the effect of sequestration on the national guard which has been mentioned, the critical piece of our homeland security and homeland defense. we hope you can join us at 11:00 tomorrow. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> tonight, joe biden makes a campaign appearance in virginia. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and defense secretary leon panetta told a news briefing at the pentagon. later, a discussion about how law enforcement works to prevent domestic terrorism. joe biden commented on mitt romney's choice for a running mate. at a campaign stop in virginia. he said the voters now have

choices on taxes and spending. this is just under an hour. >> welcome. we are honored to host the vice president of the united states. a more formal introduction at will follow. we invite businesses all over the world to come take a look at us.

we believe you will like it here. when you come, please bring your jobs with you. [cheers and applause] i am very proud to present to you a very dear friend, a hard- working former congressman, one who knows our city and our region well. one who helped us with several major development projects, most notably our roberson bridge, which is now open. this project alone at, our friend,to danville $28 million. ladies and gentlemen, former congressman tom [unintelligible]

[applause] >> good morning, danville. it's great to be here with one of danville's greatest products, our mayor. i was proud to work with him on some economic development products and decreasing violence. it was good to see that bridge being built, as he mentioned. this institute is the heart of innovation in southern virginia. the heart of learning. it is a statement that danville never quits. danville's best days are still ahead and it has never given up. i cannot help but see another

great danville product recently, david wilson tearing it up in the preseason for the giants. i know that despite him having made it to the prose, his parents are still proud public school teachers here in the community. we have any teachers here today? [cheers and applause] i am proud to have the honor of introducing a man who understands communities like danville, came from the steel towns of pennsylvania and knows something about communities that have had been times and tough times and understands the pride of communities never quits. he is here today as he has been before, because he believes in this community and communities like it across america. he lived the american dream, did not grow up with a lot, but made it to the u.s. senate, where he did so much, because he knew that there was a responsibility when he had made

it to work to assure the american dream for so many others. when he and barack obama came through danville and other areas in 2008 that made a promise that they would wake up every day thinking about communities like this. i think that is what was on their minds when they made a decision that they were not going to let the u.s. automobile industry die on their watched. asking a question about where you come from and whether you get it, mitt romney road about he would have let the automobile industry go bankrupt. when you have spent time in communities without manufacturing traditions, that's not your gut instinct. sometimes it is a matter of what happens right in your gut. they said that's not point to happen on our watch. it's not just detroit that's roaring back. if we feel that right here at the goodyear plant down the road. it was down 1600 jobs when they came into office and is now up to 2100 jobs and is moved from an eight-hour shift to a 12-hour shift.

the leadership to be able to stand up and make that happen. that's what this election is about. whether we will build an economy that works for all americans, or just a few. and whether we will have a democracy that represents all americans or just the richest few? this is that choice. [cheers and applause] i don't mind that mitt romney is an incredibly wealthy man. what i minded the idea that he wants to raise your taxes and cut his own. [boos] what romney himself called independent third-party analysis says the middle class taxes are going to go up to thousand dollars under mitt romney's plant. what he is going to get is a $4.5 million tax cut for himself. if you think about a police officer working here, they would have to work 618 years to make the same amount mitt romney made just in 2010.

that was a year that he bragged about the fact he was unemployed. so we have a question of values. i think there's no better way to understand the value of a president or president of candidates than to see who they pick as their vice presidential candidate. i know you all are here to see the big man speak, but i served with paul ryan, so i have to take a quick second. [laughter] one thing i will say is true, paul ryan is absolutely one of the leaders of this congress. this is paul ryan's congress that has a 9% approval rating from the american people. this is paul ryan's congress that wants to cut benefits to seniors and veterans in order to give an even bigger tax cut to the highest earners. won so big that it makes president bush blushed.

this is paul ryan's congress that decided to vote itself a five-week vacation without passing a farm bill when our agricultural communities are on tough times. this is paul ryan's congress that refused to work with the president on a bipartisan budget deal that could have gotten us out of this mess. it's paul ryan's congress that has refused to act on the president's jobs bill for over a year while doing all these symbolic measures. he wants to take us back to an era where being a woman is considered a pre-existing condition in our health care coverage. i think it is possible mitt romney is the only person in america who looked at the way this congress is behaving and said i want the brains behind that operation. [laughter]

[cheers and applause] if the choice of paul ryan tells us more than we ever wanted to know about mitt romney, then the decision to make this next man vice-president tells us the world about barack obama. [cheers and applause] this is quite simply a question of whether you get it. a question of whether you wake up in the morning understanding the struggle of the working and middle-class. joe biden and i came from the same faith tradition, a tradition that says love is the greatest amendment. and it is what we do with our life that matters. our deeds. here's a man that fights for the middle class, fighting to make sure everyone has access to the american dream, no matter what zip code you are born in. if you work hard and play by the

rules, you'll have a chance to make it in this country. [cheers and applause] it's my great honor to introduce to you a tried and true champion of the middle class, and advocate for the american dream, and the conscience of our nation's capital, and our vice president of the united states, joseph biden. [cheers and applause]

>> hello, danville! [cheers and applause] hello, folks. how are you? thanks for being with us. i am looking at the future up there. it's all about stem education. i'm sure a couple of nobel laureates are up there. i'm not kidding. it's great to be backed in danville. mayor, thank you for letting me

come back in. thanks for the passport. you get invited once and that's ok. get invited back, and that means he does not know any better. [laughter] i'm just kidding. look at the shape this man is in. when he squeezes my hand, i feel like he's putting me in a vice. how about tom? [cheers and applause] this is one of the smartest guys we ever dealt with. ladies and gentlemen, i stood backstage and listened to the speech. he made it. tommy, you have said it better than i have heard anybody say it before. i am i mildly repetitious and not nearly as convincing as tom. i hope you will forgive me.

folks, now that governor romney has elected congressman ryan, the differences will be even more stark. this is a decent man. as is romney. i mean that sincerely. tom and i have the same faith background and come from the same school of politics that you recognize what is good in your opponent as well as what you disagree with them on. i mean this sincerely. none of this is personal. none of this is personal. but it is critical. congressman ryan is now giving a deposition to governor romney's vague commitments that he's been making in the last year.

congressman ryan and his congressional republicans, as one person said, have already done what the governor romney is promising he will do for the nation. so this is one of those rare cases. it's almost like running against an incumbent. everybody knows what we stand for and what we want to do. we are making it clear as we can make it. but in a strange way, picking congressman ryan, leader of the republican party, a man who all the republicans have said, and it's true, is a real serious guy with serious ideas. they embraced them all. so we know now. before, governor romney had a tendency to be vague or change his position a lot. so this is a good thing for the country that we have this stark choice.

we know for certain what i have been saying for some time. there is no real distinction between what the republican congress has proposed and what governor romney plans to do. and the american people have already had a glimpse of the ryan congressional republican budget and they rejected it. they have seen it. the polling data and the special election races, they saw it and they said that is not the place we want to go. at least it is my view that the overwhelming majority of americans are going to say that is not the place, that is not the path i want to go. i believe they will reject the governor romney and congressman ryan for attempting to impose that vision on the american people.

ladies and gentlemen, they are both good man, as i said, but they have fundamentally flawed judgment. they call their plan bold and gusty. it is bold. i do not get what is gutsy about gutting medicare to pay for that. that is not new. that is not new. it is not fair. it is not fair to the working class and it will not grow this economy. we have seen this movie before and you know how it ends. it ends in the great recession we inherited.

it ends in the catastrophe for the middle class. when we took these offices, we said we have a different way forward. we don't think you grow the economy from a millionaires down. i come from a wealthy state, delaware. i have never run in my state playing the populist dream about wealthy people are bad and poor people are good. i know as many patriotic people as a note patriotic poor folks. what i do not know is how ryan and romney view the middle class. we think the way you rebuild this country is you grow it from the middle class out the old-

fashioned way, not from millionaires down. my dad, who may be a lot like you when things changed in the 1950's, he had to leave to find a job. that is how i got down to wilmington, delaware. my dad used to have an expression. he is to say, "a job is about a lot more than your paycheck. it is about your dignity. it is about respect. it is about the sense of yourself and your place in the community. it is so much more than a paycheck." all that you know at least one, two, or more. all across america, through no fault of their own, they have been stripped of their dignity.

they did nothing wrong. they showed up every day. they produced what they were supposed to do. they paid their mortgage on time. they paid their bills. they will up one day and found, i am in trouble. how many of you know someone -- i mean this sincerely -- who went to bed last night staring at the ceiling and wondering, am i going to be able to sleep in this bed under this roof two months from now? am i going to be able to make it? how many of you know a couple who said, you teller, you have to tell her. who is going to tell her that she cannot go back to school next year because we cannot

afford it. you know people like that. i know people like that. the longest walk is a short walk up a flight of stairs to a child's bedroom to say, i'm sorry. you cannot go to george washington high school anymore because daddy lost his job. mommy lost her job. with the bank said, we cannot live here anymore. you did nothing wrong. your house is worse off less than you paid for. my dad made that walk when i was in third grade. it wasn't tragic but i remember it. we are living at my grandfather's house in scranton. my sister used to be three years younger and now she is 20 years younger.

she looks 20 years younger and she is twice as smart. i guess those things factor in. not one woman in history that has been older than any man in the biden family. my dad said, "dad is going to move away from a year." he is going to wilmington. "i will try to come every weekend. i will get a good job and i'll bring you down and it will be ok." my dad believed it was going to be ok. he convinced me to believe it. it was a tragic.

i realize he made a longer walk. he walked into my grandfather is pantry and said -- my dad was a proud, graceful man. i cannot imagine what it was like to say, "i need a favor. keep jean and the kids for a year. i promise i'll pay you back." you know people who have made that walk. some of you may have made that walk. the president was generous enough to ask me to join him. i asked him a question. i said, you do me what you say about the middle class?

we both kid about it. we have shorthands. we want to be able to do our overwhelming objectives. a parent to say to the child, "it is going to be ok." i live in a nice house and i do very well. some people do not believe they can say, "honey, it is going to be ok." that is what we want to restore, dignity to the middle class. help them keep their child and community college in school. protect themself from the risky financial schemes like credit default swaps and these other creative financial instruments.

give tax breaks to companies who stay home and come home, not to those who go abroad. you are a piece of that. you have a piece of outsourcing here. "governor romney pioneered at bain." everybody wants to be a pioneer, but i did not want to be on that wagon train. when i first said that, the campaign came back and said, it is obvious vice president biden does not know the difference between of shoring and outsourcing. can you picture two pitches at the unemployment line? what difference does it make to a man who lost his job?

this guy does not get it. they do not get it. they did not get it. it is almost a basic. the progress we were making has slowed down. it did not stop it. in spite of governor romney, we still went out and rescued the automobile industry. we saved a million jobs and created 200,000 good-paying union jobs that people can make a living on. where is it written that the united states will not lead the world again in automobile

manufacturing? where is it written that we cannot do that? general motors is now the largest auto manufacturer in the world. we passed the toughest wall street regulation in history. wall street has been the greatest allocator of capital in the history of mankind. it that turned into a casino. we improved education for the average american for less than 1% of what the nation spends on education, we have encouraged 45 states to raise their standards to better educate our children. you have some examples up there. we expanded by 3 million people the number of kids from working- class families who have a grant to attend college.

3 million more qualified kids in college today. we kept faith. we kept faith. coming back from iraq afghanistan with health care and better education and finding jobs. we provided tax cuts and incentives for businesses to hire vets, which they fought against for the longest time. we cut taxes for small businesses to help them grow and they say they love small business. we help millions of families to modify their mortgages, saving them thousands of dollars a year. we also got bin laden.

[cheers] let me correct that. the president of the united states and the special forces got bin laden. [cheers] i go to democratic rallies and democratic events and the democrats will say to me, why can we get down to a bumper sticker or stand for? i said, i have a bumper sticker for you now. "osama bin laden is dead and general motors is alive." that is a bumper sticker. it sums it all up, doesn't it? we are about a lot more than bumper stickers. we are about education.

fair wages for decent jobs. 4.5 million private sector jobs in the face of the catastrophe we inherited. the fastest growth since the 1990's. but that is not enough. there is a lot of people still hurting as a consequence of this recession we inherited. mitt romney says they are running to restore the dreams and the greatness of this country.

what they did not say is the claims the congressman voted for and the governor supported put america's greatness in jeopardy. how do they think we got in this spot in the first place? what do they think happened? was it casper the ghost? who did it? we were doing just fine. had a budget surplus. we were paying down our debt and the middle class was thriving. eight years later, how did it happen? ladies and gentlemen, what they did not say is that that month in january have lost so far 750,000 jobs.

before we were sworn in. >> that is right. >> we inherited. he got handed a trillion-dollar deficit for that year. for that year. already $1 trillion in the whole. the middle class have lost $16 trillion in wealth collectively in the equity in your homes. the thing you were counting on. maybe to have some money in retirement. be able to help your mother and father. may be to send your kid to school after high school.

evaporated. gone. done. these guys say they care about the middle class. [boos] my dad had another saying and i have been saying this for 20 years. my dad was the consummate host. nobody could say anything wrong in my house. some say, let me tell you what i value. my dad would say, do not tell me what you value. show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. do not tell me about your women in the workplace and do not hire any woman. let's take a look because now we have a clear picture.

we have a clear picture of what the they value. look at what they know that you can look at the budget. romney said he will let the big banks are write their own rules. unchain wall street. they will put you back in chains. they said they will do nothing about stopping the process of outsourcing. the voted down a proposal to give it tax breaks. they get a tax break for that. we will give a tax break to any company in singapore that brings the back to danville. that is not going to change the world.

but they voted against it. romney opposes it. i did not get these guys. they make massive cuts in medicare throwing 19 million people in distress off of medicaid including 1 million seniors, roughly 75% of whom are women. how did the think these people in nursing homes are there. 75% of those elderly persons in medicare in homes. they are there because of medicaid. doesn't seem to be a problem for them all. they made massive cuts in social security for the next generation.

you'reget $2,700 less if in your 40's. that is how they are going to save the economy. allow me insurance companies to write the rules. "you have cancer. you have hit your limit. you're on your own." "we can charge you more because you are a woman." you would think i was making this up. that is what they are proposing. they wanted to turn medicare into a voucher system. [boos] they will tell you you not be affected but we're waiting to get these next guy's coming. come on, man.

this is not on the level. in my neighborhood, nobody minds chipping in. i heard a congresswoman up in north dakota say, everybody has different obligations. she said, if you were sitting in church and because of the heavy snow and the roof collapses, you don't expect the janitor in the department store to pay as much as the owner of the department store to fix the roof. janitors do not mind contributing. everybody knows it have to beat in on the deal. you hate being played for a sucker. the american people know they are being played for a sucker.

it is all and the service of maintaining the bush tax cut for the wealthy, the top 1%. these are the facts. tom knows these side down and inside out. $800 billion of the tax cut. $800 billion will go to people with a minimum income of $1 million. $400 billion will go to 120,000 households.

$400 billion going to 120,000 household while we cut medicaid, while we cut education, while we cut infrastructure. on top of that, romney comes along as does the congressman and says, we need an additional tax cut for the job creators. i'm serious. we need an additional $1.6 trillion for the job creators. i said they are good people and they'll do not need this. this is a big price tag for the middle class. the nonpartisan tax policy

center put out the price and said it was awful high. they said if the tax policy comes into law, the average middle class family with children will see a $2,000 increase in their taxes to pay for this. and he calls the president out of touch? how many of you have a swiss bank accounts? raise your hand. hey, man, how many of you have significant millions of dollars -- we do not know how much -- invested in the cayman islands? oh, man. you guys are out of touch. how many people think you can run for president of united states and not let the american people know what your tax returns are? [applause]

this is not even mitt romney's father's republican party. this is a different party. not bad, different. i have more to say but i am saying too much already. these guys get me going and you will have trouble translating all this. she'll have tendinitis' by the time she is finished with this. let me try to sum it up. president and i have a different vision for america. raising its tenants for elementary and secondary education. making sure there is still health to get to college.

keep in the 2500 tax credit to send your kids to school. maintaining the pell grants. we are the leading manufacturer in the world. we see an america where my granddaughter has the exact same rights as my grandson in every single way. [applause] we see an america where women get paid the same as men for doing the same work. we see a country when you get crews the ill you did not have to go bankrupt to take care of yourself. we see a social security system protected. medicaid is available for people in distress. that is why we strengthen the program, extended it by eight years and we did without cutting a penny in benefits. we see an america where all we

maintain the only sacred obligation of the government and that is to care for those who come back, the veterans that come back. we see an america where no millionaire place at a lower rate than the average middle class person. we see a nation with the middle class tax cuts get cut and everybody pays their fair share when the middle class is no longer played for a sucker. look, the fact of the matter is that as the president said, this is a make or break moment for the middle class in america. literally. it is clear.

no one could question what the parameters of this debate are. i haven't even talked about foreign policy. i haven't talked about these dyes that want to keep 35,000 troops in iraq and want to disagree with nato and turn responsibility over to the afghans. i haven't talked about what the supreme court will look like after four years for civil- rights and civil liberties for four years of a romney administration. i have not talked about so much. i will end with this. presidential elections are an almost every circumstance decided by the voters on one overarching question -- does the man or woman i'm going to vote for have the character of their convictions? do they mean what they say and do what they say?

[applause] ladies and gentlemen, on that score, this isn't even close. the reason we will win is my buddy, my friend has has a backbone like a ramrod. he is made the most difficult decisions since roosevelt and lincoln. he is never put his political fortunes ahead of what he thinks is right for the country. i have watched him stay with his position and not waffle. this man has more character in his little finger than most people have in their whole body.

ladies and gentlemen, you have to help us. we got to finish what obama started. we have to finish this recovery. -- to stand with us. we need to go out there and make sure that with you, we can win north carolina again. if we do, we win the election. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years.

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>> i forgot to introduce your next congressman. he knows how to lead. >> republicans have announced that chris christie will be the keynote speaker at this year's convention.

they were almost instantly pressed into the spotlight. republicans love them because last month, he asked a reporter, are you stupid? he is not afraid of taking non either democrats, teachers' unions, whatever. that is what you need at the republican national convention. earlier in the primary season, you had a very divided republican party. ibm and, you need someone to rev up -- by the end, you need someone to rev up your base. >> you wrote that the governor is a rock star among conservatives. >> the governor said he was

going to focus more on mitt romney's accomplishments. rather than attacking barack obama. that has been in default mode for the gop. it is kind of an interesting choice in that he would be tapped to be the attack dog, which i'm sure he will be, in part. it might present a shift in strategy of the mitt romney campaign. >> a keynote speech in a convention is seen as a springboard for a politician. what is the general sense for his larger political aspirations? >> he has been cagey about that. he was at the top of governor romney's vice presidential pick list.

i think he has to be up there for names in 2016. it seems like he is rather ambitious, but also understands that maybe it is not quite his tiny head. that is how he phrased it when he said he was not -- as not quite his time yet. that is how the phrase did when he said he was not going to run. is this viewed as a consul light -- consolation prize? does the mitt romney campaign have larger plans for senator marco rubio? >> i am not sure i would

describe it as a consolation prize. to be given the honor of introducing your party's presidential nominee is a big task, certainly. the campaign sees marco rubio as almost like paul ryan. he is very conservative, he can reach into the hispanic community, which is very important in florida. he will be a top surrogate for governor romney. regardless of whether he was given the keynote address or the job of introducing a the governor. >> you can read his reporting at washingtontimes.com.

>> republicans holding their convention in tampa august 27. the democratic convention in charlotte from september 4-6. presented debates to be held october 3, 16, 22nd. we will have every minute, every speech live on c-span and on our campaign website. next, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and defense secretary leon panetta told a news briefing at the pentagon. discussions about counter- terrorism. joe biden makes a campaign appearance in virginia. tomorrow, cnbc host.

proposed changes to medicaid and medicare by paul ryan. after that, bloomberg business week contributor discusses his recent story on drug tunnels running underground between the u.s. and mexico. "washington journal" is live wednesday morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> i was in a training program. >> this sunday, washington post columnist walter pincus talks about his various jobs as a journalist. >> they build a $4 million facility for the band. it has separate rooms for everybody.

>> sunday night at 8:00 on c- span. >> at a pentagon news briefing today, leon panetta and joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey discussed military operations in afghanistan, of violence in syria. secretary panetta called the acceleration of attacks in afghanistan insider attacks and said it plans to add more counterintelligence capability to u.s. military personnel in the region. this is 45 minutes. >> first of all, i wanted to indicate that, earlier today, i had a very good conversation with general al-sisi, which is the new general of defense in egypt.

general al-sisi expressed his unwavering commitment to they u.s.-egypt relationship, which has been an anchor of stability in the middle east for more than 30 years. i in turn indicated to him that i look forward to working with him and to continuing the relationship with egypt that we have had over the years. he takes seriously the obligations under the camp david treaty. i indicated that i look forward to working with him in the region.

this morning, i also conducted a regular update. general dempsey and i both with the general allan. he continues to do an outstanding job as the commander of the assistance force. i will give you a brief update on afghanistan as well as a result of that conversation. we discussed the progress of the campaign, specifically with regard to four key goals which we are trying to achieve in afghanistan. first, the abilities of the afghan forces, second, the pressure on the insurgency, and third forcing to maintain the international community's unity of effort. we have long expected that our

forces would remain in their -- in a tough fight through this fighting season. that has been true of your -- true through these last summer months. at the same time, it is clear that we're continuing to make significant progress toward trying to achieve the goals we have laid out. on the afghan forces, the ansf continues to grow in size. two-thirds of those in uniform defending afghanistan and now afghans. and the ansf continues to grow to 350 two thousand later this year. the growth of afghan special operations, having the capability has allowed afghans to plan, conduct, and lead special operations missions

every day and every night. the ana recently operated a special command consisting of 10,000 soldiers in one recent 24-hour period, 25 operations were afghan-led. they are showing real capability and that shows positive for the future. ansf has the potential to deal with a crippling and lasting blow to the insurgency. they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called insider attacks that have taken place in this fighting season.

make no mistake about it. i have been very concerned about these incidents. both of us have been because of the lives lost and because of the potential damage toward our partnership efforts. general allan and i discussed a range of measures that he is taking to try to stop these attacks. i will touch on a few of those pick first, to increase the intelligence presence so that we can try to get better information with regards to these kinds of potential attacks. also, to increase counterintelligence, to increase people trained in counterintelligence so they can as well identify those threats. secondly, we have a thorough vetting process. we're doing forensics on the particular instance -- a particular instances that have occurred to make sure how that vetting process happened. notification process so that, when we get information, we can

alert people to the threats. training requirements, and the afghans do the same. we have a guardian angel program which involves identifying one individual who stands to the side so he can watch people's backs and hopefully identify people that could be involved in those attacks. general allan is meeting with the security ministers. they will talk about further steps to take to protect against these attacks. he is also meeting with the village elders. these are the people who usually about for individuals. they have to sign something that the vouchers for the character of these individuals to ensure that that is being done properly. all of this requires action by both the united states, the

coalition forces, and by our afghan partners who all face the insider threat. we mustn't forget that the afghans themselves are also targets of these attacks as well. i want to stress that these incidents, which now include 31 afghans, do not reflect the pride and dedication of the 350,000 police of the afghan national security forces. one of the reason the afghan -- the taliban is targeting in this manner is the success that the afghan partners are having on the battlefield. the reality is that the taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost. so they are resorting to these kinds of attacks to create have

it. and there is -- to create havoc. we will not allow this kind of intimidation to undermine our efforts to build up the n and -- the nsf. secondly, we're putting pressure on the insurgency, the growth of a nsf is increasingly putting pressure on the insurgency itself. as the fighting season has progressed, we have seen an increase in enemy-initiated attacks. although violence levels have remained consistent with past summers appeared a lot of this -- with past summers. a lot of this, according to general allen, we are taking back the fight. the fighting has been increasingly taking place away from major populated areas.

the insurgency remains on the defensive and it has not been able to regain ground that it has lost. all of this has enabled us to continue with the transition to an afghan lead, which is the third goal that we are after. and the transition has been and remains very much a successful operation. over half of the afghan population is predicted by the moment -- by predominantly afghan force. we hope that it willfully be implemented later this year. 75% of the afghan population, including every provincial capital, would be in the transition process and would be under afghan security and governance. security gains made in these areas have been sustained in the first six months of this year. insurgent attacks were down 15% in areas that were undergoing transition, compared to 2011.

this has allowed us to introduce security-force assistance teams. these are small teams of isaf advisers. they train, advised and assist ansf units. on unity of the effort, obviously, the transition plan has the strong support of the afghan people and international community. because of that, we have been able to maintain a strong unity of effort with the afghan government and our international partners. in my discussions with the general allen and my foreign counterparts, i meet with a lot of those who continue to supply forces, i have been struck by their commitment and unity to overcome the effort.

their decision to open up the nato supply lines means a great deal to us to bring containers and material that are now moving across the border into afghanistan. cross border cooperation with pakistan is increasing. general allan is meeting on a regular basis with the general kayani. i realize that there are a lot of other things going on in this country that can draw our attention. from the olympics into political campaigns to drought

to some of the tragedies we have seen in communities around the country. but i thought it was important to remind the american people that there is a war going on in afghanistan. and that young men and women are dying in order to protect this country. even as our surge forces have drawn down at -- will drawdown of the end of september and we are on track, there will remain 68,000 americans in uniform who will be deployed in a very tough fight against a determined enemy. as secretary of defense, i have said this before -- one of my toughest jobs is writing condolence letters to the families of our fallen heroes frankly, i seem to be writing more lately.

more than 1950 americans in uniform have died defending our country in a can stand and thousands more, as you know, have been injured, some very seriously. the pain and the heartbreak of this war weigh heavily on me. and i know they weigh heavily upon general dempsey as well as our other military and civilian leaders. but also as well on the families of those who have lost loved ones. and yet, when i talk to the families of the fallen, when you meet with them and meet with our wounded troops in bethesda, i am impressed by their need to see these missions through. i want to say to the american people to take the time and reflect on the sacrifices. it is because of the sacrifices that i think we're moving in the right direction.

and afghanistan that can secure and protect itself. that is a tribute to general allen's leadership and for the countless sacrifices of thousands of americans and international and afghan forces who stepped forward to make us safer. at a time when i am sure that there is an awful lot to be mad about, there is a lot to be proud of when it comes to our men and women in uniform. and we shouldn't forget that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i obviously share our deep admiration for men and women in uniform and all those serving in afghanistan. theirs is a story of unrelenting courage and uncommon sacrifice. it is a story they share with our coalition and afghan partners. the progress does not mean an

end to violence or tragedy. i was reminded of that last friday when i went to dover to grieve with families as their flag-draped coffins return to their native soil. at that time, i was also inspired by the solemn professionalism of our airmen at dover who make sure every single dignified transfer is worthy of the fallen soldier and their family. i am returning to cobble next week to talk with general allan and other partners on how to make the anfs stronger and the taliban weaker. we will talk about efforts at every echelon to confront the insider attack that the secretary just elaborated on. i will also travel through iraq for the first time since our mission and there appeared will take stock of our efforts to continue to build a relationship through the office of cooperation.

and we will talk about what is working and what is the best way forward. we meet as peers and it is essential that our partnership continue to develop on that basis. in a similar vei i, too, have reached that to my counterpart in egypt. i sense a positive -- for one thing, he is another army college graduate. he has a longstanding relationship with the united states army. and i sense a positive trend for a respected military. while i spoke with the previous chief, and our relationship transcends individuals. before taking your questions, allow me to offer a few thoughts on my recent and upcoming travels. i was in silicon valley recently for about a week to discuss and

vulnerabilities and opportunities in cyber with industry leaders. this is a domain without borders or buffer zones where public, private collaboration is the only to safeguard our nation's critical infrastructure. we all agreed on the need to share threat information at network speed. and i would like to see a return in congress to push legislation that does at least this. i would also like to mention our olympic athletes, 16 of which in the london games were active military men and women. i had a chance to walk through the arlington cemetery with our basketball men and women. two weeks from now, it will be our fault offical -- it will be our official delegation to be

paralympics. on that ending note, i look forward to your questions. >> could you provide a little more detail on some of the added actions that will be taken on the ongoing attacks? considering the numbers of these attacks, as you know, are on smaller teams and parties. is the intention to add intelligence to those small teams? how would be practically done? also, are there any other practical things that you are looking at in order to protect

the troops, such as expanding the guardian angel across all the services? is it really possible to do this as -- is it really possible to do this with the cost of doing business? >> first of all, you will hear us talk about these incidents more as insider attacks. it understates the effect that this is having a on the ansf itself. they are suffering from the same trend that we're suffering. secondly, i would never become contend that there is not more that we can do. i would never characterize this as the cost of doing business. as always, and there are far more story is about a positive relationship than there is about this particular insight attack trend. but it is one that we have to be focused on.

for example, in one of the recent green-on-blues, it was a special operations forces lieutenant and a sergeant who came to the aid of their american counterparts and lost their lives in the process of coming to the raid. so this is not a case where is -- coming to their aid. this is not a case where you chalk it up to the cost of doing business. we should all be encouraged by the message by president karzai condemning it. secondly, general allan is convening a conference of all of his wounded stars and senior advisers. this is the topic of that conference. more important probably is a the afghan security ministers are having a summit to talk about what they can do on their side.

the secretary mentioned that john has convened an acronym called jcft and it will look at the recruiting process, filing promptly, where did the men who committed -- what are the indicators that we missed? and we will learn something from that. we are also adding counterintelligence expertise, both inside of our own staff. i really expect them to be part of the security forces team and i would expect them to have a more robust capability. and so true are the afghans. we are adding internal counterintelligence to them. they discharged hundreds of soldiers who did indicate that

they -- that some of these young men had the capability of being radicalized, either by traveling back and forth to pakistan, by literature, by music, and so forth. >> the pentagon report in this program said that most of these incidents had to do more with personal grudges. basically, maybe americans disrespecting afghans that led to bloodshed. that there was very little taliban in frustration. are we seeing a change now talibanere's more infiltration into these incidents? >> in talking with john allen, it is clear that there is no one source that is producing these kinds of attacks. some of it are individuals who, for some reason, are upset and they take it out.

we have seen that here in the united states often times. secondly, there is a self- radicalization that sometimes takes place within it. so waitperson may not be a member of the taliban, but it is -- so a person may not be a member of the taliban, but is suddenly radicalized with incentives for that type of thing. we have seen some of that take place in some of these attacks. and then others have some taliban ties. it is difficult to draw any kind of conclusion as to just exactly whether this is kind of a pattern, a broad pattern appeared from everybody that i have talked to at this point,

these seem to be incidents that a taking place that are oftentimes caused by different backgrounds of the individuals involved. >> you mentioned pakistan and afghanistan relationship. [inaudible] what is the u.s. reaction? why is the u.s. not able to show a strong reaction to pakistan? >> it is very important that we do everything possible to try to get pakistan to take the right steps on their side of the border. the reality is that the

communication and the relationship has gone better. general allan is meeting with general karani on a regular basis. we have been able to make progress with regards to other areas of assistance. one area where we are making particular progress is in trying to develop better cross border operations so that both the pakistanis and the united states and afghans are all working on the global areas to identify terrorists who are creating havoc. there is no doubt that their terrorist coming across from pakistan who wind up in afghanistan and then have some cross-border incidents across the way. with general allen is open to do is that the pakistanis can help the united states identify the terrorists on the afghan side of the border and we can

help identify some of the terrorists on the pakistani side of the border. so there can be better coordination to try to do with these kinds of cross border incidents. >> on syria, we have word now that many of the 48 iranian men who were captured earlier this month by the syrian army in damascus are in fact irtc members. what were they doing there? how deep does iranian involvement run in this conflict? >> without having specific information about the individuals involved in this particular situation, it is obvious to both general dempsey and i that iran is playing a larger role in syria in many ways. not only in terms of the irtc, but in terms of assistance,

training. there is now an indication that they're trying to develop and train a militia within syria. one that is able to fight against the regime. so we are seeing a growing presence by iran. and that is of deep concern to us, that that is taking place. we do not think that iran ought to be playing that role at this moment in time. it is dangerous and is adding to the killing that is going on in syria. and it tries to bolster a regime that we think will to millie will come down -- that we think will ultimately come down. our hope is that iran thinks better of how much they do want to get involved. but in any event, we have to make sure that iran does not exercise that kind of influence in syria and try to determine

the future of the syrian people. the syrian people ought to determine their future, not iran. >> the militia you mentioned, are these iranian fighters you're talking about? have the iranians picked up arms or are they training? >> from what we have seen, a lot of it is training and a lot of it is assistance. i believe that the militia is made up of syrians. >> it is translated into the army of the people. >> mr. secretary, you talk about seeing a larger role played by iran. have either of you seen evidence of al qaeda?

>> there have been reports that al qaeda is present, but not aligned with the opposition. al qaeda is opportunistic. they are trying to find inroads into syria, but not aligned with the opposition in the way that the iranian influences are aligning themselves with the regime. >> you may statement about secretary clinton that, in a post-assad era, you don't want to see a repeat of what happened in iraq in terms of the military being dismantled. are you just throwing that out there publicly or are you specifically talking to anyone

in syria or the opposition? i don't mean you preface -- i don't mean you personally, but the u.s. >> i am not. but, obviously, one of the focuses for secretary clinton is to try to determine what a post-assad syria will look like and what steps need to be taken. there are a number of concerns that we have in that situation. how do we maintain security of the chemical biological weapons that are being stored there and ensure that they remain secure and don't fall into the wrong hands? how do we develop a process to ensure that the different segments of the opposition can come together and be able to organize in some kind of transitional government? how are we able to deal with some of the other groups that are now, like al qaeda, their

involvement, how do we do with them? how do we deal with hezbollah in this process? there are a number of questions that need to be addressed in that kind of situation. i think there is a strong diplomatic effort to try to determine what that would look like. >> and direct u.s. active in -- and direct you as active in trying to do this. >> i think the u.s. is working with our allies to determine which steps we will be taking. >> can i talk with you about military assessments on both sides of this area of conflict? for the regime, there are forces, troops, equipment. what is your assessment? are they reaching the end? can they maintain spare parts and logistics? do you believe that they have an anti-air capability? that they have the beginning potentially of heavy weapons? your assessment on the spot.

>> on the kids -- on the condition of the syrian army, it has been fighting now for 18 months or so. and the army would be taxed with that kind of pace. we are expecting that they're having -- you know, sanctions and other pressures -- they're having supply problems, morale problems, the kind of wear and tear that would come from being in a fight for as long as they have. and i believe that iran is stepping in to form this motion to take some of the pressure off of the syrian military. you may have seen the prime minister, who left syria, is now calling on syria to do the honorable thing. i think that would be an

outcome that we would support. on the other side, there was a report this weekend of the mig- 23. we don't know how it was shot down. the indicator was that it had a failure of some kind convicted not appear to be mechanical. but it could have been shot down with a small arms fire. it did have surfaced-air missile capability. we have seen no indication that anyone has armed them with heavy weaponry. although, we're certainly alert to that possibility and wouldn't be surprised by it. >> given what secretary clinton said over the weekend, are you now looking again at the notion

of having a no-fly zone or safe haven for new working groups? or are you absolutely convinced that a no-fly zone is no feet? >> militarily, i explore options with partners, especially in these kinds of incidents. we have been in discussion with jordanians and the turks. they are both interested mostly in the effects that could spill from syria in to their countries. both have examined the possibility of a safe haven. but a safe haven would probably have some kind of no-fly zone. >> as we both indicated, obviously, we plan for a number of contingencies and we have planned for a number of contingencies there. right now, with regards to syria, we are focused on three

areas. number one, humanitarian assistance. we provide about 81 million and we continue to work with turkey and jordan to do what we can to provide further assistance to do with the refugees picked secondly, cbw sides continue to be a serious concern and we continue to monitor those sites, working with turkey and jordan. we have been in discussions to determine what steps need to be taken to ensure that those sites are secure and maintain so that those weapons don't fall into the wrong hands. thirdly, assisting the opposition. we are providing non-legal aid to the opposition. but our goal is to -- non-

lethal aid to the opposition. as far as the no-fly zone, that is not an issue to us. >> there has been an uptick in publicity on speculation that israel is getting ready. on august 1, you said we need every option and every effort before it undertaking military action. then it was written that time is dwindling. what is your view here? is israel closer than ever before to taking unilateral strikes against iran? and what is your general thinking about the effectiveness of those types of strikes undertaken by a nation without stealthier craft bore bumper-busting type of weaponry? >> i have said this before.

i don't believe they have made a decision as to whether or not they will attack iran at this time. obviously, they are independent. they are a sovereign country. they will make decisions on what they think is in their best national security interest good but i don't think they have made that decision at this time. with regards to the issue of where they are at from a diplomatic point of view, the reality is that we still think there is room to continue to negotiate. the additional sanctions have been put in place. they are beginning to have an additional impact on top of the other sanctions that have been placed there. the international community is strongly unified in opposition to iran developing any kind of

nuclear weapon. and we're working together both on the diplomatic side as well as on the economic side to apply sanctions. i think the effort is one that the united states and the international community will continue to press. as i said and i will continue to repeat, the prime minister of israel said the same thing. military -- any kind of military action ought to be the last alternative, not the first. >> but they say that the window is almost shut. >> of the sick, israel has to respond to that question. -- obviously, israel has to respond to that question. >> militarily, my assistant -- my assessment has not changed. i'm not privy to their planning. my assessment is based on their

capabilities and i may not know all of their capabilities. but characterization's say they could delay but not destroyed iran's nuclear capabilities. >> but that -- >> i have not changed my assessment. >> thank you. i am from venezuela. the venezuelan government has been very outspoken, highlighting its support of the soaring yen -- support of the syrian and iranian governments. >> we don't agree with a lot that venezuela does and we would obviously not agree with their approach to syria as well.

i guess venezuela will have to make its own decisions as to what governments that want to support or not support. >> have pakistan -- [inaudible] are you aware of their nuclear capability, that pakistan is extending their nuclear weapons because of terrorists inside pakistan? also, it is 65 years of independence.

>> one of the things i have always tried to stress in that region is the importance of india and pakistan working together to deal with the issues that they confront. we will never have real stability in that region without india and pakistan, and for that matter afghanistan, working together in trying to do with common threats, particularly those threats from terrorism. i really do believe, when i talk to the pakistanis, i always stress the fact that we should have common cause which refers to confronting terrorists in order confronting terrorism. terrorists -- to confronting terrorists. terrorists are a real danger to their country.

members of their military have died as a result of terrorism and it is important for them to recognize that threat and to act against that threat. in particular, it is important because they are a nuclear power and the great danger we always fear is that, if terrorism is not controlled in their country, that their nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. >> [inaudible] >> i did not. he was here when i was a broad. >> as i was. but the chief of army staff, and recognizing the independent states, he gave a speech that i

would incurred due to take a look at. >> as general dempsey said, the war and conflict has been going on for 17-18 months. do you think that, number one, america has done enough? and, number two, is there reason in the future -- are you confident that you have enough firepower? >> with respect to that last question, there is no question in my mind that we are -- that we have positioned a significant force in the middle east to deal with any kind of contingency. we are prepared to respond to whatever the president of the

united states asks us to do. with regard to syria, we are not standing still. there is a very strong diplomatic effort that secretary clinton is involved in, working with turkey, working with jordan, working with our allies, to try to continue to bring pressure on syria. there are a number of sanctions that have been brought against syria, economic sanctions that have had an impact. at the same time, we're working on the humanitarian assistance. we're trying to secure the cbw. and we are trying to provide assistance to the opposition. i think the reality is that it is having an impact on assad. it is having an effect on the

regime. we are seeing increasing defections. we are seeing problems with their military. i think that it is a matter of time. but it will take continuing pressure. it would be helpful if the russians and the chinese were a part of that effort. but, if they are not, we believe that the international community is maintaining enough unity on this issue that they can continue to bring strong pressure on the syrian regime to bring it down and to give syria back to the syrian people. >> you said we're working on securing the cbw. what do you mean? >> we are monitoring those sites and keeping an eye on them and continuing to develop plans with the adjoining countries to ensure that they will always be secure.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we will have a live coverage on c-span 2 and c-span.org. >> the soviet bear my become but they're still wolves in the woods. we saw that when said on hussain invaded kuwait. the middle east may have become a nuclear power keg. our energy supplies for held hostage. we did what was right and necessary. we freed the people and unlocked a tyrant in the prison of his own country.

>> tonight 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. the incoming president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. >> c-span has aired every minute from every convention since 1984. this year what's the democratic and republican national conventions to reject this year watch the democratic and republican conventions. >> as part of this year's aspen security form, law-enforcement

officials discussed domestic terrorism. among the speakers, sean joyce and william webster. this is one hour. >> good morning everybody. i am the president of the robert mccormick foundation based in chicago. i have a great privilege of introducing this panel that will be discussing law-enforcement agencies at all different levels and the work they do to do -- to keep our country safe. what an amazing panel it is. i will begin from left to right. brad brekke is from target corporation.

johnson is the director of the international association of chiefs of police. he has 21,000 buses and members in that capacity and over 100 countries. he also served as the principal deputy in the department of home and security. sean joyce was named to the deputy director of the fbi with oversight of operations. prior to this, sean oversaw the counter intelligence with weapons of mass destruction and all other intelligence programs. timothy williams is director of interpol, washington.

he served as the chief of technical operations for the u.s. marshals service where he oversaw the nationwide surveillance operations. the honorable william webster who is a former judge and the united states court of appeals, former director of the fbi, former director of the cia making him the only american to serve as both of those agencies. he is chairman of the home and security advisory council for the department of common security. -- department of homeland security. we will all have the pleasure of hearing her frequently on the radio. in addition to that, dina is the

author of several great box. let me turn it over to you. >> thank you very much. [applause] thank you for coming here this morning. what we are going to do rigid or is unusual about this panel is it offers a real spectrum about people who get involved with terrorism cases. very often have trouble figuring out where they are in the process of investigating the case. this is a rare opportunity where we can get an idea of what is going on step by step by step. at every case is the same, but this will give you an idea. we thought the best way to do this would be to use specific example. some cases may not get involved with the specific example, but they can give us a good hypothetical idea of what they would have done in a particular case. how many of you know the new

york subway case? let me give you a tiny synopsis so that you will understand what it is we are talking about. this case happened back in 2009. at the time the fbi thought it was the most serious case in the united states since 9/11. the reason was, an afghan native who actually used to have one of those cards from new york city, went to afghanistan and pakistan and basically wanted to fight with the taliban. instead he added that getting recruited by al qaeda because he had a clean at passport and was able to get in and out of the united states. what makes this different from all the other people you talk about is he actually built a

viable bomb. he tested one in denver. he was able to make the detonator. i have steady bonds a lot. apparently that is the hardest part to do. he made the bomb with here by boiling it down to a particular ratio. he went to a big hair salon outlets in denver and bought massive amounts of hair dye. so much that even the guy at the counter said, what are you doing with all of this year die? for the purposes of our panel having set that up, let's assume that he is a thrifty guy. instead of going to this owlet he went to target and bought a lot of hair dye. let's assume for the argument that a clerk at target said, wow, that is a lot of hair dye.

he reported it. in what would happen. >> some quick context because i am the private sector representatives here today. i represent a fortune 500 company with corporate security department. we actually do a lot with law enforcement. we have capabilities with our own corporation. i think this case is a good illustration of how it could come to pass. we would have offered him a red card so he gets 5% off on his purchase. >> i gave you a set up, did i not? >> in all seriousness, we do have a working relationship often with the law enforcement community a local and national levels. target has embarked program where we purposely developed it.

these relationships enable us to become aware of information they might need feedback on. in a case like this, we might find out from a local law enforcement center or from the fbi out of the sea on her --, be on the lookout for. he there at headquarters are out on the field we would begin surveying day tab because we will track inventory data. we can pull video from around the country. both inside the store and outside. we actually can go out to our peers and other retailers and ask them if they have seen such behavior, too. it is not just within the target environment. if we trip that wire, we can pick up the phone and call law enforcement and notify them. >> would you call local law enforcement or the fbi? >> it deepens and the situation and what is being asked for us to do.

most often than not it is at a local level. >> a uncall the local police. seeing as you now -- so you would call the local police. the phone call comes into the local police. let's just say there is another aspect. it comes into the local police. then what happens? cox there is 18,000 law- enforcement agencies in the country. target has an excellent working relationship and many other organizations and companies throughout the country. the other good news is law enforcement is part of the security enterprise, the national intelligence enterprise. they know the communities. they know when criminal activity is afoot. if they got the call from a target store employee, they will

be armed with information. it will have been socialized to what counter-terrorism is about the acquisition of material. the hydrogen peroxide is part of the material. under that set of circumstances, i am quite confident one of two things will have occurred. they would have called the fusion center directly or they would have called to expand on that. if they want the national network affusion center route, there would have called the fusion center once again because of the efforts of ina, the fbi, they have the connectivity, both classified and unclassified level to receive the documents and to receive the products that an inmate from the intelligence community overseas about how the devices are made, what the components of the go into them. they also would be informed as it relates to what to look for. a good analyst said would know

that could be terrorist related. they will notify the jttf. it has happened in not only these incidents but over the past three years. unfortunately there has been an uptick in domestic base to incidents. the relationship is very good. it does not stop there. it gets to the intelligence community. the only people not sitting on this side is the cia for the intelligence community to get it up to them and conversely, a lot of affirmation passes down. that is basically what will happen. relationships and the passing of the information. >> of the police chief of denver is a little bit worried about what he has heard from target. he called the head of the field office in denver and says, i

have this problem. and what happens? >> make sure you don't tell him, i do not have a white shirt on. the fbi can dress down occasionally. we do a lot of things. people have to remember, we are just like you out there. we are trying to balance civil rights and civil liberties. what we do each and every time is the least intrusiveness. depending upon what the threat is, if you are talking about somebody coming in and purchasing hydrogen peroxide, then there are certain activities that we do -- checking open source records whether they have a prior record. signage their numbers are affiliated with anyone else who may have an open investigation. also doing checks with the other members of the intelligence community.

>> would you check to see if they travel to pakistan or afghanistan? >> absolutely. when people talk about the fbi's jttf, it is our jttf. on every single jtf since 2001 we went from 35 to 104. there are members of the nsa, the cia, state police, local police, you make it. they are members of the task force. we cannot do it without them. i think we got a lot smarter involving the private sector. i do not think we pay less attention to the before and bringing them into -- i do not think we paid enough attention to bringing them in before. >> us talk about interpol. for the sake of making it easy to go down the line. here is something you tell me

about interpol before we had this session. interpol is not like jason bourne, which i thought it was. i thought there were people crashing through windows. i thought you could do the jason bourne stuff. can you explain a little better what interpol as? >> absolutely. i think interpol is -- there is a lot of confusion about interpol. basically the u. and of police. it is made up of the national police agency's. in the united states it is a little more complicated. it is very important. i think a lot of this forum has been on the classified side and how information has been shared and better between the fbi and military cia. i remember charlie allen saying many times, the real intelligence gatherers are the

police on the streets and people making arrests every day that will flip the individual into cooperating on a case and tell the fbi and others on their case. i think there is some real creative people a in the audience. people that believe sharing information and working together, they have been supportive of interpol. police intelligence, two countries and national police agencies. back when a lot people in this room, it does not this way. when we were younger, and lot of things were done by fax. technology has made interpol more relevant. we have the lost stolen travel document with interval -- with interpol.

>> would he have popped up on the interpol database? >> if the fbi wanted him on there. >> he would not have in that case because -- for a red notice, that is an arrest warrant recognized by interpol members. there are other blue-chip notices and other neck -- mechanisms. he specifically -- we were tipped off. he would have been in the databases they have. >> the way they basically found was the interception of an e- mail. they did not have someone who said something. what was interesting about the case is that he created tatt, an

explosive, from this hair dye. then he drove across the country from denver to new york. and the fbi was concerned that he decided not to fly. so maybe there was something in the car they were worried about. i do not know if you know this or not the my understanding was on his cross-country journey, he was talking very fast. he got pulled over several times by police and getting tickets for dropping so fast. this was again this coordination think we're talking about. the people who pull them over, did they know why he was being pulled over? but it is my understanding he was intentionally pulled over to collect information in cooperation with the fbi. if it was a happenchance pullover and he was speeding, those troopers are well informed as it relates to seeing a wire. i'm quite confident they are

well-informed to report that information to the nationwide suspicious activity reporting initiative or to the jttf. >> let's say hypothetically that they did not know. the mechanism that exists as soon as a case is developed, that person is to -- goes into the known and suspected terrorist file. any police officer out there is going to know when they stop and individual. then he has a contact number to come back to. >> the fact they stop him a couple of times and gave him a couple of tickets, that is one of my favorite parts. i am out of new york and there was another aspect that maybe you can answer. he has this explosive in the suitcase in the trunk of his car and he is pulled over by law enforcement and a search is car

and they miss the explosives. how did that happen? [laughter] >> they are all looking at me. >> in all of these cases, we are all organizations and human beings. so the new -- they knew. they made the stop and it did not find it. there were a couple of aubrey -- of other bombs. there are bumps in every case. they knew and they did their best but it was difficult to detect. in fairness to the police officers, they were not try to make it obvious. that was some of the direction that was given. it was later found, as you know.

in this type of case, it was very fast moving. when we initially found out, around september 6 or seventh, to his arrest, it ended up being the 18th. so you can imagine very quickly the number of techniques. one of the things as how the fbi has changed and director smaller and others have really -- director muller and others have really transformed the agency. we are looking at it as an intelligence collection. it was not to put him in jail. we want to find out everything we can about him. who is the connected with? who are his facilitators? what is he trying to do? at the same time working with the department of justice, they are with us from day 0. we want to preserve the ability to disrupt them, possibly

prosecuting them and putting them in jail. that is the biggest thing. people do not recognize -- field intelligence groups, it is about being intelligent and attractive base. i think we have been extremely successful doing that. >> if i may, being in law enforcement for 32 years, you do miss things unfortunately. but the system worked here in this case. not only did that information in record speed get into the hands of jim davis, the sac in denver, and then share with the chief dan oates but also commissioner kelly. i saw commissioner kelly earlier here today. that would not have happened on the 9/11 -- september 10th of 2001. but it is now. demint -- the information is

being passed. people are aware. it is a total good news story progresses it is. . >> this is a nice way to go to you and talk about the coordination. you have been involved the fbi for a long time. you heard the story. can you talk a little bit about how this is working together? >> most of the time, it worked very well. occasionally it does not. that is when we hear the call failure of imagination. in today's world, that is what people are doing. looking out in advance, projecting what could happen and what would we do about it in what you recognize it? -- and would you recognize it? it is what we do with the lucky

break that matters. in today's world of technological advances, we are still behind the curve somewhat. sometimes our system did not follow up and to the way we would like them to. but we are working on it. that is important, too. >> i wanted to say one other thing about this case. from every reporter's perspective. we are good at listening to voices. the way that i knew this was a very serious case with the tightness in everybody's voice when i was asking questions, whether in the intelligence community or the fbi. you could tell this was a serious case. and it was fast moving. i think that is the reason why you could tell it was such a serious case. a wanted to move on a little bit of talk about a domestic case and go down the line and talk about how it would be difficult -- if it were domestic. the was a young man who was at

texas tech and he came to the united states, he is saudi, he came under a student visa. at the end of last month, he was found guilty of trying to produce a weapon of mass destruction. they found chemical and precursors and things in his apartment near some town in texas. i cannot remember where. lovick. [laughter] let's see if i can recover from that one. >> i am not answering any more questions. [laughter] >> he was going to build a bomb

and one of the targets he thought about was president bush's home. this was found in an accidental way. he had these chemicals shipped to his apartment. the dax dropped them off at the local carrier. the local carrier happened to look at the address and solve all these chemicals were going to residents. the local carrier had a rule that it would not ship these things to a residence. it could only be to a business or a school. this is an example private- sector stepping in. i do not know if you want to talk about that. >> just briefly. the fact that it would be the same for the private sector. homegrown, we are more dependent on citizens of the private sector. he will not ship communications -- you will not ship made it --

these points are not happening. i look at it as citizens that before doing their duty, seeing suspicious behavior and reporting it to the right people. >> the chemical company called local police -- the shipping company called local police? >> possibly or the jttf. the missing piece here would be the intelligence community. the intelligence community is a great role in informing on tactics and procedures, whether it be domestic base or foreign base. for law enforcement, it would not be handled any differently it would get the receipt of the reporting whether it be from a target or a shipper chemical local law enforcement. they will be informed to notify the fusion center.

the one thing i did not mention is the value added of what the fusion center has as it relates to the information sets. whether or not it is a blotter or active investigation or deconfliction. when there is an act against -- investigation against the target, if you put that individual's name, it will identify that person is already under investigation by another agency. to think about what a local officer trouper encounters each day, whether domestic. the opportunity they have to review that. that is important as it relates to the value added coming out of the fusion center. you used the word lokke to read in my career -- the word luck.

in my career, people say you were really lucky. no, you are not lucky. it is based in your training, out there stopping cars. but has nothing to do with that. it is the system. that's it -- that shipping company having the processes in place or the general public sang something is not right here. at that has been there much too long. and knowing to call local law enforcement and local law enforcement -- knowing to call the jttf. sometimes a lot of these chemicals are also used to manufacture narcotics. that also helps out the dea. so those relationships, it is not only benefiting ct but general crime. >> there were two companies involved. there was the carolina biological supply that contacted rre in greensboro than conaway

trucking in texas that contacted the police department there. >> he was already on the radar screens by the time the -- >> they happen within a day of each other. we were also tip of -- tipped off from another foreign agency. we talk about these layers, that is what works. we talked about general adult -- general alexander and his folks are doing. then you have what dhs is doing on the borders of hardening the target. then another layer. then appear with the jttf -- then the bureau with the jttf. it is other agency help you, would he have shown -- showed up on interpol? >> it depends if the agency contacted interpol. >> it is possible.

most of the countries in the interpol do not have a classified system. they do not have the complex communications systems we do. the only way they can communicate is through interpol sometimes. or to the attache in that country. >> the legal attache. >> will coordinate that with the fbi. there are eight divisions in interpol. one of domestic counter- terrorism division. we have that connection. those leads, and -- those leads come in and it is close coordination. >> when you hear these case studies and you hear how everybody is working together, how different is this from the fbi you know? >> it was not that different.

i heard last night something that up and -- i should address. there was a time when it was thought the fbi was all take and no give. when i came on board in 1978, the ex agents society was having a convention and they wanted to do something for the fbi decide the integrity statute they donated. they had a quotation on the wall from dead girl over and asked me to select one. the quotes ran heavily on law and order and defensive type comments. the one i selected became truly i think the spirit of the fbi. if you ever go there in the

courtyard, you will see in large letters -- the key to effective law enforcement is cooperation at all levels of government and with the support and understanding of the american people. i think that is the direction in which we are going. after september 11, the problem of need to know shifted to need to share. at the the fbi got into that spirit as it became an effective law enforcement but intel is averaging -- but intelligencve gathering. we talk about first responders. state and local have to be there when the problem arises or when the first explosion occurs. if they are engaged in a community oriented policing as i hope most of them are these days, the chances are the public will be as equally responsive

and identify suspicious activities. they will do as we have been encouraging to do -- see something, say something. that is very important to our welfare and safety today. i think the american people are responding. through these combinations of relationships with the american people and with the local law enforcement and issues and sharing of experience and the ability to transmit that information not only accurately but quickly improperly out that to the field where it can be of value is one of the most remarkable changes i have seen in the last 30 years. >> anybody have something to add to that? but i want to recognize judge webb. it is an honor to be up here with him. >> i am often asked why the private sector charges involve a

public safety our counter- terrorism. as citizens of this country, we have a duty. we might have different skills sets for expertise but we have the same mission -- to protect this country. the simple way i look at it is if i'm walking to my house and my neighbor's house is on fire, i do not just keep walking because i'm not a fireman. i do something. i think that is where the private sector could be part of that do something also, whether it is citizens or businesses. we have to look at them as a partner in this and a force multiplier. i go back to 9/11. i was in minneapolis when that occurred. we were in disarray like most of us in this room. but what i find most fascinating is that morning,

flight 93, the first group to act against those acting against us were citizens. i think we have to keep that in the forefront of all things we do, whether it is in the business sector, or private citizens. it is part of what makes this country what it is. >> and acted only hours after it first happened? what they got intelligence -- >> they got intelligence as they did it and it took down the bad guys before the u.s. government knew what was going on. [applause] >> i almost want to end it there. if we could shift gears a bit. we were supposed to talk about what more can be done to keep the home and safe. in particular, the threat is changing. there seems to be a new threat emanating from iraq with al

qaeda and iraq also leader saying he wanted to target the u.s. which is new. there is still a threat in yemen. if we could go down the line quickly, could you talk about what you think can be done to keep all lance zipper as the threat is safer -- keep the homeland safer as the threat is changing? >> with the private sector has brought to the table paul 9/11 is resiliency. we have done much to deal with what can we do as a business to protect our people, to recover businesses, help our communities? my team was with fema nearby in colorado springs looking at what else the to do in the public

sector. we do this about tornadoes and natural disasters but it is the same impact with the terrorist act. what is often missing from the public side is because the view is not on my watch. our view is if it does happen, what can we do to get this country back up and running, our businesses up and running, our communities? it is along the lines of the british business as usual. that is the model we study. ira terrorism. that is what i think the private sector is much better at today than it ever was. it helps supplement government efforts. >> i think we are at a very critical part. over 10 years after september 11 as relates to the economy, the economy is declining. there has been a significant amount of layoff for local, state, tribal law enforcement. my agency had the high watermark

of about 5000. they are at about 43 hunter right now. couple that with the grants and how they have been cut dramatically. it cannot be done at the expense of national security. all the progress that has been made and the need to not that back on where we have been headed, we need to keep moving forward. strength and the processes. a lot of this is based on trust and personal relationships that have developed. in need to be institutionalized. -- it to be institutionalized. there are a lot of high level folks here. i did not know what dod and the iec did until i spent about four and a half years within the intelligence community, most recently with an ina. i was thoroughly impressed about the analysts, the amount of time

and work and effort they put into it and also i know that the ice and dod recognize and appreciate what they have here domestically. that needs to continue to grow and be enhanced. it is not -- it is also cyber and what is happening with the gangs and narcotics and the threat that you have spoken about. keep that information coming and recognize that law enforcement is very mature, they know how to do things. they know how to investigate. they can be trusted. they have clearances. they now know how to store it. so trust that and build that trust and institutionalize it. >> you are trying to do something in a environment of shrinking resources. how do you protect the homeland better when you have less resources? >> like all of my counterparts,

we look for a patient sees. ways to do things better. we look for ways to do things differently. we live to leverage other agencies, the private sector more effectively. i think we -- we are all living in a fascinating time. there are so many things going on around the world and it does affect the united states. we have to remember that. i think that red has become much more -- the threat has become much more difficult, much more diversified to detect. they did a phenomenal job desecrating al qaeda but the threat has changed and evolved. it is becoming more difficult which goes to really the next point. i think the dni realizes the

importance of the domestic intelligence architecture. i think for many years, we ignore that. he is really taking an active role in that and figuring out how these agencies fit together. he recently designated 12 of the fbi offices as dni reps domestically. that is part of the efficiency i was talking about. how to the coordinate activities -- how do we coordinate activities and do them with less? >> to echo everyone's comments, partnership is a crucial thing. everybody talks about a partnership but i want to echo the judge. after september 11, i was in new york. i got a call, got together with a group of people to work on a mixed agency. he did not care if it was f.b.i.. he wanted people to get things in -- done quickly.

>> that is special agent in charge. >> i am sorry. i worry that we have come so far along in sharing information but i think as we get further away from september 11, i did not want to get back. i believe that sometimes the system the way agencies have compete -- to compete for funds especially when resources are shrinking, it has a negative affect. it does not encourage sharing of information. we are supporting everybody. when agencies have to battle for resources, that makes it very difficult. it would also affect them and pulling off of task forces like interpol with the need to be because the resources they have to prioritize where there are -- where people are going to go. that is my concern going forward.

>> judge webster, where do you think we need to go? we need to do as john says, to get better at all of the things we are doing right. to anticipate what our problems may be and to have the no more failures ever imagination. we hope we can anticipate it. the importance of having the support and understanding of the american people is something we do keep it until our minds but we have to work hard at it. in our country, there is something different. we believe that we must do the work that the american people expect of us and the way that the constitution demands of us. sometimes that is tough.

we have a lot of things we could do that might theoretically produce an answer, create a confession, do something else to wage a war but the important thing is that we behave in a way that earns the trust of the american people and in the end is far more affected than law enforcement and intelligence principled than some of the other extreme measures that will take place until other countries. that is the challenge we face in the future. to not forget who we are and what we are. to be better at what we are and what we do than anyone else in protecting in keeping save the people in this country. >> i was hoping we could open it up to questions now. the gentleman here. >> i want to thank all of you

for your service and agree with the spirit of cooperation you gentlemen are promoting. no single agency department has all the tools needed. going forward, we have some great tools that the place since september 11. we track large sums of money that travel throughout the financial system. we track chemicals now better than we do before. how to attract 6000 rounds of ammunition purchased on the internet as we saw recently? >> i should have asked that question. look at everybody looking at you judge. >> there is no tracking, no national database of weaponry or bullets. i'm not going to give an opinion or get in trouble with

those 18,000 sheets in the country. suffice to say, at a state level, they do a good job as a relate to cataloging weapons at purchasing and things of that nature. but there is no national system. that is why -- firearms are a dealer distributor. it is public. what is suspicious activity. what constitutes suspicious activity? law enforcement, they know all about that. they are held accountable to it. there is no notion of doing that. they are too busy going from complete to complaint and if

somebody may, there are significant consequences to that. law enforcement take that very importantly. sorry for digressing. >> you talk about some policy issues which obviously some of us did not want to comment on because of our positions but it gets down to the internet. i wish i had mentioned it before. technology. we all are up in a generation where the computer was introduced to us in some part -- point of our lives. it started at the very beginning. we need to do a better job with technology, principal. we have got to get better at doing that. we have to be able to detect the good and evil. it will be good -- through advanced technology. >> there is some weapons chasing internationally led by atf.

there is some international domestic. there are some on weapons that are used in crimes overseas to track them. >> director, you may be one of the few people who can express an opinion about this. do you think there should be a way to track huge amounts of ammunition at purchase all at once? >> consistent with what i said before about the rights of american citizens and others in our country, i think that the problem we identified particularly in the fort hood massacre, i cannot discuss it because that is part of the portions of the report, except to say that this capacity to gather data is huge. and massive. the problem is making sure that

it can be sorted, filed an available and disseminated. in an effective way. >> and seen in time. >> yes, i absolutely. the more we collect, the more challenging the issue of identifying something unusual and acting on it. >> those of you who do not know, debt webster released a report looking at the fort hood shooting -- judge webster released a report looking at the four parachuting. it came out last week. what was the most surprising thing in putting together the report to you that you can tell us? >> probably what i just said what i think the surprising thing to me was that the system

that was designed with a joint task forcing by bringing in agents from other departments to have responsibilities to guide and help result in -- there were to field offices with different views. one trekking in very bad guy in yemen, passing to another field office with the discretion to do with it what they wanted about an american soldier and officer communicating with one of these very bad guys. the and nurture that occurred because of differences about what to do about it -- the inertia that occurred because of differences about what to do about it. not a clear policy at the time about how to resolve that this agreement. in a way that might have anticipated an opportunity to

prevent or head off a bad thing. that was the surprise to me. the joint task force system was supposed to enhance our capabilities and not create in our shop. but it was not the fault of the task force officer. he made mistakes but it was not the fault of the other individuals. it was the lack of a clear policy which made sure you could resolve the problem quickly. in other words, taken upstairs. >> and judge webster and his folks did a fantastic job on that report. i have read it several times. we made mistakes, there is no question about that what we try to do is learn from those mistakes. he made 18 recommendations. i believe they were all adopted. and we are going to get better.

>> question and terms of the evolving threats. u.s. officials recorded last week that the bulgarian suicide bombing had all the hallmarks of a hezbollah aspiration -- operation. how concerned is the bureau right now that hezbollah operatives and to the united states may be taking on expanded roles going into legal operations like this? are you taking any steps to monitor it? >> yes and yes. without question, not only bulgaria but if you recall the plot to kill the u.s. saudi

ambassador. the related to the iodc in proxy with iran and hezbollah. speaking from open source and other things, there is a change in the threat without question. we are looking at at that and are in talks with that. >> how about the lady in the striped in the back? >> there are two conflicting dialogues i see in the press right now. one is the sea something, do something or something, report it. the citizens are on the front lines. and we understand our neighborhoods best and therefore we can be good judges of what is unusual.

on the other hand, even though there is an increased concern for a homeland radicalization, there seems to be an effort to make sure there is no bias and therefore to downplay homegrown radicalization. how to you balance those two? >> do you think your downplaying radicalization? >> i think there are a couple of things going on here. i am not sure what you meant when you used the term biased. i think we are much like a neighborhood watch and everyone else -- like everyone else, we are looking for behaviors that

are not normal. as far as homegrown extremism, i think everyone appear is well aware of the current threat that exists. we meet on a monthly basis on combating violent extremism related to the homeland. and in other ways. what are other ways and techniques we can stop that before it even begins? before they go through that complete radicalization process and move into mobilization? on the bias side, i cannot think there is bias. when you notice something, you try to report it. it goes to the program level, what the local police for sheriff or who ever is responsible. >> i think what i am referring to was there is a reluctance to

identify the fact that there might be a religious theology that serves as the basis for the radicalization and in certain circles, there seems to be a reluctance to identify the use of a religion in the radicalization process. >> i would say if you look over the centuries, radicalization is not limited to, i think you are referring to is mom, it is not just as long. christianity has had its share of that extremism. whatever you want to call that. this is the greatest country in the world. it is those elements with and religion that adopt and etiology that is not really the religion. it is extremism. there is no bias there.

anyone who is doing that, i did not care what religion you are practicing, if you are talking about killing and murdering people, we will get you. >> this is a very small group of the muslim population. we tend to make sweeping generalizations about islam and we should not. there are a lot of muslims in this country who are as horrified as non muslims. >> from state and local perspective, it is based on a criminal predicate. you are targeting an individual who is reasonably suspicious or probable cause or reasonable indicative of criminal activity. did you take it where it goes. after you complete that trouble, there could be something that led to that person doing what they did. i think that it's it.

>> we have time for one last question. >> question about major hassan. the gaps seem to be -- why didn't they involve the military? they had clear communication with the sheik in yemen. this was just recent. i did not understand what they did not alert the military. >> i can answer that question. the task force member who opposed scoreboard was from the military. >> they had argument that it

would affect his career but of course there were methods by which an interview could have occurred. the defense department was aware of him and was aware of both good reports and not so good reports about him. there was no leptin to let the defense department about it -- there was no reluctance to let the defense department know about it. was right after 9/11, one of the big things that concerned everyone is people not talking to each other. but we have seen at least in these two cases is that while this might not be a perfect system, it is, a long way in 10 years. if you could thank our panel, that would be great. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> more from this year's aspin security forum with a look at how the white house direct counterterrorism efforts. analysts were drawn from fourth to both the george bush and obama administrations. this is an hour. >> we are going to get started now. this next panel will focus on the white house's role in counter-terrorism. moderating is michael crowley, a senior correspondent for times. he writes about washington, the obama administration and national security issues. he wrote about foreign-policy for the new republic. he has also written for new york magazine, gq, slate, and the new york times magazine.

his major articles in recent years have included profile of a white house counter-terrorism chief john brennan, former defense secretary robert gates, and efforts to combat the risk of nuclear terrorism. michael. >> thank you. i am going to briefly introduce our panelists. ken to my left spent two tickets in federal law enforcement and homeland security, including general counsel to the fbi and chief of staff to robert mona. as the united states attorney and that the first assistant attorney general for national security. he became homeland security adviser to george bush in 2008. juan was that the assistant to the president for combating terrorism from 2005 until 2009. he served as assistant secretary of treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes where he led the global hunt for saddam hussein's assets. quinten is one of the country's

top experts on muslim communities, and radicalization. he has been senior director for community partnerships on the white house's national security staff, focus on building partnerships between the federal government and local communities, including partnerships to counter violent extremism. he served at the white house's senior director for global engagement. he said it is lyme -- islan in cairo. ken, why don't i start with you? an open-ended question. we talked in the last couple of days about so many different parts of the federal government with responsibilities for counter-terrorism. the white house is the hub of the wheel. have you ordinate and absorb the information -- how do you

coordinate and absorb the information and action? can you talk about the managerial challenge of that in your role? what is the best role for the white house that straddles the balance between being overwhelmed by all the external apparatus but also not micromanaging it at the same time? >> good question. it brings the discussion we are going to have here today. in terms of the best balance, i think we explore that three different situations. we will go through various unbearable to get to what we think is the best balance. the issue that our parliament is made of a number of different departments and agencies, -- that our government is made up of a number of different departments and agencies. in counter-terrorism, it depends

on contributions from each of these departments and agencies. how does the white house which ultimately has to make the critical decisions get that input, get the consensus among the cabinet officers and translate that into decisions? and operational policy? in terms of policy, the concept put it into place when i was -- in 1947 when you have a council comprised of cabinet officers to get together and make basil -- and make recommendations to the president. that functions right -- quite well. the question is how does that concept work when you have operational decisions that need be made? and decisions that need minute by minute decision making? they have to be made at the

highest law will by the president. that is the gray area. that is with the balance constantly need to do recalibrate it. -- that is where the balance is and it compton the need to be read calibrated. -- and it constantly needs to be recalibrated. there are a variety of considerations that go into that. you do not want to nuclear terror -- cabinet officers -- want to neuter your cabinet officers. counter-terrorism is one of the primary concerns of the country. the president needs to take an active role and the critical decisions about policy and operations. he needs to be at the table. that is the cost of balance. the short answer is there are

some decisions, like the osama bin laden rate. you need a president to say go. other decisions are lower down and you have to decide case by case. >> do you have a sense of how the obama administration is handling that talented not drawing the president in too deeply but making sure he is there at the right time for the key decisions? >> i can speak from my experience and give an assessment of what i am doing. i think ken has it right. there is an inherent dynamic tension within the white house between the classic role which is to set strategy and policy and ensure coordination among all the elements of the government that have a role and then the flip side which is how deeply do you get involved in operations? that is the balance that is constantly being drawn on each and every case.

no cases like another. the ubl rate and now the famous photo with all the principles facing the screen watching is emblematic of the fact that that was essentially driven this is in making process -- decision making process. it is the quintessential white house involvement in the case. we were going through a strategic stretch review and a core element of that review for two years was not just what will our strategy be and how the we do with the ideology but who was in charge? i remember secretary rums felt coming to the meeting saying on whom depend the robe? who is in charge of counter terrorism. the complicated issues the government has to deal with that affect multiple departments, the

answer is the president. it is only at the white house that diplomatic authority sets. law enforcement authorities said. intelligence collection. in a way, it is not an easy answer because it creates a dynamic tension of whether the white house becomes operational. it is inherent in this complicated issues. it is not just the work of the fbi but health and human services. it is only at the white house record intact. >> give us a one minute summary of what it is you do. a lot of people might not be familiar with it. the macon talk about how it fits into the larger picture here. >> be set at a new office at the white house and is to help the

department effectively collaborate with the private sector has decided. and the tools and capabilities that lie outside the government. dealing with complex issues, we need to make sure we are working across sectors leveraging the expertise in a collaborative way to maximize the impact. to those inside and outside government, it is not easy to read we have all sorts of rules and regulations that could make a very challenging. our job right now is to make sure we start to move those obstacles. we apply that partnership model to include human trafficking encountering violent extremism.

it might be interesting to talk about how -- what this tells us about thinking about counter- terrorism, particularly at the white house. this is a field that took a while to get off the ground. can you talk about how it has matured over the past few years and what it says about long-term thinking about what counter- terrorism is at the white house? >> juan and i worked together. it would be interesting to hear his view on this but for me, post 9/11, it was a lot of data gathering and trying to connect the dots and figure out the threat. it was a bit on the preventative side, figure out how we stop people from becoming terrorists

in the first place. at the burial push on that happened after 7/7, the attacks on the transit system in london. the president have a visceral reaction of what is happened? we had a couple individuals who were to drinking citizens of the u.k. who just killed their fellow citizens. on the analytic side, that is when programs in terms of assessing how people are radicalize to place, how you build programs to counter violent extremism been over the last five to 12 years, that has become programming into actual action. >> i know someone who was talked a lot about the muslim community, john brennan. he puts a high priority on it. he is the white house counter- terrorism adviser.

i thought we might talk about what that job looks like right now and what he is doing. what strikes me in looking at how the white house operates right now is his extreme close to the president. not just physical proximity. but it is clearly have a great relationship. the president has a lot of trust in him. he also has a broad portfolio which began talks about. can he talk about how that role has evolved and how you see it working right now and whether it is working well? >> those positions, adviser to the president's, national security adviser, their role evolved and changes depending on the person and situation and

what the president wants. kissinger and nixon driving form policy for a number of years when he was national security adviser. john has earned the trust. he is a true professional. 30 years in the intelligence committee. the man has tremendous experience on intelligence matters and counter-terrorism matters. he is the driver for those issues. the question is can he -- you have not only counter-terrorism but you also have homeland security. port security, pandemic flu and critical infrastructure protection at all of these issues that relate to hardening of the homeland and protecting against threats, but the man made a natural, that is an area of intense focus since 9/11 and

katrina. that portfolio is under john. when we were in palce, the president established the homeland security council adviser and our staff. that's exist as a matter of law but john -- you have all that in the same staff as those focusing on foreign policy in africa and that kind of thing. that made sense because of the overlap between the homeland security adviser in national security advisers paul -- portfolio. the way we handled it -- juan vo me.eported to hadley and they all for that for good reason. but it means john is handling

the whole raft of issues, all of which are critical. when hurricane happens, you have to drop everything to deal with that. that is tough for one person. >> is it too much? >> in some ways it is. it is too much for one person. ken have to do with it before him. these are >> we just saw for example, john

standing next to the representative and presenting for the citizens. and that's a challenge, because john is incredibly effective, and having a white house engaged is important. but it has the character to what ken mentioned earlier, to diminish others in the government. because if you have foreign officials knows it's the white house that makes the decision. only the white house that they deal with, and there is a real tough balance there. you want to be effective. you want to be out there and working well with the president, and for the president. but the reality is you have to balance that with not to being too operational and too in the entirety of the government. >> right, and there is an upside and john is a de facto to yemen,

he's visited the country eight times. and for a region where the overwhelm top issue is counterterrorism and to have someone take that lead role. >> couldn't agree more and john worked with the yemen and working with saudi arabia, and we did a lot of work on counterterrorism financing. and she helped lead and was the voice for president bush. you are right and in regimes and countries that are used of high-level head of state, head of state communication to get it done that, is effective. it starts to be problematic if it's a pervasive situation that it works. that's a challenge that the white house will have.

>> quintan, can you talk about an effective system, and have you seen a relationship get stronger as they have been through crises together? can you offer reflection from the inside of that. >> i do, and john is absolutely amazing, and i don't say that just because i work with him. and i emphasize that john doesn't operate alone. he's brought in amazing senior directors across components of the national security staff to help him think through the various issues. and john is the first to point to people and give them the credit. they are amazing patriots and specialists on the wealth of issues that john covers. >> and on the issue that you work on, as i mentioned, it seems he's put a public emphasis

on that. do you feel he gets it? and do you feel like you have real ability to do what you need to do as a result of that? >> john, again, he's had so much experience on not just al-qaeda related issues and the middle east. speaks arabic, and when he speaks to muslim audiences, he creates that empathetic link with the islamic. and for me to drive the counterterrorism agenda, it's useful to have someone that is incredible efficiency in the topic. you don't have to worry about getting them up to speed. it's about pushing the envelope and getting the programs running. >> yeah, i remember in the

interview and going to the desert and going to the tents and roasting goats and sing songs all night. he knows the culture of the region, and that must be a real asset. the president is clearly the most interesting figure here. and we should talk about the presidential role in counterterrorism. it seems from the outside to have been growing and growing. and in particular the first thing that comes to mind is the discussion is president obama's role in what is called the killist. approving specific targets for drone strikes. and use that as a case study and to talk about how engaged the president should be. and some say maybe too much involvement. that we might not want the president to take that level. start on a more general level,

talk about the way that the systems reach the president's desk. is it a good system now? do you guys have a sense that other windows of government and he's not asked to make too many decisions too frequently. do you think it's working well at this moment? >> i will start with that one, and like the relationship with the security advisor, it develops with that role. after 9/11, president bush was his declarian call to the country and to prevent the next 9/11. he poured himself into that and had a briefing every morning. and the director of the f.b.i.

in his office for four or five years. and that was because he was informed about the threat and what we were doing to meet that threat and what is bubbling at that time. and he did to enforce action, he knew when the attorney general came back and told people that president is on this issue and this threat, that, that forced action. and recognized it was important in the years after 9/11 trying to rebuild this infrastructure. and we are doing better against al-qaeda than back then. the point is there is different agendas than the one making the decision. and the same token, you want the president to make that decision. as for covert action. he's got to make that decision. you don't want the president to

make that decision and get counterterrorism 101 before that. you want them sitting in the room with officials on a regular basis, and observing this to have contacts making these decisions. i was glad to hear what matt olsen was talking about with the weekly meetings. it's very important for the president to be fully up to speed and engaged to make these decisions. >> what was your reaction to the stories like it, such bracing some less for the officials in this room but for average americans embracing involvement in the life and death situations. >> i won't speak to the specifics of the story but ken highlights the situation. there is a danger of having a white house or president serving as the final arbritor on all key

decisions. but it becomes rutinized that the president is using the authority through the cabinet and legislation to the relevant chain of command. the military to the chain of defense has the ability to execute certain targets. and cia has the authority to delegate to the president. and so on down the line to the cabinet. there is something healthy about delegating the standard dimensions of operation. and the concentration for the house to ensure not only is that

being done well, but what gets to the president is what needs to get to the president. but you are not overwhelming the president with day-to-day decisions. one thing that should be added to the tension and not forgotten is the political tension around the decisions. each and every decision revolves around counterterrorism could be relevant or explosive. depending if the operation doesn't go well or an oversight. and that's a tendency for the white house to pull the decision up to be careful of how it's executed. and part of political pressure and media tension and the white house has to resist that temptation. to suck everything in and make all the decisions. >> right and as we saw in the case, the circumstances of the

interrogation became very politically explosive for weeks. >> exactly. >> and there was some evidence in polling that it played a role in scott brown's victory in massachusetts. in that special election there was a concern about terrorism that people contributed to that. that was an excellent point. >> can i comment on that, there was the discussion in the agencies of what to do. but a bit failure not to have the policies and procedures in place and understood beforehand. so when you captured this guy and he entered. it wasn't just business as usual. everyone understood what their responsibilities what needed to be kicked up to the staff or the president. i attribute that to less than perfect stratigizing on the

front end as what a terrorism that arrive on the shore. >> don't forget the element of leadership, and it's important for the bureaucracy of those seeking the counterterrorism, he will make the tough decisions. he's strong. that's the laden decision, and knew he had that decision. because the president was decisive. and that image of a decisive leader that, is willing to take the tough decisions and that prevades the bureaucracy. and sends a strong message and encourages people to have an opinion. >> that's a good point. >> i won't ask you to assist to

the target list of the president. and clear you don't want to go there. and having mentioned about drones and your perspective on the drone campaign and the counterterrorism operation generally. and what the blow-back effect we may see. and how does that affect your work particularly in the issue of drones. and we may have seen in the cases and the drone campaign was cited as a factor to kill americans. our drones a significant problem when it comes to the challenge of counter radicalization? how much do you think about that? how much do you think about that? >> al-qaeda is looking to tap into anger against the united states. they will take absolutely any issue that they think plays into

a narrative of war with islam. and whether this issue or someone that effects another area. they are trying to wrap it up. and when al-qaeda is trying to radicalize and these issues, sometimes they are making stuff up. and not always a political issue they are going after. and in 2002 it was open and in london and u.k., there was a group outside of tubestop and they were handing out pamphlets of images of babies that were dead. it would make you sick to your stomach, and on the top it read, this is what americans are doing in iraq. i looked at the images and obviously the americans were not

doing this in iraq. and i asked where this coming from, it was images of the chemical attack of osama bin laden by the kurks. and they are creative of pulling these issues and threading them into that single narrative. >> sigh -- i think i want to come back to the topic you raised of the president's public role. i know you are not communication professionals per se. but there was a really interesting conversation in one of the panels yesterday about the question of resilience. and the psychology of the country. whether americans are still fully braced for what is likely to come. we had a fairly fortunate reign

in the last years, but we know we will get hit again. have you thought about the evolution of the way that the two presidents since 9/11 have talked about successful terr terrorism attacks. and what the white balance is? whether we found it? whether we are still working towards it? what is appropriate and what is not being said that needs to be said. ken, you want to try that. >> yeah, if you look at 9/11, and first you had president bush and his message was one of clarity and strength. we will stand up to the bad guys and find them and bring justice to them. and that was appropriate for the time. the american people were reeling after seeing 3,000 of our country people killed. and iconic buildings before our

eyes. and we wanted strength and resolve. and with a lot of values at stake. privacy and security and everything in between. and you can't capture that in a sound byte. which is what you need to feel the accomplishment of the people. and how much can you say not to defend our partners this way and privacy rights this way. and all you have to do but messaging wise you have to think about that. we have seen the strong messaging right after 9/11. and as time went by, we went past the first years of 9/11 and more talk about the nuances. i think the messaging in this administration is not that different from the last. the president made it clear in his first speech in the archives

we are at war with al-qaeda. and their affiliates. so they are taking their gloves off like the bush administration did messaging wise. >> but the war on terror has largely been retired. >> they are not using that term, and it had its place. but that seemed to suggest to people that were not adversaries but maybe were because of religion. but one of the changes we did see message wise after 9/11 was outreach to the muslim world. and that started after 9/11 when president bush went out and there was a focused effort on that after president obama came in. that helped with the muslim world and with the outreach to the foreign partners in general. and that messaging is important

even though the policies have changed that much. >> did you have a reaction that the president didn't come back. he was in hawai'i the day of the christmas-day bombing, and not making a show of it. didn't come back from vacation and brendon was there with a tie. and in hawai'i and in a full suit. what did you think of that? and again it seems to me there is some effort to lower the temperature a bit in the way we talk about these things. does that make sense? >> i actually like that quite a bit. that the president wasn't jumping because al-qaeda said boo. i think that's very important in preserving the dignity of the presidency and the sense of american power. we are not going to let these terrorists around the world dictate where the president

travels. the key thing is that we respond appropriately. i have no qualms with that at all. and i think it's appropriate. and looking back to president bush's term. he would often say to us, look, it's our job to worry about the worse-case scenarios and the threats. and we started every day reviewing the threats and end the night reviewing the threats. and he said it's not the job of the citizenry but our job, and not to grandize the enemy. or to give them motivation. i will give you one example where there was quite poignant. this was the rescue of the three hostages in columbia. and a daring operation, and i would ask them to put on top of the list to get at the americans

and other hostages. the president was central to some of that decision making. but he didn't appear at the airport when the hostages returned and had a quiet ceremony. and part of that was not to give the fork and the hostage takers the gratitude of knowing the issues and the suffering they caused was reaching the heights of the white house. he did that quietly. and i think that's important. one quick point on resilience. i think it's hard for the president to talk about it, the political costs are so high, look, we are going to get hit. i appreciate secretary talking about this, and that's the kind of conversation that has to come from the ground up. from the ground up you will change the political discourse. and it's the state and local authorities that will have to deal with the fall out and

resilience. and to see something and say something, that strategy needs to be evolved down. the mayors and the police chiefs have to be the face of that as the president or homeland security. >> quintan, how significant is the phrase of what you do. and from the government, when john brendan sends a speech, does that get noticed and trickled down? >> absolutely, i think that the president was the first state of the union speech to speak to the muslim americans. and their role in helping to keep the country safe. their cooperation with law enforcement to disrupt plots in the united states. and taking up ken's point. the shift away from the war on

terror, which is this broad n neblis concept. and that allowed us to focus some of our relationships, in particular with muslim communities around the world on non-terrorist relationships. because it shows we have diverse relationships. and concerned about the same challenges. i think that in turn has given us entry to a lot of conversations we can have about an array of issues that we previously struggled to have. >> the war on terrorism is interesting, it's a good illustration of 9/11. it was a crisis and we reacted

strongly. and there is fine-tuning to be done along the way, and that happens over time. and the war on terror is a good illustration. there was a reason for that term, what do we do to mobilize this, and what happened in world war ii taking on the two greatest powers in the world and destroying them. because there was a war. the war on drugs, take on the drugs. that terminology has force in it. it had real values the years after 9/11. and it can be moderated. it's a good example and why would you use that term. and there was a reason initially and now outlived the usefulness. >> can i be a contrarian on this, i think that the war on terrorism is valuable.

and it was a neblish type of tactic, and not just channeling the power. but saying in the 21st century we can no longer accept the notion that there is legitimacy to terror. that there is any cause that allows a group or individual to allow violence to civilians for whatever purpose. that was driving the war on terror. and one challenge as we think through post-10 years and bin laden and 9/11, what are we battling. but terrorism is still out there and comes in different forms. and raises legal and policy

questions. i agree that constraining the language helps. but it does a disservice of what is the future, and what is relevant for now and beyond. i am not sure that the war on terror works nor that the warra al-qaeda describes it either. >> can you talk about progress, and what we are confronting when you look at counter radic radicalization in this country, and there is concern of lone wolf phenomena that will get worse. do you see signs that make you feel hopeful that we are getting our arms around it? or a random thing to have limited ability to control specific to the work you are doing, give us a sense of how

hopeful. hopefully you have an optimistic view of this. >> i think we have made a lot of progress in the last years in particular. speaking back to the issue of the white house's role and all of this. we were stitching together departments and agencies that each could tackle this from a different perspective. a lot of departments and agencies had not thought about their implications of counterterrorism, such as the extremism. and that is something that the white house helped drive in the partners, that "a," they had a role to play. and that we were not asking them to take their nonsecurity-related programs and securityize them. that was one change on our end.

we developed a strategy that was released last august. and a 22-page plan that laid out actions and these are implemented. and our recognition is that a lot of this work has to be done by communities themselves. radicalization takes place at local levels. we don't see where al-qaeda sends out a message and people come in groves. it tends to be in local locations with community leaders and law enforcement and they have expertise in relationships. and a better capability to work with people on the ground. and another positive sign is watching law enforcement in particular stepping up and taking on this mission in an exceptional way. and our role is how to support them. and in al-qaeda you have

increasing mobilization by the muslim community itself. one challenge in europe was a prominent state of the nile that anything was happening in the communities. and this made it challenging for the governments to figure how to tackle this. if the community is targeted by the recruiters and doesn't feel like any sort of problem. we have seen examples of muslim-american leaders taking on it themselves. and then coming to government, we want your help. it's no longer a process that we are driving this alone from the federal government. we are seeing increasing signs where the community themselves are getting active. and then reaching out to us to work with you in a manner. >> that is encouraging. one topic we can spend the entire panel on. and i want to touch on it

briefly. juan, it seems that the white house is kind of muttling through the legal authority for the counterterrorism action now. jane harmon said, and i hope i am quoting her correctly. that the authorization of military force past 9/11 is the basis for what we are doing. and for term is that is short term framework. and now expanded across the world in north africa and has a relationship to the original text. the white house is trying to struggle with this. can you talk about that challenge, and do you think it's time for congress to provide explicit guidance? >> jane is right here. >> did i get it right? >> michael, it's a great

question, the debate about whether or not you need authorization to update is important. the 2001 program is the christmas tree that we dangle all the things we do for the war on terror. the right of self-defense to retain and interrogate and to target our killers. but that was a document that was driven by 9/11. it was a reaction to 9/11, and the perpetrators of 9/11 and al-qaeda. and it's long overdue beyond the lens of al-qaeda. but an open-odds debate about what is our contention policy for the long term. they have asked for a tribunal

for a head. and that's a serious question, do we target this to these leaders, and perhaps we should. but we haven't had that debate. the changing nature of the threat itself, you have a different al-qaeda. and hesbollah and the debate. i would challenge the president in may, 2009, pledged to go to congress to deal with long term terrorism. it hasn't happened. the responsibility on the hill to do this? i think realistically it won't happen this term. but it's a serious debate of

what we are facing and the threats. >> there is a panel tomorrow that looks at the legal issues. people can dive deeper then. why don't we take some questions. >> richard from the united nations. very interested to hear about the country's extremism initiatives. so many things you can do in so many parts of the world. how do you set your priorities and measure the impact? >> that's a really good question, and there has been an evolution in the way we approached this issue. in the early days when we started working on count counterterrorism and it was regional and counter messaging. and some problematics of development and other capabilities and tools. but over time we realized that

the threat of violent radicalizati radicalization, we saw hot-spots where you had people engaged in recruit amement and he had a wi known case with people going into spain and to fight into iraq. >> and eastern libya. >> eastern libya as well. the advantage for us, we have moved to a much more surgical nuance approach. once we identity a hot-spot radicalization, we move to that community. we understand who are the key motivators and the violators and the radicalization that appears. and those leading where they are

able to plan whole government resources to target those specific locations. with just about every tool that we have. it's no longer one intelligence agency doing it. it's state department with doe and department of education appropriate, and what we are finding now is that the impact is more robust. when you focus on a much tighter area, it's easier to know your impact and to control for other factors that may have something do with the radicalization process. >> josh from the national security initiative. it seems with drone strikes and more military emphasis on the war on terrorism, still years

after 9/11, one that we are missing is an international law component. i think there is frustration with law enforcement and there is no mechanism overseas for arresting terrorists through the law enforcement community. i wondered what you thought about that. and part of obama's signing of t the radicalization act. >> i would disagree, and we have fought in iraq. but i would disagree. i think that if sean joyce were back in here from the f.b.i., he would talk about the robust international relationships they have built. and not just the f.b.i. but the department of homeland security

are not just relationships but posted abroad. the idea of pushing borders out have lead to key ports of exit and entry. so i don't agree. and you see what is interesting of the threats and tied with west africa. and the al-qaeda group tied to drug trafficking. you have agencies like the dea getting involved internationally. and if you look, and josh you know this, over the past two years dea has done remarkable work in bringing justice in new york taliban traffickers, luring them out of new york and other places. and including victor booth. i would disagree with the premise, i think there is robust information sharing. how you deal with long-term

information for dangerous terrorists. for whom you don't have evidence in any court, that's the real co co condundrum and the problem of the administration of dealing with these long-term threats. >> hi, david, i worked with ken and juan in the bush white house. there are many issues that are urgent. some of them are very important. some of them are not important at all in the grand scheme of things. but those nonimportant, urgent issues can assume an enormous amount of staff time and energy. ken and juan, as you look back on your time, what encouragement

do you have to members the government to maximize and being strategic. and focusing on what really matters and not getting distracted from the overall ability to serve the president and the american people effectively. thank you. >> you put your finger on an interesting point, because you lived it and saw it. david is homeland security council, everything of homeland security came through him. and someone to calibrate as a bureaucratic anywhere. you are trying to calibrate of the urgent things that you have to deal with then and there. and there are long-term strategic problems that need to be made. and the danger is those get drowned out because you are dealing with the fires. and the second issue, this is where you are going, dave, you do the bureaucratic churn.

and i think of a couple of examples. for instance, dealing with the bio-threat. in the bush administration we spent a lot of time to deal with the bio-threat of weapons of mass destruction. it was a real concern. the graham mission has banged that drum. because we were not prepared to deal with that. and because it wasn't intermediate and nothing on the horiz horizon, it took a while to get that action. if there is one answer and as security advisory or president, you make sure you have good people around you. because that security advisor

will get pulled away on the crisis de jure, and you need someone to mind the shop. >> real quickly. >> i think trust in the professionals in the departments and agencies who are charged with the issues that are critical. there is another example, it's a category of activities that you are not sure if it's important until you run it through. and the white house can't ignore it. the best example is one i was personally involved in, october 2005. and a detector goes off, and the problem was that the department of energy had just put in the monitor. we didn't have the full system in place. we didn't have the cameras or the tracking system, and didn't know what the heck caused it. and for two weeks straight out of the white house, we were

coordinating the efforts of the infrastructure to figure out what caused that alarm. we had riddled it down to 17 ships and five ships and two of them were headed to new york. we had no idea what was on it, and no idea if it was real or not. and at the end of the day it was scrap metal. but we didn't know until we boarded all ships and it took two weeks of our time nonstop. >> quickly. >> as a vietnam vet, going back to a president picking targets, everyone is familiar with president johnson picking targets in vietnam. now the critique is that he missed the big picture. and now we have president obama picking targets in satir and spending time on kill lists.

and no surge put forward by the administration, it had a military surge. but not political surge to bring this watch to a reasonable conclusion. do you have comments on president obama's involvement in the kill list? >> i don't know about his involvement or noninvolvement on the kill list. but to your point what is the administration doing to try to bring this war to an end. by use of drone attacks they are having that impact. because of everything that has been done since 9/11 and including the drones recently. >> and one closing thought on the future of counterterrorism, do did you feel there is an increasing side of your work, the nonconetic side of it. is that more of the future of

this field? >> i hope so, i think it's tied through the success of the mechanisms and the means. and back to a point that juan was imitating. and the sides is important of the groups we aare facing domestically and abroad is prone to change. if you talk to the law enforcements about the extremism types that are concerned about. it's violent supremacy groups and targeting law enforcement. we try to make sure that it's a broad approach to different threats. >> thank you. and with that we will finish and thank you for a great discussion. thank you. >> tonight on c-span, vice president, joe biden makes a campaign appearance in danville,

virginia. and chief of staff hold a news briefing in the pentagon. and to discuss how law enforcement works to defeat terr terrorism. >> i started as a copy boy in "the new york times." i was in a training program out of the army. >> this sunday on c-span q & a, walter pincus talks about the defense and the priorities. >> and they built for the band and that's 40 people. and it had rooms for everyone. if you spent $4 million on an elementary school, i bet someone would raise questions. >> more with columnist walter

pincus, sunday night. >> vice president, joe biden, commented about romney's pick of paul ryan in virginia. the vice president is introduced by former congressman, tom peolio. >> good morning, and welcome to the city of danville, virginia. we are proud to host the vice president of the united states, joe biden. a more formal introduction will follow. before i continue, will all elected officials stand or wave, thank you for being here. in danville, we are a determined city. a city in transition from the old to the new economy. a city and a region that has a mega-park. a mega-park. did i say mega-park?

that will house thousands of jobs. a city and region of wonderful people. great families with great work ethics. and people that are successful. who are eager for successful future. we invite businesses, all over the world to come, take a look at us. we believe you will like it here. and when you come, please bring your jobs with you. [applause] i am very proud to present to you a very, very dear friend. a hard-working former congressman. one who knows our city and region well, one that helped us with several economic development projects. most notably the robinson bridge. yes. which is now open. this project alone, our friend, brought to danville $28 million.

ladies and gentlemen, danville, a former congressman,ombulio. >> good morning, danville. it's great to be here. it's great to be here with one of danville's greatest products. mr. saunders. who has served our country in uniform and so many different ways. i was proud to march with him and reverend king and proud to work with him on so many economic projects. as he mentioned, it was good to see that robinson bridge get built. danville has done so many great things, including this institution that is the heart of

innovation in southern virginia. and a heart of learning in southern virginia. and it's a statement that danville never quits. its best days are ahead of growing things in southern virginia. i couldn't help but see another great danville product, recently. david wilson tearing it up in pre-season for the giants. and i know despite him making it to the pros. his parents are proud school teachers in the community. do we have any teachers here today? i am proud to have the honor today of introducing a man who understands communities like danville, virginia. who came from the steel town in virginia, and knows about tough times and the pride of community that never quits.

he is here today like before because he believes in this community across america. he lived the american dream, didn't grow up with a lot. but made it to the american senate. who did so much, because there was a responsibility to ensure the american dream for so many others. when he and barack obama came through danville and other areas in 2008. they said a promise, they would wake up thinking about communities like this. i think that's what was on their mind, when they made the decision not to let the u.s. auto industry to die on their watch. mitt romney said that we should let the auto industry die, let it go bankrupt. when you spend time with the institutions, and that's not the gut instinct. and they said that's not going

to happen on our watch. and it's not just detroit roaring back, and we feel that down the road, and just up to 1600 jobs and moving from eight-hour shift to 12-hour shift. that's due to leadership. and that's what this election is all about. when we will work with an economy for all americans or a few. and when we have a democracy that represents all americans or just a few. this is that choice. i don't mind that mitt romney is an incredibly wealthy man. what i mind is the idea that he wants to raise your taxes and cut his own. independent analysis, what romney called himself the independent analysis, that the

middle class act will go up $2,000 under his plan. but he will get a 4.5 million tax cut for himself. now if you think about a police officer work, here in danville. they would have to work 618 years to make the same amount that romney made in 2010. and that was the year that he bragged about the fact that he was unemployed. we have a question of values. and there is no better way to understand the values of a president or president candidate. than to see who they pick as their vice president candidate. and i know you are here to see the big man speak. but i served with paul ryan, i have to take a quick second here. this -- one thing i will say is true, paul ryan is absolutely one of the leaders of this congress. this is paul ryan's congress

that has a 9% approval rating of the american people. this is ryan's congress to cut benefits to seniors and veterans to give a bigger tax cut to the higher earners. one so big it makes president bush blush. this is a congress that voted a five-week vacation without passing a farm bill when our agricultural communities are in tough times. this is paul ryan's congress that refused to work with the president on a bipartisan deal that could have got us out of this mess. and it's paul ryan's congress that refused to act on the president's jobs that built over a year while doing the symbolic votes. and it's paul ryan's congress to go back to an era where a women has a pre-existing condition in

our health care system. i think it's possible that mitt romney is the only person in america and looked behind this congress and said, i want the brains behind that operation. [laughter] [applause] if the choice of paul ryan tells us more than we ever wanted to know about mitt romney. then the decision to make this next man vice president, tells us the world about barack obama. [applause] this is just quite simply a question of whether you get it. a question whether you wake up in the morning understanding the struggles of the middle and working class. joe biden and i came from the same faith tradition, that says that love is the greatest

commandment, amen. and we will be judged by our deeds. and this is a man that gets up everyday fighting for the working class. and no matter what zip code you are born in, if you work hard and play by the rules, you will have a chance to make it in this country. that's what we believe. so it is my great honor to introduce to you a tried and true champion of the middle class. an advocate for the american dream, and the conscious of our nation's capital. and our vice president of the united states, joseph biden. [applause]

>> hello, danville. [applause] hello, folks, how are you? nice to be with you. hello, danville. i am looking at the future up there.

it's all about education. right. i am telling you are looking at a couple of nobel laureates. i am not kidding. look folks, it's great to be back in danville. mr. mayor, thank you for the passport and letting me come back in. you get invited once, you know, it's okay. get invited back, man, that means he doesn't know better. you know what i mean. i appreciate it mr. mayor. the problem with the mayor, look at the shape this man is in. if he squeezes your hand, i feel like in a vice. and how about tom perriello. [applause] this is one of the smartest guys we ever dealt with. and ladies and gentlemen, i stood back and listened to this

speech, and i have to say long i heard it. tom, you said it better than anyone i heard before. and if am i mildly repetitious, i hope you forgive me. look folks, as tom implied. this country faces one of the starkest choices in my generation. now that governor romney has selected congress ryan. those differences more stark. and by the way, and tom will agree with me, he's a decent man. and as is romney. and i mean that sincerely. tom and i come from the faith background and school and politics. you recognize what is good in your opponent as well as as what you disagree with them on. and i mean this sincerely.

none of this is personal. but it is critical. it is critical. congressman ryan has now given definition to governor romney's vague commitments he made last year. and congressman ryan and republicans as one person said, have already done what romney is promising he will do for the nation. this is one of those rare cases for real. almost like running against an unc incumbent. everyone knows what we are running for and in a strange way of picking congressman ryan, a leader of the republican party. a man that all republicans have said, and it's true. a man with serious ideas and they have embraced them all.

we know now. and before governor romney had a tendency to be vague or change his position a lot. well, it's now clear -- no, i am serious. this is a good thing. it's a good thing for the country. they say that is not the place we want to go. a lead it is my view. it is my view that the

overwhelming majority of americans will say that is not the place, the path i want to go. i believe they will reject governor romney and congressman paul ryan for attempting to impose that view and vision on the american people. ladies and gentlemen, they are both good man. but they have a fundamentally flawed judgment in my view. they call their plan bold and gusty. it is bold. i do not get what is gutsy about gutting medicare to pay for that. -- about giving millionaie res another tax break. that is not new. that is not new. it is not fair.

it is not fair to the working class and it will not grow this economy. we have seen this movie before and you know how it ends. it ends in the great recession we inherited. it ends in the catastrophe for the middle class. when the president and die, when -- and i, when we took these offices, we said we have a different way forward. we don't think you grow the economy from a millionaires down. i come from a wealthy stayed, delaware. -- i come from a wealthy state. one of the highest per capita's in the nation, delwaware. i have never run in my state playing the populist dream about wealthy people are bad and poor people are good. i know as many patriotic people as a note patriotic poor folks. what i do not know is how ryan and romney view the middle class.

we think the way you rebuild this country is you grow it from the middle class out the old- fashioned way, not from millionaires down. my dad, who may be a lot like you when things changed in the 1950's, he had to leave to find a job. that is how i got down to wilmington, delaware. my dad used to have an expression. he is to say, "a job is about a lot more than your paycheck. it is about your dignity. it is about respect. it is about the sense of yourself and your place in the community.

it is so much more than a paycheck." all that you know at least one , two, or more. all across america, through no fault of their own, they have been stripped of their dignity. they did nothing wrong. they showed up every day. they produced what they were supposed to do. they paid their mortgage on time. they paid their bills. they will up one day and found, i am in trouble. how many of you know someone -- i mean this sincerely -- who went to bed last night staring at the ceiling and wondering, am i going to be able to sleep in this bed under this roof two months from now? am i going to be able to make it? how many of you know a couple

who said, you teller, you have to tell her. who is going to tell her that she cannot go back to school next year because we cannot afford it. you know people like that. i know people like that. the longest walk is a short walk up a flight of stairs to a child's bedroom to say, i'm sorry. you cannot go to george washington high school anymore because daddy lost his job. mommy lost her job. with the bank said, we cannot live here anymore. you did nothing wrong. your house is worse off less than you paid for. my dad made that walk when i was in third grade.

it wasn't tragic but i remember it. we are living at my grandfather's house in scranton. my sister used to be three years younger and now she is 20 years younger. she looks 20 years younger and she is twice as smart. i guess those things factor in. not one woman in history that has been older than any man in the biden family. my dad said, "dad is going to move away from a year." he is going to wilmington. "i will try to come every weekend.

i will get a good job and i'll bring you down and it will be ok." my dad believed it was going to be ok. he convinced me to believe it. it was a tragic. i realize he made a longer walk. he walked into my grandfather is pantry and said -- my dad was a proud, graceful man. i cannot imagine what it was like to say, "i need a favor. keep jean and the kids for a year. i promise i'll pay you back." you know people who have made that walk. some of you may have made that walk. the president was generous enough to ask me to join him.

i asked him a question. i said, you do me what you say about the middle class? we both kid about it. we have shorthands. we want to be able to do our overwhelming objectives. a parent to say to the child, "it is going to be ok." i live in a nice house and i do very well. some people do not believe they can say, "honey, it is going to be ok." that is what we want to restore, dignity to the middle class. help them keep their child and community college in school. protect themself from the risky

financial schemes like credit default swaps and these other creative financial instruments. give tax breaks to companies who stay home and come home, not to those who go abroad. you are a piece of that. you have a piece of outsourcing here. "governor romney pioneered at bain." everybody wants to be a pioneer, but i did not want to be on that wagon train. when i first said that, the campaign came back and said, it is obvious vice president biden does not know the difference between of shoring and outsourcing.

can you picture two pitches at the unemployment line? what difference does it make to a man who lost his job? this guy does not get it. they do not get it. they did not get it. it is almost a basic. the progress we were making has slowed down. it did not stop it. in spite of governor romney, we still went out and rescued the automobile industry. we saved a million jobs and created 200,000 good-paying union jobs that people can make

a living on. where is it written that the united states will not lead the world again in automobile manufacturing? where is it written that we cannot do that? general motors is now the largest auto manufacturer in the world. we passed the toughest wall street regulation in history. wall street has been the greatest allocator of capital in the history of mankind. it that turned into a casino.

we improved education for the average american for less than 1% of what the nation spends on education, we have encouraged 45 states to raise their standards to better educate our children. you have some examples up there. we expanded by 3 million people the number of kids from working- class families who have a grant to attend college. 3 million more qualified kids in college today. we kept faith. we kept faith. coming back from iraq afghanistan with health care and better education and finding jobs.

we provided tax cuts and incentives for businesses to hire vets, which they fought against for the longest time. we cut taxes for small businesses to help them grow and they say they love small business. we help millions of families to modify their mortgages, saving them thousands of dollars a year. and the man points out here, and we also got bin laden. [cheers] let me correct that. the president of the united states and the special forces got bin laden. [cheers] i go to democratic rallies and democratic events and the democrats will say to me, why can we get down to a bumper sticker or stand for? i said, i have a bumper sticker for you now. "osama bin laden is dead and general motors is alive." that is a bumper sticker.

it sums it all up, doesn't it? we are about a lot more than bumper stickers. we are about education. fair wages for decent jobs. 4.5 million private sector jobs in the face of the catastrophe we inherited. the fastest growth since the 1990's. but that is not enough. there is a lot of people still hurting as a consequence of this recession we inherited.

mitt romney says they are running to restore the dreams and the greatness of this country. what they did not say is the claims the congressman voted for and the governor supported put america's greatness in jeopardy. how do they think we got in this spot in the first place? what do they think happened? was it casper the ghost? who did it? we were doing just fine. had a budget surplus. we were paying down our debt and

the middle class was thriving. eight years later, how did it happen? ladies and gentlemen, what they did not say is that that month in january have lost so far 750,000 jobs. before we were sworn in. >> that is right. >> we inherited. he got handed a trillion-dollar deficit for that year. for that year. already $1 trillion in the whole. the middle class have lost $16 trillion in wealth collectively in the equity in your homes.

the thing you were counting on. maybe to have some money in retirement. be able to help your mother and father. may be to send your kid to school after high school. evaporated. gone. done. these guys say they care about the middle class. [boos] my dad had another saying and i have been saying this for 20 years. my dad was the consummate host. nobody could say anything wrong in my house. some say, let me tell you what i value. my dad would say, do not tell me what you value.

show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. do not tell me about your women in the workplace and do not hire any woman. let's take a look because now we have a clear picture. we have a clear picture of what the they value. look at what they know that you can look at the budget. romney said he will let the big banks are write their own rules. unchain wall street. they will put you back in chains. they said they will do nothing about stopping the process of outsourcing. the voted down a proposal to give it tax breaks.

they get a tax break for that. we will give a tax break to any company in singapore that brings the back to danville. that is not going to change the world. but they voted against it. unopposed as -- romney opposes it. i did not get these guys. they make massive cuts in medicare throwing 19 million people in distress off of medicaid including 1 million seniors, roughly 75% of whom are women.

how did the think these people in nursing homes are there/ 75% of those elderly persons in medicare in homes. they are there because of medicaid. doesn't seem to be a problem for them all. they made massive cuts in social security for the next generation. you'll get $2,700 less if you're in your 40's. that is how they are going to save the economy. allow me insurance companies to write the rules. "you have cancer. you have hit your limit. you're on your own." "we can charge you more because you are a woman." you would think i was making this up. that is what they are proposing.

they wanted to turn medicare into a voucher system. [boos] they will tell you you not be affected but we're waiting to get these next guy's coming. come on, man. this is not on the level. in my neighborhood, nobody minds chipping in. i heard a congresswoman up in north dakota say, everybody has different obligations. she said, if you were sitting in church and because of the heavy snow and the roof collapses, you don't expect the janitor in the department store to pay as much as the owner of the department store to fix the roof. janitors do not mind contributing.

everybody knows it have to beat in on the deal. you hate being played for a sucker. the american people know they are being played for a sucker. it is all and the service of maintaining the bush tax cut for the wealthy, the top 1%. these are the facts. tom knows these side down and inside out. $800 billion of the tax cut. $800 billion will go to people with a minimum income of $1 million.

$400 billion will go to 120,000 households. $400 billion going to 120,000 household while we cut medicaid, while we cut education, while we cut infrastructure. on top of that, romney comes along as does the congressman and says, we need an additional tax cut for the job creators. i'm serious. we need an additional $1.6 trillion for the job creators. i said they are good people and they'll do not need this. this is a big price tag for the middle class.

the nonpartisan tax policy center put out the price and said it was awful high. they said if the tax policy comes into law, the average middle class family with children will see a $2,000 increase in their taxes to pay for this. and he calls the president out of touch? how many of you have a swiss bank accounts? raise your hand. hey, man, how many of you have significant millions of dollars -- we do not know how much -- invested in the cayman islands? oh, man. you guys are out of touch.

how many people think you can run for president of united states and not let the american people know what your tax returns are? [applause] this is not even mitt romney's father's republican party. this is a different party. not bad, different. i have more to say but i am saying too much already. these guys get me going and you will have trouble translating all this. she'll have tendinitis' by the time she is finished with this.

let me try to sum it up. president and i have a different vision for america. raising its tenants for elementary and secondary education. making sure there is still health to get to college. keep in the 2500 tax credit to send your kids to school. maintaining the pell grants. we are the leading manufacturer in the world. we see an america where my granddaughter has the exact same rights as my grandson in every single way. [applause] we see an america where women get paid the same as men for doing the same work. we see a country when you get crews the ill you did not have to go bankrupt to take care of yourself.

we see a social security system protected. medicaid is available for people in distress. that is why we strengthen the program, extended it by eight years and we did without cutting a penny in benefits. we see an america where all we maintain the only sacred obligation of the government and that is to care for those who come back, the veterans that come back. we see an america where no millionaire place at a lower rate than the average middle class person. we see a nation with the middle class tax cuts get cut and everybody pays their fair share when the middle class is no longer played for a sucker. look, the fact of the matter is

that as the president said, this is a make or break moment for the middle class in america. literally. it is clear. no one could question what the parameters of this debate are. i haven't even talked about foreign policy. i haven't talked about these dyes that want to keep 35,000 troops in iraq and want to disagree with nato and turn responsibility over to the afghans. i haven't talked about what the supreme court will look like after four years for civil- rights and civil liberties for four years of a romney administration. i have not talked about so much. i will end with this. presidential elections are an almost every circumstance

decided by the voters on one overarching question -- does the man or woman i'm going to vote for have the character of their convictions? do they mean what they say and do what they say? [applause] ladies and gentlemen, on that score, this isn't even close. the reason we will win is my buddy, my friend has it back a lot like a ramrod -- has a backbone like a ramrod. he is made the most difficult decisions since roosevelt and lincoln. he is never put his political fortunes ahead of what he thinks is right for the country.

i have watched him stay with his position and not waffle. this man has more character in his little finger than most people have in their whole body. ladies and gentlemen, you have to help us. we got to finish what obama started. we have to finish this recovery. -- to stand with us. we need to go out there and make sure that with you, we can win north carolina again. if we do, we win the election. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years.

>> apricot to introduce your next congressman, general douglas. -- i forgot to introduce your next congressman, general douglas. he knows how to lead. thank you again. >> in other campaign is, republicans have announced that chris christie would be the keynote speaker at this year's convention in camp but, florida. we discussed the announcement with a political reporter. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> david sherfinski writes for the washington times inside

politics blog. by the rnc select governor chris chrisitie to be there at speaker at the upcoming convention? >> governor chris chrisitie ever since 2009, virginia and new jersey are the only two states to have off-year elections. he and bob mcdonnell were almost instantly across into the spotlight in 2009. he is brash, republicans love him. in last month he asked a reporter are you stupid? he is not afraid of taking on either democrats, teachers' unions, what have you. that is what they needed at the republican national convention where earlier act of the primaries, you had a very divided republican party. by the end, you really need someone to rev up your base and get you ready for the last two months or so. >> in your reporting, you wrote

that governor chris chrisitie is viewed as a rock star among republican conservatives. is the mitt romney campaign looking for him to set that sort of town at the convention? >> the interesting thing is that in an interview with "usa today," governor chris chrisitie said he would focus more on mitt romney's accomplishments and his time as governor of massachusetts, his work at bain capital. rather than attacking barack obama which is thus far been the default mode for the gop. it is an interesting choice. you would think governor christie would be the attack dog which i am sure he will be in part and but it also might present a shift in the tone and strategy of the mitt romney campaign. >> aquino speech at a convention is often seen as a springboard -- a keynote speech at a

convention is often seen as a springboard. what are governor chris chrisitie's aspirations? >> he is at the top of governor romney's vice presidential pick list. he always says he is not ruling out a presidential run but it is not in his plan that this time. his name has to be out there for 2016 a long with people like jbe bush -- jeb bush. it seemed like he is rather ambitious but also understand that may be it is not quite his time at which is how he phrased it when he said he was not going to run this time around. >> the other news was the selection of senator mark rubio of florida to introduce governor

romney as he accepts his nomination. is this used as a consolation prize for senator rubio because it was not elected to the vice presidential pick? the estimate on the campaign have larger plans for senator rubio? >> that is an interesting question. i am not sure i would describe it as a consolation prize. to be given the honor of introducing your party's presidential mommy at the republican national convention is a big task. the mitt romney campaign sees marco rubio almost in the same as paul ryan. he is young, intelligent, very conservative. he can reach into the hispanic community which is very important and that the florida and tampa with the convention is being held. he will certainly be a top

circuit for governor romney regardless of whether he was giving the keynote address or the job of introducing governor romney. >> david sherfinski writing for the washington times. you can read his reporting on line. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> republicans hold their convention in tampa august 27 to august 30. then the democratic national convention from september 4 through september 6. presidential debates will be held on october 3, 16th at 27. all leading up to election day, november 6. we will have every minute live on c-span and on our campaign website, c- span.org/campaign2012. >> coming up on c-span, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and defense secretary leon panetta with a defense briefing at the pentagon.

from the aspen security forum, discussions about counter- terrorism. later, the heritage foundation talk about the defense department's role in responding to natural disasters. rectum are on washington journal, cnbc host larry kudlow of wall street was a risk -- perspective on the new gop ticket. the proposed changes to medicaid and medicare by republican vice president shall candidate paul ryan. after that, bloomberg business week contributor discusses his recent story on drug tunnels running underground between the u.s. and mexico. and e-mails and phone calls and tweets. by wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. -- live with the morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> the soviet bear may be gone but there are still wolves in the woods. we saw that when saddam hussein invaded kuwait. the mideast might have become a

nuclear powder keg, our energy supplies held hostage but we did put things right in what was necessary. we destroyed a threat, freed eight people and locked it tyrant in the prison of his own country. >> tonight, 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. tens of millions more work hard for lower pay. the incoming president said unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. but unemployment only have to go up by one person before a real recovery can begin. >> c-span has it every minute of every major party conventions of 1984. what's the republican and democratic national convention live starting monday, august 27. at the pentagon is briefing today, defense secretary leon

panetta and joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey discussed military operations in afghanistan, violence in syria, and egypt's new defense minister perry secretary panetta called the acceleration of attacks in afghanistan insider attacks and plans to add more counterintelligence capability to u.s. military personnel in the region. this is 45 minutes. >> first of all, i wanted to indicate that, earlier today, i had a very good conversation with general al-sisi, which is the new general of defense in egypt. general al-sisi expressed his unwavering commitment to they u.s.egypt relationship, which has been an anchor of stability in the middle east for more than 30 years.

i in turn indicated to him that i look forward to working with him and to continuing the relationship with egypt that we have had over the years. he takes seriously the obligations under the camp david treaty. i indicated that i look forward to working with him in the region. this morning, i also conducted a regular update.

general dempsey and i both with the general allan. he continues to do an outstanding job as the commander of the assistance force. i will give you a brief update on afghanistan as well as a result of that conversation. we discussed the progress of the campaign, specifically with regard to four key goals which we are trying to achieve in afghanistan. first, the abilities of the afghan forces, second, the pressure on the insurgency, and third forcing to maintain the international community's unity of effort. we have long expected that our forces would remain in their -- in a tough fight through this fighting season.

that has been true of your -- true through these last summer months. at the same time, it is clear that we're continuing to make significant progress toward trying to achieve the goals we have laid out. on the afghan forces, the ansf continues to grow in size. two-thirds of those in uniform defending afghanistan and now afghans. and the ansf continues to grow to 350 two thousand later this year. the growth of afghan special operations, having the capability has allowed afghans to plan, conduct, and lead special operations missions every day and every night.

the ana recently operated a special command consisting of 10,000 soldiers in one recent 24-hour period, 25 operations were afghan-led. they are showing real capability and that shows positive for the future. ansf has the potential to deal with a crippling and lasting blow to the insurgency. they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called insider attacks that have taken place in this fighting season. make no mistake about it. i have been very concerned about these incidents. both of us have been because of the lives lost and because of the potential damage toward our partnership efforts.

general allan and i discussed a range of measures that he is taking to try to stop these attacks. i will touch on a few of those pick first, to increase the intelligence presence so that we can try to get better information with regards to these kinds of potential attacks. also, to increase counterintelligence, to increase people trained in counterintelligence so they can as well identify those threats. secondly, we have a thorough vetting process. we're doing forensics on the particular instance -- a particular instances that have occurred to make sure how that vetting process happened. notification process so that, when we get information, we can alert people to the threats. we have a guardian angel program which involves identifying one individual who stands to the side so he can watch people's backs and hopefully identify people that could be involved in those attacks.

general allan is meeting with the security ministers. they will talk about further steps to take to protect against these attacks. he is also meeting with the village elders. these are the people who usually about for individuals. they have to sign something that the vouchers for the character of these individuals to ensure that that is being done properly. all of this requires action by both the united states, the coalition forces, and by our afghan partners who all face the insider threat.

we mustn't forget that the afghans themselves are also targets of these attacks as well. i want to stress that these incidents, which now include 31 afghans, do not reflect the pride and dedication of the 350,000 police of the afghan national security forces. one of the reason the afghan -- the taliban is targeting in this manner is the success that the afghan partners are having on the battlefield. the reality is that the taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost. so they are resorting to these kinds of attacks to create have it. and there is -- to create havoc. we will not allow this kind of intimidation to undermine our efforts to build up the n and -- the nsf.

secondly, we're putting pressure on the insurgency, the growth of a nsf is increasingly putting pressure on the insurgency itself. as the fighting season has progressed, we have seen an increase in enemy-initiated attacks. although violence levels have remained consistent with past summers appeared a lot of this -- with past summers. a lot of this, according to general allen, we are taking back the fight. the fighting has been increasingly taking place away from major populated areas. the insurgency remains on the defensive and it has not been able to regain ground that it has lost. all of this has enabled us to

continue with the transition to an afghan lead, which is the third goal that we are after. and the transition has been and remains very much a successful operation. over half of the afghan population is predicted by the moment -- by predominantly afghan force. we hope that it willfully be implemented later this year. 75% of the afghan population, including every provincial capital, would be in the transition process and would be under afghan security and governance. security gains made in these areas have been sustained in the first six months of this year. insurgent attacks were down 15% in areas that were undergoing transition, compared to 2011. this has allowed us to introduce security-force assistance teams. these are small teams of isaf advisers. they train, advised and assist ansf units.

on unity of the effort, obviously, the transition plan has the strong support of the afghan people and the international community. because of that, we have been able to maintain a strong unity of effort with the afghan government and our international partners. in my discussions with the general allen and my foreign counterparts, i meet with a lot of those who continue to supply forces, i have been struck by their commitment and unity to overcome the effort. their decision to open up the nato supply lines means a great deal to us to bring containers and material that are now moving across the border into afghanistan.

cross border cooperation with pakistan is increasing. general allan is meeting on a regular basis with the general kayani. i realize that there are a lot of other things going on in this country that can draw our attention. from the olympics into political campaigns to drought to some of the tragedies we have seen in communities around the country. but i thought it was important to remind the american people that there is a war going on in

afghanistan. and that young men and women are dying in order to protect this country. even as our surge forces have drawn down at -- will drawdown of the end of september and we are on track, there will remain 68,000 americans in uniform who will be deployed in a very tough fight against a determined enemy. as secretary of defense, i have said this before -- one of my toughest jobs is writing condolence letters to the families of our fallen heroes frankly, i seem to be writing more lately. more than 1950 americans in uniform have died defending our country in a can stand and thousands more, as you know, have been injured, some very seriously. the pain and the heartbreak of this war weigh heavily on me.

and i know they weigh heavily upon general dempsey as well as our other military and civilian leaders. but also as well on the families of those who have lost loved ones. and yet, when i talk to the families of the fallen, when you meet with them and meet with our wounded troops in bethesda, i am impressed by their need to see these missions through. i want to say to the american people to take the time and reflect on the sacrifices. it is because of the sacrifices that i think we're moving in the right direction. and afghanistan that can secure

and protect itself. that is a tribute to general allen's leadership and for the countless sacrifices of thousands of americans and international and afghan forces who stepped forward to make us safer. at a time when i am sure that there is an awful lot to be mad about, there is a lot to be proud of when it comes to our men and women in uniform. and we shouldn't forget that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i obviously share our deep admiration for men and women in uniform and all those serving in afghanistan. theirs is a story of unrelenting courage and uncommon sacrifice. it is a story they share with our coalition and afghan partners. the progress does not mean an end to violence or tragedy. i was reminded of that last friday when i went to dover to grieve with families as their flag-draped coffins return to their native soil.

at that time, i was also inspired by the solemn professionalism of our airmen at dover who make sure every single dignified transfer is worthy of the fallen soldier and their family. i am returning to cobble next week to talk with general allan and other partners on how to make the anfs stronger and the taliban weaker. we will talk about efforts at every echelon to confront the insider attack that the secretary just elaborated on. i will also travel through iraq for the first time since our mission and there appeared will take stock of our efforts to continue to build a relationship through the office of cooperation. and we will talk about what is working and what is the best way forward. we meet as peers and it is essential that our partnership continue to develop on that basis. basis.