to polling place because in wisconsin you can register to vote at the polls and immediately vote then. there was a big problem. there was an 86 page milwaukee police report indicating that was an organized conspiracy to steal the presidential election in wisconsin a few years ago in part by having people in vans move from polling place to polling place. that's not voting twice but three or four times and she pled guilty. and believe that we need to have more ballot security. we just have to make sure that voter registration rolls are accurate. kansas has a model law. gaf to fill up the last five digits of your social security or license number to have your absentee ballots counted. then we should have voter identification laws to make sure that people cannot permit what happened with eric holder's situation where all they do is

ask about his name and they are handed a ballot. host: if your interested in finding out the law on a state- by-state basis, there is something put together, ncsl.org. you can see how it varies in all 50 states. our last call from fairfax, va., good morning. caller: good morning. thank you to you. i have found this very interesting. i just have two comments or questions for your guest. i'm hearing a loud and clear what he's saying about how it's maybe not as hard to get certification for people, but i'm just curious about how we can help people understand uneasy way for the number of voters to get those identifications. coupled with that, i think i'm

hearing the guest say that there are a lot of easy ways to vote and one way to overcome the fraud is to get more voters out there. i'm curious if he thinks having the voting day change to a sad day could help reduce the amount of voting fraud? host: thank you for the call from fairfax, va. guest: i'm open. there's no tradition that says it has to be on a tuesday. as for making it easy to vote, the pennsylvania voter law, which is going before the pennsylvania supreme court in a few days, the judge looking at it said that everyone will be able to vote under the law. you have to have a government- sponsored by the, but there are several that are valid including student ids. if you do not have that, you can vote absentee. if you show up at the polls and you have forgotten your id, you

can cast a provisional ballot. within six days, you can drop off in person some evidence of your id and it will be counted. let's say you cannot for the birth certificate or other documentation. then you can fill out an affidavit that says you are too poor to be able to get the documentation to get an idea and it will still be counted. the judge found there is absolutely no way that someone who wants to vote in pennsylvania can be prevented. host: how fronters and bureaucrats put your vote at risk. a columnist for cookie national review." thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. >> tomorrow, a look ahead as congress returns from summer recess with reporters from roll- call and the hill followed by robert bigsby on the fiscal cliff in the plan to curb the

$16 trillion national debt. then the scope and work of the transportation security administration with mickey mccarter. washington"journal of" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. live coverage from deep house and senate returning live tomorrow. the house begins at 2:00 p.m. eastern. we spoke to a capitol hill reporter about what we can expect congress to address this week. host: john shaw is with market news international. when the house and senate come back, what is on the legislative agenda? guest: the elections are looming. it will be relatively brief return to washington. the one item everyone is focused on is keeping the government funded.

one item on the agenda is passing a short-term spending bill to fund the government sparging october 1st. in july, house speaker john boehner and harry reid breached an agreement to pass a six-month stop gap spending bill. that will pass early on in the fall session. i think lawmakers and leaders want to get that issue taking care of to insure the government will be funded. that is a central item. the state of the economy in the fiscal issues will ship congress's debate. there will be a lot of discussion about the so-called fiscal clip which refers to the expiration of the bush era tax cuts at the end of the year. there is the implementation of across-the-board spending cuts and the need to increase the debt ceiling. all of those issues will converge at the end of the year and will be interesting because you will see a lot of the party leaders is staking out the

familiar round on these issues. there will not be much public movement. what will be more interesting is to see if there is some private negotiation that will occur behind-the-scenes to lay the foundation for the final negotiations which i think everyone assumes will occur almost immediately after the election. host: this six months measure for the short term stop-gap measure, you said six months. is there an agreement on the dollar figure? guest: that has been an issue throughout the year, on the level. they agreed on $1.047 trillion. they had originally wanted it to be below that. it was the number they found in the 2011 debt ceiling agreement. once they reach that number, they decided they were able to lock in this deal and i think everyone believes the short term

measure will be passed quite easily. host: in the past, sometimes there are other items thrown in. are there other issues that will be addressed in the c.r.? guest: it's not really clear until we have the final package, but there has been a really strong sense from the leadership that they want to keep this as clean as possible. once you bring in extraneous issues, the whole thing can unravel. this is the one thing they have to get done. there will be a very strong resistance to add other items in the stopgap bill. >host: are there any other issues they have to get done before they go back home to campaign? guest: there is a drought relief issue that is stalled and a russian trade bill that a lot of people believe is urgent to do.

there is a cyber security bill pending and a pfizer issue up for discussion. there are a lot of things on the table. it may be possible that some of them are completed, but it's very hard to see that a lot will get done. host: john shaw, market news reporter, with the congressional reporter with a look ahead at this session in congress. >> you can join the conversation at facebook.com/cspan. again, facebook.com/cspan. in four weeks, the first of the presidential debates live on c- span, c-span radio, and c- span.org. watch and engage. coming up, looking at foreign policy and with former cia director michael hayden. later, a look at u.s. fiscal

policy, taxes, and the european debt crisis. first, a portion of the discussion on the differences between osama bin laden and the new head of al qaeda. >> that i could ask the panelists briefly to give a report card about how you feel he has conducted himself over the last year or so since bin laden's death? is there anyone within the ranks who could step up and have the kind of stature to command respect among them today? thank you. >> i would say i give him an a-. the reason is because i think he has a very different view than bin laden did. he had this exhaustion attrition strategy when it came to the united states and the west.

he has continued that to a certain extent. he has very much switched the inus to building affiliate's other countries and to increase the strength of al qaeda in africa, the middle east, and elsewhere. the has been very successful at it. here is the one thing about him that has me on a knife's edge. if he were really smart, he would never attack the united states again. it led to such a disaster for them after 9/11 for the first few years. it really set back a lot of division that bin laden had and then you had to spend your time convincing as it was not worth your while. if he was smart, we would go back to sleep like we were in the 1990's and you could go out and create whenever you wanted

to and we would not pay attention unless americans got killed. i do not know if he's that smart or that patient. i believe he is a man is controlled by a desire for revenge for the death of his wife, the death of his son, and for the torture he underwent in prison. he may not be able to control his anger which could lead him to do something intemperate. >> very quickly, this is because the conventional wisdom about him 18 months or so was completely wrong. ever run would say that he could never fill bin laden's shoes. he has held them together far better than other people. they have grown and prospered under his leadership. he has evolved a very effective strategy. i could go on. i do not want to identify an

individual right now, but it would have to be one of the progeny. it does not need to be an alias, but someone who will be motivated as much by this visceral desire for vengeance will have the authority because of their name and lineage will be the next leader. >> i will be contrarian. i think it's very difficult to answer the question without being on the inside and seeing current intelligence, which i no longer do. my gut says he at best gets a b. he made this a long time ago. it's not at all clear to me that he is implementing the increasing rise of the affiliate's. i think that is because he was inclined to it before hand and he as not strong enough to keep is unified under ralph qaeda senior leadership anymore. this is really important. it's not the case that there is

20% coming from these groups but he is asking and he's not always getting. it puts him in a weak position. i do not believe that i was the head of one of these affiliate's flush in cash and i was out qaeda in the arabian peninsula, aqap, why would i feel the need to pay homage to him? the jury is out. there is probably a better answer from intelligence, but from the outside looking in, i have not seen any evidence that he has been capable to marshal the power of the arab awakening. these are young arab students plashing itself phones, not guns, accomplishing what he failed to do with bloodshed over many years. he has yet to live that down. >> we just have a few minutes

left so, if it is ok, i will take three questions. i'm sorry. go ahead. >> that's okay. i think it is in complete at this point, but i would say he has not had the charisma to really motivate a lot of individuals. he has had many videos over the last year were two, but he had a whole series of videos in egypt. most of them are just abroad rhetorical tapes, whereas you see with other individuals, like those allegedly killed, he gives specific instructions on what libyans should do. i'm on sure that he has the capacity at this point to provide actual insight into true governance that we have seen at the local level that al qaeda in

the arabian peninsula has been trying to attest to and we are now we've been seeing this with al qaeda there. i am on sure that, while they may want to be involved in what is going on, they do not actually have the capacity to influence what is going on. instead, we're seeing these local groups rising up and being a key influence hours. now that there is a relative decline in all qaeda central, there has been a focus on the near enemy again, these individuals may not want to be involved in this broader global scheme that bin laden first put forward in the late 1990's. >> you can watch the entire discussion about al qaeda in d.c.'s ban video library. next, remarks by retired air force general and former cia director michael hayden on counterterrorism measures

against al qaeda and and the continuity in u.s. foreign policy from the clinton, bush, and obama administration. this is about one hour, 15 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much for that kind introduction, dean. you may have noticed in the short biography that i am not a graduate of the air force academy. i would ask you to take it easy on those cadets because in a year or two, they will be defending you. thank you for the opportunity to be with you here this afternoon. it is really an honor to be a part of this distinguished lecture series. i want to be worthy of that honor. i want to do and say something here this afternoon that adds to our national discussion and our debates about the world in which we find ourselves.

given the 11th anniversary of 9/11, i have asked if i could talk about law, policy, and teh war -- the war against al qaeda. we do bottom line up front. what i would hope to show to you in the next 35 minutes is to show all the sharp political rhetoric and we have risen at a consensus as to how we want to defend ourselves against this particular enemy. that is the end of the story. let me started at the beginning. let me start by actually referring to a mentor of mine. i worked for him in bush 41's national security council. he had an article that he had written for the atlantic council two or three months ago

in which she describes the world in which we're located now and compared it to the world in which she did most of his professional work. the way he described it was when he was in government, practically all the pieces on the board that he was concerned with or comprised of nation states. the way he nudged pieces of brown the board-- around the board would be hard power opposed to soft power or smart power. nationstates, hard power. but he then goes to point out is that in this era of globalization, practically everything that has happened for the past two decades, telecommunications, commerce, the internet, practically

everything that has happened has tended to weaken the nation states. as opposed to the era in which he grew up, the era of industrialization were practically everything seemed to strengthen the nation. your not all student-aged. think back to when telecommunications were such that they were either run by the state or run by a state government monopoly. remember those days? everything seemed to strengthen the state. in this current era, everything seems to erode the power of the state. there are lots of expressions of this erosion of the power of the state in this portion of power down below the state level to non-state actors even in the

direction of individuals. lots of expressions of that. if we were here for a different topic, we could fill this space this afternoon talking about cyber danger. someone in their mom's basement door their dad's garage could actually cause great harm, again a product of globalization pushing out. we talk about trans-national crime and what is going on in mexico and what it means for national security. certainly not a stage actor, but clearly and as a security impact, not only on mexico, but on us as well. the third area in which this brought phenomenon of globalization pushing power down is terrorism. look. i can remember the days when a religious fanatic in a cave near the hindu kush was not an item of concern. they are today.

it is because of this globalization, this connectedness, connectivity, powered down. now, even though everything he said is right, everything is moving in the direction of weakening nation states, it is, nonetheless, the nation state that you and i turned to to defend us. we still give the nation state the monopoly on the illegal use of violence in our run defense. -- legal use of violence. do you see teh tension? we have threats coming at us from new directions. we have old forms, nation states, to defend us. at the level of metaphysics, that is what happened to us on the morning of 9/11 back in

2001. the struggle of the nation states, hours, to deal with this new form of a threat, that is frankly when i'm here to talk about. this has us struggling. as i are ready suggested to you, i think we have broadly worked it out that there still lot of rough as around the edges as to how we want to defend ourselves against a very atypical threat. everyone in this room knows where they were on the morning of 9/11. it is burned in your psyche for my parents' generation december 7th it is burned into theirs. i was the director the national security agency. it was an absolutely gorgeous day on the east coast. i do not think it got above 75. it was an absolutely cloudless sky. i remember staying up late the night before to watch monday night football, the opener of the new stadium in denver.

like most of us in the eastern time zone, you stayed up watching the end of the game. around 9:00, my executive existent -- assistant comes in and is the first report -- a plan has hit the world trade center. even though i'm in charge, one of the teams in charge, my instinct is problem the same as yours. probably an accident, probably a small plane. i go on with my meeting. 15-20 minutes later, she comes in and says a plane hit the other tower. immediately, you know this is not an accident. but i'll's all qaeda, get to that in a minute. i turn to my executive assistant and tell her to get the head of security appear right of way. as the head of security got

their baby 7, 8, 9 minutes later, kevin came in the door in my office and cindy is coming in through her door saying there are reports of explosions on the mall. like most reports, that is a reflection of the plane hitting the pentagon. kendis not even have a chance to talk. i did say all non-essential personnel out of the building now. he does an immediate about-face, makes the announcement and all non-essential personnel at headquarters in addition to being the national security agency doing work at fort meade in maryland, they begin to leave. i do not know exactly how many left and how many stayed. we have about 15,000 people to come to work every day and easily more than 5000 stayed of

essential personnel. if you have ever seen those photos of nsa, if you can't remember it, check out the members of nsa with those two highrise buildings. for reasons that should be obvious to this group now, i said get everyone out of the high rises. we moved into a three-story building and i went down there. that's where all the wires came together for global communications. in addition to being safer, it's the place i would have wanted to be anyway. george was dci, director of the cia, and i said we could already celebratory gun fire, those

types of conversations. we knew it could only be the work of al qaeda. it got to be about dusk. one of my people came up to me and said the counter-terrorism people are a little off balance. you should probably talk to them. good idea. i went to the ctc shop, the counter-terrorism center, in one of the high rises near the top and they could not evacuate. we actualyl do work at fourt mead. it is not just the headquarters. they are doing real time work

and we cannot afford the break in coverage, the break in continuity of we say we're going to move all of your stuff, your files. it is just about dusk. i can see the sky darkening through the windows in the office. most of the individuals were arab-americans. you can imagine the professional trauma, the personal trauma, the national trauma that all of them must have felt. this is "hand on shoulder" time. "i appreciate you being here," things like that. trying to touch all the

operators. part of the nsa logistics force was in the room. it's dusk. they were tacking up blackout curtains on the windows of this office building in glen burnie, maryland. i could not see it from that room, but if i had been 150 feet higher, i could see fort mchenry, one of the last areas of the united states to be bombarded by an invading enemy. i thought things were going to be really different around here tomorrow. we had entered into an entirely new era.

we were going to go fight an enemy, using my own history background, that did not accept the nationstates chess board. they thought they were an affront to god because it went against the world league individual. it also rejected it geneva. -- it went against the worldly individual. janine has a distinction between combatant and non-combatant. this enemy did not make the distinction between those they killed or even themselves. in that all of their inherent --

adherants were combatants, jihadists, in their eyes. harkening back to how i began, there is a security structure built on geneva meeting an enemy that was constructed on neither of these premises. beyond that, we have figured out how to make ourselves both secure and free. we decided stuff into bins. we put all of the domestic stuff over here. we put all of the intelligence derived information over here. we put all the law-enforcement stuff over here. and now, here was an enemy

living between foreign and domestic, intelligence and law enforcement. for god's sake, one of them stayed in a hotel 4 miles from my headquarters prior to the attack. you see the challenge. we have all kinds of institutions. how do you adapt your institutions to the new threat? two days after 9/11, i give a talk to the nsa work force. actually, it was an empty room. i was in front of a tv camera. nsa, being what it was, everyone could see me globally at their workstations. i still have a copy of this speech. i said some of the things you would expect.

job one is the fence. attack characterization. is there a second wave? what else is coming towards us? we are playing defense now. i know a lot of folks had difficulty with their family members coming to work. one incident about a spouse throwing themselves over the front of a vehicle saying, "don't go." when needed to say something about the people who were there. i simply said, "i want to thank you for being here. i know you probably have family members worried about you. look on the bright side -- 300 million americans right now wish they had your job." are really did it and the talk with this. all free peoples have to figure out where in that continuum

between liberty and security, where do you want to end up? we are americans. we have always to put our banner over here close to liberty. what happened two days ago is going to cause an awful lot people to think about picking that banner up and moving it down the continuum in the direction of security. let me tell you what your job is. your job is to keep america free. you make americans feel safe again. i did in all modern dress back o in 2007.

we wanted to keep this nation safe without changing our dna as a people. that was really hard work. that was really challenging. it was really, really contentious. you have seen this play out politically. you have seen this play out in the national press. you have seen this played out with politicians perhaps on the right side criticizing the current president for not doing this or that. you saw the current president talking about how we have lost our way, lost our values. you have the current attorney general from 2008 talking about how there must be a reckoning because of the way the previous administration had acted in the face of this new and unprecedented threat. let me give my hypothesis.

despite the frequent drama at the political level, america and americans have a found a comfortable center line in what they want their government to do and what did is they accept their government doing. it is that practical consensus that has fostered such powerful continuity between two vastly different presidents, george w. bush and barack obama, when it comes to this conflict. let me start with the most fundamental continuity between the 43rd and the 44 presidents of the united states. both have said we are at war. both have said we are at war with al qaeda and its affiliates. i was watching president obama is an operation and carefully looking for signals with regards to this very fundamental thing.

he actually said, "we are a nation at war," which was somewhat satisfying for someone from my background. no one would argue we were at war in iraq or afghanistan. i wanted evidence he believed we were at war with the groups that had attacked us on 9/11. in august 2009, my wife and i were in phoenix, ariz., for a vfw convention. president obama was the speaker. the president explicitly said, "we are at war with al qaeda and its affiliates." foreign and domestic, law enforcement intelligence. the president was going to use all the authority he had in his

backpack like his predecessor. law enforcement authorities when they were useful, but he would not limit himself just to law enforcement authority. he would actually use his authority as commander in chief. after a few weeks in office, president obama was awarded the nobel peace prize. some have said he wanted because he was not president bush and the europeans wanted to confirm that fact. do you recall his acceptance speech in scandinavia? do you recall at the scene at? i watched him carefully. he was here at the protium -- podium and teh camera is here. you can see teh back o -- the back of the president, the nobel

committee, and all the dignitaries. everyone remembers it the way i do. as the president is giving his speech, you look at the facial expression of the people who have just given him the nobel prize and it looked as if every one of their dogs have been run over by a bus. they had the most somber, sad look on their faces because president obama fundamentally was giving them a lecture on just war theory and how from time to time it was his authority to use force to protect america and americans. i was invited to the german embassy in spring 2007. i have been director of the cia for about one year.

the germans were in the chair of the european union. as a matter of courtesy, the german ambassador to the united states would, about every two weeks, have the other ambassadors from the other state of the european union over for lunch. germany is in the chair, the ambassadors from the americas to the eu states would come over for lunch. then he would have an american come in and beat the lunchtime entertainment. they would give a lunchtime talk. i expect secretary of state, secretary of defense. they invited me, the director of the cia. i have representative from every country in the european union there. what would make an interesting speech?

renditions,bout detentions, and interrogations'. [laughter] so i did. i began the conversation -- i had a great staff at the cia. you are blessed with the talent and morality of people in your service. i had a wonderful staff to make great speeches. it was where i would let anyone go without the most irresistible temptation to fool with prose. this was so important that i wrote an awful lot of it. about page two or page 3 in that speech i said -- look. let me tell you what i believe, what my government believes, and what i believe my nation believes.

then i gave them these. number one, we are a nation at war. number two, we are at war with al qaeda and its affiliates. number three, this war is global in scope. number four, i can only fulfil my responsibilities by taking this fight to that enemy wherever he may be. no. 5, al qaeda is global. there was not another representative in that room who agreed with those four sentences. i'm not saying they did not believe it for themselves -- they did not. they did not think it was legitimate for us to believe it. and yet, you have had two presidents, the congress, and the court system in essence sign off on all four of those

sentences. he died september 2009 killed by navy seals in somalia. he was the chief of operations for the al qaeda affiliate in the horn of africa. the navy seals approaches convoy in helicopters. according to press accounts, they made no attempt to capture. it destroyed the two vehicles, landed long enough to swab enough of him for dna to prove they got the right guy, and flew back to their carrier. i'm willing to hazard to you that there is not an intelligence service in western europe who would've given you the intelligence to do what we

just did. because of this fundamental disagreement that we believe that we're totally legitimate in conducting a targeted the killing outside of internationally recognized theaters of combat. let's fast-forward. let's go to may, the death of bin laden. you all know the story, right? we followed the courier network. we built it up. they led us in. leon panetta is building up the case, trying to give the president confidence without getting too close. the president has to make a decision and we decide to go. they snap off, go in, kill a

courier. kill one of bin laden's sons. they see bin laden. depending on what version you are following now, the white house version or the new book by this seal, they shoot bin laden and radio geronimo ekia. killed inbin ladinen, action. it was exciting for those who have been following him for a decade. just forget me. let me read run that. let me describe this for you in a slightly different way. the heavily armed agent of the

united states government facing an unarmed man offering no visible resistance shot and killed him. wanted in theman american judicial system for crimes against the united states. if you do not believe we are at war, you have to read it according to this. only if you believe we are way, do -- war, do you believe what the seasl did was a legitimate action. there is an underpinning here. we are at way. -- we are at war. we are at war. targeted killings have continued. if you look at the statistics,

they have increased under president obama. renditions, that is the extra- judicial movement of suspected terrorists from a to b. our policy under president obama is the same as it was under president bush, the same as it was under clinton. powerful continuity. guantanamo. i know president obama said after taking office he would close a guantanamo and he did not. why didn't he? because of a bipartisan political consensus in congress supported broadly by public opinion that he shouldn't. back to continuity because we americans have agreed on a course of action. indefinite detention. eric holder wanted to try khalid sheik mohammed, the architect.

is being tried by a military commission in guantanamo. when attorney general eric holder was asked, what if he is acquitted in the article 3 accord in new york?" the attorney general said we would hold him anyway as an enemy combatant, indefinite detention. the same as his predecessor. there is powerful continuity here. state secrets. the bush administration was criticized for invoking the state secret argument when many of the things i just described to you have been contested in the american court system. the bush administration said we cannot argue about that in court because it will reveal things that are still contested in america. despite a campaign that was based upon a very powerful promise of transparency,

president obama has used the state secrets arguments in a variety of courses as much as president bush. obamaateful for president using the state secrets argument to stop some of these, but i am personally named in some of these courts. [laughter] the one in which i am most personally named is what bush called the terrorist surveillance program which "the new york times" called the domestic service program, intercepting messages entering or leaving the united states that we believed were affiliated with al qaeda. there is a big expos in "the new york times" in 2005 that won a pulitzer prize for one of the authors.

let's talk a little bit about that. this terrorist surveillance program. i think it actually enlivens something i'm trying to describe to you. remember i said, for an and domestic, law enforcement, intelligence, with an enemy here at the scene? the 9/11 commission recognize that. the 9/11 commission criticized my agency, the nsa, for being a little too timid when it came to trying to intercept terrorist communications, particularly terrorist communications that may involve u.s. persons. in other words, communications here in the united states. remember i said i was down in the operations building and we begin playing defense before go on offense?

as the director of nsa, you have a fair amount of authority. you can dial things up, get more aggressive. you cannot be haphazard about it. you have to sell it to congress. guess what i did about 11:00 morning of 9/11? if i had the authority to ratchet it up, i did. i call the head of the american intelligence and the heads of the house and senate intelligence committees. i told george. we were getting a bit more aggressive and the higher probability that we could intercept those types of messages that would tell us about the next attack. i did not hear from george for two or three days. and he says i visited with the

president and vice-president dan i told them when you were doing. i said he was going to go to jail and i would bail him out. i was being aggressive but i was doing it within my authority. he was then asked if he could do anything more. so george calls me. the president and vice president said it was great but if i could do anything more. i said, and george, not within my current authority. george said, what to do if you have more authority? i'll get back to you. i huddled up with my people and we decided there were some things we could do. i would need more authorization. it was not inherent.

we took it down to the president and president, using his article two authority as commander in chief as a nation at war against an opposed, armed enemy force and the congress has already passed it would is as close to a declaration of war in modern america. and the president has said it will lay the things out, i think they're good. go do them and i authorize them to do it as commander in chief and the attorney general signed off. i have the authority. i went back to fort meade and i took this question to my lawyers. remember the framework. a new kind of threat, an old kind of structure. how do you adopt for the new reality? i went to my three top lawyers

individually and they said we believe the government has the authority to authorize you to intercept. i cannot go into details, but fundamentally, a higher probability that you will intercept the communication, one end of which may be in the united states, relating to al qaeda. "the new york times" blue that story in december 2005. for those of you who follow it, you remember the visit to the attorney-general ashcroft's hospital room march 2004. if that intrigues you, write it on one of the cards and ask a question.

this was incredibly contentious. was it legal? you bet. the people in the appellate court ruled on this twice and i will give you one of the appellate readings. the president has inherent constitutional authority to conduct surveillance without a warrant for foreign intelligence services. politically, this is a nuclear detonation. ok. sorry. that is a long buildup. we will fast-forward the tape. we are now in 2008. congress in 2008 is about to amend the foreign intelligence surveillance act, the law that governs everything am describing to you here. there are sharp debates. senator obama opposes the law.

the president changes his mind and votes for the amendment to the act. the act not only legitimate did everything the prelate of bush had told -- everything that president bush had told me to do but it gave the national security agency a great deal more authority to do these kinds of things. that is a long and involved segue here to come back to the point that, as contentious as that was, as bitter as the fighting was in 2005 when the story broke, and legislation passed three years later that not only legitimate set but expands it. why? because, frankly, i think we have got powerful, broad

agreement that we have to do some things differently. now, i have made the point of the continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president. obviously there were some differences. the most fundamental difference has to do with detainee's. president obama became president and the promise to close guantanamo, something he was not able to do, but he closed down the cia black sites where we held al qaeda senior leadership for interrogation under special rules that we were authorized by president bush. that is a long and contentious argument. honest men different to the wisdom of that policy. i was comfortable with because for two or three years we maintain the black sites even though we had few people in them. i thought it was a necessary tool in the fight against al

qaeda. president obama on january 22nd directed that we close the black sites and also directed that all interrogations' would be done in accordance with the army field manual, not in accordance with some of the techniques that cia had approved. if you go to cia.gov . to our public affairs site, messages to the work force from january 22nd, 2009, i am still director, and you can see my note to the work force reflecting president obama as executive order. what i said to the work force was, "president obama has given us exactly what we need. president obama has given us clear lines within which he wants us to operate.

these are different than the lines we had before, but our only requirement is that the lines are clear. we will be as aggressive and as successful in the new box as we were inside the old box." as director, out of a sense of loyalty to the elected commander in chief, but intellectually, personally, i was supportive. what we need from the president is clear guidance. it's true. it remains true. i meant what i just said. i never expected that we would actually get out, as a nation, of the detention business. i defy you to think of anyone we have captured and held outside of iraq or afghanistan since january 2009.

we have given up detaining people. for those be following a long, there was one caught between yemen and somalia who was kept on a u.s. navy ship for six weeks. other than him, i know of no example. much of our intelligence comes from detainee's. this is the one at this continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president. we have made it so politically dangerous and so legally difficult that we don't capture anyone anymore. we take another option. we kill them. now, i do not morally opposed that. this is an opposing armed enemy force. i only put two pitched --

additional people in guantanamo in 2007-2008. we're losing the opportunity to interrogate and learn about our enemy. --eally do think we've plural, not as the president or cia, this is the one area where we not yet worked out a consensus. so, we will not really capture, detained, or hold anyone and we are not convinced that we can put into an article 3 court at the end of the convention -- detention. which is a far cry from what the geneva convention, loss of armed conflict, and logic of being a nation at war suggests we should do. so, if i am looking forward, right? truth here, i am an advisor to

the romney campaign. not an advocate. if we are looking forward, i expect there to be some continuity between a president romney and his predecessor as well, if that were to come to pass. it will carry over from 4445. the only additional difference might be that we actually look for ways to capture and detain people without needing to be c.s. in miami at the crime scene in order to create the predicate for a criminal case in an article 3 court. i can actually envisioned someone -- please, do not read in that this is the governor's intent, but i could see someone saying that we could put more people in guantanamo because we are a nation at war and we do have the right to detain enemy combatants. as i told you up front, amazing

continuity. we have to find a centerline. by and large, we are kind of ok. the targeted killing program? the one that our european allies dislike? 72% of you think that is a good idea. hard to get 72% of americans to agree on anything. one final point before we open up to questions and answers. you just had a 39 year military officer talk to you for 40 minutes without a power point slide. [applause] but if i had that slide, here is where i would need it. since i do not have it, i am going to do hand puppets, all right? if this is what we are doing now, everything i have described

to you, most of the things that we used to worry about are up here. 9/11? up here. i am saying that we are stopping this kind of stuff. airline fought over the pacific? east africa embassies? up here. 2006 airline plot out of the united kingdom. the reason you cannot take your after shave through the checkpoint? what al qaeda really wants is that last attack against the iconic target. because of 11 years of this -- i never say never, as we are pessimistic intelligence officers -- so, what are we

seeing now? we are seeing some stuff down here. we are looking down the road to christmas day, 2009. we are seeing a terrorist driving from denver to new york to put explosives in the new york subway station. we are seeing a drive-by shooting in little rock, arkansas. do you see what i am trying to describe it? secretary in the paula tonneau -- secretary napolitano, which she has said publicly is the future allocate attacks against america will be less well- organized, less complex, less likely to succeed because of

this. they are just going to be more likely. if you look at these kinds of attacks out here, i know you were watching american football game, but looking at what the rest of the world calls football, this is penalty kicks. no matter how good the goalie, sooner or later the ball goes in the back of the net. now, the question i have for you, talking about continuity and structure, making adjustments, what did i just tell you? not likely to happen? probably will? what do you want me to do with my left arm? because i can move it. i can push it down.

i can push to make it less likely. the question i have for you is -- would it be private? what about your convenience? what do you want to give up? i am not a free agent here. i am your servant. you have got to give me some guidance. more candid, how much more did you want to take off? what we need as a nation going forward is the continuation of the very tough, sometimes overly bitter conversation we have had to get us here. do you want us to get more likely to do this? or are you willing to live with that? and if you are willing to live with that, and if you are asking my personal view, i kind of them, do we have a metaphor for

shaking hands? because if we say no, this is as far as we want you to go to guarantee security, you get the point. if i say -- i can do more, let me know, you said we are cool, the patriot act is far enough, then you have to have the understanding that when bad things happen, bad things happen. no one did anything wrong in terms of the people defending you. nothing is broken. it is just the natural consequence of balancing the liberty of a free society with security. we have worked a lot of it out. we still have some homework assignments. that is why i came, to kind of share that with you. only an informed citizenry can

form the government where it is that you want your security services to be as we go forward in this world that is still quite dangerous. with that, let me stop and take any questions i may have generated. [applause] >> good afternoon, sir. my name is christina, massachusets student at the gerald ford school for public policy. the first question from the audience -- there have been reports that al qaeda units have been operating alongside the free syrian army. given that the u.s. was discreetly supporting them, how do we avoid supporting al qaeda? >> vitter everyone here that question? how're you doing?

>> there have been reports that al qaeda units have been operating alongside the free syrian army. given that the u.s. has been discreetly supporting the free syrian army, how do we avoid supporting al qaeda. >> ok, syria, al qaeda, growing in strength. the best opposition is al qaeda. what do you do? this kind of question makes me delighted that i am out of government. this really is a problem from hell. just one moment of background, what you have there now is an opposition against the regime playing on videos that you and i are watching every night. the popular image of that is the oppressed against the oppressor. that is true. but there is another story line, and this is where intelligence come in.

it is not just oppressor and oppressed. ni allowhite. and a bunch of other groups as well. kind of trending towards the regime, because it is the devil that they know. until those other groups vote, as true as it is, that is not the defining narrative. this is an absolute magnet drawing allocated into this fight. the longer this goes, in my view, the more the al qaeda character grows, which is a very dark picture, which suggests to you that we should act more quickly before this becomes

outdated-flavored as a movement. i have already told you that it is sectarian. you want to get involved in another sectarian conflict? it is quite a dilemma, but the scenario as you laid it out is correct. these guys are prepared to die, to kill. if you fight someone who you think is your oppressor and you are ready to die, ready to kill, they will end it. you are not going to get to ask too many questions. the longer this goes on, the more that is the reality. >> hello, i am also from the ford school. thank you for being here. as the universe -- u.s. fights groups that do not honor the geneva convention, our responses include attacking targets that have non-combatants. are we not irreparably damaging

the geneva convention? >> it is impossible for me to comment on specific operations, so let me cut to my answer about technology, all right? without doing specifics on specific operations. as an air man, the drone -- we do think that there is a pilot, he is just remote. it gives you an unblinking stare at the target. this is not a fast-moving f-16 at 400 knots. that has to make a decision in a matter of a few seconds. hours can be there for hours, if not days, giving you a god's eye view of the circumstances.

are you sure that is who you believe it is? are there any non-military age males or females there? when was the last time you saw them there? if we were to attack this, what weapon would you recommend? what about the weapon in from the northeast as opposed to the southwest? do you believe the probability of death or injury, coming from this way to the way? it gives you the opportunity to be almost explicit in your precision. in one sense we are rejecting the premise of the question, that the use of these is a collateral damage engine. quite the opposite, it gives you the opportunity to go to an incredibly high standard to avoid collateral damage.

>> given that the war on the al qaeda has focused in recent times in pakistan and the different -- diplomatic difficulties there, what is the future of the strategic partnership? most are concluding that the defensive is now irreconcilable >> this is something that we work on a lot. the current staff was my counterpart. a wonderful man and a wonderful officer. as you might a imagine, i went to islam a bad -- is, bob -- islamabad more than once. i would go to their for a variety of reasons.

there were kind of airline shares, even though it was transport aircraft. i would have all 17 hours to read the books and master whenever topic we were about to go talk to him or his successor about. hold that thought. what constitutes pakistan? what is the fundamental blue? we are together because of an idea, frankly. clearly, it is not blood. it is belief in a political principle. you get to be one of us by signing on. you could be an individual turkish descent.

you could be a german from the middle of the 19th century. it is not india. i do not mean to make light of this and i am oversimplifying, but there is if point to be made here. mastering the case, no matter what is in those books or what it is i am kinda convince them of, it is two things. number one, quit obsessing about the indians.

number two, let's talk about making war on this slice. that is a heart conversation, do you not think? this is really basic, almost primal. it gets them away from the constructive relationship. i am not blaming anyone is just the nature of reality at this moment. >> what effect does sequestration have on defense capabilities? >> secretary panetta would say catastrophic. i agree. this is another half of $1 trillion. fundamentally in an orderly way

, it can probably even more cuts. but it cannot digest them away secant -- sequestration says to digest them, which is taking every account and take 11% of it. imagine year-old household account. you cannot juggle the money, you have to take 11% out of everything you have. know what happens if you are 11 cents short on your mortgage? that is what sequestration does the department of defense. ok? >> if we are at war with al qaeda and its associates, how will we know when we have one? what will it signify? >> i had notes here, you saw me go back occasionally to make sure i was not wandering too far. this is the last page. how do i know i am done.

[laughter] that is a really good question. i have used to much of your time. i am happy someone brought that up. the real answer is i do not know. that is a really good question and it is a question you should continue to ask folks like me. how do i know that we are safe enough that it is time to shift out of that? this is based upon an intelligence judgment. and this is americans talking to

americans, ok? do you know the degree of political courage to scale back of this thing? frankly, you make yourself politically vulnerable. if we ever get to that point, it will really have to be based upon a national bipartisan consensus. it cannot be -- if i start -- stop doing this, i have been exposed eggplant. back to the point i was trying to suggest, this test with a product of a very sincere dialogue. i want you to raise your left on this time. we understand, we are all in agreement. that is fundamentally what the question is. we are not at that point, in my

judgment. that point will come sunday and we will have to have the courage to adjust them. >> what abouthe diplomatic level dealing with al qaeda? is there anyone to deal with? >> what are other departments going to do to deal with al qaeda and are there other ways to deal with them. i will take that question and run it about 20 degrees, right here, and answer the question that i wish it was. you had me talking about targeted killings, renditions, guantanamo, saying -- hey, that is the for-. -- hey, that is not going to happen. in dealing with today's threat, dealing with human being the fourth to be your fault -- do you harm, your government is really good. it really is.

we have kept the republics so say -- this is the fourth five -- they often do not come at us, they come at other people now. that is an unintended byproduct that is a reality. by an american military terms, this is a close. the guy who is already convinced he will kill you. the to fight is about the production rate of people trying to kill you in six, 12, 18, or 24 months. as successful as we have been, we did this in the cold war, remember, the best army in germany.

while we held the soviets, we had this week ideological concept. whenever it is the to think of communism -- i think it is a bad. history, let alone government, you cannot argue that communism is a western philosophy. it was written by a german in a library in london. we were scrubbing it up ideologically. fast-forward to this heat war. these guys are convinced they want to kill us? we are stopping them. the production rate back here is fundamentally about one of the group -- the world's great islam.

and what it really means. we do not have a lot of authenticity there. i know, i know, we are a multi- cultural society. fundamentally. it is very hard to get seriously involved in telling the general body of believers this. try to make it worse as soon as we getting gauged in that fight. we are not doing much. 18 months ago, you had this wave of protest and revolution. syria, yemen. the heartland of al qaeda.

al qaeda was absolutely irrelevant to it. they were relevant to the movement. this was about responsible government. with a minute, we know something about this stuff. as destructive as the arab spring has been, coughing up some serious diplomatic corps counter-terrorism challenges, over the longer term it has created a new dialogue. in dialogue over which we have genuine legitimacy. for the first time, weakening

gauge i of the steeper ideological conflict in a way that we never have before. at the end of the day, that means other elements of the american government needing to get into this diplomatically, politically, economically. it is not ours to control or shape, but we can fashion a positive movement about which we have not had an opportunity for the first nine years of this war. >> general, this is the last question. how does the new phenomenon of homegrown terrorism fit into the category? >> that is a great question. a lot of these for homegrown. u.s. citizens, not even green

cards. the first thing i would point out to you is that this problem is not the zero. all right? this self-radicalized issue is not zero. but the numbers much lower than the west. we do not have the same problem that the british have. why? the cia is better? no. it is because of who we are. we are an immigrant people. the average income in the united states is above the national average. there is no reason to despair about this, but there will be issues.

this is the we are at war or is it a law-enforcement problem issue. my personal view, it would be incredibly rare case where this triggers the we are at war approach. i cannot imagine all future circumstances. this is a job for the fbi, not the cia. by the way, by and large, most of the information that we knew, we knew it about the guy coming in to try, and it was derived from foreign.

our base of knowledge of him was foreign intelligence. to me the right entry point was enemy combatant, n.h. -- agent of war, deal with it that way. the roots of the information are that we should treat this as a law enforcement problem. in broad measure, my sense is that that is how we should do with it. thank you all for coming here this afternoon. i hope you have left with more questions than it had and you came in. that was my intent. they you for giving me the opportunity. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> i watch c-span because i feel it is important to be knowledgeable about what is going on in the world and i feel that c-span gives the most information on what is going on in a certain suspect -- subject, while lots of television is not do that. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979. drop by your cable television provider. >> it is offensive to have people take on the position of public trust, then abuse it.

to do it in such a way that they thumb their noses at individuals. this sounds like a stretch, but you can tell that to me. they turn to their supporters. wrong, out to get me. they're doing it because i am black or because they do not care about you. the use those arguments and the supporters believe them. >> tonight, corruption in the district of columbia government. now, i look at the foreign policy differences between president obama and that romney with officials from the clinton and obama administration, including madeleine albright. this is about one hour and a half.

>> [unintelligible] pleasure to welcome our distinguished panel and all of you to our discussion today. i would like to include all of you who are watching the live webcast. i want to take the effort unity to recognize the institute and the leadership coalition. today's topic is the future of u.s. global engagement. as a member of the corporate community, chevron surly recognizes american foreign policy, such as development in diplomacy as critical to the nation's economic security. 99% of the consumers live outside the united states and it is increasingly clear that the

prosperity is linked to prosperity for of the world. we all have a stake in the future of america's role in the world. it is very important that the leaders continue to hear our unified voice about the significance of greater engagements in the global community. we have a star-studded event this morning and i would like to introduce you to the chairman of the u.s. global leadership commission. in addition here, that is the fall full voice policy during his 18 years. without further ado, please join me in welcoming him. >> thank you, everyone. i have the privilege of opening

this and i want to briefly tell you that the leadership coalition is a broad based group of military folks, veterans, and a lot of other folks. we believe that america must be a strong leader in the world and that leadership is strengthened by using all the tools of national security. i have the honor of introducing our first speaker. a longtime friend who can share with us the experiences of this administration. as a white house chief of staff budget deputy secretary, working

with hillary clinton, jack was instrumental in implementing the first quadrennial diplomacy review. i was fortunate to have him there during my time as secretary of agriculture. jack has been a great friend to me and this community and to the whole efforts of the united states being gauged throughout the rest of the world. the heat for being with us today. please welcome him to the stage. thank you. good morning, everyone. i have had the pleasure of working with than in the public sector and private sector. thank you for your many contributions as a public and private citizen.

everyone here at the u.s. global leadership coalition and national democratic institute, thank you for the work you do every day. thank you, welcome to charlotte, welcome to the united states. one of the challenges in sustaining american " -- global leadership, 10 years ago, that might have been true. critics of foreign assistance often have the run of the field , with water -- little competition or pushed back. today the global leadership coalition is a strong and vibrant voice for engagement and funding, which is essential in a dangerous world. i would like to thank you for the great work you do. thank you for the work you do in

building this better world. as president obama has said, the united states has remained an indispensable nation in global affairs. all of your indispensable partners. i like to offer a scene set for the speakers. i do this as someone who is privileged to sit in a front row seat when president obama and secretary clinton restored are standing in the world. i was honored to serve -- honored to serve secretary clinton, where i had the great privilege to co-chair the review. strengthening our civilian powers as chief of staff, i have served the president in his

legacy issues, even as he pursues his own legacy issues. specifically, i would like to discuss the president's efforts to refocus american foreign policy. this enhances the security and prosperity within the united states. remember the challenges that he faced when he came to office. four years ago the united states was engaged in two wars. many of our alliances are deeply strained. we were reeling from a financial crisis and the worst recession since great depression. today, we see a very different reality.

president obama kept his promise to end the war in iraq. today there are no u.s. troops fighting and dying in iraq. al qaeda's leadership has been decimated. osama bin laden is no longer a threat to the world. the taliban has been pushed back and next year afghanistan will take the lead for security across the country. 2014, the transition will be completed. nothing illustrates this dramatic shift in foreign policy more than the number of americans serving in my arms way. when the president took office, there were 180,000 u.s. troops in iraq and afghanistan. 180,000. with the removal of the troops from iraq and the troops ordered into afghanistan, we will reduce

that number by two-thirds. in other words, most of the troops have come home. ending these wars is the prerequisite promised by the president when he came to office. so much of our policy resources have been consumed by the wars in iraq and afghanistan. as we emerge from a decade of war, we revel to expand and pursue smarter engagement in the world. in this changing and challenging international environment, it is the power of our values.

we must balance and integrate elements of american power to include modernizing the capabilities. you see this in diplomacy generally and in the affairs budget specifically. with significant increases in the midst of difficult trade- offs, i would like to thank so many of you for standing up and being there has forceful advocate for the investors. it is one of the smartest investments we can make, the president believes. huge dividends for our collective prosperity and security tomorrow. it is not just the right thing, it is the smart thing to do. the changing nature of our

foreign policy, there has been a fundamental change in the foreign service as well. serving behind embassy walls, reporting cables through our reach. our officers are in increasing expedition, not just posted in capitals, but remote and dangerous regions in rural afghanistan and iraq. bringing a new set of challenges. these patriotic americans have given the lives in line of duty. [applause] thanks to these americans, we

have harnessed are smart power and strengthened key alliances and are again leading in asia- pacific. we have engaged in multilateral institutions, working with russia for deployed nuclear warheads and the lowest level since the 1930's, mobilizing dozens of nations to secure a nuclear materials. the president has made it clear north korea and iran cannot be allowed to threaten the world with nuclear weapons. we are harnessing our economic power and finalizing trade pacts with colombia, panama, and south korea. working to open new markets for american businesses, increasing