excellent points. you have to come back to the causes of the financial crisis. you are right, the rating in the financial crisis. and subprime mortgage is played a part. one of the parts played in the financial crisis was excessive pay. it was pay that was encouraging these companies to take risks. and that is why it is so important for us to do the report that we did. i will give you a perfect example. you have loan officers at banks being paid bonuses and pay based on how many loans they created. not whether those were good loans. not taking into account whether the loans would later default and caused sick of it and losses. there were a number of different causes of the financial crisis. we tried to bring a lot of transparency to it, to report on that. we are also doing a lot of work

in this area to say what has not been dealt with. you are exactly right, fannie and freddie is not dealt with under dodd-frank. but let's talk about dodd-frank for a moment. there have been reforms to our financial system, but there needs to be significantly more. one thing about dodd-frank is it sets up a framework. but ultimately not all of the rules are implemented. there are very important standards that need to be set by the regulators and treasury. because what we are worried about is trying to protect americans in the event of another financial crisis. we do not want to be in a situation where one of the companies can bring down all of these losses in american jobs and american pensions and mortgages. we cannot be in one of those situations again. so, we are going to continue to raise the alarm and say there has to be more work done. and it is not going to be easy. and there is a lot of heavy

lifting. one of the things to me quite disgusting is you have all of these companies to take the bailout dollars, and then they turn around and repay treasury and then what they do is to put all of the money into lobbying against reform. they want to go back to usual. it is going to take a lot of courage and stealing -- steely resolve from treasury and regulators to get a better situation. part of the framework is there but a lot needs to be done. apart is the interconnectedness i talked about earlier. we can't have a situation where companies are too interconnected to fail. risk-management has got to improve. you'll have a situation where a lot of the company did not understand the risk they have related to subprime mortgages. another example that shows it continues today -- libor manipulation. j.p. morgan's london whale, where they did not even

understand their risk, let alone management. and regulators have to supervise that to protect all of us. host: our caller mentioned gretchen mark gunston, a writer at "the new york times," -- you can find it on the web site, the video library but archives. rich demuro, special inspector general for tarp, -- christy romero. she has had prior roles at sigtarp and was also at the u.s. securities and exchange commission who -- and served as counsel to mary schapiro and christopher cox. and investigative financial fraud, insider trading and other violations of securities law. she spent time as a litigator. her jd is from brigham young law school and she went to school here, old dominion university.

the special inspector general from tarp and a recent report. treasury continues approving excessive -- excessive pay. on twitter -- is this all hindsight? guest: it is interesting. one of the things we constantly report on is things that should have been done better. you have to respect that a lot of decisions were made with a sense of urgency. but the compensation decisions were not. there was plenty of time to set up a good system for that. and even for the discount -- for the decisions that were made in a rush, it is really important we point out how things could have been done better. let's say we get and the situation where there is another crisis. and treasury and the regulators are running around with a sense of courtesy in an emergency trying to fix things. ultimately you have to have a

playbook. you have to look at what happened last time, and also at our record on what could have been done better. so they have two playbooks and make better decisions and we do not end up repeating the mistakes. host: independent caller. ron. caller: thank you for your work in this area. you have been mentioning general motors and chrysler and gmac, and i know this because i work in the auto industry and i have relatives who work in the auto industry, that cerberus, private equity from out of new york, they owned chrysler before and right after the financial collapse, and owns a 51% of gmac. cerberus is not involved in now, but are you looking at compensation of people who had something to do with cerberus? and the gentleman mentioned something, the other caller, about standard and poor's.

the reason cerberus got 51% of gmac, which was the moneymaking part of general motors, their achilles' heel -- general motors gave ford and gm junk- bond status in 2004 and 2005 and it kind of led to the chain of events where servers got a hold of gmac. cerberus was run by people from both the bush administration's, investors in managers. i think you should also be looking at them as well. guest: i think the caller raises an excellent point. these were complicated. when you look at some of the bailout and what came out of it, you have to look at the structure and the owners of structures that happen when the government forces restructurings, and as a result, new owners come out. cerberus was one of those.

as far as their compensation, it does not fall under treasury's per view, which is really just the top 25 employees at the top companies themselves. you raise an interesting point. one thing i want to raise and make clear, we are conducting audits, reviews, investigations on anything related to tarp. and i want to just throw out our hite -- hot line information. we have a hot line of the public can call in and give information that they think we should be looking at. any information that they know. often the public knows a lot more may be that we don't know. maybe you know somebody in the industry. maybe you work in one of the industries and have information. i want to give our hot line information because it is very, very critical. www.sigtarp.gov, but there is also a phone in line --

we have had extraordinary calls coming into the hot line and have been able to do fantastic work, i think, on behalf of the people who has given us information. host: what are people calling about? guest: a lot of our calls result in issues about holding. really, the tarp housing programs have had a lot of problems. a lot of frustration for people who could not get the help -- help they need. let me give you one example. there are con artists out there right now will call up struggling homeowners and they say, don't pay your mortgage and don't talk to your lender, and i will guarantee that if you pay me i will make sure you get your mortgage payment lowered through the housing program called hamp, or sometimes they say the obama plan. they will say i am an expert. or they may say they are

affiliated with the program. they take people's money and a skip town. what we do is we kept them, we put handcuffs on them, and we put them in jail and make them stand trial and a for their crimes. these people are being convicted and going to jail. this is an unscrupulous, to have a crime that is targeting people who are struggling during this financial crisis. we get calls related to those. we are trying to educate homeowners about that so they did not become victims in the first place. but a lot of people will lose their homes of the situation. host: christy romero, special inspector general for tarp. the question about the teeth -- question of to this executive pay, if treasury signed off on it, what can sigtarp really do? guest: we make recommendations to treasury and a half to be

dealt with. we also report to congress. we send these reports to congress and congress helps put teeth in it. but a ultimately we have a lot of recommendations that are not implemented and they need to be. this is an example that shows how bad it can be a treasury does not implement the recommendation. i am looking forward to a new secretary of treasury coming in to talk about those recommendations and changes that can be made. and we will not give up. we will look at 2013 pay. we will not stop. because alternately we are here to protect taxpayers. host: amelia, ohio. democrats' line. caller: how are you? my question is about the tarp situation. these people who were sent to prison or being investigated for the tarp, i think these people -- the american people to not

really know who these people are. there should be published a list or something brought forward so the american people can see this on a monthly basis and kind of gives a feel and know who they are. i think also it might work out as a streamline to it in prison these people -- to it in prison these people and pay for their part -- imprison these people and make them pay for their part. guest: we are trying to get the word out on what we are doing in the law enforcement side. we put press releases out every time there is an arrest or bring criminal charge or conviction or bring prison sentence on www.sigtarp.gov. we will continue to get the word out and look at this. you raise an interesting point about bringing money back. that is something i want to raise.

not only do our investigations result in prison sentences or other very serious repercussions, but also we bring money back in terms of court orders for the return of money to victims or the government. so far, we have been able, as a result of our investigations, to get orders from the court for more than $4 billion to come back. that is our way of turning our keep and making sure there is accountability. because there can be accountability in terms of prison sentence but they have to pay the money back. when the rip-off the government or bring they rip off struggling homeowners or than others, there needs to be accountability in terms of dollars. host: charles and louisiana on our republican line. where are you calling from in louisiana? caller: across the -- across the river from shreveport.

the lady on your show, what a breath of fresh air, trying to do right for us poor folks out here. god bless you and your family. my point is -- you got to bear with me. christopher dodd was walking down the hallway on c-span cameras, they captured him saying this -- why aren't you going to run for senate? his response was, countrywide is not going to let me. senator dodd and conrad both got for janel loans through countrywide. senator conrad just retired and like -- like senator dodd did not run for senate. those are his words, it c-span has it on camera. i want to know if you investigated him. thank god for c-span.

guest: thanks, charles but let me point out two things. first of all, we are working for everyone. if you ask me who i represent, i represent you, i represent everyone -- because we all pay for this bailout and we continue to pay for this bailout. as to what we are investigating, this is where i have to be sensitive. i will try to get as much transparency as i can. i have federal agents and investigators working for me, and because these are criminal investigations we have to be very, very careful on what we say in terms of who we are investigating and why we are investigating. part of that relates to the safety of our own agents. you can understand, sending our federal agents to arrest someone, i need to ensure their safety. for that, i cannot really talk about exactly what we are investigating. here is where i am going to recommend -- what i am going to recommend to you. one thing you can start to

track -- where there has been something public, like a criminal charge or arkansas rest or somebody who has been convicted and on to jail, we put out press releases on all of us and i encourage you to go to our website and look at that. what you can do is you can sign up to receive our press releases so you can see each time we do this. 120 people have already been criminally charged that result of our investigation. host: last caller -- plymouth, wisconsin. independent line. caller: good morning from plymouth, the wonderful heartland. i think it is disgusting what they do. but i wonder where they could get the idea -- that they can rip the taxpayer of 400 of millions of dollars with impunity? try the united states senate. 1400 days without passing a budget. yet it is mandated in law, that harry reid and his pals are supposed to pass one every year.

who is doing the investigation for that? host: before we let you go, what do you think about this report that sigtarp put out specifically looking at executive pay at bail out companies? caller: of course it is disgusting. but the senate gets paid for doing nothing. i wonder where they get the idea from? -- raise an important point. anybody who tries to rip off -- guest: you raise an important point. anybody tries to rip out -- representative off the taxpayer is reprehensible. we are coming out very aggressive on anyone in that investigation. those who may be thinking about that or doing that now should take a warning by the fact we are sending people to jail. host: christy romero is special investigator for tarp -- sigtarp for short. coming up next, our america by the numbers segment. looking at the health and life

expectancy of americans compared to other countries. we will be right back. >> having observed a steady improvement in the opportunities and well-being of our citizens, i can report to you the state of this old but youthful union is good. >> once again, in keeping with a time honored tradition i come to report to you on the state of the union. and i am pleased to report that america is much improved. and there is good reason to believe the improvement will continue in the days to come. >> my duty tonight is to report on the state of the union. not the state of our government, but our american community. and to set forth our

responsibilities, in the words of our founders, to form a more perfect union. the state of the union is strong. >> as we gathered tonight -- gathered tonight, our nation is in war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. yet the state of our union has never been stronger. >> it is because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward, and the state of our union is strong. >> tuesday, president obama delivers this year's address live on c-span. a reprieve -- preview program starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the president at 9:00, followed by gop response and reaction. tuesday night on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> the old north church is

ballston's most historic -- most visited historic site -- visit hisost historic side. what they did not realize is in fact what actually did in april of 1775 is still a genuine historical mystery. we have very few records about what actually occurred on the night that paul revere's plan got carried out in this very church. we know from mr. paul revere himself there was a plan and it had been set up ahead of time with members of the charlestown militias across the way. set up on sunday. what we do not know is who actually helped him carry of that plan. >> the mystery of ballston's old north church of lamp hangers on american art if it -- boston's old north church lance hangers

on american artifacts, c-span 3. "washington journal" continues. host: time for our weekly america by the number segment as we look behind the numbers about americans and a light tap -- life styles. we are talking about a new report looking at the health and life expectancy of americans and how it compares to other countries. it is a recent joint report from the national research council and institute of medicine. and we have but director -- national academy of sciences, laudan aron now with the urban institute. and also dr. stephen wolf, a virginia commonwealth university. thank you for joining us as well. here are the headlines that came out after your report. americans die younger than their peers. "the wall street journal" headline. for americans under 50, stark findings on help. americans are less healthy and

die younger than global peers. dr. stephen wolf, some this up for us. guest: you said it directly. we found a rather alarming findings that americans are living shorter lives than -- than our peers in other high income countries and i -- our kids are living shorter lives. it has been going on for some years, dating back to the 1980's. and not just limited to death rates but prevalence of a variety of diseases and injuries across the board. americans are less healthy than their peers in other countries. host: why are we seeing this? an overriding trend reason? guest: that was the main question our panel set out to understand. the scale of the problem -- we were not sure how bad this disadvantage was. and then once we learn how expensive it was -- and we can talk in more detail how far reaching the problem is -- to

try to understand how to explain it. the challenge was, we are at a disadvantage in some in the areas of health and injury that the causes are complex. we studied the role of the health care system, the public health system, our lifestyle and health behaviors, social and economic factors, the physical and social environment -- we did an extensive analysis to try to make sense why we have had the problem and have had so long. host: if you would like to join the conversation from eastern and central time zones -- mountain and pacific -- and if you are a health professional -- laudan aron, here are the numbers, and we see where the united states ranks in life expectancy compared to other countries.

who in the study are the comparison points and how the u.s. to? guest: the panel basically compared the health outcomes in the united states to 16 other high-income democracies. it western europe, canada, australia, japan. basically countries we consider our peers in a number of the means. we ranked dead last in life expectancy among males and the comparison group and next-to- last for females. life expectancy at birth is a cumulative indicator of multiple causes of death. but as we can see, we are not doing very well. host: the disadvantage appears to exist across all ages and demographics. do you have a sense of why? guest: well, one of the real striking findings was how many different domains we are falling behind on.

as dr. woolf said, this is over many decades. it includes not communicable diseases, injuries, motor vehicle fatalities. very different types of areas of health. so, the persistence across these very different domains was one of the really striking findings of the report. host: dr. woolf, "the new york times" put it in graphic form. younger americans have lower life expectancy than younger people and other countries and we more poorly than, for example, the older americans. you can see, this is your age and it shows you your life expectancy. why are younger americans especially in trouble? guest: we are actually concerned when we found they are in trouble in every age group, beginning at birth. our health disadvantage starts

at birth. american babies are less likely to survive to their first birthday than babies born in other higher income countries. and other outcomes like low birth weight and prematurity more common. but it is not limited to that. american children are less likely to survive to age 5 then children and other countries. the teenage years were in a period that really concern that. we found not only that american teenagers are more likely to die than teenagers in other countries -- and, by the way, that has been true since the 1950's -- but they also have higher rates of disease. american teenagers have the highest rates -- higher rates of sexually transmitted infection, hiv, teen pregnancy. we find high rates of obesity among american teenagers compared to others. and then as you get into young adults, you see the important impact, as well as teenage years, of injuries -- both car

crash fatalities, where we are the world leader, and also violent injuries -- homicide. again, much higher than the other high income countries. by the time people get into the middle age years, the high rate of chronic diseases start setting in. problems with diabetes and so forth. but we see a pervasive pattern cutting across many kinds of health problems that have different causes where america seems to not be keeping pace with other countries. host: let's go to the phones and hear from jeff joining us from texas. caller: how are you doing? the first thing that came to mind when i saw you were talking about young people in america who are just not really doing well. there are a number of reasons that contribute to this. we have a very high rate of obesity. we have become such a consumer society, just obsessed with just

eating and consuming and getting around in cars and not going out and exercising. and companies like monsanto and they have all these chemical engineer foods, which is really unhealthy food. they are taking over these small and local farms and the fda is allowing it. the fda is in bed with big pharma, feeding us full of these drugs that are synthetic and really not safe for people. it could give us a sense how old you are and what is your health -- host: give us a sense of how old you are and your help. caller: i am 20. my health is average right now. 220 pounds, i guess a little overweight. not necessarily obese.

so obvious growing up in this society, being raised by television and internet end of this giant capitalist society around us with constant -- and this giant capitalist society around us with advertising, it is that not only for physical health of mental health. i think a lot of what is going on is really just society has hold -- not just the market but what the government is doing with the market to try to control people and try to dumb us down. host: a response from laudan aron. tell us what you discover about the length of obesity and health? guest: there is no question we are an obese nation, especially compared to our counterparts. now, some of that maybe that we are the leading edge of a global trend. certainly many countries are

right behind us, both the high income democracies we compare ourselves to in this report, but also many other countries around the world. but it is big. and it is a problem. and it is certainly a big factor contributing to our poor health. host: the study says the u.s. has highest prevalence of adult obesity among 17 peer countries and all the other oecd countries. guest: can i add to that? just made two important points. the first, he is correct that obesity is a big issue. our report did document it. all age groups, including his, as higher obesity rates and the united states and other countries. but he also -- and we found a number of other unhealthy behavior is more common in the united states than other countries. not just caloric intake. for example, high rates of driving without seat belts.

of the highest class fatality rates involving alcohol. motorcyclist not wearing helmets. but he pointed out -- and this is something our panel believes strongly in -- our behaviors are very much influenced by our environment. our physical and social environment, public policy, and so forth. to some extent this is a matter of personal responsibility. people are obviously responsible for the help of choices they make. but the choices we have are very much influenced on the ability to act on those. if we live in a built in environment does not allow us to be physically active or the food choices are not helpful, it is hard to eat a healthy diet. some of these other countries with better outcomes made important strides making it easier for their population to adopt healthy behavior. the other thing i would add is that we would have actually liked it if we could wrap up the health disadvantage with the

explanation that we eat too much. but the health problems we found were so pervasive that we cannot blame all of it on that alone. it does not explain the car crashes and violent injuries and adverse birth outcomes and the other problems. host: touching on the food issue, a story from alabama news. at the university of alabama has a steady, a heavy southern diet is a recipe for stroke. vegetables, fruits, and beans reduce stroke risk. let's hear from civil from florida, a fitness advocate. caller: i am a fitness advocate and i mastered what i preach. every day i worked out in order tow orderork out in order to look at how to stay out of a

doctor's office. i tried to do my fitness routines, which also includes a product i developed. a lot of kids fall by the wayside -- in sports, you need an elite skill or size to compete. i recommend we open up the door when it comes to provide physical education for our youth -- not just elite sports but something simple of fun to do, tag ball -- www.tagballsports.oc. something everybody can play and have fun, even adults. host: our caller talked about fitness and lifestyle. laudan aron? guest: an interesting point was raised is the importance of

youth, and a panel honda and on that age group and that poor section of the life cycle -- our panel honed in on that age group. it is not just a risky behavior is, like risky sexual behavior is or gang involvement, or beginning smoking -- that is typically the age -- but also the point in the life course where a lot of lifelong health behaviors are set with respect to exercise and nutrition and healthy habits. so, it is a unique point of intervention both for families and communities and, of course, state and national policies. host: laudan aron, a senior research associate. at the time of the report she was the study director of the national academy of sciences. the report is a joint effort from the national research council and institute of medicine.

other guest dr. stephen woolf, virginia commonwealth centered on human needs. he was elected to the institute of medicine back in 2001. he is also associate editor for the american journal of preventive minute -- medicine. our next caller from jersey city, new jersey. caller: good evening. i just wanted to make a comment. i do think that this whole issue is very much an interesting issue. i do think it is a bit exaggerated. the thing is, things do happen. the whole talk about america's life expectancy may be lower than the other developed countries -- but i think unless we come up with innovative ways to bring it better met, alleviation for the health crisis, only thereafter we can really think about all of the solutions. i guess we are just beating

around the bush, as they say. host: avoiding what, exactly? caller: talking about the -- not really the solutions. what to do exactly. host: you would like to hear more recommendations? caller: absolutely. guest: the caller makes a good point. the third part of our report is all about recommendations. we feel that because of the gravity of our findings, our society, our country, our state and local communities really need to do something about this. we get into some detail about what we need to do. it is a call for action. host: tell us about the amount of money spent on americans in terms of health. nbc news says a federal government report says americans spent more than $8,600 per person on health care. is the money the problem, laudan aron? guest: a very interesting point, because we actually spend almost twice as much per capita as the

next highest country on health care. 17% to 18% of gdp. other countries are achieving vastly superior health outcomes at much lower cost. so, this is not a question of spending more. it is really a question of spending differently. one of their real values of a cross comparative analysis like that is that we can really see that other countries are achieving superior results. this is not a theoretical discussion any more. we can be doing better. it is not to say that everything these other countries is what we need to be doing necessarily. they are very different countries, many of them. but we can certainly be learning. this report provides a very eye opening fact base to figure out where we can start holding in attention. host: a nurse from vienna,

virginia. mary. good morning. caller: i have had some very -- i have been very interested in public health for a long time. i am wondering what the impact -- i have a couple of questions. the impact of gun violence on health longevity. i am also wondering about the argument that the reason our outcomes are that is because of our large immigrant population, and therefore they pull down our outcomes. i am wondering if you have data about the truth of that argument or not. what the impact of access is on our health outcomes.

also the debate about individuals' rights against public health initiatives. host: before we let you go, any insight you can give us as a nurse on some of the very questions you raised? caller: i guess my perception is that although we have wonderful health care options for people who can afford them, the vast majority of people do not have access to those options. that we spend probably too much in very advanced interventions in the end of life at the expense of providing primary health care to large numbers.

host: let's go to dr. steven woolf. mary has identified a number of key issues. let me see if i could get through all of them. the first -- the last point she made actually connects back to the prior question. she mentions of the large amount of money we spend on high technology and other interventions. as laudan aron said, we spent $2.80 trillion in the united states on health care, way more than any other of the developed countries. there is an interesting thing we found, our ratio between what we spend on health care and what we spend on public health and social programs -- if you klop the ratio in the united states and other countries, the u.s. is an outline. the countries with better outcomes spend left -- spend less on health care and more on

public health and social programs. it tells us may be the issue is not how much we are spending -- we are spending tons on help -- but how we are spending it and whether there is a smarter way spending the help of dollars in a way that would actually help us achieve the life expectancy and health outcomes of these other countries are enjoying. the second question she asked is how much simply reflects the fact that we have a large, diverse population in the united states -- racially and ethnically. a lot of poverty. it is well known that health disparities exist in this country and that disadvantaged and vulnerable populations have worse health than other parts of america. to address the question, we analyzed the data and separated out the health outcomes for the people who are better off, more and managed, who seemingly had everything to go for them. we found the same help disadvantaged. not as extreme, but nonetheless, non-hispanic whites, people with

college educations, people who are in short, people who have high incomes -- we found when you isolate those groups and compare them to similar people and other high-income countries the studies seem to suggest that even they are in worse health and dying earlier than similar rich-to-rich or poor-to-poor and other countries. so something is going beyond the -- host: one other thing never brought up was a gun violence. guest: a big issue. clearly one of the major factors responsible for higher death rates among young people in the united states, especially young males. in which case gun violence contributes about half of the years of life lost before age 50. clearly a big issue. but again, like a said earlier about obesity, it is hard to back away and say that is all

you are seeing. that is explaining it. because so many other health problems showed up. the spectrum of issues that we identified as areas where the u.s. is doing worse is so the verse that we could not help but think about what common -- so diverse that we could not help think about what, denominators there are. host: a new report from the national research council and institute of medicine looking at u.s. health and wellness and life expectancy and how it compares to other countries. portland, oregon. welcome. caller: a friend and i were talking about this topic. i mentioned eliminating physical education from the curriculum in the schools in washington and oregon areas. the situation with obesity, people sitting behind a tv screen or computer screen or

computer in their hand, it just seems like that would be the wrong thing to do. i do not understand that. i wonder if it is something that is common in other places in the united states. and the family unit is broken down to the point where people cannot pass on their eating values, they're eating habits as far as what types of food they eat and how often they need them. and people and american -- they just the processed -- people in america today in process anything. my partner who is latino, and a snack he will have watermelon or all men's or healthy things. i am getting processed crap. i do not seem we have gotten away from it. my girlfriend had a garden and she is amazed and she keeps

going out and saying, i grew this. everybody used to grow this. we get away from this. where are today -- where are we? where do we go from here? host: i will add on a tweet -- >> doctor woolf, can you weigh in? guest: i think they are excellent points. and what is more about the comments he did from yours is they recognize it is not only that we are not making -- the, as we are getting from viewers, the recognize it is not only the choice is that how the environment contributes to it. it is one thing to have a health class in school that teaches your children healthy foods to eat or bank encourages them to exercise, but when they go home, if there is no physical place for them to safely play outside because there are not any parks or save pedestrian areas for them to play outside, then it is not going to happen.

similarly for food choices. the dr. or the health class can say eat lots of fresh produce or fruits and vegetables but if you do not have restored their by that sells it or it is not affordable and you did not have a community or a home garden to grow it yourself, of course, you are going to turn to calorie- dense foods. we live in an environment where we are surrounded by fast-food restaurants and other sources of unhealthy foods. those environmental factors probably are hugely tempore in explaining some of healthy babies. host: laudan aron? guest: just to follow what on that -- followed up on that, the comment points out how policies in different arenas and levels really have health implications. education policies, decisions being made by individual schools, school districts, state boards of education, that we do not necessarily think of as

health policies do have important health implications. one of the really big findings coming out of this report is we perhaps need to start thinking about housing policy, transportation policy, a lot of things that are outside the traditional health care are reno or even individual health behaviors as a form of health policies. host: tell us more about the study -- who commissioned it? guest: the study was sponsored by the national institutes of health. it actually followed on a prior study they had done in which they were looking at mortality -- trends in mortality overtime among people who were over age 50. that report documented a large and growing mortality gap between the u.s. and other high- income countries. but really where the panel left off and where this current panel picked up was, what on earth was happening prior to age 50 that americans were reaching that age in such poor states of health.

so, this panel came in. it was a very high level interdisciplinary group of both national and international experts who came to really just dig it through the evidence on causes of death, different measures of morbidity and really try and see if what was happening of these younger ages, which is not been as well studied. so, we coupled this new analysis of the younger years with the prior analysis and then started to get into -- that is what gives this report a great power. host: the 17-minute, countries -- mail on left and the mill on the right. in the u.s. down in the bottom for both. no. 17 for men and 16 for women. in the u.s., 75 years old, for a woman, 80 years old.

robert from minnesota. health care professional. caller: thank you, libby, and dr. woolf. i am 85 years old and i am a health care not. i have been very active. -- i am a health-care nut. i spend every morning at the community center working out in the gym. i have a tree farm and i am basically a health-care researcher, and they graduate from the university of minnesota in 1953. dental school -- at the end of world war ii, it was the number one dental school in the world. i have a responsibility to do everything i can to promote good health, avoid drugs. and some of my material now is being taught in korea and in

trinidad. i guess it is enough. host: when we look at the life expectancy, it is relatively high gear for older americans in the united states, especially those over 75. looking at a "the new york times" graphic. what advice do you have for younger people? caller: my advice for younger people is to be exercised, get into yoga, and avoid drugs. do a lot of swimming and a lot of exercising. i have so many people who got into drugs and alcohol and so forth, and they are not around anymore. i got into alcohol and got out of it in 1988, and it changed my whole life. host: thank you for sharing your story. dr. woolf -- where is the difference between good ideas and whether rubber meets the road? guest: that is an interesting issue. robert is calling from

minnesota, and that is an interesting state in the context of what we were talking about earlier. remember, i mentioned when you look at health care spending as opposed to social spending, the countries that spend more on social programs and public health programs have better health outcomes than we did in the united states where we spend so much on health care. within the united states, we find that states that have the best health outcomes, states like minnesota, and spending less on health care and more on these other programs. this is a clue that maybe the answer is not to spend as lavishly as we do on technology and robotic surgery and some of the other high expenses areas driving up health care costs, but think more about addressing burgeon needs in public health and social programs. i mention that because we are out of time right now in our national dialogue where, because of our fiscal crisis, we are

thinking about cutting back even further in those areas -- the very areas that may actually have the answer. so, if we cut further into those programs and pull back further on this social safety net, public health programs, and other strategies we can talk about, what do you think will happen to the help disadvantaged? this is something that as a doctor and public health expert concerns me greatly, but as a nation, if we are concerned about our economy, our future work force, our future military force, and how healthy our companies are going to be in competing with the international marketplace, we might want to think twice about cutting on those areas. host: you can see the ratio of social to help service expenditures. the united states right there in yellow. jim as our next caller from pennsylvania. caller: hello. let me start off -- i am 32.

i am graduating senior at penn state university, energy engineering. i wonder if you ever noticed the link between energy policies, sustainability, and these health issues? it seems to me people do less things for themselves -- mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, riding your bike to work. energy is just so cheap. it is a trend people are starting to pick up on, doing more things for themselves. to me, that is a huge connection between peoples on health in this -- unhealthyness laziness unhealthiness -- and healt which, how much he put into practice -- not just cutting, but how much do you do for

assault rather than relying on conveniences'? caller: i try as little as i can. obviously in the world we live then all of us are a little subjected to it. but we ride our bikes as much as we can. it is my hope someday to use exercise to actually generate electricity in the household, so if you want to watch tv you have to exercise for an hour. i could see everybody doing that and really changing the world. host: let's go to dr. woolf and then from laudan aron. guest: jim is raising an interesting question. we have an entire chapter in our report devoted to the environment, because we are quite convinced it is an important factor. one of the challenges we face with our project which involved a careful analysis of the data, is we had to look at issues where we had comparable data across these high-income countries to allow us to make comparisons. unfortunately, we lack the data on the kinds of environmental

and energy consumption patterns and so forth that jim is raising to decide whether the u.s. is really in a different place than the other countries. there are clues, though. for example, we know and comparisons between american cities and cities in europe, we are less likely to walk or cycle to work as are people who live in a more compact cities in europe. we are more likely to be sitting in cars, committing large -- long distances. that is a hint to some of the issues. if we do more research and collect more data to really analyze some of these environmental differences between how we live our lives in the united states and how they live in other countries, we might get interesting answers to part of the disadvantaged. host: laudan aron? because really what steve said is the main point. the panel just did not have a lot of data to really begin to cross-national differences on

that, but it is clearly a very intuitive and logical line of research that we would love to continue to support with additional data. i did also want to point out that so many of these comments about our lifestyles and exercise and pe with children are really about prevention. not getting ill to begin with. it does seem that especially since we documented this, the pervasiveness of the help disadvantaged across the life course, trying to prevent illness early in life and keeping americans healthy is really the way to go. if we could figure out how to do that on all fronts, i think we would be in much better shape. host: a viewer tweets in -- can you go through the good news? what did you find that gives hope? guest: there are definitely a

few areas where we did not find a disadvantage, and we were at the top of the heap, so to speak. one of them, ages above 75 -- age-specific mortality rates at those higher ages are definitely superior. we also have generally better performance in cancer and stroke. steve, do you want to add to the list? guest: we describe a lot of medications for blood pressure and elevated coalesced -- cholesterol levels, and americans tend to have better control of blood pressure and cholesterol as a result. that may be one of the reasons why we have lower stroke mortality rates than people in other countries. we are not entirely sure. and interestingly, americans are more likely to report their health as good or bank excellent and people and other countries. but our panel lacked confidence and ability of the question.

host: self assessment versus what the numbers show. let's hear from pablo, a physician from georgia. caller: good morning g. i graduated from university of new york in 1999 -- then i moved to a small, rural area. interesting - [indiscernible] the drug addiction. here it is a real epidemic. mental health and drug addiction has not been addressed. and it is affecting the life expectancy compared to the the looking countries. as a minority professional,

there is a lot of disadvantage since we have a large, diverse community. different minority sectors should be more open -- more culturally sensitive to minorities and health care is limited because of that. not language, culture. but i think the direction of how we treat mental health and drug addiction is important. host: dr. woolf? guest: mental health is a key issue. unfortunately it turned out to be one of the areas where we could not find enough comparable cross-national data to draw out extensive conclusions about how america compares to other countries in terms of mental health. but we know it's got to be a huge factor. the caller mentioned the issue

of drug abuse. there, we did find valid data and the news was not good. the rates of the use of the illicit drugs and prescription drugs and the deaths from the abuse of those drugs is higher in the united states than in other countries. this certainly is supportive of the concern the caller raised. he also talks about the minority work force issue, which reminds me of a point mary made that we overlooked, which is the issue of access to care. when we look at differences in health care, access to care, in the united states relative to other high-income countries, of course, we saw the one we are famous for -- the only high income country that does not offer universal health insurance coverage. this obviously was in the news alive and the debates over health care reform. but other problems with the health-care system compared to other countries, including access to providers and a

relatively weak primary care work force compared to primary- care availability and other high income countries. americans are also more likely to have to forgo or delay their care because it is too expensive. high out of pocket costs are a distinctive feature guest: the mental health needs of americans are not being well met. there are issues in terms of integration in terms of mental health and substance abuse treatment as well as the integration of behavioral health with mainstream health

care. those are big challenges we have as a nation. i do not think there is any question that if we could advance that area, we would improve. you sour guests -, thank muicch. joining us from richmond, virginia, dr. steven woolf from virginia commonwealth university. thank you to you as well. that is all for washington journal this morning. we will be back at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. see you then. [captioning performed bynational captioning institute] [captions copyright nationalcable satellite corp. 2013]

>> defense secretary leon panetta will be honored at a farewell ceremony and fort myer, virginia. it will include remarks from president obama and joint chiefs of staff general martin dempsey. that is live at 3:45. secretary of state john kerry will meet the canadian prime minister. the team so -- the keystone pipeline will be in the conversation. a rock obama's decision on the $7 billion will be the test of his a nod with a promise to act

on change in his second term. there will be a news conference. that will be at about 2:30. a pro forma session at 11l0:00. 2:00 for legislative work. the chamber resources -- resources at 5:30. the house takes up a bill that will continue a pay freeze for federal workforce. watch the house live here on c- span and the senate on c-span2. >> having observed a steady improvement in the well-being of our citizens, i can report to you that the state of this union is good. >> once again, in keeping with

tradition, i have come to report to you on the state of the union. i am pleased to report that america is much improved. there is good reason to believe that improvements will continue for the days to come. >> my duty tonight is to report on the strength of the union. not the state of our government. but of our american community. and to set forth our responsibilities to form a more perfect union. the state of the union is strong. >> as we gather tonight, our nation is at war. our economy is in recession. the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. yet, the state of our union has never been stronger. >> it is because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward. and the state of our union is

strong. >> tuesday, president obama delivers this year's address live on c-span at our preview starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern and the president at 9:00 p.m., filed bridget -- followed by the republican response. >> first lady on the politics. >> any woman can discuss with their husband topics of national interests. i became familiar with more than politics. >> helen taft, whose husband william howard taft, was the only person to serve as president and supreme court justice. first ladies." produced with the white house is workable association. season one begins president

today, february 18 at 9:00 p.m. eastern. general electric ceo jeffrey immelt spoke yesterday about how uncertainty over congress handles the economy is impacting businesses. he discusses the need for more investment in education and a simplification of the tax code. this was part a the discussion on manufacturing hosted by "the atlantic." it is just under one hour. [applause] >> thanks so much for joining us. i want to start big picture. it has been a rough couple of years for the economy. people keep referring to the tantalizing signs of venue

factory revival. manufacturing jobs are up to about 400,000. they are down roughly 6 million in the prior 11 years. is what we are seeing a dead cat bounce? is something going on here? is there a manufacturing renaissance in america? what are you seeing? >> is the us's manufacturing more competitive than it has been in the past? yes. it are a number of drivers. in high-tech manufacturing, material innovation is happening. there is a lots of innovation and advanced manufacturing. materials are higher than it was in the past ursus labor. the energy construct is being

created by shale gas. the ability of companies to sell around the world and export in the markets that are growing. in the case of manufacturing, the future has a chance to be different from the past. we are at our most competitive in my 30 years on a globally relative basis. how does that translate to jobs? it is a more complicated equation on product to the t -- around additivity and other elements. will it go from nine percent to 20%? that is unlikely. could you see a steady increase of manufacturing jobs in the u.s.? that is likely to happen. >whether you get all 5 million back, i do not know.

there will be productivity. there is a bigger opportunity for more content in the u.s. today. >> jack welsh once said the ideal situation for multinational is you put your factory on a arch and move around the world to whatever location has the best set of competitive operating environment at the time. that model 1224. you yourself in a speech suggested that the outsourcing trend have gone too far. one of the trends people are talking about is the re-shoring. businesses are coming back to america. we have a lot of anecdotes. it is hard to tell whether the trend has changed. what have you seen? has ge made a decision that went too far in that direction? >> i do not think about it in

terms of off shoring or researching -- re-shoring. i think of it and competitiveness. there are two different things. one is globalization. globalization is where you go try to sell your product to people who are buying them. that means you get to add capability to the company. i was in four countries in africa. each could be $1 billion in the near future. you may have 70% of the content in a u.s. and 30% locally. globalization is not a bad thing. it it's lumped. it is a thing called outsourcing. that was a lot of what happened in the 1980's and 1990's.

virtually everything we have done is been how to access local markets. when you look back on manufacturing and looking at putting it in different places, the record is mixed. a lot of it has not worked. for a variety of reasons. supply chain reasons. innovation reasons. when i look at the vast majority of what ge makes, we want the manufacturing close to the generations -- generators. we want to be close to the markets we sell to. does that mean a vast majority of jobs certainly come back? the extent to which we -- that the outsourcing piece -- because of where we used to make things, we thought we would earn higher margins by making them in the united states. >> what are some of the elements in the process? where are you finding that there was extra value to be had

been closer to home? >> supply chain and materials. if you take the majority of our products, if you can get a one percentage higher yield immaterial we use, it offsets any labor one way or the other. we use high-tech materials. we do them in a consistent way. that is where i would say. supply chain shrinkage. you go from a world where oil is $12 a barrel for 30 years to a world where oil is $100 per barrel. the length of time it takes to ship something is quite material. there is nothing that is a panacea. we will create jobs here and in china and a lot of different places. we are a global company. i will never apologize for that. there is a competitive structure today that works for the united states. it is based on fox emily -- oximetry to market, high

skilled workforce around materials and the ability to innovate. >> high skilles is a key thing. are not this benefits the american worker is a huge question. 20 years ago when people thought of going to work in a plant as manufacturing, is the factory job of today different from the factory job of dirty years today -- ago? >> i hope so. it is similar in some ways and different in some way. if you work for ge, and you assemble jet engines. you go to a factory in north carolina. it has maybe 400 production workers and one manager. you do all lead manufacturing. you do all continuous process flow. the teams drive the

productivity. you have power teams on the floor. you have sophisticated materials, titanium coming together that is being assembled by people that are working in teaming structures. that is different. in some ways it is the same. in some ways, to spoke as -- to it isas focus on speed, different than what it was when i started. >> if a neighbor asked you for a job and that plant. what is your advice to him? this is the education you need. >> the first thing you want to do is say that there -- we have people that have different aspirations. you want them to understand where we will be. i would say if you are 22 years old, and you want to project

ahead, and you are coming in through a community college, you have to be able to do additive manufacturing. you will have to know some computer skills. you will have to have some plastic artisans guilds. skills.l have t i encouraged him to have facility one computer s. they have to be able to be competitive and work in teams. he have an initiative called get skills to work, which takes veterans and puts them in the manufacturing environment. they know teaming and competition. we need to package their skills in a different way. >> the america -- did america produce the enough people to

carry out those skills? once the whole community college skills training in the united states is one of the places where we can focus. one of the guys that has been on the panel today from manpower did a great job, which is framing how other people do it and how other countries do it. the government of vietnam trains the team thousand welders every year. that is a government program. it is a ready supply of people into the workforce. i think we can still orchestrate what are the skills needed and how do we get the people with the skills in the workforce. >> it will be hard to persuade our congress to look at vietnam as a model. people need to think outside the box. what are some of the initiatives you would like to see us doing at the community level?

is there a model in germany that works better in terms of integrating school and work force? >> i would start with -- we put a bunch of aviation jobs in mississippi and extremely high flow from the universities there from engineering and materials science. also, a great training program they had in place. we have people repurposed. that was a great public-private partnership with the state of mississippi. a lot of this happens on the local level. it is a combination of governor or mayor and the community college and the company and the university that can pull together. we will need 500 welders. we will need 20 process engineers. how do we get those people? 30 small businesses located

around that. it is not so much in washington. i see it more in the states, colorado, mississippi. places that can pull it off. community colleges, which have been neglected here, are key to this process. >> let us talk about the mississippi plan. the decision to bring in houses, there was an interesting case study. was there a chance that the jobs would not go to the united states? tell me about the process of how you thought about changing the process and the locations and why we chose mississippi, alabama. >> we have this incredible backlog of engines. there is a real transformation going on in the aviation space. agoan see for a five year ags

a wave coming into the system. we need suppliers. a lot are in new york. some in japan. we saw the rapidity of which we had to go down the learning curve as we lost the engines that meant we wanted more capability closer to home. we have to do and and after engine and part after part. the the learning curve is steep. we did not want a d vertical eyes -- that was a strategic decision to say, we want to invest an hour supply chamber. we look for a little bit of diversity in states. we are looking for places where we can get good workers. a place that we can scale over time where we can be -- where we can get in with 500 workers and scale it to a thousand or build other locations around

supply chain capabilities. any one of our businesses probably do work in 20 states around the country. we try to have a diversity. we also look for places where we can launch new capability. >> you must hear discussion about tax advantages. how important is that? >> the training and education is more important. or two years.asts what ever decision you make today will change at some point in those were two or 50 years. if you are in a place you hate, that cannot deliver the people, you will hate it for 40 years. the education and training programs are at the top of the

list for me. it does not mean we go after the -- we do not go after the other stuff. the people always dictate how well a place goes. >> going back to the team of reassuring, there is attention to them upper costs going up and china. a lot of the rural labor is gone. that is why there is downward pressure on wages in the united states. people are thinking of this manufacturing revival as pure reversal of the cost arbitrage. that is overplayed. but it is about markets. if you want to win today, you have to be agile around markets and have a good flexible supply chain.

wages are going to fluctuate to meet markets. in many ways, everybody here knows that wages have been stagnant. the bigger piece that has happened in the last 30 years is materials are more expensive. steel, titanium, oil distribution. all of the materials you use. if you look at a relatively basic product like a refrigerator, a refrigerator has -- if you make it the right way, it is a simple product. it has 1.8 hours of labor. two hours of labor's. . if you are running the place right, you have -- it is more about the possibility.

the cheerio goes up and down. on a high-tech water, -- on a high-tech product, if you're yield on a turbine blade goes down 1%, that is tens of millions of dollars. if labor causes that, that is too cheap or too expensive. >> there is a study out last year looking at the future of manufacturing. one of the key takeaways is how many jobs in manufacturing do not fit our traditional notion of what a manufacturing job is. a are more like services. is that one of your experiences that this nonlabor -- things like the r&d is much higher than it used to be. you are drawn much more to the

intellectual horsepower. >> it is not just in the labs. in the technical products, the product is the process. there is this an digit is nature between what a designer sees and how it gets made. you cannot separate it. the manufacturing technology gets done alongside the prior technology. it does not mean you cannot do it in a distributive way. we will have factories around the world that are close to markets. most products today have this incredible linkage between the the zion and how to manufacture it. -- the design and how to manufacture it. we purchase $13 billion from small and medium companies. our supply chain and how they fit in into the total structure is important. >> one of the exciting stories and manufacturing is 3-d manufacturing.

is this overhyped? a lot of talk about it. the founder of one of this companies -- is this a game- changer? >> additive manufacturing and advanced welding -- if you look at a company like ours, we make incredible --at our core, we are a materials company. what is the common grade between gas turbines and jet engines? it is material technology. that is who we are. we do unique shapes. blade mayf a turbulenine

be the difference in one or two points of fuel burn and the way a jet engine works. that is billions of dollars for our customers in terms of performance. you get a block of something. you welled it. -- you weld. you take this scrap. it goes someplace. 3-d printing allows you to make that product right for first time. it allows you to make it from the core up so you do not have as much waste. the tooling is cheaper. the cycle is faster. that is the holy grail. if i thought all 3-d printing could do is your shoes, i would not be talking about it quite as much as i do today. if you can make unique shapes with high-tech materials and a short amount of time, that is worth my time. >> i am sitting on an airplane and someone tells me, those

turbine blades are made on a printer. i am not thinking that is a smart idea of me to get in the plane. >> closure eyes. -- closure eyes. >> products have high loads. they have to need the highest standards of tolerance. >> we are proving it right now. some of our new engines have advanced materials. some are made that way. small to start with. content will grow over time. this is one of the things -- there is stuff that is like a cartoon. there is stuff that you say, this is worth time, attention, money, and effort. this is the latter, not the th

former. >> does it open up the possibility of more customizable manufacturing? and you can't train was about a key economies of scale. is it back to craft like? >> speed, both in terms of cycle, how long it takes, and where you can do it and how fast. if this works the way we think, it should reduce the cycle of how it want it takes to produce and design a new gas turbine. we would have thought about a new gas turbine taking five years to design. maybe you can do it in two. >> do you deliver a different gas turbine to every customer? >> you get into service models. it does give you in some areas

the ability to do for customization. >> let us go to the policy front. seven days ago, you were released from one of your obligations. tell me about your two years later. was it worthwhile? or those the two best years of your life? being the ambassador of business for the administration? >> we were having so much fun. i was honored to serve. i am glad i did it. i enjoyed the people that were on the council. a lot more republicans than democrats. we worked well together. it is a challenging time. we try to be as spasmodic as we

could be. we had recommendations that could be done with executive orders. we talked through most of those. it is hard to get bipartisan recommendations. we had to invest in infrastructure. doing and infrastructure bank or other ways to build roads and the kinds of things that will make us competitive in the long term. that is the kind of thing that is hard. how does it get funded? we did the best we could. >> this would be a great time to take a small break. i would like to invite up three more panelists --margaret brennan, howard snyder, and john harwood. they will subject you to the brutal questions that i did not get around to.

jump and if there are any questions that should -- jump in if there are any questions that you have. >> when it comes to the relationship with those you are employing. when you talk to people who are looking for a job now or have looked for the past 10 years, the new task at understanding is that a corporation providing you with healthcare or any benefit is really an add-on. it is extra. companies seem to want to keep you temporarily employed or up to just the level where they would have to provide you with something more beyond just hourly pay. is that the new understanding between workers and corporations? has that model changed? >> i do not think so. we invest $1 billion in training.

we have never shirked on that. we add a lot of people to the company every year. they get health care and pension plans. our healthcare programs have changed to be more competitive. for new employees, the pension plans have changed to be more competitive. we like having a ge company. culture is important. it means something to be a ge for you. >> what percentage of your employees are temp? >> we have temporary workers. we have 300,000 full-time ge employees. that is a city. we still have that. we have to manage workloads.

we still do temporary workers. the majority is full-time employers. -- full-time employees. [indiscernible]there is temporary work that still goes on. we do not bring in full-time people. we higher a lot every year. we still have benefits. we still think culture is good. >> this debate going on in europe seems to be a wholesale reevaluation of the special contract over there and what the labor rules will be. what health and pension benefits will look like. when you are deciding to deploy the next investment, how much

are you paying attention to the political signals coming out from individual companies -- countries? you could go almost anywhere. how much is the political signaling plane into the decision? >> we listen to it. we worry about it. we think about it. our toughest a long-term, these people change. the attitudes change. the country dynamics change. it is hard to say, i like germany because i like chancellor merkel. i think she will be more stable. that can change so quickly. today, most of the investment is around markets. if you do not think europe will grow because of the way the government is structured, you will not invest as much there. if you think more than africa

-- more than africa or nigeria or russia will grow, you will be willing to take more risks there because you think the growth is there. to a certain extent, where you seek political upheaval, it scares away investment. the world is so competitive, if you do not focus on markets, if not ready to win in markets, you will lose. >> how much of this can be a parochial discussion? let us a ge is a u.s. company, but let us talk about the european or asian companies that may be interested in investing on this side of the world. what will the u.s. due to distinguish itself? >> investment certainty.

we need some how not to have all of the focus on sequestration, debt limits. that is distracting to investors. the systems of competitiveness. education, regulation. tax reform. those things that say we want people to invest in the u.s. our f.d.i in the country has trailed a lot of other places in the world. some of it is education training. there are systems of competitiveness. we know what they are. it is trying to get more of a window on that. it also helps -- the president of the united states says i want people to invest in the united states. i want to create a manufacturing. that is helpful. >> let me ask you about the

policy debate. there is no need to be usually excuses -- exclusion. on the democratic side, you have an emphasis on all of government. obama t as a senate for manufacturing. you talk about human capital and infrastructure investments. on the other side, republicans emphasize less government, less regulation, lower rates. when you think about those solutions, which has more relative importance in terms of benefiting manufacturing? >> you will not get a clear answer from me. [laughter] the history of the world as we know it so far is that institutions like darpa and the amounteated an immense

of innovation and jobs and spawned entire industries. the notion that says that government can never play a role, can never be a catalyst for innovation and change would be to disprove what has existed for a generation. i would leave that as a foundational point. in the last 20 years, the amount of regulation has grown and grown and grown. i am a business guy. i am supposed to complain about regulation. no country in the world follows us any worlds. -- in the world. no one looks at the usa and says, that is a great practice. it would be a reputation of what exists to say that darpa has

not had an immense impact on the industrial sector of the united states. the industrial section is the best in the world bar none. -- government can't pay a the government can play a catalytic role. we do too much that is not conducive to competitiveness and a growing business. >> what is an example of a regulation that the obama administration has promised a did that is a ridiculous drag on growth? >> think about cycle times of the fda. think about the fact that it takes 12 years to get a power line permitted across state lines. i could give you -- read the reports. we spelled out a number of them. every permit should be approved in less than 24 months.

there are jobs there. i guarantee it. there is no excuse for anybody not to have a short cycle time. >> you say that to obama. what does he say? >> he stepped in on the jobs council and said we will shorten this one. there are 28 permits that the president stepped in and said, bank, here we go. -- bang, here we go. one may say the entire epa needs to be reformed. he says, i am not quite there yet. in some specific -- a lot of action. and others -- there is a lot more to do. i would not listen to jeffrey immelt. i would benchmark us compared to others moving ahead. when i am in africa selling locomotives, i am not competing

against any u.s. company. i am competing against global players. regulation is a good thing to work on. >> on the question of accessing markets, if you are selling markets, you want access to consumers. where is it that you would want to see more of a free trade access-type model? >> on both sides? >> in the u.s., there has been focus on the transpacific into asia. where do you need government help to open up a market? >> we would like more bilateral or more multilateral free trade agreements. we believe the tptp would be

great. a better extension into europe. they are all outstanding. we are for all of that. >> is that relationship with trying to get the government to open the door more important in asia and europe? >> asia is harder than your rep. is particularly important. for us, we get there. i am here to play two roles. as the ceo of ge, i could get any place. could sell myself anywhere. for a 2 billion dollar american company to win in asia, a tpt

would be helpful. >> g he has had a complex relationship and china with its investment there. has this administration put a lot of energy into trying to out the intellectual property issues? >> it is a long-term process. the president is engaging. he has avoided being incredibly -- following every wave of controversy. he has tried to stay long term focus. a relationship between china and the united states is important. it is try to see through the bombs in the roche to have a longer-term -- bumps int the

road. it is a cop locator relationship for companies and governments. -- it is a complicated relationship for companies and governments. the two biggest economies in the world have to have a relationship. afford not to engage. there are problems with international -- intellectual property. we are better off with the u.s. government be engaged. it is a two-way street with with the administration and china. >> does that mean in the argument obama had with romney where romney said declare china a currency manipulation and obama said no, do you agree with obama? >> yes here is the role of the president is to have this broad perspective that last longer than the debate was. think about a world where the

two biggest economies in the world did not do business together. it is hard to imagine. it is an important relationship even though it is complicated. >> globalization has been a good thing. you could argue that. you could argue that it is an evitable. that living standards have been raised for so many people in the world. that is a good thing. to the average american, how do you make the case that our relationships with china has delivered on the promise that people thought it held? >> billions of dollars of exports going out the door. has been been good for american workers? >> it is a complicated story. there are instances where you will not be able to make the case today. if the world ended today, and

you did a tally sheet, you will have various countries where you would say this one did not work as well as the other. on the five percent of people in the world live outside -- 85% of people in the world live outside the united states. we have to figure out a way to access that and do our best to create a win-win. rich and i would have different perspectives on this. at least i understand his perspective. i may not agree. we have to do as good a job we can of creating win-win situations knowing that in any given year it may not be perfect. my story is more complicated. i will see it through a different prism in the afl -cio willl. ultimately, i completely

believe that globalization is a good thing. it is inevitable and can be made to be shared more broadly. >> the tax system -- during the republican primary campaign, rick santorum had a zero tax rate for manufacturers. is that a good idea or dumb idea? >> i would take some derivative where you woulders simplify the tax system immensely, lower the rate, go to a global system like our competitors. start there. we do not need anything more controversial to that. there are more details that have to be put in place. that kind of system gives everything we need to be as competitive as we can possibly

be. that is what i would cheer for. >> are you disappointed that there has been little attention to the corporate tax side? you have the sequester coming up. do you believe that the tax and deficit debate is harmful to the business environment now? >> the uncertainty is back. the amount of -- the uncertainty is bad. you go from the fiscal cliff to the deficit debate to sequestration. that is inherently disruptive to business investment. certainty is a good multiplier. we are these long cycle businesses that have global competition. i do not have the lecture he to

say that i will quit investing for six months until this is reserved. -- resolved. i will keep going. the people who can hurt the worst by all of this are the small and medium businesses. the people that have no buffer. that get confused. these are the people that are the heart of the u.s. economy. they are the ones that are constantly being bombarded as we go from one to another. this can only be solved here. this is one of the few cases where the business roundtable of people speak with one voice. it would be great to get a resolution. >> there is a divide in the corporate side on the corporate tax front. large companies would benefit more from corporate tax reform, especially going to a territorial system, then smaller formirirms.

it may be hard to convince americans that the president and congress should invest time in that priority. it looks like corporations are doing well. the average american is not doing so well. what is the case for why that should be a political priority? >> what it be that unfair to ask for the tame -- same taxes some that -- to some that might global competitors have? i do not think it is. did me a playing field that i can do the things you want me to do, which is compete effectively. that is not un-american. i have a different needs in the ceo of walmart. we should have a tax system that allows us to compete with relevant competitors in the

world they are in. i would ask for the same system. that is what simpson-bowles have evolved to. companies adjust. what i like everything in corporate tax form? no. we will adjust. we would like a system where we could compete. we are the last american company and that industry. stry. thtat indu >> where our american wages headed? >> the wages will improve. >> how much? we have seen that push to squeeze productivity out of workers. wages have not risen to pay to do more -- they are asked to

do more with much less. >> you make it seem like if you went to a factory, this is a charles dickens/r. >> no, i am not. >> you can eat off the floor of the manufacturing facilities. workforce that is well-trained with a low turnover, where the people are productive, and they will not stay in a place where they do not feel fairly complicated. we should play them appropriately -- we should pay them appropriately. it is a big problem. it is a big problem. it is a vestige of globalization. i do not know how to reverse this fact of needing to drive

productivity, trying to develop a good workforce, give people good jobs, and invest in the future. >> you said and put determine where you invest. natural gas has been a hot topic in the business community. a company chose to invest in the u.s. and a decade because it could run their plans for a cheap rate because of the cost of natural gas. is it simply natural gas? is there something there that really can be a trigger in the u.s. to increase manufacturing? gas is one of the bigger things that i have seen in my career that is a game changer. it is plentiful in this country. it is available. we have a pipeline system. the pricing may not be as low as it is now. it will stay low and create

jobs. will it be a reinvest realization? it could be all of the above. it is a significant factor. this country should be very interested. every citizen in the u.s. should be interested in how we develop natural resources. it is important. it could lead to a variety of options in terms of how you create more wealth and more jobs. >> can i go back, mr. scrooge, to the sequester issue? you have a fundamental split between republicans and democrats. republicans say do spending cuts only. obama says no. you will hurt seniors. you will cut the capital investment. if we do spending cuts, we should do revenues as well. >> i think that there is no way

to solve the problem without taking an approach somewhat like simpson-bowles. you had $4 trillion over 10 years. you have $2.5 trillion of cost reductions and about $1.2 trill ion of revenue. you will have to do both. there is a scoreboard in washington to see who is winning and losing. i will leave that to you. >> you are saying obama is right. we need revenue as well as cuts .ric >> ha >> uni-significant entitlement reform. you can win by losing by not

acknowledging that this has to be substantial and it has to be now. rather than me and/or sing the president or speaker boehner -- rather me endorsing the president or speaker boehner. i have done 1000 acquisitions. i have done maybe 10,000 business deals in 30 years. i have never done one without meeting with the other side. i cannot remember doing one negotiation -- i went all of my arguments in my conference room. it is only when i open up the door that the world stinks. i came to talk about manufacturing than this. i would feel better if they started meeting. i just do not know how anything gets done unless you sit and negotiate. this is can be a catalyst. you can have a point of view. this work has to be here by

people compromising and negotiating and stopped by -- i wish i could find a way to buy a company or deal with a customer without meeting them. >> you said that we do need more revenue. >> i do not want that to be the seminal point. i am not here to endorse either one. >> do you think he intends to accomplish entitlement reform or is he so walking that? >> -- slow-walking that? >> i am not here to take either the side of the president or the side of republicans. i am here to say, let us get a negotiated certainty so we can all invest and grow the economy and do what we want to do. that is what i am calling for.

i would feel better if they were meeting. i do not see how the other stuff works. >> it seems that one of the things that gets lost in the discussion is that there are different ways of reducing the deficit. the long-term problem is entitlements. we have taken about two-and-a- half choi in dollars -- $2.5 t rillion off thte total. all of the investment that the government does is discretionary. it is r&d. we keep hammering away at the federal government that plants the seeds for future growth while not dealing with the real problem.

has the d bates gotten skewed and that we have failed to make this distinction's and where we make the cut? >> i was interested in the comment before we had a little dialogue on the dysfunction of the federal government arriving innovation versus private sector spending driving innovation. and how you have felt a shift there. can you elaborate? >> there is always both. the government has been a catalyst, but the -- if you went back 30 years, most of the innovation has come from the department of defense. today, there is more in the private sector than ever. the private sector is strong. on the retirement reform -- on the entitlement reforms, there is not one company that has not

changed their health care or pension plans. they are difficult decisions. we do them in a constructive way with our employees. this notion that we are in a world where we cannot do anything about some of these entitlement structural cost does not exist. we have to look at some of the big structural on the defense side there is an interesting question. if they sequester rose into effect it will impair readiness. you mentioned darpa. we tiki led to the house floor. -- take you live to the house floor. ble by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c.,, february 8, 2013, i hereby appoint representative thornberry to act as speaker pro tempore, signed john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain. >> all powerful and ever living god, mindful of the peace and prosperity enjoyed by this nation and the sacrifices of those through whom you have bestowed such bounty, hear the prayers of those who seek your aid. those gathered in the chambers of this congress and all those trusted with your service. they advance in fulfillment of the oath they have taken at the service of your people, continue to guide them in the discharge of their duties of office.

help them to attend to the concerns of those whom they represent. guide them in their deliberations with their fellow representatives. mindful of particular interests, may they ever seek the benefit of all people of this nation and even that of humanity itself. may we always strive to realize the good whose possibility you call us to trust. amen the speaker pro tempore: the chair's examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces its approval. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. the the chair

lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on february 8, 2013 at 10:08 a.m., that the senate agreed to without amendment house concurrent resolution 11. apointments, congressional executive commission on the peoples republic of china, world war ii centennial commission, united states holocaust member council. signed sincerely karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to clause 11 of rule 10, clause 11 of rule 1 and the order of the house of january 3, 2013, the following members to the house to the

permanent select committee on intelligence. the clerk: mr. thornberry of texas, mr. miller of florida, mr. conaway of texas, mr. king of new york, mr. lobiondo of new jersey. mr. westmoreland of georgia. mr. rooney of florida, mr. heck of nevada, mr. pompeo of kansas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's pursuant to section 643-c, public law 112-240 and the order of the house of january 3, 2013 to the commission on long-term care. the clerk: mr. steven guilliard, ms. grace marie turner of alexandria, virginia. the speaker pro tempore: without

objection, the house stands adjourned until noon on i can report to you the state of this old but youthful union is good. >> in keeping with time-honored tradition i have come to report to you on the state of the union and at pleased to report that america is much improved. there is good reason to believe that improvement will continue

through the days to come. >> my duty tonight is to report on the state of the union. not this data or garment of our american community. and to set forth our responsibilities in the words of our founders to form a more perfect union. the state of the union is strong. >> as we gather tonight, our nation is at war. our economy is in recession. the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. yeah, the citadel union has never been stronger. >> it is because of our people that our future is hopeful. our journey goes forward. and the state of the union is strong. >> tuesday, president obama delivers this year's address live on c-span with our preview program at 8:00 p.m. eastern and the president at 9:00 p.m. followed by the gop response and

your reaction. the state of the union tuesday night on c-span. c-span abroad year, and c-span .org. >> john kerry will be meeting with his canadian counterpart, foreign minister john baird, this afternoon. the canadian -- keystone pipeline among the topics. we will bring that live to you. we will bring you live this afternoon secretary leon panetta, the outgoing defense secretary, will be honored at a farewell ceremony in fort myer, virginia. disseminate includes deluxe by general dempsey and president obama. that is live this afternoon at 3:45 p.m. eastern. john brennan testified for over three hours on capitol hill during his confirmation hearing to the cia -- be cia director. he faced a number of questions

about the enhanced interrogation techniques. the targeted killing program and the use of drones. diane feinstein gavels in the hearing after an interruption from protesters. >> i ask that this room be cleared right now with the capitol police -- will the capitol police please come in and clear a room? -- clear the room? all signs out. if the capitol police will clear a room, please.

[indiscernible] >> please clear the room. please clear the room. all right. we should clear the entire room and let people back in. >> we need more capitol police is what we need. will trylet's -- we

and start. [gavel] >> begin this hearing and let me say right up front that the process is that people are respectful, that they cannot tear, they do not hiss, they do not show signs. this is to listen. if that is a problem for anybody ask you to leave the room now. because what we will do is remove you from the room. let there be no doubt. so if i may, i would like to

begin. the committee meets today in open session to consider the nomination of john brennan to be the 21st director of the central intelligence agency and the first director to have risen through the agency's ranks since of gates. mr. brennan, congratulations on your nomination. senator warner has come in. i will make opening comments. the vice chairman will make opening, and then we will turn to you for your introduction if that is agreeable. mr. brennan, congratulations on your nomination. it is currently a lively. i would like to welcome your family as well. i am -- i hope you introduce them so the committee can give them its banks. this is the first opportunity to welcome our new members. senator heinrich who is on my right, sadr king, who is --

senator king, due any minute. senator collins and senator coburn who is not here but will be. we have a new? officio member, senator and half -- ex officio member, senator inhofe. because of the role the cia plays, collecting information. because of the added importance of having steady leadership at an organization that conducts most of its business outside of the public arena. intelligence is critical to the successful drawdown in afghanistan, to their brutal war going on within serious borders, across north africa where

attacks in benghazi and the house since situation in algeria threatened to spread the next run. for counter-terrorism operations around the world. in efforts by the u.s. and others to prevent the and spread of weapons of mass destruction by an iran come and our curriculum and other states. and i am addressing emerging threats in space, cyberspace, and elsewhere around the globe. to confront these challenges and to lead the cia of through a difficult budgetary period after a decade of major budget increases. president obama nominated john brennan, his closest adviser on intelligence and counter terrorism matters for the past four years. mr. brennan is without a doubt qualified for this position. he served at the cia for 25 years in analytic, operational,

and managerial capacities. he has seen the agency from just about every angle. as a line analyst, as chief of station, as chief of staff to the director, and as the deputy executive director, among many others. people who have worked closely with him regularly cite his work ethic, his integrity, and his determination. in nominating john brennan, president obama spoke of his " commitment to the values that define us as americans." [inaudible] noted his impeccable integrity and dedication to country is second to none. without -- with unanimous consent i would like to insert into the record letters the committee has received in regard to mr. brennan's nomination. john brennan by all accounts will be a strong leader. get it for me but a lot and his

strong ethical code -- guided by the law and his strong ethical code. he will be independent from political influence. he will seek only to provide the president, congress, and other leaders with his best analysis and advice. his responses to the committee's questions are available on the committee's website at www.intelligence.senate.gov. the committee must conduct due diligence some members will have questions and -- in a range of topics including his plans for directing the agency, major national security challenges we face, positions and actions he has taken in his current and past jobs. a so of interest -- also of interest will be his views on the use of targeted lethal force in counter-terrorism

operations. mr. brennan has been one of the few ministration officials able to speak publicly about such issues. members will certainly want to understand his views on this. to include the importance of congress receiving all of the relevant legal analyses from the office of legal counsel at the department of justice. while the disclosure earlier this week of a 16-page unclassified white paper on the government's legal analysis of the use of targeted force against the united states citizen who was a senior operational leader of al qaeda, there is finally more information available to the public. i have been calling and others have been calling the right to vice chairman on increased transparency on targeted force for over year including circumstances in which forces

directed against u.s. citizens and non-citizens alike. i have been attempting to speak publicly about the very low number of civilian casualties that result from such strikes. i have been limited in my ability to do so. but for the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government's conduct of targeted strikes and the figures we have obtained from the executive branch which we have done our utmost to verify confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in a single digits. when i asked to give out the actual numbers i am told you cannot. i see why not. because it is classified. it is a covert program. for the program does not rely -- exist. that rationale -- mr. brennan is long gone and i will talk to you

about that. i think it is very important that we share this data with people. this committee will continue to perform significant oversight of targeted strikes. we received this morning and office of legal counsel opinion on the topic. received a short one and a long one. while i was there was delighted to see senator kain and senator udall. i hope every member will avail themselves to review the opinion. i also intend to review proposals for regulation -- legislation to ensure that drone strikes are carried out in a manner consistent with our values. and the proposal to create an analog of the foreign intelligence surveillance court to review the conduct of such strikes. finally i want to know how the

nominee intends to lead an agency that has had four directors since dci tennant resigned and what he sees as the major challenges. for the information of members, we will have rounds of questions of eight minutes each . members will be recognized by seniority alternating between the sides. members have requested the opportunity to ask mr. brannan questions that will require classified answers as well. we have the ability to move to a classified session following this hearing if it is timely and we're able to do so. my suggestion is that we play that there by year -- ear by ear and see if it is possible to do so. if not will have our closed session next tuesday at our next hearing.

before turning to the vice chairman i would like to conclude my remarks the same way i did at the confirmation for general petraeus. again, this time, the transition between cia directors has been managed by acting director michael morale. i would like to thank mr. morale for keeping the agency on firm footing and for his agreement to remain as deputy director after the confirmation process. he continues to be a top-notch cia officer, a friend of the committee, and i am sure he will be an excellent deputy. mr. vice chairman, please proceed. >> thank you very much, madame chair. i join the chair and -- on congratulating you on your nomination and will continue to the committee today. i do not have to remind you because you're a career individual of the importance of your nomination to head the central intelligence agency. i want to welcome your family and thank them for their support

of you during your years of commitment to our government. also i want to just say as the chairman did that -- how much we appreciate mike morell and i am pleased to see it in your statement mention mike and his contribution to the central intelligence agency and that you intend to keep mike in place. he is a very valued public service -- servant and a guy who stepped into a difficult situation twice and has led with great commitment and has provided the kind of leadership the agency has needed. it will be a responsibility to lead the c.i.a. as our nation continues to face significant national security challenges. while we have heard a lot in recent months about al qaeda being decimated and on the run, it is by no means destroyed and

the threat of terrorism from its affiliate's especially in yemen and north africa remains very real. just in the past few months, terrorist attacks in algeria and benghazi have claimed american lives. it is clear that our vigilance must not waver. at the same time our attention focused beyond the threat posed by al qaeda and other terrorist organizations. from iran to north korea to venezuela, the nuclear proliferation to cyber intrusions to counterintelligence, the count -- the challenges are constant and immense and the cia is at the point of the spear. as your predecessors faced similar challenges, they recognize the importance of working hand-in-hand with congress, especially the congressional intelligence committee. i appreciate your commitment to be open and transparent with this committee. if you are confirmed as the next director. i expect this commitment to be borne out in practice regardless of political pressures and not just become word spoken during

the confirmation process. far too often the committee has -- is facing an unnecessary and legally questionable obstacles in receiving needed oversight information from the intelligence community. as we hear from you this afternoon i also believe it is important for you to set the record straight on a few matters relating to detention policy and the cia's detention and interrogation program. we know the 2009 executive order removed the ca from the detention business, but the current framework is simply not working to get real-time access to intelligence fort terrace detainees. i reviewed the report -- elements of the 9/11 commission report in preparation for this hearing, and i'm concerned that the administration is making the same mistakes that were made before 9/11 when the cia missed vital information on kassam, the mastermind of the attack.

and decided to forgo the capture operation of osama bin laden. the commission cited the focus on using the article 3 corte process as factors in both instances. you and i discussed the committee's report on the serious interrogation -- detention and interrogation program which was approved in december by a slim majority. you tell me you're -- completed your review are the reports executive summary and the findings and conclusions, and you will have an opportunity to express your observations and concerns that you expressed to me with the rest of the committee today. i thank you once again for your dedication and your service to our country, and i do look forward to your testimony and your responses to questions submitted by the committee. >> thank you, mr. vice chairman. we will turn to the distinguished senator from virginia, senator mark warner. >> thank you.

it is my honor to introduce john brennan as the president's nominee to be the next director of the cia. like so many thousands of other professionals in the united states intelligence community, john out calls virginia home. it has been my privilege as a member of this committee for the last two years to represent many of the thousands of men and women in our intelligence agency who also call virginia home. i would also mention of the fact very briefly since we do not get this many opportunities in front of this kind of public audience to recognize that many -- an action that senator mikulski and i took last congress and many of you joined in that we will reintroduce this year, a joint resolution to mark professionals day. to bring respectful attention to these professionals to keep our say -- nations safe every day and i look for to working with all of you to make sure we do

this resolution again. the same qualities, dedication, selflessness, intelligence, and patriotism, are well represented in john brennan, in whom the men and women of the cra will find a dedicated leader in public service should he be confirmed. i have not had the opportunity to work with mr. brennan as much as the other members. i enjoyed our meeting together and as the chairman has indicated, john brennan's long career of public service and his record have prepared him to be director of the cia. he served for 25 years at the agency in the field and at headquarters including as deputy executive director in saudi arabia and as refer to to president since 9/11. he has been on the front lines in the fight against al qaeda including standing up the national counter-terrorism center. his -- he has enormous appreciation from the men and women of the ca and the work they do, often in the shadows, to keep our nation safe. one thing i was also impressed

by in our meeting was that mr. brennan has been an advocate for greater transparency in our counter-terrorism policy and for hearings for the rule of law. as a member and a member of this oversight committee, i appreciate that. as the president said, the imperative to secure the nation must not come at the sacrifice of our laws or ideals. this needs never be an either-or choice. we can protect the nation and stay true to our principles. it has been raised by the chair and the vice chair, it is important to ensure that when we look at the programs of the cra, that these programs effectiveness be measured objectively and not simply by those who are charged with implementing them. the chairman has gone through other parts of your background. i want to congratulate you on this nomination. the services provided to our nation so far, and in the aftermath of the hearing, hopefully the service you

provide going for. i will come back to the mcdyess -- dais. >> please stand and rote raise your right hand and i will administer the oath. i, john brennan, do solemnly swear that i will give this committee the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me god. thank you very much. we look forward to hearing your testimony. >> members of the committee, i am honored to appear before you today as the president's nominee -- >> would you hold, please? we ask the police to please remove this woman. thank you very much.

please remove -- >> [indiscernible] >> i am going to say once again that we welcome everyone here, that we expect no clapping, we expect no hissing, we expect no demonstration in this room. this is a very serious hearing. i will stop the hearing and i will ask the room to be cleared. so know that. please continue. >> thank you. i am honored to be appear before you today. i am grateful to the president for the confidence he has placed in me by sending my name

forward to the senate for consideration. senator warner, thank you for your introduction and for your strong support for those who defend it. this includes the extraordinary men and women of the cia, many of whom call virginia home and call you their senator. i would not be here today without the love and support of my wife kathy, who has been my life partner for 35 years and who, like the spouses and other servants, and professionals, numerous sacrifices of the-- [indiscernible] >> would you pause, mr. brennan. would you remove that person, please, as quickly as you can. thank you. [indiscernible] >> mr. brennan, please proceed. >> who has made numerous sacrifices of the years, bearing the brunt of

responsibilities because of my profession. i would like to pay tribute to my three children who have had to deal with it disappointments associated with an absentee parent more often than they should, and i am pleased to be joined by my wife kathy and my brother tom. [indiscernible] >> all right -- [indiscernible] >> please remove that woman. >> senator feinstein -- [indiscernible]

>> please proceed. mr. brennan, the next time we will clear the chamber and bring people back in one by one. this witness is entitled to be heard, ladies and gentlemen, so please give him that opportunity. >> thank you. i thank you on behalf of my family in new jersey, especially my mother -- [indiscernible] >> all right, which are run to halt the hearing. -- we are going to halt the hearing. i am going to ask that the room be cleared and that the code pink associates not be permitted to come back in. it has been done five times now, and five times is enough. so we will recess for a few minutes. [applause]

[indiscernible] all right. ladies and gentlemen, if you would mind leaving, we will then have you come back in, but it is the only way i think we are going to stop this. we will recess for a few minutes. [gavel] [indiscernible] john? john? [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] [indiscernible] >> ok, we will reconvene the

hearing. mr. brennan, please proceed. >> thank you. i was talking about my parents. my mother, my father, who raised my sister, brother, and i, who shared the opportunity known as america. i would like to extend a salute to david petraeus who remains one of the staunchest advocates of the agency's mission. i want to express my admiration for my close friend mike morell, who has guided the cia with a steady hand and exceptional skill. if confirmed it would be a privilege for me to work side by side with michael, my friend, in the months and years ahead. it would be a tremendous privilege to serve with the director of national intelligence james clapper, who has led legions of intelligence

will professionals. jim is a person of longstanding and deep experience and integrity. surehe and i share identical views on the role of intelligence and the importance of giving current and future generations of professionals the support they need and that they deserve. it would be the greatest honor of my professional life to lead the women and men of the cia, the agency where i started my career for a quarter century. a 24-year-old, i arrived at langley in 1980 at langley, a gs9 trainee, determined to do my part. i all right let's do that of k think you mixwhen i joined the cia, world events were unsettled. our embassy in tehran had been overrun the year before and 52 americans were still being held hostage by government in iran.

the soviet invasion of afghanistan was less than a year old, and in the next decade we witnessed the crumbling of the soviet union. nuclear proliferation and the spread of weapons of mass destruction were a constant concern, and u.s. officials were working hard around the globe try to prevent regional tensions and animosities from turning into a full-scale war. and ominously, the united states was about to face an upsurge in terrorist attacks that claimed hundreds of american lives in lebanon, including a cia officer known as bob ames who was my boss. watchedy career, i've up close and participated in history being made in far off in respect explicit corners of the world, as it collected intelligence, uncovering secrets, identified threats, partnering with foreign services, analyzing the elements abroad, carrying out actions, and attempting to

forecast events that happened, all in an effort to protect our people and to strengthen america's national security. throughout my career i have had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well to witness what it means to the cia officer, such as an analyst who has the daunting task in responsibility to take incomplete and advise the senior most policy makers about government about a foreign, political, and economic developments, or an operations officer, whose job it is to find and obtain those elusive secrets to provide advance warning and strategic surprise, impending violence, cyber attacks and a persistent threats such as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons proliferation, or a technical expert, who finds nuggets of intelligence in tremendous volumes of data,

provides secure data collection and systems and encountered the latest threats to our nation, or a support officer whose responsibility is to provide analysis and when directed by the president, conducting covert action and carried out with the provision speed, skill, and efficiency. and from sub-saharan africa to central and south america to the vast expanses of asia and the great cities of europe and all countries in between, cia officers were there, sometimes in force and sometimes virtually standing alone. and for those 25 years, it was a great honor for me to be a cia officer, as i knew that this country's contributions to security rise in valuable as they were innumerable. following my retirement from the cia in 2005, i had the good fortune to experience other

opportunities. for three years, i served as ceo of a private-sector company, where i learned firsthand about fiduciary responsibilities and sound business practices. and for the past four years and i have had the privilege to serve as the president's principal policy advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism. i have had the opportunity to work with some of the finest americans i have ever met. in the intelligence, military, law enforcement, and diplomatic communities, who have dedicated their lives to the safety and security of fellow americans. it is because of the work of those americans serving domestically, and especially those serving in dangerous places abroad, that we are able to enjoy the freedom and security that are the hallmarks of our nation. i believe my background and experiences have prepared me well to lead the premier intelligence agency in the world at this moment in history, which is as dynamic inconsequential as any in recent

decades and will continue to be in the years ahead. simply stated, the need for intelligence and the cia has never been greater than it is in 2013 or will be in the coming years. historical political and social transformations continued to sweep through the middle east and north africa. israel's security and our arab partners and our prospects for peace throughout the region. we remain at war with al qaeda and its associated forces. they still seek to carry out deadly strike against our homeland, our citizens, and our friends and allies. international criminal organizations, said national grids, and individual hackers and the regime in tehran and yawning remain bent on missiles systems -- and p'yongyang remain bent on missile systems rather than meeting the needs of

their people. yes, the cia is as important to our nation's security today at any time in our nation's history. in carrying out their missions, the men and women of the cia are frequently asked to take challenging, perilous, and controversial actions on behalf of the american people. the cia is not immune from the scrutiny of these efforts, and i welcome a discussion of the cia's past and present activities. if i am selected, i've welcome an investigation of the interrogation techniques. i read the report that raises a number of serious issues. given the gravity and importance of this subject, i look forward to a report on the committee's findings if i am confirmed. in addition, some of our

government's counterterrorism policies and operations have sparked widespread debate, domestically, internationally, and in this room. i have publicly acknowledged that our fight against al qaeda and its associated forces have sometimes involved the use of lethal force outside the hotbed battlefield of afghanistan. accordingly, it makes sense that there is interest in the legal basis as well as that threshold, criteria, processes, procedures and reviews of such actions. i have strongly promoted reviews of such actions with the congress and the american people, as i believe our system of government and our commitment to transparency demands nothing less. as the elected representative of the american people and as members of this committee, you have the opportunity to oversee elements of the cia and the intelligence community to ensure that they are being carried out lawfully and without regard to partisanship. if confirmed, i would endeavor to keep this committee fully

and currently informed, not only because it is required by law, but because you can either perform your oversight function, nor support the mission of the cia if kept in the dark. another will be occasions when we disagree, just as you disagree among ourselves at times on aspects of past, current, and future activities of the cia. such disagreement is healthy and a necessary part of our democratic process. but such disagreements should never prevent us from carrying out our national security and intelligence responsibilities, as a failure to do so could have devastating consequences for the safety and security of all americans. i have heard repeated references to the trust deficit that has at times existed between this committee and the cia. if i'm confirmed, the address the deficit between the

committee and the cia would be wholly unacceptable and i would make it my goal on day one of my tenure and every day thereafter to strengthen the trust between us. i have a reputation for speaking my mind, and at times doing so in a direct manner, which some attribute to my new jersey routes. i would like to think that my candor would reassure you that you'll get straight answers from me, maybe not always those you will like, but you will get answers and they will reflect my honest views. that is the commitment i made to you. i would like to finish by saying a few words about the importance of taking care of the women and men who serve in the cia. because the of the secretiveness that the intelligence work requires, few americans will ever know the making sacrifices that these professionals and their families make every day. many have risked their lives and at times have given their lives to keep our country states. if confirmed, i would make our mission in partnership with the congress to make sure that the men and women have the trade craft, training, linguistics

skills, is to provide an -- supervision and guidance to do their jobs. these leaks of classified information damage our national security, it sometimes greatly, putting cia employees at risk in making their mission is much more difficult. the men and women of the cia are a national treasure. i will consider it one of my most important responsibilities to take care of them, just as others took care of me when i first arrived as a young trainee at langley in 1980. as members of the committee come out as you all know, when you ride at langley, you immediately see the memorial wall. on it are stars, each one representing a member of our family who gave their life for this nation. to me, and everyone at the cia, they're not simply stars, nor are the only visible remembrances of do they departed colleagues and friends.

the stars represent heroic and unsung patriots, americans who have lived their lives with dedication. i want america to be proud of all our activities. i would take it as a sacred obligation to do everything in my ability to make sure that the central intelligence agency is the best intelligence service it can be and one that makes all americans proud. thank you, and i look forward to taking your questions. >> thank you, mr. brennan. i have five short questions that we traditionally ask. if he would just answer that yes or no. do you agree to appear before the committee here or in other

venues when invited? >> yes. >> do you agree to send officials from the cia and designated staff when invited? >> yes. >> do you agree to provide documents or any other materials requested by the committee in order for it to carry out its oversight and legislative responsibilities? >> yes to all documents that come under my authority as director of the cia. >> we will discuss that later. will you provide material to the committee when requested? >> yes. >> do you agree to fully brief to the fullest extent possible all members of this committee of intelligence activities and covert actions, rather than just the chairman and vice- chairman? >> yes, i will endeavor to do that. >> will now go into eight-minute rounds, and we will do it by seniority and alternate from

side to side. i wanted to talk about for a moment the provision of documents. senator wyden and others have had much to do about this. our job is to provide oversight, to try to see that the cia and intelligence communities operate legally. in order to do so, it is necessary to understand what the official legal interpretation is. the office of legal counsel opinions becomes very important. we began in the bush administration with mr. bradbury to ask for olc opinions. up until last night, when the vice-president called vice chairman widom and myself and said that they were providing the olc opinions, we have not been able to get them. it makes our job to interpret what is legal or not legal much more difficult if we do not have those opinions.

staff has asked for eight additional opinions. what i want to know is whether you will become our advocate with the administration so that we can obtain those opinions? >> law requires the heads of intelligence agencies to provide the committee with documentation on covert action. i have been an advocate of that position and will continue to be. >> i take that as a yes, and i'm counting on you to provide eight olc opinions. my next question is this. when the opinions can overcome our staff was banned from seeing it. we have lawyers and very good

staff. this is upsetting to a number of members. when we depend on our staff. you cannot take material home. you cannot take notes with you. staff becomes very important. you happen to know the reason why our staff is not permitted when we are permitted to see an olc? >> i understand fully your interest in having your staff see the documentation. it is fully understandable. the reason for providing information just to the members at times is to ensure that it is kept on a limited basis. it is rather exceptional, as i think you know, that the office of legal counsel advice would be directly shared with you. i think this was determined because of the rather exceptional nature of the issue and the genuine effort to try to meet the committees requirements. i understand your interest in

having the staff -- >> if you would relay the request officially, we would appreciate that. >> absolutely, i will. >> when we talked about the report on interrogation and the tension, the 6000-page report, i asked that you please read it. you said you would. you said that you would for sure reedy 300 page summary. -- read the 300 page summary. have you done so? >> i have read the first part, which is 300 pages. >> let me ask a question. were the eit's key to the takedown of osama bin laden? >> the report remains classified. there clearly were a number of things, many things that i read in that report that were very concerning and disturbing to me. and one that i would want to

look into immediately if i were to be confirmed as cia director, the talked-about mismanagement of the program, providing inaccurate information, and it was rather damning in a lot of its language as far as the nature of the activities carried out. i am eager to see the agency's response to that report. i read those 300 pages. i look forward, if confirmed, to reading the entire 6000 page volume, because it is of importance. i do not have, nor does not -- has the cia reviewed this information completely. that was done over an extended time frame. a tremendous amount of work has gone into it. based on the documentation available, there were not interviews conducted with cia

officers. i look forward to hearing from the cia on that and coming back to this committee and giving you my full and honest views. >> thank you. you'll have that opportunity, i assure you. i would like to ask you about the status of the administration's efforts to institutionalize rules and procedures for the conduct of drone strikes, in particular, how you see your role as cia director in that approval process. >> chairman, as this committee knows, and i'm sure wants to continue to protect certain covert action activities, let me talk generally about the counter-terrorism program and the role at cia, and its effort to try to institutionalize and ensure we have as rigorous a process as possible.

we feel we are taking the appropriate actions at the appropriate time. the president had insisted that any action we take will be legally grounded, will be thoroughly anchored in intelligence, will have the appropriate approval process before any action is conflict -- contemplated, including any action that would involve the use of lethal force. the different parts of the government involved in this process are several agencies and my role has been to orchestrate this process to ensure that any actions we take fully comport with our law and meet the standards that this committee and the american people expect of us. at the same time, ensuring that we do everything possible before we need to resort to lethal force. >> mr. brennan, the 9/11

commission report describes a cancelled 1998 cia operation to capture osama bin laden using travel groups in afghanistan. the former cia unit told staffed by you directed them to cancel that operation. he says, following a meeting that you had with director tennant and others, that you said the operation should be cancelled in favor of a different approach described by the 9/11 commission as an all out secret effort to persuade the taliban to expel bin laden. as we know, bin laden was not expelled. three months later, his wrath was unleashed with an attack on our embassies. did you advise director tenant against this operation?

and if so, why? >> i had a conversation with george and that at the time. every single cia manager, george tennant as deputy director of operations at the time, and other individuals at the counter-terrorism center argued against that operation as well because it was not well grounded in intelligence, and its chances of success were minimal. and it was likely that other individuals would be killed. when i was involved in those discussions, i provided the director and others my professional advice about whether i thought that operation should go forward. i also was engaged in discussion with the saudi government at the time. and i encouraged certain action to be taken to put pressure on the taliban as well as bin laden. >> i take it that your answer to my question is that you did advise in favor of the

cancellation of that operation. >> based on what i had known at the time, i did not think it was a worthwhile operation and i did not begin had a chance of success. >> the 9/11 commission noted that no capture plan before after 9/11 never obtained the same level of possible capture. do you have second thoughts about your recommendation to cancel the operation? >> the chances of success for minimal. i was not in the chain of command at that time. i was serving abroad as chief of station. >> as deputy executive director, you receive the daily updates of capture, including techniques of interrogation and waterboarding, were used. putting you in a position to express concern to him about the

program. -- concern about the program. we found 50 memos in the documents within the 6000 pages on which you were copied. what steps did you take to stop the cia from moving to techniques that you now say were objectionable at the time? >> i did not take steps to stop the techniques. i was not in the chain of command. i had the responsibility for overseeing the management of the agency and its various functions. i was aware of the program. i was copied on some of those documents, but i have no oversight of its. i have expressed my personal objections to some agency colleagues about such things as waterboarding and others, but i did not try to stop it because it was something being done in different part of the agency

under the authority of others. it was something that was directed by the administration of the time. >> you say you expressed your concern to other colleagues. did you ever expressed your concern to john >> you say you expressed your concern to other colleagues. did you ever expressed your concern to john mclaughlin, executive director, or any of the other cia leaders? i had a number of conversations with my agency colleagues on a broad range of issues during that timeframe. we would have personal conversations. >> my reason for naming those individuals, mr. brennan, is that they are those directly above you. mr. mclaughlin has been in the press saying that he never heard from you. we have not seen anybody who has come forward saying they ever heard any objections from you

with respect to these programs. moving on, your boss at the cia said you had a role in setting the parameters of the program and in helping to see justice department approval for the techniques. he went on to say that you would have been part and parcel of the process. how does that reflect on your statement that he played no role in the programs in its creation or oversight? >> i respectfully disagree with my colleague. i was not involved in establishing the program. i think in that same article he goes on to say i was not involved in a lot of elements of that program. i was not involved in the establishment of that program. i had awareness that the agency was going forward on it. i had visibility into some of the activities there, but i was not part of any type of management structure or aware of

most of the details. >> why would you be the recipient of a minimum of 50 e-mails on the progress of the interrogation as well as the techniques used? >> i was copied on thousands upon thousands of e-mail distributions as a deputy director. i know of no action that was taken to authorize any thing. >> mr. krongard says he discussed with you a changing of techniques. >> i do not recall a conversation with him about changing techniques. >> when you reviewed the

information after the interrogation, did you think the and permission was valuable? >> it was clearly my impression that there was valuable information coming out. >> in in november, 2007 interview, you said that information from the interrogation techniques "save the lives." but you also said that cia should be out of the detention business. the main intervention i saw was the ability to interrogate individuals about being terrorists, but not necessarily evidence that could be used in the court of law. in your view seems to be that even if we could detain more terrorist and save lives using traditional techniques, it would be better to let them go rather than to retain him.

>> we want to retain as many as possible, so we can elicit intelligence from him inappropriate manner. i am a strong proponent to do everything possible, short of killing terrorists, bringing them to justice, and getting the intelligence from them. i clearly had the impression in 2007 that there was a valuable intelligence that came out of those interrogation sessions. reading the reports of these committee, raises questions about the impression i had at the time. now i have determined that based on an information as well as what the cia says what the truth is. and at this point, i do not know what the truth is. >> how many targets have been captured during your service with the administration? >> there have been a number of

individuals captured, arrested, detained and interrogated, the brief, and put away by our partners overseas. we have provided them the intelligence. when a lot of these countries were both unwilling and unable to do it, we have given them that opportunity. that is when we are working with our partners. trex how many high-value targets have been arrested and interrogated and detained by the u.s. during your four years with the administration? >> i will be happy to get those numbers to you, in terms of those high-value targets. >> i submit the answer to that is one. and it is the man who was put on a ship for 60 days and interrogated. >> i will point out that i will try to enforce the minutes. if you hear a tapping, is not personal.

senator rockefeller? >> thank you, madam chair. welcome, mr. brennan. if confirmed, you will lead an extraordinary agency with extraordinary people who perform extraordinary services, most of them totally unknown by the american people. most people do not think about that. most of us in public service want everything we do to be known. it is how we got elected. it is very different than the central intelligence agency and i respect it very much. i want to move from ieit to the enhanced interrogation techniques.

you talk about the 6000 pages. i will pour out my frustration on dealing with the central intelligence agency and various administrations trying to get information. why was it they felt we were so unworthy of being trusted? why was it they were willing to talk to pat roberts, me, saxby chambliss, dianne feinstein, but not anybody else? until we literally bludgeoned them, diane and i, to include everybody. it is amazing. i pursue dianne feinstein's statement about staff. under the previous administration, when you have a briefing with the president or

the vice president and the cia and others, you are not allowed to -- i can remember when pat roberts was the chairman and i was vice chairman, we were not allowed to talk to each other driving up and driving back. staff were allowed to do nothing. you are surrounded by people who work with you and fill you in. people who are experts. we are, too. they've got to be part of this. wende olc comes, it should come to them also. i strongly agree with the chairman's views on that. in the enhance interrogation techniques matter, a handful of former cia officials who were personally invested in defending the interrogation program, largely because their professional reputations depend

on it, i think it does a great disservice to discuss this issue. you understand that this took six years to write, not just 6000 pages. perhaps longer. 30,000 footnotes. why did we do this? we did this because we have heard nothing from the intelligence agency. we have no way have been briefed. they would not tell us what was going on, so we had to do our own investigation. and we are pretty good at it. when you read the first 150 pages, you told me you were shocked at some of what you read. you did not know that. that, to me, it's shocking. that has to be fixed and changed forever. there never can be that kind of

situation again where we have to tell you what is going wrong in your agency, and dust demoralizing some of the people in your agency who want to be relieved of the burden of bad techniques in interrogation. they suffer from that. but nobody would talk with us about that. we had to get that information on our own. it is a magnificent piece of work. it will go down in history, because it will define the separation of powers as between the intelligence committees in the house and senate, and the agency and others that relate to it. i am also very aware that this is all crucial to the president's authority, not just on the more modern question of the day about drones. that determination is made by one person and one person alone.

if there's a breakdown in protocol, a breakdown in the line of command and reacting into something that is not good, something where there's too much collateral damage -- i agree with the chairman when she said that the work of the drowned -- of the drone had been fairly safe, however any collateral damage is unacceptable. this detention and interrogation program, i've got to say that the people who ran it were ignorant of the topic, executing without relative experience. management and senior officials did not pay attention to details. and corruption by personnel showed peculiar conflicts of interest.

it was sold with grossly inflated claims of professionalism and so-called lives saved. it was a low place in our history. this document should change that forever. if you are confirmed, which i hope you will be, i hope that you'll make parts of this required reading for your senior personnel, so they can go through the same experience that you went through. are you willing to do that? >> yes, senator. i am looking forward to taking advantage of whatever lessons come out of this chapter in our history and his committee's report. >> how do you cross reference? tell me when i'm out of time. >> 8 seconds. >> no, one minute and eight seconds. >> yes, a long time.

>> cross reference the eit disaster and the future of the drone. only the president can authorize that, but sometimes the decision has to be passed down and in a very accurate manner. and there has to be a protocol, which is more exact even then the to it -- the interrogation techniques. that is beginning to be straightened out. the protocol of that in so far as that particular agency will have to be directed with particular excellence and exactitude.

how will that happen? >> you make an excellent point. i'm interested in finding out what went wrong in the system if this report is accurately stated. what went wrong in this system where there was mismanagement or inaccurate information put forward? there were covert activities -- there are covert activities taking place today under the direction of the cia. i would submit to this committee that all of this covert actions and programs are being run effectively. the measures of effectiveness are an accurate and fair representation of what is actually happening. this report raises serious questions about whether or not there are serious systemic issues at play. i would need to get my arms around that. that would be one of my highest priorities if i were to go to the agency. >> thank you. >> senator byrd?

>> thank you for your long history of service, and more importantly, your family. thank you for allowing us to put up with this hobby. most of the challenges that our committee receives is the finished analysis that is derived from sourced reports and overall intelligence materials that we do not see -- and i might say, we do not need to see all of in order to ensure that we can perform our oversight duties of the intelligence committee. would you agree that the committee should be able to review all analytical product if requested? >> on the face of that question, yes. however i would have to take a look at the issues involved in terms of what we're talking about an access to that. is it all staff, all committee members or whatever?

your intent and objective i fully support. >> as we go forward, there may be times that the committee will need the raw intelligence to judge with accuracy what we are provided. will you provide the raw intelligence on those occasions that the committee requests it? >> i will give every request of this committee for access to information full consideration. that is my commitment to you. >> do you agree that it is a function of this committee's oversight that occasionally we would need to look at it? >> i would agree that it is a function of your oversight that you have interest in doing that and it would be my duty to try to be as accommodating as possible, while at the same time trying to respect whatever considerations need to be taken into account as we do that.

>> as you know, the committee is conducting a thorough investigation into the attacks on the embassy in benghazi, libya. if confirmed, will you ensure that this refusal for information that is currently happening will never happen again? >> i can assure you that i will do everything within my ability and authority to reach an accommodation with this committee for documents. it would be my objective to see if we could meet those interests. at the same time, the founding fathers did separate the branches of government. i want to be mindful of that separation, but also be aware of your interests. >> they gave us the power of the purse. >> they certainly did.

>> and it is one that we hate to use. do you think there's any situation where it is legal to disclose to the media or the public the details of covert action programs? >> i do not think it's ever appropriate to improperly disclosed classified information to anybody who does not have legitimate access to it and has the clearances for it. >> let me clarify. i did not ask for classified information. i specifically said covert action programs. >> by definition, covert action programs are classified. >> i realize that. >> i do not believe it is appropriate to improperly disclosed any of those details related to covert action programs. >> let me point out that in the committee pre-hearing questions, you did not really answer a

question that dealt with specific instances where you were authorized to disclose classified information to a reporter. can you verify for the committee that you were given the authority to release classified information? i have never provided classified information to reporters. i engaged in discussions with reporters about classified issues that they might have had access to because of unfortunate leaks of classified information. and i frequently work with reporters and editors of newspapers to keep out of the public domain some of this country's most important secret. i engage with them on those issues. after working in the intelligence profession for 30 years and being a cia professional, i know the importance of keeping those things secret. >> have any of your

conversations with reporters recorded or transcribed? >> i believe they have appeared i have been engaged on conversations with people on the telephone and i know were presumed that i have been recorded. >> have you ever asked not to be recorded? but whenever i talk to reporters, i do so at the request of the white house press office. there are ground rules established. i'm not the one to establish those ground rules. >> you said previously that in exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to acknowledge classified information to the media. did you tell information -- inside information on the aqap bomb plot last year? >> i believe you are referring

to a conversation i had with administration officials who would be on talk shows. i discussed with them some of the efforts of that because i wanted to make sure they understood the nature of the threat and what it was, and what it was not. what i said at the time was that i could not talk about any operational details. this was shortly after the anniversary of the bin laden takedown. we had inside control of the plot and the device was never a threat to the american public. >> did you think that comment actually exposed sources ormet this? >> no, sir, i did not. and there is an investigation going on right now. i volunteered with the department of justice on that and have been interviewed.

>> on numerous occasions, i've had officials expressed to me the challenges they have gone through to try to make apologies to our partners. i personally sat down in london to have that apology conversation. it was very disruptive very quickly. did you provide any classified or otherwise sensitive information regarding the details of the abbottobad raid? >> no, i have not. >> you know who advised secretary gates to tell people to shut up? >> you have to ask secretary gates. >> let me go back to the questions initially that the chair referred to.

i think he might have taken her request on documents to be the documents we have outstanding. i think she referring to the future. i hope you take the opportunity, if you have not already, to send back to the administration. it is essential that the documents on benghazi be supplied for the confirmation to move forward. i'm not saying that's you were involved, but it is essential that they be supplied to move forward. >> as we discussed last week, i believe the issues before us have nothing to do with political party and have everything to do with the checks and balances that make our system of government so special.

taking the fight to al qaeda is something every member of the committee feels strongly about. it is the idea of giving any president unfettered power to kill an american without checks and balances that is so troubling. every american has the right to know when their government believes it is not allowed to kill them. and ensuring the documentation to conduct robust oversight is essential to our democracy. in fact, the committee was created in response to a lack of oversight on programs that required killing. when the president called and announce that he would it effective immediately announce the full authority to conduct targeted killings of americans,

it is the first step to insuring and accountability that is important. since last night, however, i am concerned that the department of justice is not following through with the president's commitment just yet. 11 united states senators have asked to see any and all legal opinions. but when i went to read those opinions this morning, it is not clear that was provided. and moreover, on this. with respect to lawyers, the concern is the double standard. as the national security advisor, and you volunteered you were a lawyer, you ask your lawyers and experts to help you. we are trying to wade through all of these documents. one of the reasons i'm concerned that what the president has

committed you has actually been provided. and finally, this committee has been stonewalled on of several other requests, and particularly with requests -- i will go back and convey to them that the justice department is not yet following through on the president's commitment. will you convey that message? >> yes, i will, senator. >> very good. let me move to the public side of the oversight, making sure that the public's right to know is respected. one part of oversight is congressional oversight. our doing our work here. and the other is making sure that people are brought into the debate. just like james madison said, this is what you need to preserve a republic. i want to start with the drone issue. in a speech of last year, the

president instructed you to be more open about the use of drums to conduct targeted killings of al qaeda members. my question is, what should be done next to ensure that the public conversation about drones happens so that the american people are brought into this debate and have an understanding of what it means when the government conducts targeted killings? >> i think this discourse between the executive and legislative is critically important. i think there need to be continued speeches given by the executive branch to explain our counter-terrorism programs. i think there is an impression on the part of the american people that we use these strikes to punish. we only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there is no other alternative to

taking an action that will mitigate the threat. we need to make sure that there is an understanding. the people that were standing up here today, i think they really have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government, and the care we take. and the agony that we go through to make sure that we do not have any collateral injuries or deaths. as the chairman said earlier, we need to be able to go out and say that publicly and openly. it is critically important. people are reacting to a lot of falsehoods out there. i do see it as part of my obligation and it is this committee's obligation to make sure that the truth is known to the american people and to the world. >> i am convinced that there are parts of the drone policy that can be declassified consistent with national security. i hope you will work on that for your part. let me ask you with respect to the president's authority to kill americans, i would ask you how much evidence the president needs to decide a particular

american can be killed and whether the president believes he can use this authority inside the u.s. in my judgment, both the congress and public need to understand the answers to these kinds of fundamental questions. what do you think needs to be done to ensure that members of the public understand more about when the government believes it can kill its people, particularly with regard to these two questions. >> i have been a proponent of trying to be as open as possible with these programs. we need to optimize transparency with these programs, but at the same time optimize secrecy and protection of national security. i do not believe it is one or the other. we need to optimize both of them. we need to explain to the american people what the

threshold are, the processes for the approvals, the reviews. the office of legal counsel and establishes the boundaries within which we can operate. i think the american people would be quite pleased to know that we have been very judicious and we only use these capabilities as a last resort. >> if the executive branch makes a mistake and kills the wrong person, or a group of wrong people, how should the government acknowledge that? >> i believe we need to acknowledge that. we need to it knowledge that to our foreign partners. we need to acknowledge it publicly. there are certain circumstances where there are considerations to be taken into account, but as far as i'm concerned, if this kind of action takes place, in the interest of transparency,

the u.s. government should acknowledge it. >> acknowledge it publicly? >> that would be the objective of the program. >> one must question. in my letter to you three weeks ago, i have been asking and i knew that i want the names of any and all countries where intelligence uses legal authority. if confirmed, would you provide a full list? >> i know this is an outstanding request on your part. during your courtesy call we discussed it. if confirmed, i would get back to you and would be my intention to do everything possible to meet this committee's legitimate requests. >> as a matter of public record, the raid that killed osama bin laden was carried out under the authority of leon panetta. that tells you right there that

the intelligence community has used the full authority in at least one country. i want you to say whether legal authority has been used in other countries. will you provide the committee with this list? >> you are talking about an historical list? anytime anywhere that the cia was involved in illegal act? i would have to go back and look at that. if the cia was involved in a type of legal activity, i would make sure that this committee had that information. >> that is a good start. >> mr. brennan, thank you for your service over the years. i want to follow up on a conversation we had an hour of -- in my office. it is the question of leaks. i was glad to hear your

acknowledge in your opening statement how important it is that we avoid leaks of any kind. they are dangerous. they endanger the lives of americans, and they cannot be tolerated in the business we are in. you agree? >> absolutely. >> i want to talk to you about a person who i believe, and you acknowledge, is the most dangerous person on the planet. and that is abraham al-zawahiri. we had a conversation about the plot that uncovered him. do you recall? >> yes. >> i have in front of me the reuters article dated may 18, 2012, describing your engagement regarding the theory and the

plot. i assume you have read it. >> i've read many articles. i presume i've read that one. >> this particular one discusses the leak itself and how we got to where we are on this. from the article it says, "about 5:45 p.m. eastern daylight time on monday, may 7, just before the newscast, john brennan held a small, private teleconference to brief former counter-terrorism advisers who had become a frequent commentator on tv news shows." is that an accurate statement? >> yes. >> can you tell me who was involved in that interview? >> i believe the people on that phone included one of my predecessors, fran townsend,

roger cressey, juan zarate, richard clarke, and other professionals. >> any others? >> i do not remember the others. >> any notes? >> the justice department has been involved voluntarily and legally. anything available on that has been turned over to the department of justice. >> did you turn over those notes? >> my office turned over everything available. >> who took those notes? >> i was not taking notes at the time. there were people from the white house on that conversation, as we do with these types of engagements. >> and who were those

involved? >> aside from the reporters? someone on the white house press office. >> may 7 was the date the incident occurred, correct? the underlying event that you're talking about involving mr. siri. >> i believe that may 7 was the right date. >> can you tell me why you felt compelled to release that information to these people? >> there were explaining it on network news the next

morning. >> that is not a question. >> i thought it was. >> the question was, why did you feel compelled to hold this press conference and divulged they information on that time and that day? >> it was a teleconference with individuals and i knew they were going out on television that evening and i wanted to make sure that these individuals with a background on counter-terrorism would be able to explain to the american people the importance of and making sure the american people were aware of the threat environment. >> they were going on tv then? >> yes, because the news reports had already broken that afternoon. this was a routine engagement with the press, as we normally do when these things are made public. >> the next paragraph says, according to the people on the call, brennan stressed that

washington had inside control. >> inside control of the plot, yes. >> based on that, one would know that we had something inside. is that a fair statement? >> from that statement, it is known that the ied at the time was not a threat to the traveling public. >> would you agree with me that disclosure resulted in the outing of an asset that's true not have been outed? >> absolutely not. what i'm saying is that we were explaining to the american public why the ied was not a threat at the time it was in the control of the individual. when we stay inside control, that means we have the operation either environmentally or in any number of ways. it did not reveal any kind of

information. and i told those individuals there are transcripts available of that conversation. >> having used the words that you have used it is not much of a leak to determine that you had a handle on it? >> if in fact, we said the i.e.d. was obtained and it was not a threat at the time, there was some kind of inside control. >> having said that, it seems to me that the leak that the justice department is looking for is right here in front of us. do you disagree with that? >> i disagree with you, senator. i talked to the department of justice and i conducted interviews with them and i'm a witness to that. there is a subject, target, and witness.

i'm a witness. i want to make sure who leaked the information because it did disrupt serious equities on the part of our international partners. >> you're in agreement that this was a serious flaw in what should have happened, is that correct? >> it is a serious flaw that it got out to the press before the operation was concluded. absolutely. my discussion with those individuals that night it was already out in the press. >> you agree with me on the day we get mr. siri it is going be a good day or if he gets us first it will be a bad day for the american people and particularly, anyone involved in the leak. >> i live this every day and night. i go to bed worrying that i did not do enough. when he is brought to justice it

will be because of the work that has been done by brave americans in the c.i.a. and other places. believe me, i'm focused on the issue of the i.e.d. threat, a.q.a.p. and mr. siri. >> my time is up. >> thank you. before you start senator, a vote is due to start at 4:00. it is five after 4:00. senator went to vote and when he gets back i will go. we will keep this going so we'll be guided by that. go ahead. >> welcome to the committee. in the short time i have, you have mentioned your wife. could you introduce us to her? that this is my wonderful wife kathy and my brother thomas is also here from new jersey. >> we're glad to welcome

you. we know that not only you sir, but your entire family has served and continues to serve. i want to thank you the people of the central intelligence agency for what they do every day and in every way. you work in a way that is not known, not recognized and not always appreciated. let me get to my questions. i have been concerned for some time that there is a changing nature of the c.i.a. and instead of it being america's top spy agency to make sure we have no strategic surprises. it has become more and more executing military operations. i have discussed this with you in prior conversations.

how do you see this? i see this as overriding the mission of the c.i.a. for which youre so well versed and more of a function of the special operations command. could you share with me how you see the c.i.a. and what you think about this militarization of the c.i.a. that is going on? >> thank you, senator. >> you might disagree with me. i welcome your disagreements if you do so. >> senator, the principle missions of the agency is to collect intelligence and prevent those strategic surprises and to be the best analytic department. at times, the president asks and directs the c.i.a. to do covert action. that could include paramilitary.

as we have discussed there are things that the agency has been involved in since 9/11 that has been an aberration from the traditional role. one thing i would do is to take a look of the mission within c.i.a. the resources that are dedicated to this and as we had the discussion, i am concerned that looking at it which is a big place, we need to make sure we have the best intelligence as possibility. >> i appreciate that and look forward to working with you to identify what the c.i.a. and the d.o.d. it takes me to the issue of a cyber threat. we have talked about the cyber threat.

you are a big help in trying to get this cyber legislation passed. tell us what you think is the role of the c.i.a. in dealing with the cyber threat in the area of human intelligence or with the c.i.a.? you have a unique insight in it. we know what homeland security is supposed to do, tell us where you see the c.i.a. in this. >> it is one of the most consequential to the national security. congress needs to be focused on and do everything possible to prevent a devastating attack against this country because of vulnerabilities in the saber front. c.i.a.'s traditional mission is to try to determine the plans and intentions of foreign

governments, foreign groups. learning about those plans and develop the capability in the cyber world is something that c.i.a. is best placed to do. so we will have an understanding of what foreign countries are doing, what criminal organizations are doing and what some groups are doing and the threat to us. then in addition, the analysts at c.i.a. can take the information working with the rest of the community to make sure that the policy makers have a good sense of the threat and have some strategies. then working with the department of home land security and others put together that structure that will make this country resilient to those attacks. >> i look forward to working with you on this. this agency -- the f.b.i., they have responsibility for work outside this country, inside this country and yet, we all

have to do -- what the marine corp. is saying doing what we're best at and what with needed for. this is the greatest threat because we failed to pass the legislation ourselves. we can't stop at foreign policies where we can divert, identify an attack. i want to get of to the job of the c.i.a. i'm going to be blunt and that is no surprise to you, sir. i've been with the committee for more than 10 years. with the exception of mr. panetta i feel like i've been jerked around by every c.i.a. director. i had to pull information out,

and i feel like i've been misdirected. they had to tell us that we had weapons of mass destruction in iraq. we know the problems we've had before and the chair has spoken about it all the way. quite frankly those questions were evaded, distorted, etc. my question to you is, knowing your background, knowing your education, can i have your word that you're going to be very forthcoming with this committee to speak truth to power, to speak truth about power? >> truthfulness was a value that was put into me in my home in new jersey. it still is to this day. honesty is the best policy.

none of us are perfect human beings. i will say i will be honest with this committee and do everything possible to immediate your needs and requirements. i know youre a proud senator of one of the jewels in the committee which resides in maryland. it would be my objective to make the c.i.a. your favorite intelligence agency. >> i think you're pushing your luck. thank you very much. thank you very much. >> senator levin. >> thank you for your willingness to serve here. my question is this, in your

opinion does water boarding constitute torture? >> the attorney general has referred to water boarding as torture. many people have referred to it as torture. as you well know and we've had the discussion the term torture has a lot of implications. it is something that should have been banned and it should never have taken place in my view. if i go to c.i.a. it would never be brought back. >> do you have a personal opinion whether water boarding is torture? >> i have a person opinion that it is reprehensible and it is something that should not be done. i'm not a lawyer so i can't address that question. >> you've read opinions on whether you accept those opinions that is my question. >> i have read many opinions

that said water boarding could be used. from the standpoint of that, i cannot point to a single legal document on this issue. as far as i'm concerned, water boarding is something that should never been employed and something that will not be if i have something to do with it. is it ban by the geneva convention? >> i'm not a lawyer to make the determination if it is illegal. >> the director of the c.i.a. operations was asked about their moral perspective on these techniques, including water boarding. he said that he knew -- this is his words -- i know many of these proceeds were applied to our servicemen. tens of thousands of u.s. soldiers have gone through this.

now, as we investigated in our 2008 report, these so-called survival resistance techniques were used to train members of our military. they were never intended to be used by u.s. interrogators. these techniques were based on chinese communist techniques used during the korean war. the training of u.s. personnel and exposing of them for a few moments to these techniques were meant to help them survive in the event they were captured and the event they were subject to these techniques. my question is, is there any comparability between a friendly trainer in the united states to expose our troops to these techniques for a few moments

under close supervision? is there any possible comparability to that to using these techniques on an enemy in an effort to extract intelligence? >> they are for different purposes and i do not see a common comparability there. >> the chairman and i issued a report or made a statement on april 27, 2012. this is also began with the statement of mr. rodriguez. he said information provide bid c.i.a. detainees about bin laden's courier being the lead information led to the location of bin laden's compound. that is what he said. we said that statement is wrong. the original lead of information

had no connection to c.i.a. detainees. it information was collected by a variety of classified sources. they were used against them but that provided false and misleading information during their time in c.i.a. custody. my question to you is, are you aware of any intelligence information that supports this claim that the lead information came from k.s.m.? >> i have reviewed the intelligence thoroughly but i'm unaware of any. >> next, former c.i.a. director said that "what we got, the original lead information began with information from c.i.a. detainees at sites. the chairman and i issued the

same statement the following that the statement of the former attorney general was wrong. do you have any information to disagree with our statement? >> i do not. >> third statement that we quoted in our report from a former c.i.a. directorwe got to original -- excuse me. your answer is the same? >> i do not know. >> you don't have any information to the contrary? >> right. >> now to the former director, he broke like a dam under pressure in harsh tech teaks which included water boarding.

he released the name of the courier of bin laden. the statement of the chairman and myself is that that statement is wrong. do you have any information of the contrary? >> there was information provided that was useful and valuable and i have read the first value of your report. >> i'm not referring to the report but the statement that chairman feinstein and i issued on april 27, 2012. we flat out say those statements are wrong. >> right. >> do you have any basis to disagree with us? >> i do not. >> when you become the c.i.a. director, if you are confirmed and tell us whether or not you disagree about any of these statements that we made about those three men. will you do that if you're confirmed? >> i will do that.

i need to look at the responses to it and that report raises serious questions about where the intelligence came from. >> will you include in your review of our joint statement and tell us if you disagree with anything we said, will you do that? >> i would be happy to. >> there's one final point and this has to do with a very famous document. my time is not quite yet up. that has to do with a cable that came in that relates to the matter. are you familiar with it? >> yes. >> the issue is if there was a meeting in prague. the cable that came in has been

classified by the c.i.a. even though the report -- this is what the c.i.a. did to the cable. now, will you check with the checks with the source of this cable and see if they have any objection to the release of this cable relative to the report of that meeting? >> yes, senator. i have looked into this issue and i know that you and director petraeus were involved in a discussion on this. i will be happy to follow-up on it. there were concerns about the release of that cable. >> well, the report of this kay, by the way, -- excuse me the unclassified report which was not classified, it made at least four references to the check service providing c.i.a. with reporting based on a single

source about this alleged meeting that never took place. we knew it never took place. yet, repeatedly, particularly the vice president made reference to a report of a meeting between these two. now, it's very significant for the record here. we went to war based on allegations there was a relationship between iraq and the attackers, the 9/11 attackers. it is very important this cable be declassified. the only reason to keep it classified is to protect an administration, not to protect sources and methods. because the sources and methods -- if you check with the checks, i'm -- czechs i'm sure they have no objection to have this released. will you check to see if they

have any objections?mr. brennanr experience and i think that experience is important and important have for the position that if confirmed you will occupy and knowledge of your service to the country and your experience in this field. i think the president use that as one of the criteria. when we spoke earlier, in a private talk, we talked about the relationship you want to have with this committee, not just with the chairman and the vice chairman, but with all of the committee members. i appreciate your answers and you spoke of the trust deficit and said it is wholly an acceptable and would give straight answers and be blunt and candid.

you have been that today. it is not a prerequisite to be mr. congeniality to occupy the position of the -- director of cia, so i don't hold that -- it would probably be a red flag if someone had that award and wanted your position, the kind of issues you have to deal require straight talk, straight answers, and getting to the chase real quick. you said it is the new jersey way. i will accept that. governor christie exhibits the same kind of responses and has a pretty high approval rating. so we will go forward with taking you at your word. we will have the kind of relationship where we can have a blunt, straight forward, fully disclosed working relationship. i think it is critical for us to provide oversight, the ability for us to have the right kind of agencies so we know where each other is and move

forward together in terms of what needs to be done to provide intelligence to that needs to be done to protect the american people. o that needs to be done to protect the american people. i wanted to say that. i want to follow-up on the leaks because i wanted to say that. i want to follow-up on the leaks because i have a few more questions. it has been discussed with others but let me ask a couple of other questions to clear things up in my mind. my understanding is that the associated press had information relative to a planned operation, perhaps it had something to do with airlines and explosive devices. apparently they had that for a few days and had gone ahead and released it. i'm assuming your answer -- your then calling the conference call was in response to what

they had just released. is that correct? >> yes. a number of news networks put out information about this, yes. >> do you expressly call this -- you arranged the teleconference for what exact purpose? >> there were a number of people that were going out on the new shows that night who were asking about the reports. they wanted to get some context about the nature of the threat and they were saying that you said there was no threat of the anniversary of the bin laden takedown but how could there not be a threat if this takedown was out there? >> the question i have is this, based on what you have said and what we learned, you then in that teleconference talked about the fact -- in answering the question how do we know

this? i think the quote came from richard clark was "never came close because they had insider information, insider control." you referenced that you had said that to the group. >> no, what i said was insider control of the plot and the device was never a threat. >> ok, insider control. >> no i said inside control, not insider. >> ok, inside control. based on what the associated press -- the associated press never made any mention about inside control. why was it necessary then to add that? why couldn't you simply say we intercepted a plot, it has been a successful interception. once the word inside control got out then all the speculation

and -- that inside control was interpreted as meaning, we got somebody inside. the result of that was the covert action operation has to be dissolved because of the control agent -- the inside person was -- well, the plot was exposed and therefore, the whole operation had to be dissolved. >> there are parts of this event that remain classified and that we can't talk about it in public. there was a lot of information that came out immediately after the a.p. broke that story. unfortunately, it was a hemorrhaging of information and leaks. what i said was there is inside control because what i needed to do and what i said to the

american public in the open networks the following morning is that during the anniversary time of the bin laden takedown, we tell the american public there was no active plot, no threat to the american public we were aware of that is credible. why was this i.e.d. that we intercepted, why wasn't that a threat? because we had in his side control of the plot which means any number of things. -- we had inside control of the plot which means any number of things. it did not reveal classified information. there are still operational elements of this that remain classified so we have to be careful. a >> and that is appropriate. just a couple of weeks later reuters was reporting publicly "as a result of the news leaks, u.s. and allied officials told reuters that they were forced to end an operation which they had hoped could have continued for weeks or longer." >> there were a lot of things reported by the press, accurate or inaccurate. i would not put stock in the

types of things you might be reading. i know i engaged for extended time but before and after the league to make sure we would mitigate any damage from the initial leak and subsequent leaks of classified information. >> of you are saying essentially that this reuters report may or may not be accurate but had no link to what was disclosed to mr. clark and what he said later shortly thereafter on abc news? >> i'm saying i'm comfortable with what i did and said at the time to make sure we were able to deal with the unfortunate leak of classified information. >> how frequently did you have to pull groups like this together in order to -- in a sense, put out authorized or at least what you think is appropriate news for purposes -- for the correct purposes? >> senator, frequently, if there is some kind of event like an

underwear bomber or disrupted ied or whatever else, we will engage with the american public with the press, engage with individuals who are experienced professional counter terrorism experts who will go out and talk to the american public. we want to make sure there's not misrepresentation of the facts, but do it in a way that we're able to maintain control of classified material. >> it does occur or is possible i assume to put out an authorized leak, correct? >> no, those are oxymorons, authorized leak. it would have to be discussed by, disclosed, done in a proper manner -- declassified, disclosed, dun and a proper manner. i was asked to engage with these individuals by the white house press. i spoke about the interception. >> there is a provision and master's intelligence authorization bill that requires a report to this committee of

any authorized leaks. you are aware of that? >> yes, i am aware. >> the report has come forth, so i assume there have been authorized leaks in the past year. perhaps we want to make sure if there are in the disclosures of classified information, this committee will be informed about that. we will live here to the provision that was in the intel authorization. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator udall. >> good afternoon. i cannot help but observe referencing senatogovernor chri. >> i have no plans to run against governor christie. [applause] [laughter] >> thank you for your service. i have some comments.

you have said president obama believes is done carefully, deliberately and responsibly, we can be more transparent and still ensure our nation's security. i absolutely agree. the american people have the right to know whether government does on their behalf. consistent with our national security, the presumption of transparency should be the rule, not the exception. and the government should make as much information available to the american public as possible. so on the committee when and we as members of congress push hard for access to the legal analysis targeting americans using drones, for instance, it erodes the government's credibility by the american people. i want to say i'm grateful to the president for allowing members of this committee to brief review some of the information. this is an important first debt.

there's much more to be done in that regard. you have heard that from my colleagues today. i have long believed our government also has an obligation to the american people to face its mistakes transparently and help the public understand the nature of those mistakes, and correct them. i know you're familiar with the mistakes of referring to. we have already discussed this today to some extent, outlined in the committee's 6000-page report on the cia's detention interrogation program based on a documentary view of over 6 million pages of cia and other records and including 35,000 footnotes. i believe this program was severely flawed and mismanaged. enhanced interrogation techniques were brittle and perhaps most important, did not work. but it was portrayed to the white house and the departments of justice, congress and media as a program that resulted in

the unique affirmation that saved the lives. i appreciate the comments he made earlier about the misinformation that may have flowed from people like yourself. acknowledging the flaws of this program is essential for the cia's long-term institutional integrity as well as the legitimacy of ongoing sensitive programs. the findings of this report directly relate to how other state programs are managed today. as you said in your opening remarks and so powerfully referenced the memorial wall, all c.i.a. employees should be proud of where they work of their activities. i think the best way to ensure they're proud is for you to lead in correcting the false record and institute the necessary reforms that will restore the c.i.a.'s reputation for integrity and analytic rigor. the ca cannot be its best into the fix the mistakes of this program. so if i might, let me turn to my

first question. inaccurate information on the management operation effectiveness of this day's program was provided by the cia to the white house, the doj, congress, and the public. some of this information is regularly and publicly repeated today by former cia officials, either knowingly or unknowingly. although we know now this information is incorrect, the accurate information remains classified while inaccurate information has been declassified and regularly repeated. the committee will take up the matter of this report's declassification separately, but there is our role i think the cia to play in the interim. the cia has a responsibility to correct any inaccurate information that was provided to the previous white house, department justice, congress, and the public regarding the detention and interrogation program. here's my question. do you agree that the cia has this responsibility? i would appreciate a yes or no

answer. >> yes, senator. >> thank you for that. yes or no, which to commit to working with the committee to correct the public and internal record regarding the detention interrogation program within the next 90 days? >> senator, i think it is only fair for me to say i'm looking forward to the cia's response to that report so that we're assured that we have both the committee's report as well as the c.i.a.'s comments on it. i would be getting back to you, yes. >> i understand you want have accurate time and i also understand the c.i.a. will finish the analysis by the middle of february. so i hope we can work within that timeframe. i know in your answers to the committee preparing for this hearing, he wrote the cia and all instances should convey accurate information to congress when an inaccurate statement is made in the cia is made aware of the inaccuracies, and thus

stimulate collect -- correct the record. certainly, i would do so if i were director. i take your answer in the spirit of the written testimony provided to the committee. let me turn to the report and the declassification, if i might. i don't think it has to be difficult, that is the declassification, for these reasons. the a dignities of the most important detainees have been identified. the interrogation techniques have been declassified. the application techniques to detainees has been classified -- to classified with the partial declassification of the inspector general report and the intelligence was declassified to a significant extent from the bush administration described plots it claimed were thwarted as a result of the program. so long as the report is not identify any undercover officers or perhaps the names of certain countries, can you think of any reasons why the report could not be declassified with the

corporate number of redactions? can you answer yes or no to that? >> i would have to take that declassification request under serious consideration. that is a very weighty decision in terms of declassifying that report. i would give it due consideration, but there are a lot of considerations that go into such decisions. >> i again want to underline that i think this would strengthen the c.i.a., would strengthen our standing in the world. america is at its best when it acknowledges its mistakes and learns from those mistakes. i want to quote howard baker, whom i think we all admire. he spoke about the church committee, which you know was an important effort on the part of this congress. there is much broader criticism in the cia in that church committee process. the cia came out of the stronger and more poised to do what it is supposed to do.

he wrote in all candor however one must recognize in investigations such as this one -- referencing the church committee but i think it applies to this committee as well -- a necessity will cause short-term damage to our intelligence apparatus. responsible inquiry as this has been well and long result of a stronger and more efficient intelligence community. such short of inquiry will be outweighed by the long-term benefits came from the restructuring of the intelligence community with more efficient utilization of our intelligence resources. so again, mr. brennan, i look forward to working with you to complete these tasks with outlined here today. i have faith in the ca -- cia, like your faith in the cia, that it will come out of this study stronger and poised to meet the challenges that are ahead of us. thank you again for your willingness to serve. >> senator rubio >> thank you.

thank you for being here and congratulations on your nomination. i want to ask in a 2007 cbs interview use that information obtained in interrogation have saved the lives. in september 2011 said the speech at harvard that whenever possible preference for the preference of the administration is to take custody of individuals so we can obtain information which is "vital to the safety and security of the american people." obviously, you believe interrogations' of tourists came to this information that can prevent attacks in the future. >> absolutely. >> you don't believe the cia should be part of that? but i agree. >> who should be? >> there are a number of options. the u.s. military which hasn't acted interrogation and detention program. the fbi, and our international partners and working with them. that is where most of interrogations' are taking place of terrorists who have been

taken off the battlefield and native countries. >> there are active interrogations occurring? >> every day. >> about the foreign partners you talk about, have you talk to folks in the c.i.a. about their impressions of the quality of information where getting from our foreign partners? >> yes, on a regular basis. >> would it surprise you to know others have indicated repeatedly in the past couple of years i have been here that the information we get directly is much better than anything we get from our foreign partners on some of these issues? >> that is why we work with them so we have direct access to these individuals. >> there's a suspect in the bing gauzy attack in the conditions detained him, correct question >> yes. >> to we not ask for an success do we not ask for access?

they released him? what they did. he is still in tunisia. it shows the two nations are working with the rule of law, just like we do. >> we have someone who is a suspect in the potential attack on benghazi and did not give us access to him, and we don't have any information. >> we work with our partners across the board. when they can detain individuals according to their laws, we were to see if we have the ability to ask some questions, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. >> but the tunisian law did not allow them to hold them so they let them go? >> and we did not have anything on him, either. if we did, we would have made the point for them to turn them over to us. the cia should be able to lend its full expertise as it does right now in terms of and support a military interrogations', fbi, and foreign partner of the briefings. they do that on a regular basis.

>> what is the best setting? a suspected terrorist is captured and we think we can obtain information from them, where the suggest they be taken? what is the right setting? >> there are many options. sometimes with foreign partners, they put the individuals in their jails and in their detention facilities according to their laws and people can access that. we take people and put them on naval vessels and interrogate them for extended time. >> so you think that is the best setting, the naval vessel? leaving aside the former partners, for us? >> i think each case requires a unique and tailored response, and that is what we have done. whether someone is picked up by a foreign partner were on the high seas or anywhere else, we need to see what are the conditions, what we have as far as the basis for that interrogation, what type of legal basis we have. it is very much tailored to the

circumstances. >> when we detain a suspected terrorist, the purpose of an interrogation is to develop information that can be used to disrupt terrorist activities and prevent attacks, correct? >> without a doubt. >> not to lead the case for a criminal conviction? >> you want to get as much intelligence as possible and take them off the battlefield. you need to be able to do something with them. we have put people away for 99 years so that in fact they're not able to hurt americans ever again. you want to get the intelligence but at the same time put them away so justice can be done. >> but initially, the number one priority is not to protect the record for criminal prosecution that information -- >> absolutely. >> why shouldn't we have places where we interrogate people?

for example, guantanamo? is it not an incentive to kill the mother than to capture them? >> it is never an incentive to kill them. we have come up with the route for them to take in order to be interrogated, debriefed, as well as prosecuted. >> why isn't a bad idea to have a place we can take them to? >> we need to have those places. sometimes their overseas, sometimes a naval vessel, sometimes back to the states. we bring someone back because we have an indictment or complaint on them and bring them into an article iii process so we can elicit information from them and put them away behind bars. >> is that process an ideal way to develop that information? are there limitations? >> i am proud of our system of laws in the article iii process and we have an exceptional track record in the past couple dozen years. sony terrorists have been

successfully prosecuted and will not -- to line >> i understand. but if our first priority is to develop information, the article ii is not the most intrusive? >> i would argue that. it is tailored to the circumstances. sometimes an individual will be mirandized and sometimes not right away. iran as an individual only means the information they give before that could -- if they mirandize a month, the only means the information they give before that cannot be used in court. after that are mirandized and get information as part of that type of negotiation with them, let them know they can in fact languish forever or we can have a dialogue about it. >> just my last point, you are fully comfortable with the notion because the two nations concluded they did that have a legal basis to hold them, we now lost opportunity to enter it

some that could provide significant information on the attack in benghazi. >> senator, this country america needs to make sure that we're setting a standard and an example for the world as far as the basis that we're going to in fact interrogate summit, did reach someone, we want to make sure we do it in conjunction with our international partners and make sure we have the basis to do so we don't have to face in the future a challenge about how we in fact obtained -- >> you keep talking about the basis of our law. what law? when you say you want to make sure we have a basis -- based on which law are we talking about? >> it depends on the circumstances. the talking about article iii authority from the fbi? >> the point i'm trying to get at, the truth is we don't know

anything about the benghazi attack. we don't know if he knew of future attacks being planned by the same people because we never got his big dam because tunisia said their loss would not let them hold them read that does not concern you were not able to obtain this information? >> we press our partners in foreign government to hold individuals and allow us access. sometimes their laws do not allow that to happen. i think the u.s. government has to respect these governments right to in fact enforce their laws appropriately. we don't want to have these individuals being held in september of custody that is extra judicial. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator rubio. >> thank you madam chairman. thank you mr. brennan for your testimony today. one thing i think we heard from a number of my colleagues and we had this discussion when we discuss the committee study on the tension interrogation is how

should you be confirmed, how we ensure the cia director is always one to be well-informed? particularly, question you today about a number of key sensitive programs. the nature of the agency's work is a lot of these programs, and knees to be some ability to measure objectively -- there needs to be some ability to measure objectively. while this is not the setting to talk about the any individual, and guess what i am interested in pursuing the conversation started about how he might set up systems so to the best extent possible as the cia director you're going to make sure what is going on, get an accurate, objective review, and not simply have the information that simply box the system.

>> excellent point, one i am simply concerned about. in order to have objective measures of effectiveness, the magic's you want to be able to a very white, the word that the program, you cannot have the individuals who are responsible for carrying it out. as hard as i might try, they cannot help the the program and results of a certain way. they become witting or unwitting advocates for us. we need to set up a system where you can have confidence that those measures of effectiveness are being done in the most independent and objective way. i want to make sure take a look at that if i were to go to the agency. >> the nature programs very sensitive in nature, again. you have to have probably not an it vehicle, something run out of the director's office, but some kind of red team that can check disinformation ought to make sure you've got -- so you hear colleagues press on what you would have done or could have done or should have done if he

had that oversight. you have to have that objective information to start with. >> absolutely. i can have a reputation for being a detailed person. i need to see the data. i cannot rely on interpretation of it. i do very much look forward to finding a way that the director's office can have this ability to independently evaluate these programs. so that i can fairly and accurately represent them to you. i need to be able have confidence myself. >> as you know and we all know, our country is grappling with fiscal challenges and that means national security remains our most essential requirement for our national government. everything is going to have to be done in a fiscally constrained time. how are you going to think about thinking through those challenges on where cuts, changes need to be made? if you can specifically outline

one of the concerns that i have is, it is kind of a division of labor and appropriate roles between the cia and the dod operations? whether that, potential buildup in that capacity is, how do we get that done in a way in these tight budget times? >> >> in this environment we have to make sure that every dollar is dedicated to intelligence will be optimized. if sequestration kicks in, what i would not want to do is do slicing which is 5% off the top. all programs are not -- >> that is why we have to make sure sequestration does not happen. >> right. it is going to have a devastating impact on the national security of this country. i want to make sure that i look at the programs and prioritize. we have to take a look at what are those programs that we need to resource appropriately. as we're going to have, we've

had some benefits from pummeling folks out of i -- pulling folks out of iraq. there's going to be some resources that we have to reallocate there. i will look carefully at that. if i go to c.i.a., i have an understanding on how these moneys are being spent. then, as you point out, there quite a bit of intelligence capability within the department and there has been recent reports about the clandestine service. i want to make sure these efforts are not redundant. i've had these conversations to make sure these efforts will be integrated and complementary. >> i think this is an area that will need a lot of -- i get

concerned at times that the i.c. on one hand and the d.o.d. on the other hand comes from separate areas of funding but they have to be within the budget constraints. your background in most of your expertise has been on the c.t. side. the challenge we have is we're seeing emerging threats in parts of the world that we're not on the front line as we see disruptions, particularly through the middle east where we did not have the right kind of coverage on social media and on the streets. how do we make sure we're going to get within the kind of fiscal constraints, that we don't go complete c.t. that we make sure we have the coverage that we need and the capabilities we need, and the

worldwide coverage that we need, particularly with your background? >> it is going to be a priority. just like weapons as well. those are endearing challenges. what i need to take a look at is if there has been too much on the emphasis of the c.t. front, as good as it is we have to make sure we're not going to billion surprised on the tragic front. to make sure we're demonstrating the all-source analysts, social media, as you said, the so-called arab spring that swept through the middle east. it did not lead to intelligence collection.

there was things that were happening on a populous way. having someone well positioned somewhere is not going to give us an insight, social media, other types of things. i want to see if we can expand beyond the resources that have served us well and see what else we can do to take in account of the changing nature that exists worldwide. >> thank you for that. i want to go back to my first point. my time is about out. should you be confirmed try to make sure you have that objective oversight to make sure you have the best knowledge possible so when future challenges arise you can come to this committee and make sure we're informed with the best knowledge possible. >> so you can be advised we're not going to do the classified hearing following this.

we will do it tuesday at 2:30. we will do another round with five minutes per senator. i hope that is ok with you. >> absolutely. >> thank you. senator collins. >> thank you. mr. brennan, i want to follow-up on an issue that several of my colleagues have raised on the issue of capturing a terrorist versus targeting killing of a terrorist. in a recent speech that you gave you said "our unqualified preference is to only undertake legal force when we believe that capturing the individual is not feasible. yet a study by the american foundation and numerous press reports indicates that in if

first two years of president obama's administration there were four times the number of targeted killings than in eight years of president bush's administration. your testimony today that the huge increase in number of lethal strikes has no connection to the change in the obama administration's detention policy? because, obviously, for capturing a terrorist we have the opportunity to interrogate that individual and perhaps learn about ongoing plots. if the strike is done that opportunity is lost. are you saying today, it is totally unconnected to the

obama administration's shift in its detainee policy? >> i can say that there is not an occasion that we had the opportunity to capture a terrorist and we didn't and we decided to do a strike. there is no correlation in any type of the c.i.a.'s interrogation program. if you look at the last four years what happened in a number of places, such as yemen eastern areas, there was a growth of al qaeda, quite unfortunately. what we tried to do in this administration is to take every measure to protect the lives of american citizens whether it is abroad or in the united states. and there is insight in those intelligence plots as a result of the investment that was made by the previous administration which allowed us in this administration to take appropriate actions. >> let's look at the targeted killings. when the targeted killings began several years ago, the

first order of fact was the elimination of the senior operational leadership of al qaeda, many of them were the core leaders. obviously, that is a critical priority. we have heard both former c.i.a. director michael hayden in an interview on cnn and a general say that it is now changed and that the impact of those strikes is creating a backlash. for example, it was said that the unmanned strikes is greater than the what they can appreciate. they are hated on a visceral level.

he add the targeted killings add to the presence of american arrogance. he said this adds to the perception of americans that said we can fly where we want, we do what we want because we can. general hayden also has expressed concerns that now that the strikes are being used at lower levels, arguably, that they are creating a backlash that is undermining the credibility of government and creating new terrorists when a neighbor or family member is killed in the course of the operations. do you agree with general mcchrystal and director hayden about the backlash of strikes from the targeted killings at this point? i am not talking about the initial strikes.

>> that is something that we need to be mindful of in terms of reaction, any type of u.s. counter-terrorism activities that involve the dropping of ordnance. whether it is a remotely piloted aircraft or manned, we need to take that into account, but i would not agree with those statements because what we have found in many areas is that the people are being held hostage in these areas and have welcomed the work that the government has done to rid them of the al qaeda cancer that exists. >> finally today, this committee received the olc memos describing the justification that many of us who have been on the committee longer than i have been seeking for some time, and i to have spent a large part of this morning reading them.

yet the obama administration within months of taking office released several olc memos describing the legal justification for the treatment of terrorist detainees in u.s. custody. do you think it was appropriate that a different standard was applied to the release of the memos from the bush administration than those produced by the obama administration? >> i do not think there was a different standard. >> one was released within four months of the obama administration taking office. the other had been requested for a much longer time. >> i am not a lawyer. i have come to learn of the term sui generis. the olc memos released after the president came into office were released because the program was terminated.

olc will counsel opinions, and those opinions were looked at in a different way because of the sui generis circumstances. >> both are essential for the ability of congress to carry its oversight responsibilities. finally, the intelligence reform act and terrorist prevention act of 2004, with which you are very familiar and which i was a co-author, requires the director of national intelligence to recommend who the cia director should be to the president of the united states. i am aware of general clapper -- the dni's letter, endorsing

your nomination, which is different from his actually recommending to the president that you be chosen. to your knowledge, did general clapper recommend to the president that he be nominated for this position? >> i know for certain that he made a recommendation, but i would defer to general clapper to tell you what that recommendation is. >> thank you. >> senator heinrich? >> thank you for your service to this country and welcome you to the committee. and should you be confirmed, i would like to start by just inviting you to visit to mexico at some point and in particular

sandia and los alamos national labs, because while you often do not hear about the contributions they make to our intelligence community, i can assure you that that support is vital to keeping our nation safe. i have a few questions, and forgive me if some of these return to some of the things you have heard from other senators. i want to start with your november 2007 interview with cbs news, where you said, "there have been a lot of information that has come out of these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists." other intelligence officials went a lot further than that in defending the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques at the time, and some still do. if your review of the committee consists that these did not in fact save lives, i would like to ask would you be as public into condemning the program as you were in its defense, and,

in other words, would you set the record straight? >> i will do whatever possible to make sure that the record is straight and that i speak fully and honestly on it. >> i want to return to a question that mr. udall asked you. would you object to, and if so, why, to a public release to a declassified version of the committee's report? >> i would give such a request for declassification every consideration. there is a lot of information and those volumes with a lot of potential consequences as far as its public release. at the same time that we have a commitment to take care to, we also have a tremendous commitment to making sure that we keep this country safe by protecting its secrets. there are a lot of equities and operational activities, and it has to be looked at

carefully. >> i would just say i agree with you that sources and methods and many of the operational details absolutely should never be declassified, but there is some basic principles in that report that i think is going to be very important for history to be able to judge. i would urge you to look closely at that. senator levin asked about waterboarding. let me follow up. in november 2007, you were asked if waterboarding was torture, and you said it is subjecting an individual to severe pain and suffering, which is the classic definition of torture. "i believe quite frankly it is inconsistent with american values and should be prohibited." is that still your view? >> yes, senator. >> thank you. do you think all agencies of the united states government should be held to interrogation centers that are laid out in the army field manual as currently required by executive order, and you support efforts to codify this into law?

>> the fbi has its own processes and procedures and laws that covers its activities, so i wanted to do is to make sure appropriate attention is paid to fbi as opposed to military. >> i understand. back in 2006, you were part of an on-line discussion with "the washington post," where you suggested at that time that the director of the cia should have a set five-year term, like the fbi director, to guarantee "absolute need for independence and integrity to give to the senior ranks of our intelligence community." given that you will serve at the pleasure of the president, how do you maintain your independence? >> having grown up in the community for 25 years, i

understand the importance and value at maintaining independence and integrity of the process. i know when i have sat in the white house situation room and when i have looked to the intelligence briefer, that if they were to advocate in any way a policy preference, it calls into question the independence, subjectivity, and basis of that intelligence. i want them to give me the facts as is, in respect of what their leanings or preferences might be. policy makers need to do that. in order to me to be able to maintain my integrity, as i would go to the president,

secretary of state, or the national security council meeting, i need to make sure i can say it straight, get it straight, and that the policymakers determine the best course of action. >> thank you. one last question. i believe it was during that same discussion with "the washington post" you said, "i think there is an effort underway for the cia to adapt to the new realities of the intelligence community. the cia has resisted many of these changes, which has been a problem. it is time to move forward." what exactly did you mean and has the cia progressed? >> i credit you and your staff for following up that interview, because i had not read about that or thought about that for a while. i must say, having grown up in the agency for 25 years, i have tremendous respect for that organization. it is exceptionally capable, competent, by nature of its work, it also at times is insular and it has not interacted and interoperated the way it needs to with the

rest of the intelligence community and government. at times that is to protect methods and the secrets it has. but given the changes in the environment, given the changes in the nature of our government, cia needs to play a part in this large a role. now the head of cia does not sit on top of the key intelligence community, but is part of a larger community that is led by another. my objective is to make sure our capabilities are leveraged and empowered to responsibilities, the missions of the rest of the government, the department of the homeland security is a new creation, and they need intelligence like everyone else. there was resistance at the time of the rgpa that they did not want to break some of the past practices. a lot of that resistance is overcome, and cia analyses the benefit of having someone sit on top of that committee. >> that is very helpful. i will yield back. >> that you very much, senator. senator king? you want to turn on your

mike? >> thank you for your testimony and stamina today. i should tell you in an earlier hearing secretary panetta was testifying before the armed services committee, and he strongly endorsed your nomination. i think the record clearly shows that secretary panetta was very complimentary at your capabilities and experience. secondly, and this is not really a question, it is incredibly important for the cia to be as open, to be totally open with this committee. the reason is that there is no one else watching. typically in our country, where the public is involved, the press involved, there are a lot of people that have access to intermission to what the department of state or commerce is doing. this is a unique situation

where this committee and house are the only places where they are paying attention in terms of separation of powers. it is not just nice to have that openness. it is critically important, and i hope you subscribe to that view. >> absolutely, i do. >> briefly, and i think senator warner touched on this, going forward, there needs to be some discussion with the department of defense about where the cia and the department of defense starts in terms of counter-terrorism activities, operations, and i do not want to pursue that, but i think senator warner raised an important point, because we cannot be duplicating a whole set of capabilities and priorities and officers and procedures. i take you subscribe to that? >> i do agree, and look forward to you in closed session to look and talk to you about the areas where the relationship of

these agencies are critically important. mindful of not having any type of redundant capabilities, we need to make sure we can leverage the capabilities in both organizations for the good of this country. >> and the area i want to spent time on is that iran policy as it relates to the american citizens. there is a lot of law and history involved in our system of checks and balances. james madison said if people were angels, we would not need a government, and if the government was run by angels, we would not need checks and balances. he concluded that angels were in short supply, as they are today. we need checks and balances. the fifth amendment is clear -- no deprivation of life and liberty without due process of law, and we are depriving americans of their life when we

target and in a drone attack. i understand it is under military circumstances. these are the enemy combatants. i would like to suggest to you that you consider, and madam chairman, i would like to suggest that we consider a fisa-type court process where an american citizen is what the targeted for a lethal strike, but having the executive being the prosecutor, judge, jury, an executioner all in one is very contrary to traditions and the laws of this country, particularly in a situation where there is time. if a soldier on a battlefield does not have time to go to court, if you are planning to strike over a matter of days, weeks, or months, there is an opportunity to at least go to some outside of the executive branch body like the fisa court make a case that this citizen

is an enemy combatant and at least that would be some check on the activities of the executive. i have great confidence in you and president obama, but all the lessons of history, it should not matter who is in charge, because we should have procedures and processes in place that will protect us no matter who the people are that are in the particular positions. how do you react to the suggestion? >> it is worthy of discussion. the judicial tradition is that a court of law is used. this is very different from the decisions made on the battlefield as well as actions taken against terrorists, because none of those actions are to determine pass the guilt for actions they took. the decisions are made to take action so we prevent a future

action, to protect american lives. that is inherently an executive-branch function to determine, and the commanders and chiefs and executive have the responsibility to protect the american citizens. we have wrestled with this in terms of whether they can be a fisa-like court. certain types of activities -- but it is analogous to a court going -- >> action we take our to take actions against individuals where we believe the intelligence base is so strong and the nature of the threat is so grave and serious as well as imminent that we have no recourse except to take this

action that may involve a lethal strike. >> i agree, and i understand the dilemma. i am not suggesting anything that would limit our ability to take actions on behalf of american citizens. i would feel comfortable if somebody other than a member of the executive said we agree the evidence is so strong, etc., as he stated, and in the hamdi decision, sandra day o'connor said a state of war is not a blank check. >> the point of due process needs to be taken into account. american citizens by definition are due much greater due process by their citizenship. this is a worthwhile discussion. what is the appropriate balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches responsibilities in this area. >> i appreciate your consideration, and again,

appreciate your testimony today, and thank you for your service to this country. madam chairman, i yield back my time. >> thank you very much. we will do another quick round. i think one of the problems is now that the drone program is so public, and one american citizen has been caught up, people do not know much about this one american citizen, so-called. they do not know what he has been doing. they do not know what he is connected to. they do not know the incitement he has stirred up. i wonder if you could tell us a little bit about mr. awlaki and what he had been doing. >> i am not going to talk about any particular operation or responsibility for anything whenever. >> that is the problem. when people hear american citizens, they think somebody who is an upstanding, and this man was not standing by a long shot.

maybe you cannot discuss it here, but i have read enough to know that he was a real problem. >> before he died he was intimately involved in activities that were designed to kill innocent men, women, and children, and mostly americans. he was not just a propagandist. he was in fact part of the operational effort that is known as al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and had responsibilities in that regard. >> can i ask some questions about him? did he have a connection to abdulmuttalab who intended to explode a device over detroit? >> yes, he did. >> could you tell us what connection it was? >> i would prefer not to at >> i would prefer not to at this time.