you have to look at the situation from the point of view of hamas and hezbollah. they would engage in -- that would be asked to engage in a rocket fire with israel. they will have their own strategic calculations. hezbollah will not want to pick a fight with israel. they are likely going to choose rocket fire. just recently, the head of hezbollah said publicly that he thinks iran would not ask them to tolerate -- retaliate. that is an effort to distance himself from iran said that if called upon, he would not have to retaliate in a big way. it is possible that things could

spiral out of control. i think it is possible that things could spiral out of control if we do not do anything. it is much worse than anything we could imagine iran doing in response to a strike. >> let me follow up on the other actors in the region. who else is likely to follow immediately? saudi arabia? egypt? name your country. who is most likely to follow suit if iran gets of the bomb? >> in the short term, it is hard to imagine any country in some place snapping its fingers and having nuclear weapons. the demand is going to be there immediately. the demand is already there. turkish officials, saudi

officials are talking publicly about the possibility of getting nuclear weapons in response to iran. the thing that is going to be the limiting factor are the capabilities. none of the country's better often put forward have nuclear infrastructure already. they do not have advanced industrial capabilities. can the one exception might be saudi arabia. there is some reason to believe that saudi arabia and pakistan have worked out a nuclear deal. it is possible that pakistan could transfer nuclear weapons to saudi arabia. not likely, but possible. that would be the one scenario. otherwise, you are looking at at least a decade before any other countries get nuclear weapons in response. one problem i have with the debate is people often think about what's in nuclear arms iran it looks like.

there has only been one country who has given up nuclear- weapons, and that was south africa. the possible threats are threats will have to deal with forever. we have to of a much longer time horizon america thinking about the threat posed. -- women think about the threat posed. -- when thinking about the threat posed. we do not have to worry about proliferation in the region. there is a possibility of perforation and the other regions. other countries might see that they can get away with this. they might be emboldened to pursue nuclear weapons. i wrote a book called 2010 -- i wrote a book in 2010 call.

and has already assigned an agreement with venezuela and bolivi. it is not implausible that iran could announce that venezuela has a right to peaceful nuclear technology. all the same problems with iran for the past 10 years in our own backyard. there are a lot of ways in nuclear arms iran leads to further proliferation in the region. >> we do not know. what we do know is we have 60 years of experience of proliferation and only nine countries have produced proliferated. it is not an affable. -- inevitable. people presume the blood gets will be open to this happening -- people presume the floodgates

will be open to this happening. we have to factor in that the odds are pretty low. the country are most inclined to the saudi arabia. they are an international competitor -- regional competitor for influence and dominance with the iranians. they said the running and as a threat. they would be the most motivated -- a cd iran and as a threat. they would be the most motivated. the possibility is did they have a secret deal with the pakistan is to acquire one? i think it would be very difficult for those weapons to be married to the chinese missiles without tiny but

without china getting in on the game. they may be providing a deterrent. that would require you to believe that the pakistanis want to increase the risk of having a nuclear confrontation with iran. and distract their focus away from india. saudi arabia is much more likely to accept a u.s. security guarantee because we have some remark capabilities to protect them. the world does not stand still the moment iran gets in a clear weapon. there will be other actors in play. some of them will do bad things. some could step into the void and try to provide disincentives for countries to proliferate. we have options and the fact that we have had those options

is the reason why the clear cascades have not happened before. >> we have come to the point where i to discuss and get to question each other directly. >> you have talked about if iran crisis certain red wines. -- lines. if they had a covert facility, these types of things. if iran crisis those lines, should the united states be willing to go to war with iran even if we have to do it all by ourselves? in your article, you suggest we should try to build a coalition. i think that is a fair argument.

do you think the united states should go to war with iran even if it is just washington against tehran? >> that is a good question. if we get to this choice of deciding between a nuclear arms iran and a strike, we are not quite to that point yet. if iran take steps to kick out international inspectors, if it were to enrich of to 90%, those would be the red lines. that is when the united states has to use military force. i do think the united states should work in advance to build an international coalition. there are a lot of benefits to doing that. it is on monday that the united states could not build a

coalition. it is likely that we did unlikely that the united states could not build a coalition. i think nato could support us. it is one of my concerns whether diplomatic approach. -- with our diplomatic approach. we should be focusing on trying to get a deal. we should start thinking seriously about plan b. it is not likely, but it is possible. we need to start playing some of the diplomatic groundwork. we should beginning outreach to the british, french, our other allies. here is what we see as the red line, do you agree with these? these the kinds of consultations we should be having now. if we got to this point, i do think the cost of a nuclear-

armed iran is so high, it would still be worked striking. the cost of the nuclear arms iran would outweigh the cost of international condemnation. >> your question? have done this a couple of times. if the sanctions fail, what would you recommend? if he got the call from the president right now, there has been intelligence that iran is enriching to 90%, what do i need to do? what would you say? >> it is a good question. i'm quite confident that the president would not comment. -- call me. [laughter] i think it would depend.

i risk reward ratios are different. i think the iranian nuclear challenge is a significant challenge, but not quite as great of a challenge as you do. -- grave a challenge as you do. i take the position that president obama did during the 2008 election campaign. i'm not against all wars, i am just against thedumb wars. the bar has to be such extraordinarily high for the united states. has every other option been exhausted? is there a smoking gun evidence that the iranians are going for a weapon? are there non overt ways of getting at this issue that would not require large amounts of military force?

are we able to forge a large coalition? i think the only scenario in which military action makes sense against iran ever is if it is like in 1991 war with iraq? it is the only way to mitigate the consequences of the strike itself. if you do not have a large coalition going and, that is the french and the british, it will be very difficult to maintain the isolation of iran in the aftermath of a strike. what we learned from the barack debacle is that we put a lot of energy into the first three weeks -- iraq debacle is that we put a lot of energy into the

first three weeks. if we're going to be able to keep them isolated, we will be the russians with us, the chinese with us, the arab states with us, the europeans. unless you go into the war with a large coalition, you not be able to prevent iran from reconstituting its program. the risk reward ratio argues against military action. you see the thread has closer and bigger. you see the risk of military action as lower and the benefits as higher. i come to a different conclusion on almost all of those. i think we have other options. if we do this, we should go back or not go at all. -- go big or not go at all. >> go big or go home. [laughter] i want to jump in.

president obama is the guy who made the call to go ended osama bin laden. and he is gone. the think that to might be a deterrent for -- d think that might be a deterrent factor on iran and? or make them think twice? >> one of the reasons that iran isn't taking the steps, they are afraid of possible military action. i do think there are things we could do to make that threat to clearer to iran.

u.s. officials is to say things like, all options are on the table, but the military option is a really bad when. -- bad one. if iran build nuclear weapons, it will be stopped. the administration's rhetoric has become tougher. there is more we can do. we did not talk about as much about sanctions. as we go back into negotiations, it is not clear to me that we have a good strategy in terms of what we are willing to accept from iran. what kind of sticks we are bringing to the negotiation. we should make it very clear to iran that there are possible

benefits for them. we should also clearly communicate that if they take provocative steps, if they enrich above 20%, the united states would use force to stop them from building nuclear weapons. >> their view of our military credibility is our mix. we have seen it in the last two or three administrations, a series of iranian provocations. they may interpret we do not

have the stomach to go after them. it is hard to argue that president obama -- i know he got the peace prize in 2009 -- but he is not against using force. you mentioned the osama bin laden raid. there is also a libya example. there was also the surge in afghanistan. this is a president who was willing to use force when he judges it is in the national interest. he is not bluffing. it is pretty clear. do we have to become even clearer in the way that matt

suggests? i think that is pretty clear. the thing i'm worried about, we have to calibrate this very carefully. the regime could get to a point where they will believe we are so committed to military action, the diplomacy stuff is an illusion. we're just trying to check the box on the way to war. if you start threatening their rushing over and over with

military action, it becomes that much harder to give them a way out. what we have done is calibrated it just about right. a credible military threat to buttress diplomacy while not being too loose in our talk about war. >> i think it is time to take some questions from the audience. lineup at the microphone. we have one that will be in the corner. if you could ask a question and not make a statement.

>> thank you for the informed presentation. >> [inaudible] >> i would like to ask you about the likelihood of iran

taking israel -- 1.5 arabs in israel. another 2 million within miles of tel aviv. jerusalem is the site of a sacred place for islam. i do not see any reason for iran to attack israel. for israel, there is no reason to attack iran. the stock market trend is not paying attention to the crisis. i would also like to ask you about this atmosphere it has

created. to what extent does it benefit both israel and iran? it is diverting attention from the palestinian issue. the only talk about iran and israel -- >> [inaudible] >> there is a long line behind you. >> the price for oil is $90 a barrel. they're putting $100 million every year because of the crisis. -- pocketing $100 million every year because of the crisis.

>> the prospect of iran transferring a nuclear weapon to a group like hezbollah to use against israel is extraordinarily low. i think the irani and fancy themselves as the champions of resistance. it risks massive retaliation. it would end of the revolution. i do not think the regime is suicidal. as it relates to whether this is all diverting attention, it may have some of the effects you are talking about. they're not happy with how far this has progressed. it is clearly encouraging. -- hurting. they could be in trouble. maybe it's served their purpose is at one point, but we have

crossed that one. i think palestinian -- israeli leaders to a newly believe that the iranian threats is existential. they genuinely believe that it is the number-one threats in the region. they're not just playing politics. i do not think we can dismiss the prospect of iran and israel. when we think about what led to the mutually assured destruction, it was not all that stable, but we think about the stability in the relationship, almost all of those factors are absent. israel would have to fear that it could not sit back and endure

the nuclear attack. israel would have strong incentives to go first. when you think about it from the iran in point of view -- iranian point of view, they would have a loose them or use them problem. countries are doing things that countries do it during a nuclear crisis. as a way to convince adversaries they are serious. >> next question, please. >> talking about building a coalition, after the -- iraq in

2003 -- thank you. > as a point out before, the iran situation today and the iraq situation in 2003 was very different. we have a much different window as to what is going on with the nuclear program. they are writing very detailed reports every three months. we have a very good sense of what is going on. the inspectors are there. it is not any one country.

it is a respected international organization. i think the international community believes the ia when they talk about what iran has on the ground, and experts do these calculations and say, if they made the decision, a year to the material, etc.. in terms of, can, i think we can. we have not really begun. i think that is a mistake. we would have a better idea of what coalition we could build it was part of our diplomatic strategy. >> permanent members of the military council, it would confirm their worst suspicions about the united states. we're going through the sanctions in order to justify a fig leaf of around a military strike on iran. it complicates our ability to have diplomacy work, because

people would not want to play that game with us, and it would make it more difficult to forge a coalition. the only way to do it is to do with the way we are doing now. let the play -- process play out. make it clear it was not because of of us, but that our demands were shared by the international community. use that to create a coalition. do i think it would work? i don't know. we have one recent case study. at the end of 2009, after first accepting it, it will allow the u.s. to create an enormous coalition against the iranians in the spring of 2010, the most severe sanctions iran has ever faced by the international community. we are playing it about right. it is not diplomacy, just checking the box, like the bush a administration did, but we actually mean it. the onus is on iran to show

they're serious. if they are not serious, then we pivot. >> next question. >> my name is stephen davis. let's introduce another element into this equation. i was visiting the iaea website today and they have an introductory film. one of the commentators was henry kissinger, who said, if we are standing at the podium with 20,000 nuclear weapons under our feet, it is very difficult to ask another nation not to develop one. if we are going to be serious about a nuclear-free world, do we not have to be serious about disarming ourselves? >> i think, ultimately, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has commitments. places liketed -- iran are committed not to develop nuclear weapons. the united states and others,

initially nuclear states, have an obligation to move toward disarmament. the obama administration shares the view that their obligations on both sides. the move forward on new start. not an insignificant political risk. it is thought that some of those cuts go too deep. i don't know if that is true or not. the administration believes that we also have to make good-faith efforts to shrink our arsenal. it does not excuse iran pose a commitment. sometimes, people ask, doesn't iran have the ability -- the fact of the mattress, iran gave up that right when they signed it. i must want to pull out, that right is ironclad, regardless of what we're doing. >> i think when you put yourself in the position of the

leaders in tehran, i think they're probably thinking, would nuclear-weapons serve our interest? can we build them? do we have the industrial capacity? how close are we? how tough are the international sanctions? can we live with these? will the u.s. and israel conduct a military strike? these are the things they're thinking about. saying,likely they're whether the u.s. has 22 nuclear weapons or 1500 -- i mean, there is this link in international treaty obligations. i don't think it is something that is playing on the iranian's minds right now. >> yes, sir? >> they just raised this question of north korea. it is hard to argue that iran is more irresponsible than north

korea. yet, the bush administration is willing to accept and north korea having nuclear weapons. why are we now -- where were the warmongers when this was going on? why were we willing to accept north korea getting nuclear- weapons and not iran? obviously, one of the elements here, the key element, is israel. i think they are putting president obama in an extremely difficult position. it is an election year. nobody has mentioned this. the idea that -- everybody knows gas prices are going to skyrocket. it is one of the issues the cost them the election. you're putting him in an extremely difficult position. >> some people think that we are worried about iran's nuclear

program as a benefit to israel. iran's nuclear program poses a threat to international peace and security. on the north korea example, in 1994, the clinton administration seriously considered the use of force, had basically decided to do it, and backed off at the last minute. it is not clear whether that was a good decision not. if you think about what a nuclear-armed north korea has looked like, attacking a south korean war ship that is transferred nanotechnology to syria, burma, maybe other countries, and we have cuts in the range of consequences yet. we could still have a nuclear exchange involving north korea. north korea, pakistan, i think we really should not be

concerned. >> on the israel issue, undeniably, israel is a factor in our calculations. i can tell you from someone on the inside, it is not the driving factor of our policy on iran. that is a judgment by this administration and the previous few administrations that an iranian nuclear weapon is a significant threat to u.s. vital national interest. israel matters in shaping certain decisions, but not in the ultimate course. there has been evidence in the last couple months that this administration is not a prisoner to is really desires. how do i know that? if this administration had been a prisoner to those desires, obama would have laid out a clear red lines than he did in the conference. we would have greenblatt an israeli attack on the iran already instead of telling them not to do it, and we think it is a bad idea.

we would of committed to doing it ourselves. this is a viable option. how do i know? half of the republican candidates have suggested green lighting, or doing it jointly, or doing it ourselves. there is a way in which you can be more beholden to the israelis. we see that on c-span and cnn just about every day. at the end of the day, the administration is making judgments on iran based on u.s. national interests. israel is part -- protecting it as part of our national interests in that part of the world. it is not wrong. it is the way it is. >> my name is gina -- dina. you have a lot of -- i have a lot of friends who fled the country. they're active here in the

united states. it seems to me that the biggest enemy for iran and the iranian regime are the iranian people themselves. now, the elections are coming up. the united states does have enough time to move to a diplomatic solution of this problem. it is a huge iranian community. here -- where d.c. the iranian people fitting in, inviting them to be in the cohesion of iraq against the iranian government? >> we did not talk much about the internal politics in iran. >> i think this administration has been pretty clear about the atrocious human rights record of the iranian regime. it is more vocal in criticizing it and taking action on the sanctions front. i am sure there are folks who

believe that more should have been done. as it relates to the question here that we have been talking about in today's discussion, there is not a consensus that the united states should attack iran. there is concern that a u.s. attack or an israeli attack would give the regime in excuse to brutally repressed the opposition. it could rally support all of -- around the hard-liners for some time. it might have those effects. it could have other effects. i don't see it as being productive towards helping the opposition or leading to a short-term regime change. the last point i would make, i think we have to be careful about -- regime change in iran would be good for the iranian people. whether it would solve the nuclear issue is an open question. it would depend on what the regime. the nuclear program is extraordinarily popular in iran. with the -- where the dispute happens is whether it should be weapon is or not. the thing that concerns me about a strike on the nuclear program

is that it could convince people who are on the fence about whether iran needs a nuclear deterrent or not that they need one as the only way to prevent iran from being attacked again. i don't want that conversation to happen. i want a different conversation to happen where iran dials back nuclear activities, and then we can continue to hammer them on the human rights record and everything else. at the end of the day, the people will determine whether the regime goes or not, not external actors dropping bombs. >> the only thing i would add, you point up that a strike on the nuclear facilities could have negative consequences in terms of internal developments in iran. i think that is possible. others have pointed out that you might get this rally around the flag in the short term, where it strengthens the regime, but over time, it could lead to critics criticizing the government. it could weaken the current

regime. going back to my point before, we have to compare these options to the alternatives, it might be the case that a strike would strengthen the current regime. i think nuclear weapons would strengthen the regime as well. it would provide them some legitimacy. both of those scenarios, you are possibly looking and a stronger regime. >> before u.s. your question, i want to follow up. president ahmadinejad's term ends next year. are there election factors in iran that we are not thinking of that could impact the discussions? >> frankly, i think the president -- mark ahmadinejad himself has been marginalized. he has had a fight with the supreme leader of the last couple of years and has lost decisively. not only has he lost, but

actually, the presidency itself has been weakened. i do not think the next president is likely to be a game-changer. you do not get to run for president unless the supreme leader agrees you are ok. i guess he thought he was fine, but not so much afterward. i don't see the 2013 election as being in game changer. it could complicate diplomacy for the reasons domestic politics in heated moment complicates diplomacy. it allows sides to play politics with the issue instead of selling it. it is already having that effect in our country. i don't know why we shouldn't expect it to of the same effect in iran. >> i agree on that point. >> yes? >> i have a comment and then a

question. the comment is that negotiating with iran is like the hokey pokey. you are in, you are out. negotiations on the caspian sea are entering another year. we have to take that within context. my question is, one of your points was that in 60 years, there have only been nine countries that have violated the -- only nine countries that of a non-nuclear. turkey and saudi arabia, also algeria, bahrain, and united arab emirates have all announced nuclear programs. pakistan is now building two more heavy water plutonium processing plants, a second chemical processing plant. within the context, the nine

countries in the context of the u.s. special bid competition, now we are in the middle east with the sunni-shia ferocity. does that not change the likelihood of more countries getting nukes? >> we have to be very careful. you mentioned the uae. we should hope everyone develops their program the way the uae has. they have given up the right to domestic and richmond. there is no possibility for proliferation if they stick to that agreement. a lot of programs have nuclear agreement. that was the bargain. you're allowed a civilian nuclear program. they have built into it the risk of nuclear hedging. it is part of the treaty. you will have factors engage in nuclear hedging. the question is whether they will push that hedging strategy into an active program to develop nuclear weapons. we have not seen that

historically. we have seen countries do the hokey pokey of moving forward and back, but not actually go all the way. there were a handful of states that of reversed pretty close to the end. we are not helpful -- helpless to do things. in the event that iran fully consummated its nuclear program, we might be able to use security guarantees and other things. they're not a lot of countries on earth that would like to go through the experience north korea and iran went through as far as being sanctioned. only a handful of countries are willing to absorb that much pain to get a weapon. i don't know that any of the country's you listed are willing to be the pariah states that iran and north korea are. i think there are a lot of options to address. >> one of the reasons colin is more optimistic than i am is because he says we have never seen it historically. i think i would disagree a

little bit. when china was pursuing nuclear capabilities, intelligence estimates said, it could lead to a cascade in asia. we could see other countries develop nuclear weapons. some of those countries did develop nuclear weapons. pakistan and other countries did not. we are likely to see the same thing in the middle east. some of the countries we worry about probably will not get nuclear weapons. i think we will see some proliferation. colin said one of the things we can do to tamp down the proliferation demand is to provide security guarantees for countries. that is a pretty good increase in commitments to the region. what we would be --

we would have to station u.s. troops. maybe deploy nuclear weapons to make sure we get into any conflict. there things we can do to prevent proliferation. their costs with those as well. >> former state department. ironically, you brought up a point that i wanted to ask about. with the disclaimer that analogies are very, very dangerous -- why is there not more focus on the idea of a very limited coalition? i am not talking about a whole national security guarantee or a mini nato. one thing is, a lot of those countries in the middle east, even saudi arabia, really does not want to spend its money on

nuclear capabilities. they want to be able to assure that they are protected. an idea has been tossed out that seems to make a lot of sense, and that is that we should look at starting to build a coalition, but again, disclaimer about analogies to others, with saudi arabia, with turkey, with the gulf states. remember, in the region, an attack against one is an attack against any. it has a number of elegant elements to it. obviously, one is the long-term arab-persian conflict, she a, a sunni, there are a lot of reasons far beyond the united states and israel, for the rest of the middle east to want to go off without having to be able to

compete with iran or totally cozy up to the united states. why is more not being done on this? it has to be done on a longer- term. it does not have to be a big coalition that requires treaties and these kinds of things. i think it would really get the iranian's attention. is no one doing anything on this? if not, why not? >> it is a good question. i think there is a lot. part of the problem is we have these three different paths, and we are not properly planning for any of them. it is not clear to me what my strategy is going into these negotiations, what we're willing to offer the iranians. on the deterrent and containment site, that requires real planning.

it is hard to prepare when your plan is to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. those are really things that are better developed outside of think tanks and universities. it is difficult for the administration to do that for political reasons. >> diplomatic. the minute that you signal that you are doing intensive planning on the containment structure inside the pentagon for nuclear- armed id -- iran, you signify to the israelis, we had better strike now. you signify that we're willing to live with a nuclear iran. i am not saying his view -- >> [inaudible] if you attack one of us, you

attack all of us. that is not containment. >> in the aftermath of iran getting a nuclear weapon, it is a form of extended deterrence. i have not read all the details of the proposal. he says a smart stuff all the time. i would be very cautious about having a limited club that left a lot of states out. you would signal itwe have a bay historically. we a accidentally leave countries out that did not get invaded. we have to be careful about who is in the club and who is not. i do not think a formal treaty is necessary. you can have a policy in the interest of the united states that we will resist any effort by outside powers to change borders or a tax others with any

means. we already have enough tripwire forces in the region. there would at least be a period of time where they cannot penetrate our missile defenses. it will be a long time before they can hold the united states at risk. we will be able to hold iran at risk for ever. i think our ability to deter iran is a little higher than people presume. i do not think it would take a radical shift in the posture we have in the region. i would be cautious about going around a formalized route because i think countries did

not want to be part formal arrangement. is not their style. >> final question. >> my name is barbara. i have two questions. i was wondering if you think the campaign coming directly from the israeli population -- do you think a campaign like that could change the course of relations between israel and iran that? if war were to come, what do you think would be the role of -- a lot of them are led now by sanctions that are not exactly pro-israel. >> i think these movements in israel are important.

i would say there are several -- similar movements on the palestinian side. i think we should be cautious about too much optimism. if you look at polling, it is a little complicated. it becomes more complicated if you ask the question, would you support unilateral action. they are probably out of step with where the prime minister is. it would be willing to take action without the united states. as it relates to the arab spring, we do not know. i think we need to be careful about israeli or american military action in the current context because of dynamics. it would allow iran to play the victim. it would be able to reinstate

its st. crashed as the champion of the region. -- street cred in the region. an attack would allow them to pull up from the dissent. it would allow islamists and the muslim brotherhood to use a strike against another muslim country to demonize the israelis and the americans. as populism takes hold in this part of the world more and more, we have to worry about the arabs bring more and more. a lot of people will say they will be clapping if you cut the head of a snake, that may be true. on the streets of cairo and beirut and baghdad and elsewhere, they will not be clapping. will that make things more messy

than they are now? probably. how much more? i do not know. >> [unintelligible] >> i do not know what it means for israel. we do not want to wait until israel pacify their ron for that to happen. -- iran for that to happen. that is why you stick with the diplomatic route as long as it is viable because you want the onus to be on iran, who walked away from the process. it was seen as rejecting an offer to have a peaceful solution. if they did that, their ability to play the victim and like to international public opinion would be under mind. >> we have come to the point where it is time brouwer closing statements. -- it is time for our closing statements.

>> i am really pleased we are having this discussion. i wrote an article in foreign affairs laying out the case for the military option on iran and i took a lot of heat for it. part of the reason i wanted to write the article is i was frustrated by what i saw as a lack of a serious debate on what i saw was the most important security issue facing the country. i felt like iran was steadily marching towards nuclear weapons capability. a lot of people have had their head in the san putting all of their eggs in the sanctions and diplomacy basket. i would be delighted if we can solve this through diplomacy, but i am afraid that we can. some. soon we will have to make a tough choice between acquiescing iran or taking nuclear action. it could be very threatening to

u.s. national security without having this discussion. i am delighted simply to have the discussion. there are risks to a strike, i agree with that. we have some time for diplomacy. i agree with that. i think we have less time than colin things. -- thinks. nothing collins said tonight leads me to back away from my conclusion that if we are faced with a difficult choice, it is the best option. >> i think actually the tone and the assumptions that one brings into this issue are really important. " similarly, we have done this four or five times. we go from city to city doing this. my discomfort comes from the fact that on the one hand i am

nervous about adopting worst- case assumptions about the implications of a nuclear iran when i think the argument is more complicated and nuanced then "it is the end of the world of iran develops a nuclear weapon." never the less we have to be cautious about worst-case assumptions because in a lead at 2 iraq in 2003, we adopted worst-case assumptions about a phantom menace. we have to be careful not to do that again. the second thing is i think we have to be careful about having worst-case assumptions about the prospects for diplomacy. we can barely talk ourselves into saying, and that is it. that is the last drop. that meeting did not go well. -- that is the last straw. now it is time for military

action. a lot of people who picked up on his arguments and wheeled them about in this town, in congress, on talk shows and others do make that argument. they are looking for any sign that sanctions have failed, not because they want them to succeed but because they want war. we have to be careful about that. we have to be careful about adopting assumptions about how the world will go and what the aftermath will be like. as i have been involved with the pentagon for a long time. there is an old cliche that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. the world will not go the way that or i say it well. it will go in an uncertain trajectory. in a region that is onyx -- in a region that is extraordinarily unstable. a global economy that is pulling out of the great recession, it

is time to be cautious and not fall prey to best case assumptions about how easily the world will go, how much time it will buy. how easy it will be to bottle up iran in the aftermath. reject the worst case assumptions. the good news is, i am not as pessimistic about the mop -- diplomacy as matt is. i do not think there will be a breakthrough in the coming months, but iran is really hurting. the supreme leader has made moves to give him some freedom of action to dial back the tension a little bit. we will have to see if he is willing to dial back some of the nuclear activities. let's see if we can -- it is not just the iranians that want to buy time. we all need to slow the program down to buy time over the next year or two or so to reach a

final resolution to the issue. at this point i would basically agree with president obama. there is no military solution short of invasion or occupation that creates a permanent solution to this problem, only a diplomatic outcome we should give every opportunity for diplomatic success before rushing into war. >> let's thank our guests tonight. thank you so much. thank you for joining us. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> president obama reflected on the easter holiday. oklahoma gov. delivering the republican address book about energy policy and the keystone pipeline. -- addressed the energy policy and keystone pipeline. >> tonight juice will gather -- they will retell the stories of the second exodus. my family will join families all round the world as we thank god for the gift of grace through the resurrection of his son and experience the wonder of easter morning. these holidays have their roots in miracles that took place thousands of years ago. they connect us to our past and give us strength as we face the future. remind us through the common thread of humanity that connects us all. for me and countless other christians, easter week and is a

-- easter weekend is a time to reflect and rejoice. tomorrow we will celebrate the resurrection of a savior who died so that we might live. we recommit ourselves to following his example. we rededicate our time on earth to selflessness and to loving our neighbors. we remind ourselves that no matter who we are or how much we achieve we each stand humbled before an almighty god. the story of christ triumph over death holds special meaning for christians. all of us no matter how or whether we believe can identify with elements of his story. the triumph of hope over despair, faith over doubt. the notion that there is something out there bigger than ourselves. these beliefs help unite americans of all faiths and backgrounds. the shape our backgrounds and guide our work.

they put our lives into perspective. michele and i want to wish you a blessed and happy easter. to all americans, i hope you have a weekend filled with joy and reflection focused on the things that matter the most. god bless you, and may god bless the united states of america. >> as you may know, oklahoma is an energy state. nearly one in seven jobs are supported by the oil and natural gas industry. with our potential for expansion, we are moving forward in the area of cutting edge renewable energy. energy production has long been an important part of our history. our economy has benefited tremendously from the health of the energy sector. oklahoma has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation at 6%. we are the number two state for job creation in the last 12

months. in 2011 our citizens experience the fourth highest per capita income growth in the united states. we recognize the energy industry is a valuable ally as we seek to create jobs and stimulate the economy. that is why oklahoma republicans continue to support the production of all kinds of energy resources. our pro energy policies stand in contrast to the policy supported by president obama and the washington democrats who seem to view american made energy as a hazardous waste rather than a resource. last month the president made his first visit to oklahoma since being sworn into office. while he was here, he made some interesting claims. we were surprised to hear the president say he supports and all of the above energy policy. this is the same president whose party pushed a cap and trade plan that would dramatically raise taxes on energy producers.

those would discourage energy production, drive up gas prices and utility costs for american families and destroy thousands of jobs. president obama also surprised us at taking credit for the southern leg of the keystone pipeline. an important project that would allow oklahoma energy producers to get their product to the market in the gulf coast. the only problem is, the southern leg of the pipeline did not need the president's approval. it was already in the works. here is another inconvenient for the president avoided. his administration is continuing to hold up construction of the northern light of the pipeline, a project that would create thousands of jobs and over $1 billion in private investment. this is a president who says his number one focus is jobs. finally, president obama may be outrageous claim that his administration is responsible for the national increase in

domestic drilling. here is the truth. drilling is increasing in the united states on privately owned land. we have the ingenuity and hard work of the american men and women in the private sector to think for that. on public land which president obama is responsible for, drilling is rapidly decreasing. leases issued are less than half of what they were under former president bill clinton. because of the severe limitation the president has put on drilling, especially offshore drilling, that number will continue to fall. the bottom line is, this administration is taking credit for american credit production while it works too aggressively undermine it. besides being hypocritical, the double talk is dangerous to our economy and our national security. we know that families in this poor economy are feeling pinched

by rising costs at the gas pump. american remains dependent on foreign oil from unstable and anti-western regimes and get the president is blocking the pipeline that would transport oil to the united states from our neighboring ally canada. millions of americans remain at work but president obama continues to propose job killing tax hikes that would lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs, not to mention more revenue and state budgets. it does not have to be this way. energy resources in the united states are enormous. shell deposits in the united states contain enough natural gas a lot to power this country for another 100 years. let's be clear, the energy crisis we are facing today is not a lack of energy resources, it is a lack of leadership. that starts at the pump with our president. and americans are paying the

price for his failed policies, finding fewer jobs, higher gas prices, and less opportunity. republicans have a better way. across the nation republicans are supporting all kinds of domestic energy production and jobs that come with it. the american people want an energy policy that creates a stronger economy, more jobs and opportunity, and a security that comes with the american energy independence. we are working hard to give them one. thank you for your time. have a wonderful easter weekend. >> sunday on newsmakers, sean donovan joins us to talk about the obama administration's handling of the housing market. what is ahead for fannie mae and freddie mac. he is interviewed. "newsmakers" airs at 10:00 a.m. at 6:00 p.m. on c-span.

last week, former senator geoge mitchell discussed two first responders and washington. he touched on the israeli- palestinian conflict. this is just over one hour. [applause] >> good morning and thank you for your attendance this morning. from the nuclear was to the israeli and conflict, all of our dangers in the region that threaten the supply of oil to europe and the united states and create uncertainty the u.s. economy and security. these paramount threats, along with domestic and international terrorism, combine to emerge and remain constant in challenging our security policies and taxing the

resiliency of our nation. it is my honor and privilege to introduce our keynote speaker today, senator george j. mitchell. senator mitchell served as a u.s. special envoy for middle east peace under the obama administration, and before this distinguished position, began his career in the military serving as an officer in the u.s. army counterintelligence corps. senator mitchell practiced law in the -- in washington d.c. and maine before he was appointed the u.s. district judge for maine. shortly thereafter, he was appointed to the u.s. senate and served in the senate for 15 years. in 2008, time -- "time" magazine named him one of the 100 most influential persons in the world. in his keynote this morning, senator mitchell will discuss

the current dangers and the middle east, and the effect on our nation's security, and share his insight on how america can effectively counter terrorism from hostile governments and radical terrorist groups. please give a warm welcome to senator george mitchell. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you, ladies and gentleman, for your warm reception. it is a pleasure for me to participate in this conference. i did not hear the remark about the moon. someone said to be back there, he wants you to move on them. [laughter] -- to moon thyem. [laughter] icet jamaat i signed up for a lot of things, but not for that. -- i said, i signed up for a lot of things, but not for that.

i was a sitting federal judge in my home state of maine when a vacancy occurred in the senate, when one of the main centers was appointed secretary of state. -- maine's senators was appointed secretary of state. i thought about that when i was invited to address this conference. i asked her to describe the audience and the subject matter of, and when she told me there would be a lot of experts in the audience, hesitated because i've always been reluctant to speak to audiences in which the members of the audience know more about a subject that i do. but then i reflected on my first day in the senate. after the vacancy in the senate occurred in maine, the governor

announced he was going to make a quick decision, because it was in the middle of a legislative session and he did not want maine to be underrepresented in the senate. in the middle of the week when all of this broke in the news, he said, i will hold a press conference next monday noon at the state capitol to announce my choice. for a few days, there was intense speculation in the media about who would be appointed. we had a former governor, a former senator, a couple of former congressman, all of whom were well qualified. i had been appointed a federal judge to the previous year, so my name was not mentioned. and it did not occur to me that i might be under consideration. and on that sunday night, the day before the governor's announcement, like everyone else in maine, i went to bed early wondering what the governor was going to do the

next day. about 11:00 p.m. that night, the phone rang. it was the governor calling and he said, i would like you to come down to the state capitol tomorrow so that i could announce that i'm going to appoint you to complete the unexpired term of senator muskie, who had been appointed secretary of state. i said, this is a big surprise. this is an important decision. i need time to think about this. i've got to call my family, my friends. i just last year became a federal judge, and as you know, that is a lifetime appointment. he said, i will give you one hour. [laughter] when i protested it was an adequate, he said, look, if you call me back at midnight and tell you cannot do it, i've only got 12 hours to find someone else. b. thank -- be thankful for the hour.

and he hung up. i called my brothers. how many people here have a brother? raise your hands. that is good, because you know what is coming. i grow up in a small town in maine and my three older brothers were very famous athlete, well-known not just in our community, but statewide, even in new england that i came along and i was not as good an athlete -- even in new england. then i came along and i was not as good an athlete. in fact, i was not even as good as anyone else's brother. [laughter] at a very early age i became known around town as johnny mitchell's brother, the one who is not any good. as you might expect, i developed a massive inferiority complex and a highly competitive attitude toward our brothers, which continues to this day. on that night after getting the

governor's call, i called my three brothers. ostensibly, to seek their advice. but i confess that there was a note of triumphalism in my voice when i informed them that the governor wanted to appoint me to the senate. and then i asked, what do you guys think of that? [laughter] the responses were predictably negative. my brother johnny said, look, everybody knows your a born loser. he said, you could not possibly win a statewide election. no one can understand how you got to be a federal judge, let alone a senator. he said, you better call the governor and decline. my oldest brother, somewhat more moderate, he thought that he would elevate the level of the discussion. he likes to practice what he believed to be the socratic method. he said, look, let's take a look at this from the standpoint of the people of maine. aren't they entitled to have a

qualified person represent them in in the united states senate? [laughter] and then he said, isn't it obvious that you are not one of them? after about 10 minutes of this, i hung up and i called the governor and i said, governor, i do not need an hour. i have already received all the reassurance are required. [laughter] -- are required of my ability. i accept and i will be there tomorrow at noon during i went down to -- at noon. i went down to the state capital and accepted. by then flew from maine to washington. the swearing-in was scheduled for the following day, tuesday morning. when i landed at national airport, it was late afternoon. on a whim, i decided i would go up to the senate, meet the senate majority leader, and kind of get the feel of the senate chamber before the swearing in the next day.

i took a taxi to the capital. i made my way in. and i was introduced to then senate majority leader robert byrd. the senate was in session and debating a bill. an aide to me down to the floor of the senate. senator byrd was very busy. at first, he really did not know why was. and then, being distracted said, well, ok, are you here for the swearing in? we will swear u.n. right now. i protested because the ceremony was -- we will swear to you in right now. i protested because the ceremony was the next morning. i thought all the new stations would be carrying it live and i did not want to disrupt their schedules. he said, look, we are very busy. we will swear u.n. right now. he interrupted the debate that was going on -- we will swear you in right now. he dreaded the debate that was going on and swore me in -- he interrupted the debate that was going on as for me in. no one knew what was going on. the senate resumed debate and

two minutes later, a vote occurred. for those of you interested in political trivia, i hold the all-time record in american history for having cast a vote the shortest time after becoming a senator, a two minutes. and that was the first of many informed judgments i made on your behalf -- [laughter] -- and on behalf of other citizens. i stood there and i was a senator. i did not know where to go or what to do and thankfully, a young man came rushing up to me a few minutes later with papers in his hand. he introduced himself to me as my administrative assistant. i had never met him before. i never heard of him before. it turned out he had been senator muskie's administrative assistant, and now that i replaced him, he was mine. he began by berating me before

committing myself to be sworn in and ruining the party that was set for the next day. then he read off the list of instructions and concluded by saying, we've got a very nice introduction. you will give a speech here in washington tonight. i said, what is it? he said, there are 3000 served by public accounts at a convention in washington and they just saw you being sworn in on tv and they called and asked if he would come down and deliver the keynote address at their convention this evening. i said to him, and i thought, this is really something. i always knew cpa's were smart, but until yesterday, i did not know myself i would be here to think that these guys held this important speech open for me. i said, i'm really impressed. he said, no, it is nothing like that.

he said, they have had four last minute cancellations. [laughter] your the only member of congress they could think of that might not have anything to do tonight. [laughter] and they wanted to give the keynote address. i said, what do they want me to talk about? he said, the tax code. i said, wait a minute, you've got 3000 cpa's, everyone of whom knows more about the tax code that i do. i cannot talk to an audience about a subject about which everybody knows more than i do. and he straightened itself up with a voice dripping with sarcasm and condescension and he said, listen, you are now a united states senator. you will regularly be called upon to speak in public on subjects you know nothing about. [laughter] you better get started. and if you want to get -- be a good senator, you go down there and tell the cpa's what is in the tax code. i went out and told them what is

in the tax code. and here i am to tell a group of experts about threats to our security. i can speak in general terms, which i will do, on the subject overall of security, our national interests, and some of the areas in which we face serious challenges today. in the 20th century, democracy faced three major challenges, depression, fascism, and communism. and the ultimate and most meaningful event of that century was the triumph of democracy. in the aftermath of the second world war in an effort to secure peace and promote stability, the united states led the way in building new international institutions and

alliances. the united nations was created. nato was established. the european union was founded. germany and japan were rebuilt and became resurgent. what started as the north atlantic alliance became one of the most successful collaborations in history. the intention was and is to embed the nations of europe into political, economic, and military alliances that will make it less likely that their long history of warfare would be repeated. recall, if you will, that in the three-quarters of a century between 1870 and 1945, europe was devastated by three major land wars. in the second world war, in

countries whose populations were smaller than they are today, between 55 million and 60 million people died. in large areas of europe, including many major cities, there were laid to waste. but in the three-quarters of a century since then, europe has been largely at peace. their seats -- there continue to be some regional and local conflicts, but measured against the history of europe, the absence of a major war, even its possibility is new and it is heartening. and it represents the success of an american vision and american leadership. that is why it is so important to us that the european union's current financial crisis be resolved in a manner that does not undermine those impressive political achievement.

the north atlantic alliance, and what flowed from it, is an example of extraordinary leadership and collaboration at a turning point in history. we now face new challenges, but we still need extraordinary leadership. one enormous threat that is new to human history is the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons. the united states led the world into the nuclear age, and has led the effort to contain these highly destructive weapons with some success. many countries with a capacity to develop nuclear weapons, dozens of them all around the world, have voluntarily refrain from doing so.

but north korea has raised the number of countries with nuclear weapons to nine, and iran is moving to make it 10. particularram in could trigger a collapse of nonproliferation and result in a large increase in the number of nuclear powers in a relatively short time. that would dramatically increase the risk of a terrorist or nongovernment group gaining access to nuclear materials and and nuclear weapon, which would, of course, increased instability and threats to our national interest. so it is of the highest importance that we sustain and intensify the effort to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. human history is in very large

part a tale of conflict. how we began, and how it ended. what is different now is that every previous conflict came to an end, and live continues. and all our nuclear wars -- it could not only the the into civilization as we know it. there is greater urgency now for that, and a number of reasons, among them, the number of people on earth is increasing rapidly. i will address that in a moment. the number of nation states continues to grow. the number of non state organizations which rely on acts of terror to initiate or extend conflict is also on the increase. rapid technological

developments make it easier to start and conduct conflicts that is to prevent them. as the circumstances of inequality, injustice, the absence of freedom are still reality of life for a vast number of people around the world. poverty, famine and disease continued at appallingly high levels. it took 18 centuries, following the birth of christ for the world's population to reach 1 billion. the most recent billion was added in 50 years. think about that. 1800 years for the first billion, 50 years for the seventh billion. although the rate of increase has recently slowed, a credible estimate is by the end of this

century, there will be between 9.5 10 billion people -- 9.5 and 10 billion people on earth. that means more competition for land, water, natural resources for economic growth, political power, and therefore, inevitably, more conflict. all of this at a time when technology has enhanced the human ability to kill ever larger numbers of other men and women, and at a time when the number of terrorist groups is increasing. some national intelligence agencies have expressed concern that there are now many more such groups, they are less centrally controlled, making detection, infiltration, and prevention more difficult. added to that is the concern

about the return of islamic fundamentalists. it has recurred regularly in the 13 centuries of islam's existence, as has internal division and conflict. stagnant economies, the absence of opportunity, and deep and widespread feelings of humiliation and alienation, all of which contributed to the revolutions now known collectively as the arab spring. what the islamic countries need is what people need everywhere, the modernization of their countries, the widespread acquisition of knowledge and technical skills, economic growth, job creation, and to help achieve all that, the strengthening of moderates in

their societies. there is, of course, no single act, no one policy which will enable us to deal with all of these challenges, but some needs are clear. one is for a more effective counter terror program. if we have learned anything in the past several years, it should be that military force, although a necessary component, is by itself insufficient, as has been made clear in recent years throughout the middle east, and was made clear in northern ireland. overwhelming, conventional military superiority does not guarantee victory, because these conflicts are not simply conventional wars. so our efforts must include a

more effective and walked to police work, diplomacy, much more that is not primarily military in nature, and especially, better intelligence gathering and analysis. recent technological events is have dramatically increased our ability to gather huge amounts of information, but we need a major effort to enable us to improve our capacity to interpret, analyze, and use relevant information in a timely manner. that is easy to say in a single sentence, but very difficult to do in the complex circumstances in which we find ourselves. and we also need to restore a better balance between technology and human intelligence efforts. it helps a great deal to have

technological vances like satellite photography and telephone interception -- technological advances. they should supplement, not supplant eyes and ears on the ground in close and daily proximity to our targets. we have been engaged now for decades in what we have constantly called a war on terror. but terror is a tactic, not an enemy. while the use of terror is widespread, there are many differences among those who use that tactic. some have specific political objective. some did not. some are coherent political groups with whom dialogue is possible. some, like al qaeda, are not. for such groups, the response must be total opposition and their total destruction.

but it is simply inaccurate, and helpful, and self diluting to lump them all together. we must have the confidence needed to discern the differences among the many uses of terror and to adopt responses that are suitable to the particular challenge. i would like to mention briefly my experience in northern ireland. i spent five years there, chairing three separate related discussions. the main negotiations lasted nearly two years. in the end, we are able to get a peace agreement, thanks in large part to the courage of the political leaders of northern ireland. they are ordinary men and women. they spent years in congress. many of them had been personally injured in the

assassination bombing attempts. some of them had been in prison for long periods of time for their violent activities, and yet at a critical moment in their nation's history, they rose to the occasion and came together for peace. under intense criticism from hard-liners on both sides, who regarded any concession as a sign of weakness, those leaders may principled compromise is that put at risk their careers and their lives. for some of them, their lives were brought to an end and their careers destroyed, but in the process, that brought peace to

their war-torn land. that was political leadership at its most courageous. that is needed everywhere now, including the middle east, where the situation is especially volatile. the arab spring represents a turning point in the history of the middle east. while the countries involved are predominantly muslim, and most of them are arab, each has a unique history. there will be instability. some steps forward, backward. there will be different outcomes for different countries. there will be some good results and some bad results. history tells us, among other things, that revolutions are unpredictable, and often require years and sometimes decades to play out. in our own country, in a much less complicated time and circumstance, seven years elapsed between the time the fighting ended and the establishment of the united states.

and unfortunately, it has often been the case that very bad governments that were removed by revolutions were followed by governments that were even worse. the most obvious example, of course, is russia, where life under the czars was hard and oppressive for most of the people. few would argue that conditions under communism, and particularly under stalin's brutal and murderous regime, or better. so we must be patient and we must be realistic in our expectations, even as we do all we can to support the transition to democracy where possible in the middle east. we must also bear in mind that these changes came from within. these were indigenous,

revolutionary movements, and they will succeed or fail from within. now we must also continue our effort to help end the conflict between israelis and palestinians. even though pessimism is very widespread right now, and there are many, many reasons for that pessimism, many reasons to be skeptical about the prospects for success. the most recent of which is the arab spring itself. the upheavals across the arab world, especially in egypt and syria, have created anxiety and uncertainty among both israelis and palestinians, making progress and resolving -- making progress in resolving the conflict more difficult than

ever. even before the arab spring, the conflict had gone on for so long, it has had such destructive effects, the level of mistrust and hostility between the parties is so high that many regard it as unsolvable. but the pursuit of peace is so important it demands our maximum effort, no matter the difficulties or no matter how often we are sent back. the key is easy to say, but difficult to achieve. it is the mutual commitment of israel and the palestinians, and the active participation of the united states, with the support and assistance of the many other governments and institutions who can and want to help. the task 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.

just before he left office in january 2009, president george w. bush, in jerusalem, said, "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 as a homeland for the palestinian people, just as israel is the homeland for the jewish people. these negotiations must ensure that israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders, and they must ensure that the state of palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent. it is vital that each side

understands that satisfying the others fundamental objective is key to a successful agreement. security for israel and viability for the palestinian state or in the mutual interests of both parties." taking office just a few days after that speech, president obama publicly reaffirmed that policy. but it seemed then that the culture of peace, so carefully nurtured during the process, had largely dissipated, replaced by a sense of futility, of despair, of the inevitability of conflict. the conflict in gaza had just ended four days before president obama took office. the palestinians were deeply divided, and israel was in the

middle of the general election. few then believed that there was any chance for restarting peace negotiations, let alone achieving an agreement to end its conflict. unfortunately, three years later, that remains largely the case, despite an intense effort. the 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. most of all, it will require leadership. by all concerned, leaders, especially, who are willing to take risks for peace. i still believe that this conflict can be ended.

in part, because i think the very real pain that they will endure from negotiating an end to the conflict will in fact be much less than the pain they will endure if they do not. there is a lull now that has created a false sense of comfort, but if history is any guide, that will not last. if the conflict continues, both israelis and palestinians face a dangerous and uncertain future. that includes, of course, the possibility of renewed violence, which we hope and pray will not occur, but if it does, could spread in unpredictable ways. there are other dangers for both. let me mention just a few. for the israelis, first, demography. there are now just about or a little over 5.75 million jews living in the area between the jordan river and the mediterranean sea.

in the same space, there are just over 5.25 million arabs, including israeli arabs, palestinians on the west bank, and in gaza. the arab birthrate overall is much higher. within just a few years, they will be in the majority. israel will then have to choose between being a jewish state or a democratic state. once the two state solution is lost, it cannot be both. this has been widely discussed in israel, most recently and most forcefully by ehud barak, the former prime minister, now the defense minister, who has said that this is a painful

choice that israel should not have to make. the second challenge arises from technology. to keep out suicide bombers, israel built an enormous wall. but the real threat now comes not from suicide bombers, but from rockets. hamas has thousands of them along israel's southern border. they are crude, lacking in guidance or destructive power, but they do create fear and anxiety, and no one can doubt that over time, they will have more and better rockets. border,l's northern hezbollah already has tens of thousands of them. the public estimates range from 30,000 to 50,000. they are somewhat more effective, and though limited in range, hezbollah is engaged in efforts to upgrade their rocket systems. finally, and most ominously, iran now has rockets that can reach israel from iran itself. they don't yet have the

precision weapons that are needed to strike very specific military targets, but they could cause enormous death and destruction in cities. the united states is fully committed to israel's security. that commitment is firm and unshakeable, and will not change. to honor it, we have provided enormous financial and military support to israel, most recently in the development of an effective antimissile system. but it is won known whether that or any system could intercept a large number of missiles that could be launched in the event of an all out war. israel's very existence would then be threatened. the palestinians also face serious problems, especially the indefinite continuation of the occupation under which they do not have the dignity that

comes from self governance. 1947, the united nations proposed a plan to petition -- partition the area and create two states. israel accepted it, the arabs rejected it, and the first of several wars began, all of them one by an increasingly strong israel. -- won by an increasingly strong israel. ievery sensible arab leader tody would gladly accept that un partition plan which they rejected in 1948, if it were still available, but it is not, and it will not ever again be available, because circumstances have changed so dramatically. since then, the plans over to the palestinians have been less attractive, and they have rejected them all. but as i told chairman arafat

many times, and the current palestinian leader many times directly, there's no evidence to suggest that the offers are going to get any better in the future. so they have got to sit down, participate in, and stay in direct negotiations to get the best deal they can, even though this cannot 100% of what they want. that is the way they can bring the occupation to an end. and they really have to do it if they want to be successful in gaining their own state. once they get their state, they can build on its. -- on it. under the outstanding leadership of the palestinian prime minister kan that have demonstrated that they can do it, by laying the foundation and building the institutions

needed for a viable and independent state. unfortunately, that state building effort cannot be sustained in the absence of progress on the political side. they are inextricably linked. there must be progress on both, or both will fail. it is a daunting challenge to rebuild trust, not only between the political leaders but also between two peoples, two societies with a long and bitter history of conflict, but they must find a way to renew hope and seek that peace can prevail, because it is very much in both of their self interest. . .

>> i administered to them the oath of the allegiance to the united states and by the power vested to me under our constitution and law i made them americans. it was always very emotional for me because my mother was an immigrant, my father the orphaned son of immigrants. they had no education. my mother couldn't read or write, never went to school.

for her entire adult life she worked the night shift in a textile mill. my father was a janitor but because of their efforts and more importantly because of the openness of american society, i, their son, got the education they never had and became the majority leader of the united states senate. after every ceremony i made it a point to speak personally with each of the new americans individually or in family groups. i asked them how they came, why they came, i asked them to tell me about their hopes, their fears. their answers were all inspiring. most of us are americans by an accident of birth. all of them are americans by an act of free will taken at

great risk and cost to themselves in many cases. although the answers were as different as their countries of origin, there were some common themes and they were best summarized by a young asian man. when i asked him why he came, he replied in very slow and halting english, i came, judge, he said, because in america, everybody has a chance. think about the fact that a young man, who had been an american for less than ten minutes, who could barely speak english was able to sum up the meaning of our country in a single sentence. america is freedom and opportunity. although we now face serious challenges here at home and abroad, i'm confident that we will meet and overcome

those challenges, and as we have in the past, emerge a better and stronger country. thank you for having me. i look forward now to taking your questions and comments. [applause]. >> thank you for that, and i'm going to ask the first question, because a lot of these people are having to deal with the craziness that goes on both sides of pennsylvania avenue these days, including not getting budgets on time an sometimes months in, how many potential shut downs did we have last year, five? how do they do their jobs in that kind of environment? >> it's a question i'm asked literally everywhere in the world. americans don't understand

what's going on, and people outside the united states really don't understand what's going on. let me try first to establish some context. most human beings look at the past through rose colored glasses and imagine it to be better than it was, and most look to the future with blinders and imagine it worse than it will be. there was never a time in american history that was free of political conflict, partisanship, criticism, invective, never. go back to the time of thomas jefferson and read about the things said about him and the things that he said and did about john adams and his other political opponents. go back to the time of abraham lincoln and read what was said about him,

franklin roosevelt. now, so the first thing to do is to put it in context. it is bad now. it's never been a rose garden. that doesn't excuse what's going on now. it puts it in some context. secondly, i don't want to sound too much like i'm defending politicians, which is an unpopular position in america today. this is a divided country. it's split about 50/50 down the middle and you just look at the last several elections and see how they've gone back and forth, and as a result, the elected representatives of the people reflected the divisions among the people,

but let me give you one example. of the proposition that people like political leaders can and do hold and advocate con practice dick tri views at the same -- contradictory. president george h. w. bush was president. we had a very tough tough time on the budget, not nearly as tough as now but it seemed so at the time and it lasted four months, a lot of back and forth and a lot of public criticism. just like now, you could go back and look at the papers and much of the current criticism was made then. i used to go back to maine every weekend to hold open town meetings, and after

about three months of this budget battle back and forth, i went back, had a town meeting on a saturday morning, big crowd, as they also were morrell elderly because they had more time to attend these things and i'd invite people to make statements give speeches ask questions whatever they wanted, the first guy got up and he strongly denounced me, harshly criticized for what he termed my excessive partisanship, the problems we are having in the budget, why don't you go down. president bush goes -- has a home down there why don't you go settle it and the crowd rose to endorse his view. he said i've got a question, back and forth we don't know what you guys are fighting

about. would you explain the issues? well, life goes around. the big issue is medicare funding. the president proposed a series of cuts that we felt would change the nature of the program. we proposed some cuts that he didn't like and we are fighting over that so when i explained this the guy got up he said senator, you represent us and we are telling you you don't give an inch on medicare and the crowd stood up and gave me a double standing ovation so that's the second appointment -- point. everybody says i hate negative political ads. why do you think negative political ads run all the time? because they work. everybody says settle it, but settle it on our terms, and our terms mean one thing to this half of the crowd and our terms means something to the other half. all that explanation being said it is really bad today, and it is unnecessaryly bad

today for a variety of reasons, and it doesn't have to be this way. i was the democratic majority leader in the senate for six years. bob dole was the republican leader. not once, never to this moment has a harsh word ever passed between us in public or in private. we disagreed every day on the floor of the senate, in full public view, but we never once tried to embarrass or demonize or personally criticize the other. we had dinner a couple times a week. we talked about the issues. we understood that while we had a loyalty to our parties we had a higher loyalty to our country and to the institution of the senate, and i'm sorry to say that's what i think is happening today for a whole variety of reasons that's another long speech to tell you what to do about it. i think ultimately, it will

be solved if at all by the american people. if the people decide that they are sick of this, they will change it. there's no other way to change it. because the members of congress are elected by the people and they represent the people, and the way it's going to change is for the american people to say, we've had enough of that. we want something different, and that means a willingness to compromise. i actually read about one member of congress got up and said, i'm opposed to compromise in any form. compromise got us here. this is a country of 310 million people. this is the most diverse country in all of human history. we have people from virtually every other part of the world, every religion, every language spoken in this country. the notion that this country can be governed with no compromise of any kind, that anyone person or anyone

group is going to get 100% of what they want as opposed to the other is simply divorced from reality. the challenge of leadership is to do, i think what senator dole and i did, is to vigorously advocate our positions but be prepared to make principal compromise when necessary for the common good which means you don't get a hundred per cent of what you want a hundred per cent of the time. you have to recognize that the other guys is just as sincere in his or her views, that disagreeing with you is not un-american or criminal. it just reflects a different point of view, and they have to be reconciled for the good of the people. but in the end it will be the public that changes it, not the politicians. [applause]. >> we all love change as long as we don't have to do

anything differently, right? >> what's that? >> hi. hello. israel has been identified as the probable source for a very effective computer virus that was sent out there to affect iran's nuclear plant or nuclear processing. could you describe at all the u.s. response to that and how we feel about that? >> in cybersecurity overall we are always talking about cyberwar. >> first i have to make clear. i do not represent the united states government. i'm a private citizen. i once was a -- i did serve in that position, but i no longer serve now so i do not purport to speak for the united states government and my statements should not be regarded in any way as attempting to do so. secondly, even if i knew

exactly what was going on, i wouldn't answer your question. [laughter] >> but the truth is i don't know because i've been out for several months now, and i think there are some things that simply are not and should not be discussed publicly. that having been said, it is a matter of public knowledge. that both the united states and israel indeed many other countries conduct covert operations to achieve their objectives in a manner short of overt public conflict, and there's been a great deal written about, much of it speculation, some of it grounded in fact, about the types of covert operations

that have been conducted with respect to iran's nuclear program. so, i believe i should leave it at that for now. >> but the terms, cyberwar, there's a little debates going on about whether this is helpful to the overall debate or whether this ends up just sort of blowing cyber out of proportion and doesn't really make much difference in the end. how important is this terminology? >> i believe that the technological and communication's revolution through which we are now passing will ultimately in historic terms be seen as a turning point in human history of significant in answer -- assistance equal or perhaps great erred to

the industrial revolution which of course began in england and has transformed human history that anyone who lived prior to then could not possibly have imagined, and so, i think the subject, i'm not going to talk about the term because it's beyond my scope and i shouldn't be commenting on that, but the subject matter methods of communication methods of compiling and transmitting data have become so significant, not just in individual human relations but perhaps in a way that most people don't think about or comprehend in terms of government policies and actions, and so what you're talking about is of enormous, truly enormous assistance --

significance for the future. >> thank you for making me get my exercise. i'm exhausted now. good morning. >> good morning. >> you mentioned in your discussion about a better balance between technology between human knowledge and activities. the whole idea of the information age that you mentioned has the connotation of being short. everything done more efficiently, everything done more quickly, but a lot of the issues that you discussed by the arab spring and the problems that we face in the developing world, you have to approach it with a long-term view in mind, and sometimes whenever we invest, when we try to do work in the developing world, it's hard to go into it with a short term view in mind because a lot of the time you have to bring resources to bear. you have to bring capital. you have to do most of the investing, most of everything, but whenever you

go into it, you have to go with a long-term view in mind. do you think that going forward, even though we have to do things more quickly, we are able to, because of the age and times in which we live, we still have to have that long term view in mind whenever we do anything that involves our country as well as doing more work internationally. how do we think long term in the age of at which time center. >> yes. -- twitter? >> we do have to, but it is extraordinarily difficult to do so when you are beset by so many current contemporary problems arising, and one of the reasons we have to do so is in the fact that this in part follows from my prior answer about the significance of what's occurring is our capacity to

absorb and act upon the massive increase and the volume of information that we receive doesn't keep pace with the technology. and let me tell just a couple of short stories to illustrate that point. before i went to northern ireland and the middle east i spent a lot of time in the balkans during the period of conflict there. i visited a small town in the north of bosnia, which had been half serb and half croat before the war. once the war started the serbs gained military advantage seized the town burned down every building in the town owned by a kroechlt -- croat. when i got there almost every building in town had been destroyed. i said to the mayor, when do you think serbs and croats will again be able to live side by side in this town?

he said we will repair our buildings long before we repair our souls. we are the product of many thousands of years of human development. we've involved slowly and we are not able to keep pace with the rapid change in technology that is developing now, and so our, and we are beset by a constant and unending flow of information that is difficult for us to process. i've got two young kids in school. my daughter does her homework while she's listening to music on her ipod and watching television at the same time. i said how can you do three things? she said, daddy it's different now. we can do that. you can't.

[laughter] >> i don't think that's true but it's something that a person thinks they can do three different things at one time and do they will all well. so we haven't kept pace. we do need more long-range thinking. we do need more thinking beyond tomorrow. i was told about -- i raised this issue with people in the middle east and i was told that one of the problems is that some of the leaders there short term is the morning paper, long term is the evening news and we've got to get past thinking that you make decisions based solely upon what appears in the morning paper and the evening news. i agree wholeheartedly with you and it's one of those things as i remarked in my comments that it's easy to say and easy to get agreement on erblg but once

you're in a position when you are ear be set with all kinds of claims and demands it's hard to do but it does require the kinds concentration and focus because it's very much in our interest that we act in long term thoughts. >> one last question. a lot of people are certainly in the government market in some way shape or form. they've been told they're overpaid underqualified and everything you can imagine. we are making you king for the day. what one thing would you like to see happen that would enable them to do their job better that would make for a better government? >> well, first off, i spent a good part of my life in government service and a good part out. i don't know about the rest of you, but i've done much better out than in, in terms of pay. >> don't tell them that. >> i didn't enter government

because it was an increase in pay. every time i worked in government it was a decrease in pay. i did it because i believed very strongly in the notion of public service. i describe my personal history in my comments. i feel i've been very lucky. i support the american dream because i think i've lived it, and i can't imagine not doing public service when the opportunity arose so i think if you enter public service, i think it has to be with a proper frame of mind that you're serving. that's what the word means, service is serving others. you don't do it exclusively for financial or security reasons, although obviously everyone is interested in a proper compensation and gaining security to the extent possible. secondly, i think a lot of the criticism is simply unfounded. for example, one of the common charge you hear today

is that the government doesn't do anything right. well, it's so leasely disproved. was the g.i. bill a wrong thing to do when frankly roosevelt signed the g.i. bill 4% of americans had four-year college degrees. today 25% have college degrees and to a significant degree because of the consequences that flowed from that enactment. was that a failure? the answer is of course not. that was a very good thing to do and everyone tends to agree with that, so i think that ther -- some of the criticism of government and government employees is vastly overstated and erroneous, and undermining, although it doesn't apply specifically to government service.

i think one of the big problems in our society today is the undervaluation of teachers. people talk about all that's need ended the system of education and i'm not an expert and don't pretend to be but i know my life was changed by a few inspirational teachers, and i'll bet that's true of a lot of people in this room. one of the i believe one of the great failings of our society has been the extent to which we demean, undervalue and insult our teachers and we are now seeing that going on right at this very moment in the debate in public education in our society, and if we really want to have the kind of knowledge and skill and wisdom in future generations, we have to do better at recognizing the immense importance and value of good teachers in our society, and i think that applies as well in government senator.

>> former senator george mitchell, thank you so much. >> thank you all. [applause] >> tonight on c-span from cardoza a debate on civil liberties. >> here though in those cases you're talking about the most critical exertion of government power. the number of individuals directly affected may be several hundred, 150 in guantanamo but when you have the highest rank of government decide to hold individuals without charges of trial, to ship them off to black sites, to authorize torture which was hither to illegal and then try to

obfuscate that from the press, lawyers, the public, you're take -- talking about a high stakes game that can literally change the course of american history, so you're now thinking about the civil rights of this individual, who is preparing and anthony says, well, maybe he the moment before the missile strikes he's having a conversion, but maybe he's killed lots of americans already, and he's equipped other individuals to kill lots of americans, and you can't stop that that's already underway. that's going on. now you have the rights of that individual to something that anthony called judicial process which you cannot possibly bring about. >> is the argument this should be decided by the generals? >> well i'm get to go the dilemma. i mean it's not an easy thing to answer and you put that, those rights, those civil rights against the

people that you are sworn to protect from acts of despicable terrorism and you don't have a choice to do it the way everybody would like, which is to bring someone in the court, have all the witnesses, miranda rights, brady rights, blah blah blah all those kinds of things, you don't have that choice, so do you allow that to happen until can you do the thing that you can't do, which is to bring about this judicial process, or use a drone or some other method of killing that individual? >> you can see the whole discussion tonight starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday on newsmakers hud secretary john donovan joins to us talk about the obama administration's handling of the housing market, the $25 billion settlement with the nation's top mortgage lenders and what's ahead for fannie mae and freddie mac? he's interviewed by nick of the "wall street journal" and margaret chad burn of

reuters. >> i think one of greatest experiences of this week was when i got the doesn't to meet both my senators, bob casey and pat toomey just being able to meet and talk to them. >> some of the leaders like leon panetta talked about how important it is to be financially sound because if we are not financially sound, devoting money to national defense isn't going to be worth it because we are not going to have any money to devote to it. >> high school students from all 50 states who participated in a week long program in the nation's capital share their experiences they interact with members of congress the supreme court and the president. >> all my congress mend and senator's said there's a lot of partisanship going on in congress. i'm the one reaping across the aisle and everyone we have met hertd who said