but the first point i would like to make and ask joe, a specific question has to do with a new factor, which i think is and that is what you might call public opinion in schinenafment and since the december missile test going into the february nuclear test, we have been reading about a lot of public criticism in china of north korea. internet traffic filled with criticisms and denuns yations of north korea and even criticisms of chinese support for north korea. several academics have spoken out more forcefully. there have even been some on the street protests outside of

north korea diplomatic missions. the question i have is that with regard to u.s. diplomacy what tactics acy, or strategies coult we employ in our diplomacy that would enhance our influence on this growing body of north korean critics in china to increase the attractiveness of our policies and deposit mat i can positions to them, to strengthen them in their argument that is the chinese government should change policy. are there things that we're not doing now in our policies toward north korea that we perhaps could start doing that would have a greater appeal to

these growing numbers of chinese critics in north korea? now joe went over sanctions and banks were mentioned, the action of the bank of china as reported in recent days. but to me, and i've talked bout this before at the icas seminars here, the big hole in hina's not enforcement of u.n. sanctions has been its unwillingness to block or stop the air traffic between teheran and ping i can't think. we know that the bush administration made quiet overures to bejing about this in 2006 and 2007 but to no

avail. nothing was done. e have the new reports of iran sending missile scientists, missile technicians and probably also nuclear experts to not only observe the recent missile and nuclear test but now to personal nantly station them in north korea. undoubtedly, they went to north korea from teheran, they obably refueled in the .eijing airport can we do anything to put more pressure on china to stop -- this would be my second question -- or is this simply a bridge too far given china's not only close relationship to

north korea but also its close ties to iran? is this a bridge too far or are there things we can do to put more pressure on china to cut off this traffic and money is part of the traffic by the way? >> that's an excellent question. but the growing role of chinese public opinion through the internet and twitter and all these things that i don't understand, the latest one i just read about is that they are gaining access to the white house website which has now been dell used with messages from people in china who have gotten access to the website. o far china hasn't blocked it. they are protesting against their own government and asking the u.s. to support them. that's a very useful device.

there is another one that is long standing in existence but unfortunately seems to be being cut back by this administration and that is the voice of america in the kind of programs we have channeling information. just the facts, just what's available. the kind of things you just described probably unknown to most chinese citizens. if they were to become known through the voice of america and i think it would help inreese the pressure. it's a dictatorship but there is a role for public opinion and we tuth exploit it to the extent we can. i don't see any great change in policy to north korea. we've tried everything. we've run the gam mutt from apiecement to threats and so far we haven't achieved a lot. but we haven't achieved a lot because china hasn't played its part in those policies. i think we can do more to let

the chy knows know how far we've gone to try and legitimate mate their interest but their own government has not been cooperative. think that's a way of putting pressure on beijing itself. >> i do have two important questions and then i will turn it over. from president parks visit this week, i think a successful visit on all accounts. there are two thanges struck me from her speeches and statements. first the joint statement from president obama and president park reiterated the 2009 joint vision that the ultimate instate is peaceful reunification of the peninsula. i was glad to see that because i think that is the most important long term goal that

for the peninsula. and so my first question is how does china really envision unification. you mentioned they don't want a vibrant democracy for contamination. but i think we could all agree that maybe this isn't a good statement, but some day the regime is going to no longer exist. and although it's proven pretty resilient over the last 60 years. but when the regime does no longer resist, what do you think china will do in terms of unification of the peninsula. my second question is president park unveiled her northeastation initiative in her statement to congress in talking about taking a lead in other issues, climate change and economic issues and this goes back to my first question

about the relationship with seoul and beijing. but do you have any comments on how you think china will view that initiative and if, in fact, they might participate in that? because i think that's a real change in the i did namics of the peninsula if seoul takes a lead in some of the issues there and it might change the iplomatic at month fear with north korea but china would have to play a role. >> china is the key to so much of this. on the reunification, obviously china -- you mentioned the resilience of the north korean regime. it's resilient because china has kept it on life support. if china would change that policy it wouldn't be so

resilient. the dilemma for china it seems to me when you talk about reunification, you're talking bout a democratic korea. and a non-democratic china is not that infat waited with having that neighbor on it board. we saw some of that during the taiwan election, a lot of folks said these are chinese people on that island doing this. any reason why we can't do something like that. but a democratic south korea would probably be an ally of the west. and china through par know oracle cue lation doesn't want to see that. publicly it's not willing to

korea. unified if they see it's going to happen how are we going to make the best of it. one of the conditions they demand is no u.s. forces there and no nuclear facilities. they will try to extract the best deal they can from their own security standpoint. on the second point on the northeast asia initiative and ways they can collaborate. one of the last assignments i had was working closely with countries in southeast asia on ways to collaborate. using the mill tares and having the militaries collaborate because they have the resources to happenedle a crisis. was iranic because it was after they decided all these

meetings were a waste of time, song and dance. that was not well received in southeast asia and people said the u.s. has turn its back on ace i can't. that changed and in the last two years of the bush administration they started to attend these meetings. it didn't take long before at a dinner i salt with ath head of the chinese delegation and he said it's just an instrumentity of american foreign policy. we had gone from neglecting asia to co-on thing the whole system. those are the kinds of things that anti-piracy and proliferation security initiative are certainly ways that south korea can take a lead and can play a collaborative role with it neighbors and hopefully china

will get on board. china is one of the few countries that hasn't decwroined psi. probably because taiwan is anytime and they don't want to be a part of that. those are areas there could with b cooperation and i'm sure president park wants to bring china into those if at all possible. >> would you please go over to the podium please? >> i have two questions. microphone on please. >> just yesterday i came upon this very interesting article. i forgot the name of the author but he reviewed this book by victor char who serve on the administration in an important

capacity. and what was said today i'm having on the other side that article in mind and these two questions going back and forth. one is as you pointed out is that the pattern of chinese behavior at the time of north korea's provocative behavior is he resisted the united nations and they were lax in enforcement process of it and that lasted for decades and you gave a good list of reasons why they behaved. so now there is a famous human habit that american press likes to quote that one side of senility is that you apply the same rules, same solutions to the problems that they could not solve before and you keep on applying it. we have known this chinese behavior for so long and even to this day we continue to rely

on it that somehow china is the only card we have and we have to make them play. they didn't play according to our tunes. this time it may be different because we are having a nuclear enterprise and heavy arsenal and bargaining chips has been offered. that unless you contain north korea we are going to increase our military presence and you're not going to lake like it. take a or take b and have the ultimatum and this time we are hopeful the approach we took the four or five decade will somehow work this time. are you optimistic? the second about denuclearation nd other issues around it. this article is about role of u.s. concerning the peninsula than about china. and it talks about how the

eight years of bush administration sole success is it enabled north korea to go nuclear by statements like stopping war communication, in the process north korea never stopped enriching uranium and the rest. so now suppose that our approach this time works, somehow demine controls it and makes north korea to give up it nuclear weapon. then u.s. would be happy and reduce its military presence. is this the only aim we have? is there something else for korean context? the article starts with an obsization about this complex? you heard about this?

it's ing to this article, ke a marshmallow and chocolate. in south korea workers have every day distributed some 250,000 of these. and north korean workers feting paid through their government but takes their share out of it and gives them peanuts. they hold these chocolate pice and sold them in the black market as high as $10 a piece. he thinks there might be where the hope is chocolate pie. we must bomb north korea with chocolate pies. the emphasis is nothing would really resolve. forget the regime, forget all political rhetoric. forget china.

korea would not find it way unless the people change and when will the united states focus on the people who are suffering? >> maybe we can follow the experience in world war ii where the u.s. g.i.'s distributed chewing gum and cigarette. that seemed to win a lot of friend for us aside from the liberation of course. on the question of whether optimistic or not? i am optimistic when u.s. policy is sustained, consist president, coherent. when it has those character sticks it can produce the right results in both friends and potential adversaries. it's when we send mixed signals that we cause confusion, miscalculation and we do not achieve the desired rument. so i will be optimistic when i

see more signals from the obama administration that they've thought this through. they've had some good initiatives here. when president obama called president chi and said you don't like our forward presence in there, do something about it and you won't see so much of our forward presence. that was a good message. the danger of it is that chi will say we're putting pressure on north korea now get the hell out of asia. no, we're only going to stop the things we're going to godown in response to the provocation. the u.s. presence in asia say permanent. it's a non-negotiateable. i hope there is no confusion about what we're offering on he table here. >> the whole idea is let the

market do the work instead of threat bomb do the work. . is is a gift >> i think this entire discussion was informative. i agree with just about everything that i have heard. one thing in particular regarding whether we can do more to encourage pressure on hina, i would ask for some views on what pressure china can put on the u.s. in response

if we push, how much can they take that and pull back? specifically, i'm thinking of the intervening variable visa iss the u.s. debt but also u.s. china high-tech and industrial commerce. in the private sector in the u.s. particularly in dealing with chinese government, how is it different from chinese government u.s. government interactions? i think there may be some different leverages there. also i'd like to hear some views on the u.s. military and national security related technology procurements, for example, there are chip that is we get from china and we depend on them for our aircraft, for

weapon systems and so forth. it goes beyond that but in order be brief i'll leave it at that and ask what are your views on this potential for china to come back with pressure on the united states? >> the potential is e normous. we are completely dependant on that. now our government does have some limited capacity to develop secure chips. we do that for special parts of the government and it gets proliferated out to other parts of the government because the one part that uses it can't use all of them. it's not commercial.

it's nothing something that can replace the chips in everything we have in the government alone let alone out in the rest of the consumer market. they could in a heart beat thaurn against us. you don't hear anybody talking about that because everybody is scared they will pull that card out. it need to be considered by our folks. i have my toy here which everybody else has four or five devices in their pocket or briefcases. every one of them is loaded with chinese technology. and without it we're in deep trouble. we could make all this stuff, but you're talking about multiple orders in magnitude in cost difficult rerble and we an't turn it around like that. >> when christmas time comes

this year and you watch our favorite movie it's a wonderful life, think about the character jimmy stewart plays, george bailey as the united states. and think about mean old mr. potter, the banker that bailey runs to and begs for help as china. and in a way that's kind of the financial relationship we have with china now. we're in debt to china upwards of $2 trillion. i know you get all of these people writing it doesn't make any difference, china needs us as much as we need them. but as this debt to china builds up, they do gain more leverage over u.s. policies and they know it. that they gain this leverage. and i think it does influence

how we deal with china, what u.s. priorities are with china, how willing we are to confront china over certain issues versus a reluct answer the to do so. this is a factor and frankly it's going to be a bigger factor in the future than it is now. >> the floor is open. welcome, thank you. good to see you. >> thank you. my question has to do with the implications of chinese public opinion. i agree it's a fascinating development but i would put it within the context of many complaints that are coming from the public in a range of human rights areas or development to

construction, etc. thus far is ment authoritarian and does not necessarily care. nd so i have a question on assort of realistic assessment of what can really change chinese behavior toward north korea and that is a change in it chinese regime so that shifts from authoritarian to open to perhaps a democracy and ironically perhaps that's the prerequisite before we can hope for a change in that regime. so perhaps that regime could outlast the authoritarian

beijing regime. what do you think of that scenario? >> thank you. >> i think that was one of the points i tried to make is that until demine changes its world view of its antagonistic attitude toward the west, it's suspicious attitude of the west. it will for as long as that goes on continue to be more of an ally to north korea or a friend to the west. ultimately is what is needed is regime change in both. that is ultimately maybe it's going to take another 20 years or. so we hear promises from china over the years. one of the promises they made to the o.p.m. committee to get the 2008 o.p.m.s is we are on the path to dem sationization and we're going to libblize and

conduct reform. olympic's said go for it. it's made promises over the years. they gave 20 or 30 speeches about the need for democracy. and then someone else would say hold it, we don't mean democracy in the western model. we mean democracy with chinese character sticks, whatever that is. taiwan has been an interesting example. i heard someone there during the election at one of the local bars they were watching the results and the chinese press was allowed there and one of the chinese reporters said this just proves that our snm

china is spoir to what taiwan is doing, we know the results before they even count the votes. and that was a joke. but others in the group who were muttering things like why is it that taiwan can pull this off? they had the same kind of system we had 30 years ago. somehow they've made the transition. it working. they haven't collapsed. their clickly prosperous. is there any trn people in china are inferior to taiwan. the voices are there. you get actual chinese people calling in and speaking to you on the short wave radio and i'm encouraged when i do that because they have many interesting things to say that they really want a democratic system there and want to push toward it. i was in shanghai a year ago at

a think tank there. i was surprised they invited me knowing my views but they did and the chinese government allowed it. but it was a good discussion. they talked about we really need to have a democracy here before we're going to be the kind of world power that we want to be no matter how many weapons we have or how good our economy is. until we have the international community's respect as a normal goving system we will never achieve the status we want. the push is there from the bottom up. it is sure meeting resistence from some of the folks at the top. >> we have one minute. i toned pleeve that demipe

will ultimately become a democracy and it wopt take that long and in that sense i think it really may be a prerecommend constituent for a major change on the korean peninsula. >> thank you. let's give a big round of applause. [applause] >> now let me introduce one of my staff alex kemp. now he's director and vice president for regional affairs. dr. e will introduce stephen butch. >> thank you for this opportunity to introduce dr. stephen butch. it is my great pleasure to introduce to you dr. stephen

butch. he graduated from the u.s. military academy at west point. he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense under secretary of defense donald rumsfelled. he's director and head of senter for foreign policy students. his bio is on our website for those who need more details. butch worked in the asia yags environment and foreign policy. >> it is my great pleasure and honor to be here. i want to thank icas for inviting me. i have to tell you my background is as a military

officer i was an army green beray for 29 years so i did that and i was also a defense attache so i was a hunal intelligence collector as well in spent my last four years the military as assist tonight donald rumsfelled who i think you know he had displayed in his office the famous photo of the careen peninsula at night and the difference between the republic of korea and north korea and what the sacrifices of friendly nations could do giving then a people an opportunity to move forward and to build the kind of country that the republic of korea has built and that we hope their

cousins to the north can do as well. i have to tell you i am not nearly as qualified to talk about these specific issues as the other gentlemen at this table. i'm kind of used to that. i get a lot of that when i go talk about things. but there is one advantage here is that when i get asked really tough questions i can look very gracious and turn to my colleagues and say why don't you take that one for me which may happen before we're over. let's keep in mind in many ways asia has always been very important to the united states foreign policy. world war ii started in asia, it ended in asia, it was the bigger half of the war if you want to look at it that way. enterprise the u.n.

there on the korean peninsula to keep the people of the republic of korea free. ietnam war very tram i can and important in history. our relationship with taiwan and japan and present day republic of korea. so it's been an important issue for the united states. on the other hand it's also always been taken for granted to a degree. admittedly america has been a very ewe owe sen trick nation. we faced the soviet union. when i was a young lieutenant that's where everybody was focused. then the middle east. things like 9/11. we are still totally focused there and remaining that way. so in a way the administration's pivot toward

asia is very much overdue and we should celebrate the concept of doing that. the portion of the world's population that happens to be in asia is norm mouse. the market that is are there are tremendous. the potential strengths and capabilities are just beyond calculation and the potential dangers warrant this kind of change. unfortunately to an extent the pivot toward asia is also a farce because right now the united states really can't do it. even if we cancelled everything we are doing everywhere else in the world and put all of our military assets in the direction of asia we'd still come up short on what we theed to properly address the challenges there. and i can tell you we're not going to do that.

i'd love to say we're done in the middle east but you look at things like syria falling apart right now. the whole benghazi episode that occurred. iran on the rise. the wishful thinking folks that are of the opinion that the tides of war are reseeding, they are just wishful thinking and political posturing. it's nonsense. they are not reseeding. the world is more dangerous today than it was on 9/11 with regard to those changes. europe is going to continue to draw our attention. a lot less thanned the before. but russian -- russia is getting more aggressive. they are not down at out like operation dessert storm. they are sitting there going holy smoke it's a good thing we

didn't fight these folks. we would have been in trouble. mr. putin doesn't think like that. he thinks they should be equal to everybody else in the world and they should be treated that way. and unfortunately secretary carrie is a you're file. he's more comfortable dealing with europe than asia. africa and latin america are going to be economy of force theaters. the places we use as little as possible to keep things under control. but unfortunately they both hold the potential to be big problems. i won't go into that here but that's out there as well. so if we can't ignore those issues. we can't ignore the middle east and the other parts of the world but what do we do with asia. in these tight economic times,

frankly we need realistic leadership that sets actual priorities rather than prom you will gates sloge ganz. saying we're going to do something does not constitute a policy. button realistic side we need very strong allies. fortunately for us we have a couple of those. actually we have a bunch in asia but i'm going to talk about two of them and that's the republic of korea and japan. we have aws trail i can't, the philippines, taiwan, i know i'm going to leave somebody out. i don't want to insult anybody. but the focus today is on the republic of korea and japan. without those two in harness with the united states we're in a lot of trouble. in fact what i wrote here is we are zung.

we cannot deal with the challenges in asia by ourselves. we have to have those friends we've had for a long time and have to continue to work with them. we have to do a better job at supporting those two allies than we may have in the past. i'm not saying we did a bad job at those but i think we can do better. those two countries are our friends because that friendship was forged in wars. with the japanese it was a war where we were add versares and it chaked both our societies and we're about as close as you can get for having tried to destroy each other. for the republic of korea it was forged a different way, we fought next to each other and our young men and women died alongside yourself. and that is hugely important and that is a bond that is not

going to go away. but today we're a team and we need to continue to focus it that way. now the threats are real. north korea and china must be addressed. joe did a wonderful job into detail and i'm not going to try to repeat all of that. but they have to be dealt w. we need to modernize and strengthen our forces, particularly our air and naval forces which is hard for an army guy to say in public like this. but that's the nature of that particular theater. it's big and far away from the united states and there is a lot of water. so we need our naval and air capabilities to be much stronger than they are today. we do not have enough of either of those capabilities to properly deal with the challenges there and we need the best capabilities we have. we cannot afford to have

aircraft flown by young officers who in some cases are flying the same tail number aircraft as their fathers flew. literally i was with lute gnat general last night up in new york city and his son who is now a captain in the air force flew the same f-a15, not the ame kind, the same airplane as the general did when he was a captain. that's ridiculous. airplanes wear out. any of you drive 40-year-old cars? airplanes are more complicated than that. while we do good maintenance on them, they don't last ffer. in eed to assist our allies doing the same thing.

when i say assist our allies. japan and the republic of korea are not clients of the united states of america. they are allies and friends which they are not dependant on the united states to have those capabilities. they've built their own. they are good and capable. i know i've fought next to some of the young men from the republic of korea. i've fought next to military people from the country of japan. they are outstanding military individuals. their leaders are solid and very very capable and i think the visit by president park shows that the republic of korea also has a really tough lady at the helm right now. my colleagues at heritage wrote an article about her yesterday and i guess in korea they call her the iron lady of korea.

and for heritage to say that because they very deerly and love ms. thatcher. to compare her is about the highest praise you can give a female leader in the world. i was conversing before the meeting and we were talking about that northeast asia initiative and how there were some folks that were upset that our president did not give that quite its due here. our president talks about this leading from behind stuff which frankly i think most of the time is not the appropriate thing to do. but in this case when you have a capable ally who has a great idea, he should have jumped on that one and said we're behind her 110% and we're going to help with that. that was a missed opportunity and i hope our government will rectify that and give that initiative the kind of support

it deserves. we can't take for granted this team aspect. we are a team if we're going to face these issues in defense, in economics, in cyber. i do a lot of cyber stuff. this is like a really big deal especially when you start talking about china. and all these things have to be sink niesed. they have to be done together. they can't be the individual nations doing their thing and occasionally chatting with each other. they have to lay out the plan and they have to execute it together. china is trying sbratly to continue to expand their influence and economic reach. i got to tell you they are doing a heck of a job at it. they are all over the world. they are doing a lot. they are not terribly reluctant to use a little muscle to influence people to get their way and as they are doing all

over the theater right now. and it's pretty intimidating. and the only way that all of the united states allies and friends are going to be able to stand firm is if we help them. i got to tell you i'm not really expecting the republic of korea or japan to knuckle into anything that the chinese say. but when you're standing in the schoolyard and there is a bully picking on you, it's nice to know your brothers are standing behind you. and the united states needs to do that and do it explicitly and without any fuzzness in anybody's minds which north korea is as always unpredictable or i guess uct say it's predictable they will display erratic behavior because they do that all the time. they are a wild card and i get nervous with any administration here in the united states because we tend to -- it's an

american cultural thing, sort of impute the our thinking process and our values to everyone else and think that they are going to make decision it is same way that we do. that's wrong. and in that we are very, very dependant on our allies in the region to help us understand when something is said or something is done that it may mean something different than e think it does. so i would hope that the overnments in seoul and in japan will help us read the signals correctly so we don't get out of whack with that. we need that help. what shoult allies do with regard to the region? i didn't check this with ouration experts at heritage so

if i get myself in trouble, help me out. we need to upgrade our intelligence efforts in the area. north korea is still very dangerous. we have a history of occasionally getting surprised by something they've done. we need to minimize that effort or possibility as much as we can. for the united states that means predominantly technical intelligence collection. we're dependant on the republic of korea to work the human intelligence piece and hopefully the sharing the complete. we need to beef up our missile defenses. not something that this particular administration is all that excited about but we need all of the upgrades to the system, the newest missiles. we have to have a boost phase capability if a missile comes out of there. and we have to be able to help protect the republic of korea and japan in that possibility.

we need an east coast sight that is not just for iran, that is also for korea. we need to expand the ground based interceptor we have in alaska and we need to do those things now, not seven years from now. and we've got to also end the foolishness of trading away these kind of capabilities just so we can make some adversary feel good whether that's mr. putin or kim jung unand we have start believing that it won't convince dick tacetors to behave because they don't. we have to work together to contain north korea. we're not going to -- nobody wants to go invide north korea right now and change that regime. so we're going to have to keep the tight reigns on them and

hope the population there will raise up. i know the lady's question with countries like north korea and china, we've seen the limits in other countries of the popular uprisings. if the regime is willing to take string nt enough actions as the chinese have done in the helps cial media, it but it doesn't trump tanks. so when a regime is willing to do that enough, it's going to take a little longer. and i pray that both those countries get free but we're going to have to keep that pressure on them to help those folks who are being persecuted to get free. we've got to continue to contain north korea. we can't give in to the tantrums and the theet ricks

that occasionally go on there. we hope that we can maintain peace until that day when the two koreas can be united. we saw it happen and i didn't believe it was going to happen when the berlin wall fell. the soviets will never let that happen. they did and it was a tough slog for the germans but i've been to what was east germany and it's an amazing transformation which they have been integrated into that economy and society and there are still regional differences ou see in that part of germany. their personalities are different but that was there before the communist were there. so they return to the regional differences that is something you celebrate in a country

rather than the wall of separation that was there during the cold war. and i frmly believe that i will live to see that happen on the korean peninsula as well. i hope i'm right about that. with china i think a little different view. we need to move or work to move china to the place where they start acting like a responsible player on the world stage. the chinese economy is going to continue to grow. whether it will go at the rate it has in the last few years, i don't know. i think it's already starting to slow down a little bit. but we really -- i think china can be -- you can see an evolution there. the government is not going to evolve. that has to be removed and changed which how i don't know yet. but in china i think there is a

possibility to see an evolution and we need to get china weaned off of the power plays and the i.p. theft and the rhetoric and get them to the point where instead of being an adversary they are a competitor. instead of being a rival they are a contributor. and i think that can be done which i just hope we don't give away the form in the process of trying to make it happen. we should do it by applying pressure in the right areas, not by acting so nice that we get taken advantage of chi think is very likely to happen if we don't do that. we need to turn back the cuts in defense in the united states and telescoping out to our allies because those frankly those cuts were foolish and disconnected from any sort of rational strategic thought. it was totally a budgetary exercise and that's not useful.

just saying as i've heard many politicians in this town saying we're just going to have to depend more on our allies. that's a nice thought except our allies are having some of the same problems we are. so to kick more of the responsibility to everybody else, that's not leadership. that's not a plan. that's an excuse for doing the thoughtless things you are doing. so we need to don't have the courage of a team. we need to continue to have the solidarity of a team. and is it time -- is the refocusing on asia a timely event? absolutely. can the u.s. do it and deal with those challenges alone? absolutely not. we have got to have the team work, particularly with the republic of korea and the nation of japan. we've got to do it together

ich we've got to do it nsync and if we do i think the outcome can be positive. it won't be easy. if we don't, we're going to continue to have problems that are going to spin way out of control and we can't toofered do that. and if that, i look forward to your questions. > thank you steve. >> thank you. that was an excellent presentation. you said some great perspective there. i agree with so much of what you've said. i like particularly your conclusion the pivot yes, but we can't do it alone. i don't think we can emphasize how important our alignses are. i've got two questions i'd like to start off with and go back

to president park's visit this week and she talked about the asia paradox. maybe i'll steal leonard's questions there. you talked about our important allies korea and japan. but as you well know there is historical friction between the two countries and president park i think art lated this asia paradox very well that the interdependency of the nations in the region including china as well, economic independence and the like but there are security issues, territory al issue that is drive apart understand particular i think everybody in this room would agree that when we face a common enemy such as north korea, logically the u.s. and it two allies would present a united front to north korea, we

think that's important. my question to you is what can the u.s. do to try to reduce some of the tensions between our two allies? is it possible and can we help to help them work through these historical long term emotional problems that exist? the second question turning specifically to korea is 2015 opcon oing to have the transfer which sosk not an opcon transfer. i'd like to talk about that. it's the disillusion of the combined forces command. the combined command, we're going to have two command with the u.s. in a supporting role. i'd like to ask your opinion of that event that's going to take

place, how that might be viewed particularly by north korea who i believe has had as one of the key pillars of its strategy to split the u.s. rock aligns. and to me dissolving the war fighting command gives the impression there is a split in the aligns. i'd like to hear your position than and any comments you might have. >> well the first one is easy, absolutely the united states ought to take an active role. it would be a much more useful thing for some of our deposit mats to do than some of the other things they do to try and help these allies work out the friction. the kind of solidarity we need to face these challenges isn't just when the other side is mobilizing their troops. it's got to be all of the time and we have to get past some of

the historical issues. the united states is big on forget about it. get over that guys. i've worked in enough countries outside the united states to know it isn't that easy. i worked in the balance cancel for a long time and they don't forget anything there. everything that happened in the world happened yesterday. i know in some asian countries you have some of the same long memories. i think both societies are mature enough and developed enough that while something may really ping your heart from snag happened centuries ago, there is a point where the threats of today have to take predominance and have to those other things need to be put aside. if the united states can broker that kind of talk and those kind of evolutions forward. then that's something that we

should spend the diplomatic capital to do. it would be worth the investment. as far as the separate commands. there has been an evolutionta that's been ongoing for quite a while u. i was in the pentagon when we made the decoigs move the american forces off the d.m.z. and have the korea take over those forces. and they came to the pentagon and i met with a bunch of them and they were upset that decision had been made. they thought it was a dim mission of the commitment of the united states to the people of korea. and i assured them it was a recognition of the growing capability of the military of the republic of korea to take over this mission themselves. they got a great military. it's one of the best in the

world. it's definitely one of the toughest in the world man for man. but their operational capability or logistics capability way outstrips and i've worked with mill tares from all over the world, aftercarks middle east and asia and i got to tell you the epublic this is the next logical step. we have fought in the past with other countries where we had separate commands and we fought well. and i think in this case, i don't think you will see any military loss by this change. i understand the north koreans can read into it and i think

there needs to be a lot of steps taken and we can do that with our exercise programs, which drives the north koreans anyway. to show this change doesn't lessen our strategy to the north koreans and our fight on the north korean peninsula. as long as we make the message with the actions we take and the words our leaders use, i don't think we'll see the problems that might otherwise come up. >> thank you. larry, you have something to chip ? > i think steve's references presidente of lack of obama's response to president parks discussion, the comments about a northeastern asian

nitiative i think reflects a -- with regard throughout our region. president park surprised a lot of people by her emphasis on that during this trip. the territorial sea island disputes, you look across the board and you see -- what i uld describe as a real tanimity on the part of the u.s. i don't think you can see there has been a pivot to asia in terms of our diplomatic emphasis. it seems to me, attitudes very

much engraged in the state department are -- ingrained in the state department are a large part of this. my question so steve is, if we pace this kind of -- face this kind of reluctance in the state department filtering into the broader obama administration with regard to more active diplomatic posture in the region . what can congress do? what can groups like the heritage foundation or my own group csis, what can we do to try to give some shove, some u.s. a more active diplomatic effort to make the ivot to asia have a diplomatic

dimension to it and not just a ? litary dimension now, steve mentioned u.s. air power as being very important. for those of you who have attended several of the past seminars that have been put on here i have talked about this and you know temperature far sis i have made on the role of u.s. heavy bombers, in terms of a vital instrument of deterrence in the western pacific. i think we saw the demonstration of this when secretary hagel rdered the b-52's and b-2's to come out from their bases and missouri and north dakota and participant in the r.o.k.

exercise. i will reiterate what i've been preaching and you might be tired of what i said but i have always thought that withdrawing the b-52 squadron from guam in 1991 was a bad died of the first bush administration. it is an idea that still ought to be reversed. we ought to have a permanent squadron of heavy bombers on guan that can cost-wise, frankly not cutch as much as it would to base them in missouri or north dakota but would have a more clear cut, positive impact on deterrence, not only with regard to north korea and if need be

china as well. i hope what secretary hagel authorized will lead to thinking about bringing back a squadron of heavy bombers to guan. i would like to get steve's comment on that as well. i agree with steve, the middle east is not going to go away. i think the chances are very high that iran, if it chooses will get nuclear weapons. and i think what we're seeing between iran and north korea right now indicates that north korea probably is iran's backdoor, iran's track two to acquiring nuclear weapons that north korea will produce initially, either in the form of highly enriched uranium or more likely in the near future

nuclear war heads for north orea's missiles. they have the full technology to do right now, which when north korea does it will lead to this technology and possibly war heads themselves going to iran , it ran's three missiles being a twin. iranian missile experts are stationed in north korea. that is a big reason. so the middle east simply is not going to go away and there has to be a balance in terms of our military priorities between them. the opcon controversy, now a question to steve given steve's

background in the army. there are proposals in korea, including some proposals from i believe u.s. military officers there, not separate the commands but to preserve c.f.c. and perhaps have, in terms of the p command potion -- position to have a rotating system. so the commander of the c.f.c. for a number of years be the top south korean commander then you have a rotation with the u.s. commander coming in for say a three-year period with the top korean commander being his assistant and vice ver is a. u.s. army has had since the world war i the rule.

this is my question to steve. the rule has been that the u.s. army will never serve directly under a foreign military commander. is the u.s. army or might the u.s. army be willing to give up the rule to accept this kind of row traiting commander in chief position for the c.f.c. in order retain what has been a very working organization ever since the late 1970's? i'm just going to defend the sequester a little bit here and make the point that not only with regard to spending cuts in the pentagon but with regard to spending cuts everywhere. you never do get a disagreement

boarder politics where the cuts should be applied. how nk if that is the case if you're going to restrain spending and the sequester is about restraining increases, what else can you do to restrain spending increases and increase the $1.2 trillion budget deficits we face? is there an alternative? there's a lot of proposals made to where good cuts can be made in the pentagon. g.a.o. has produced two good reports about the pentagon as well as other agencies pointing out a lot of wasteful and uplicate programs.

there was a report last november on the pentagon pointing out $67 billion of programs he argued and i read his report, quice forcefully, a lot of these programs like breast cancer research in the pentagon has nothing to do with national defense. n.i.h. does breast cancer research, which is where it should be. the p.x. system, which costs over $2 billion a year for u.s. bases when you have safeways and c.v.s.'s outside of the military basises where the military personnel can go and shop. a lot of programs like that but these reports get issued and nobody in congress talks about

them. nobody in congress tries to do anything about them. even the think tanks are relativety silent in terms of endorsing or trying to promote these kinds of reports. if you're going to put constraints on spending increases to bring them down from double digit annual increases down to 3% or 5% increases, what real alternative is there to the sequester? i'm going to argue that frankly, there may not be an alternative. if somebody can argue there is politically, realistically, i would like to hear it but i don't hear that argument that anyone is making. but if steve has something i would love to hear it. >> unfortunately, i don't have

another three hours to talk. real quickly on the diplomatic piece of the pivot, that is a critical piece. it is not merely a military exercise. i've done several tour with the state department in different capacities and everyone thinks these military are the squert, we don't like change -- don't like , we hange. they really like traditional ways of doing business and this is different. we're talking a changing the way the united states approaches these critical allies and in some cases adversaries. we need to do it differently and dip employee macy is different. you don't want to do it with the military alone. the military alone is

insufficient to address this problem. they are a big piece but if we don't have the diplomats in line it will be a problem. getting the think tank community and the citizens all play a role in getting that change to occur. we have to speak, we have to make the case. all of you as individuals have to do the same thing to your legislators. that's the only way stuff gets changed. washington has always been a isolated town. they are just as inclined to ignore everybody else around the country as they ever were unless they make some noise. we all need to do that. the bombers, absolutely a deterrent. nobody wants to go drop bombs on people but when the other side

knows that we can, if we need to, it changes their behavior. those bombers that got over here for the exercise were wonderful, wonderful message to everybody to stop acting foolishly and it did. it brought the level of the crisis down. i think some closer basing than missouri would be real helpful. i mean, just because our aircraft can make that trip and do their thing and fly back doesn't mean we want them to do it that way all the time. it is expensive, it is a long ride and it is not that timely. it still takes a long time to get there. a much more closer basing would make all the sense in the world. i think we would support that in a heart beat. between ar cooperation north korea and iran scares the

heck out of me. we're putting the screws to those countries and they are going to turn to each other. they have different value systems than all the rest of our countries. we need to be cautious and vigilant to try to keep them from trading those kind of devices or materials that would aid them in doing that. the rule goes a little further than that. i think there's law that keeps the united states troops from serving under other commanders. the reason i know that is because we had to deal with it domestically that we could not assign federal troops under the command of governors in our country. they are separate executive. the governors were ticked because they thought it made all the sense in the world. they do that with their national guard troops but there is a

prohibition against doing it. i would not have any problem if congress and then the president approved an exemption to that law to allow that to happen. in the case of a rotating commander in korea, i think there's enough water under the bridge and experience and cooperation together that i think it would work. i would billion in support of whatever steps needed to be taken, whether it is legislative or policy decision in to make an exemption to that rule. on the sequester, i agree with you. there's lots of ways we can save the money other than doing this oofy haircut across the way. i have to tell you, i've seen other departments, frankly, they are worse. the department of defense has more money to play with than

some of the other departments. giving them less money to spend inefficiently on some proverse mathematical formula is not sufficient to address the problem. we have to fix the system. the acquisition system needs to be changed. the redundancies that larry was referring to need to be addressed and dealt with. we need to have the political relationship and courage to break the rice bowls and change the rules. it is in laws and regulations nd policies. they had good intent when they did it. they addressed some law along the way. some are art facts like we have three different medical systems in our military, the last time i checked our bodies work the same way. the air force guys, i don't know

maybe they are different. we can fix this problem. now the other part of it is just fixing the department of defense doesn't fix our economic problem, which is the biggest issue really is. you can zero out the department of defense and put it in other programs and it would not fix the economic woes we have. as one of my colleagues said the other day the united states is not like the soviet union in the 1980's. our our economic woes is not caused by the military spending. the military is not the problem. they can help fix it but i'll be honest with you, if we save that money, if we changed those laws in the acquisition system we could gardner back some money from the defense spending, you need to put it back in modernization.

that is not going to work. i'm more optimistic than you. i think there are other things that can be done than this total aggregation that we call a sequester. if we're not strong enough fix our problem then we will make ourselves do it. come on, we're better than that. it will take political capital and talking to each other in the different parties, which they are not good at it. they need to stop pointing fingers. this pops on both houses. rather than spending our time trying to blame the other guys what is going on. sit down and figure out how to fix it. that is called political leadership. we used to have that in the united states and now we have

less than we did before and that is unfortunate. >> thank you, steve. do we have a question? >> i would like to ask you, considerable nd time with the korean military in several places. you said the r.o.k. military was first rate and i would agree with that. it sounded like you're talking about combat situations and military affairs. i would like to ask you if that perhaps was even somewhat an under statement because if you consider civil affairs and civic action and what the korean ilitary has done in that

regard. they have built friendships and support for the host countries in which they have served both with american troops and otherwise. they have always developed a greater security with the local populations in those areas where they have served. -- examples are in street the m, where they fought way you described but they also brought positive as spects of the korean culture to their otherwise areas and used them effectively in teaching people ow to engage in taekwondo. that's japanese. in northern iraq, they have also

been very effective. that have shown extraordinary stability and democratic progress with the people in those areas where they have served. i just have one more thing i would like to ask you because i have heard -- i've been informed about the things that i just mentioned. i haven't fought alongside them and observed it as you have. there has been from time to time mention in dealing with these issues of lessons learned. usually, the lessons learned are those that our troops learned in combat in vietnam then iraq.

i never, hardly hear anything about lessons learned from our experience with the r.o.k. army n the 1950's and the 1960's, particularly in the 1960's and the recovery after the korean war in civil action and development. i would like to hear some of your views on these things that seldom come up. thank you. ft. ll, i used to teach at bragg in the regional study courses, which is one of the core courses for the special operations community. these are all american captains and some majors that have gone into the civil affairs or the psychological operations fields. we spent a lot of time going over lessons learned from the

civil affairs-type actions that the army and the republic of korea learned. the american military isn't always good at learning lessons. we learn them, we write them down, then we never look at them again. it's a horrible problem. we tried in that educational context to bring those out and let people see that, you know, this is a doable thing. it is not an impossible task. if people put their minds to it, if you find the right folks with the right skills and attitude, that is the most important aspect of it and you can do incredible things. korea is one of the examples we used and the action that those military folks took. you're right to point that out. it isn't always about the shooting and all the wild combat type things. frankly, you do less of that

than you do of the other stuff. the korean people had to learn a lot of that because they had a bad situation that they had to fix themselves. think did a good job and their military was a big part of that. > thank you very much. quickly. >> i con cure you with the korean army after spending several tours in korea with them. in 2011 and koreans served with us and they served on the providence that they were assigned to and they did great things. what are your indications of hat and hopefully, with an r.o.k. lead unification? second question is, what can the

r.o.k. government and the u.s. government do diplomatic, military wise, and economically splunes north korea and china to influence north korea, as well as take the proactive measures with north korea versus be in the reaction mode of kim jong-un and his new, basically, provocation campaign versus cycle? >> the first one i'm undyingly optimistic. the progress that the remember of korea has made. such a phenomenal place now. it is one of the economic leaders in the world. their capability far outstrips the natural resources and other things in the country, that comes from the people.

i know people of north korea ave lived under incredible dictatorship for a long time. people are jennettically the same as the south korean people but now through mall nourishment and things like that they are fundamentally different. the seed of potential is there. i don't have a hard statistic call data on why it will -- statistical data on if it will happen in our life time. i think it is doable. the united states and the republic of korean and our other allies need to really stop doing this, you know, one step forward, two steps back thing

with north korea. this is like kids with parents. they go and once they complain long enough they say, ok, i'll buy it for you. action he goes through, his dad it and then he does it because it works. you calm down and we'll give you this. he says ok, i'll take that and he walks away with that and he is snickering because he got what he wanted in the first place. it does not work raising kids ike that and it doesn't work politically. i'm not beating up this administration but other administrations, it needs to stop. is it risky? he might start doing more stuff

is doing.he some of the stuff he is doing is not just demonstration, it is actual damage. he has killed people. will that push him to do more? maybe, but if you want to see the people of north korea free and see that country united, yes, absolutely with the republic of korea lead. want it to be like west germany uniting with east germany and they drag them over into their way of doing business. i think the republic of korea needs to do the same thing with north korea. if we don't do that it will never happen. we'll allow this craziness to continue and these people will stay -- they have had concentration camps the size of cities. to let that stand in this day

and time is wrong. it is incomp hencible to me that we continue to do. i'm not advocating that we invade north korea and stop it. we need to take steps we can short of provoking a war but we should not be doing gestures toward him no matter how much he stomps his feet and rattles his missiles. >> with that note, thank you very much. let's give steve a big round of applause. now we have the third speaker, the honorable ambassador robert king. >> do you want me to sit here? >> as you see fit.

>> thanks very much. >> ok. now before ambassador king takes his turn i introduce one of our staff jack. jack will introduce ambassador king. >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you for this opportunity to introduce robert r. king. dr. king was the envoy for north korea and human rights issues in 2009 following confirmation of the united states senate. ambassador king works under ambassador day vess and has the lead of human rights and humanitarian affairs. he worked on capitol hill hill for 25 years. 24 of those years as chief of

a congressman. of california. he was chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the united states house of representatives. democratic staff director of the committee and held various positions on the committee since 1993. bassador king holds a p.h.d. in foreign relations and has authored five books and more han 40 articles on international relations. now, ambassador king will address north korea's human rights issues. [applause] >> thank you very much for the opportunity to be here with you today. i appreciate the opportunity in

talking with you. i appreciate the invitation to chance to be here and talk with you about north korea's human rights concerns. since november 2009, when i assumed the position for special envoy of human rights issues, we've seen significant changes dprk. the rise of the power of kim jong-un. one thing has not changed and that is the human rights situation in north korea, which remains deplorable. reflecting on north korea's humanitarian and human rights issue, i'm convinced of two things. first of all, we need to continue to hold the north korean leadership accountable for its deplorable human rights record. we need to call attention to these problems. second, we need to break down the barriers of information and

increase north korea's exposure to the outside world. if we're going to create the kind of positive change we would like to see in terms of security and humanitarian challenges a greater flow of information is key to that process. let me say a few words about calling attention to the human rights abuses in north korea. north korea's human rights problems are well documented. the state department produces annually the state department's country reports on human rights practices. the most recent was released a couple of weeks ago by secretary kerry. the report continues to note that we received reports from receive fuel gees who have left refugees who left north korea

and they talk a torture and capture, they don't provide fair trials or due process. the government controls almost all aspects of its citizens lives. denying freedom of speech, religion, assemblely. reports that the government restricts the freedom of movement of its citizens and subjects its citizens to forced labor. it is disappointing to see such little change from year to year in the human rights reports in the situation in the north. one important development that helps in terms of the process of calling attention to the human rights abuses in north korea was the decision made by the u.n. human rights council of march of this year to create a commission of inquiry of human rights in the dprk. the u.s. activity supported the

discussion of the north korean human rights situation and the human rights council and general assembly. e've had annual debates in the general assembly on north korea's human rights. we've had resolutions adopted calling for improvements in human rights. through this process appointed a to report on te cases and they reported to the general assembly and the human rights council. it was reported to the general assembly identified nine disturbing underlining patterns, violating the right to

food, the right to life, freedom of movement. after a review of all of the u.n. reports on north korea over the last several years, he called for the creation of a mechanism of inquiry to further document these abuses he has called attention to. in january of this year, the commission for human rights also said it was time to create an inquiry mechanism to look further at north korea. i'm happy to report that in march the united states co-sponsored the resolution creating this commission of inquiry. it was proposed by japan and the european union with the strong support of the republic of korea and a number of other countries. the resolution directs the

inquiry to examine the widespread of violation of human rights. earlier this week, just a couple of days ago the president of the human rights council appointed the membership. mr. michael kerby has been appointed chairman of this commission of inquiry. also, a leader in the balkans was appointed to the council. attorney indonesia's on this ill also serve commission. we will work with our partners here and elsewhere to support the commission on inquiry on its

effort to look at these human rights problems, to make recommendation. the committee on -- the commission of inquiry will present its findings to the human rights council in march next year. so we will have the opportunity to review those recommendation when that report is completed. it's significant that the resolutions that have been adopted recently in the u.n. general assembly and the human rights council, the last three have been passed without recorded votes. sically, the consensus was overwhelming and it was not worth the bother of voting because there was little opposition to the criticism of north korea. one of the things that has

probably contributed to this growing emphasis and concern with human rights in north korea is a growing awareness because of reports, books, other things that have been published. in the last year two very important books came out in english talking about the human rights in north korea. one is "escape from camp 214." of asically tells the story a north korean political prisoner. young man was born in this most stringent prison camps. his parents were there, not because they committed a crime but they had brothers or sisters who had left north korea. the two parents were allowed to and he the prison camp

was born from that mar age. thing he had done to justify why he was in this prison camp, yet, he was expected to spend s entire life in that prison camp. a second book that appeared just about a year ago also extremely important in terms of the prison camp issue was david hawks second edition. he went through and carefully documented locations and nature of prison camps scattered throughout north korea. here's some excellent publicly available satellite imagery used to identify the camps and

identify the scope and size of the problem. this information, both of these books have called considerable attention to the seriousness of the problem. these reports indicates there is between 100,000-200,000 prisoners in these camps. this is enormous. we're talking about a number of political prisoners proportionately larger than what the soviet union had for most of its history. might be about the same of what the soviet union had in the 1930's. basically, this is incredible in this day and age to have a political prison problem like this. the one thing that i think is most important that we can do in terms of trying to move encouraging change in north

to break the information blockade that exists in north korea. north korea is one of the most closed societies on this planet. we've seen modest indicates despite government restrictions this is beginning to change. with u.s. state department funding, an american research extensive d an report on availability of information and changes that are taking place on availability of information in north korea. north korea is in a changing media environment. this indicates that north korea still has no internet access. it is one key places on eartha internet is not available. it is not a question of lack of

equipment but the government does not want the public to have access to information. despite the fact that north korea, as you know, it is illegal to own a radio that can be tuned. the only radios that you can legally buy and own are the ones that are preset to the government channel. despite this fact, there's a urprising -- we're talking 20%-30%-of people who left north korea indicated they have listened to foreign radio. at a time where radio is less and less important as a source of information. in north korea, radio is the most important source of information from the outside world that is reaching north koreans. foreign d.v.d.'s are seen by increasing numbers of north

koreans. the study showed that 50% of north koreans have seen foreign d.v.d.'s. another study was done by voice of america that suggests that number is as high as 80% of northern koreans. i'm not a fan of south korean soap operas but north koreans are and they are very popular there. cell phone communication has been available just in the last few years. calls within the country are possibly. they are probably and closely monitored. calls outside north korea are not possible on the official network. but now there is probably close to two million cell phones in north korea. now, to give you an indication of the difference between north

korea and south korea. in north korea with the population of 24 million, there is two many, one in 12 have access to a cell phone. in south korea, the number of cell phones per person is 1.3. differences are dramatic. nonetheless, the changes in north korea are significant. people are able to talk with ther people in the other countries. with these kinds of information tools available, we're beginning to see changes taken place in north korea. given the nature of north korea and the limitations on information that is available one of the most important things that the united states does is to support the broadcasting oard of governors with its

broadcasting in free asia. we're providing eight hours a y on medium wave regular transmissions that go into north korea. it is interesting that in north korea, prime time is not until 9:00 at night. you crawl under the covers and you listen to the radio without having anyone know that you're listening to the radio. daytime listenship is zero. i worked for radio in europe broadcasting to the countries of central europe during the cold war. we had people listening, in communist zech complained about teenagers listening to the radio in the

afternoons. that is not a problem in north korea. one of the things that is clear is we need to encourage north korea to invest its resources in feeding and educating its people and not to continue down the path of isolation that it has followed. we would welcome meaningful measures, economic or otherwise that would improve the lives of the people of north korea. one way for kim jong-un to do this is to undertake good faith efforts toward denuclearization, something that would offer benefits to all parties involved. have made clear we're worth compromise with north korea if they live up to their obligations and commitment. given the events of the past 10

months, the bar for meaningful engagement is certainly more difficult to reach. president obama put it best during a major speech he gave in november. in a passage that was directed to north korea he said "let go of your nuclear weapons and choose the path of peace and progress. if you do, you will find an extended hand from the united states of america. ." if north korea wants to take steps to join the international community it needs to refrain from actions that threaten peace and stability and of northeast ia and comply with its joint statement of the six party talks. also, it's obligation under relevant security council resolution to abandon nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. north korea will have to address

its human rights record. north korea's choice is clear investment in its people and steps toward denuclearization can lead towards peace and prosperity and increased relationships with other countries including the united states. we have a deep concern over the human rights conditions in north korea and the well being of the north korean people. this reflects our commitment as americans to the rule of law to respect for individual rights and our support of these rights. we look to the time when north korea will move in a direction that will be positive in that regard. thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about north korea's humidity rights. [applause] > thank you very much,

ambassador. by the way, she missed one element to introduce you. we've been working with your predecessors and he is the first human rights ambassador so we're very happy to have you full time finally. >> i can tell you this is a full time job. >> that said, i'm going to ask ave or larry -- larry, please. >> one of the problems that we have had with regard to human rights issue in north korea is getting the north koreans to talk to anybody outside of north korea about this. i know ambassador king has had difficulties in meeting with the

north koreans. he might want to amplify on that a little bit. back in 2003 and 2004, some of they made ember that an initiative to get the north koreans to have a dialogue on human rights. hey made diplomatic efforts in sending officials to talk a this but it fell through. to get north koreans to agree to this kind of dialogue. now, one of the interesting things about the human rights issue, i think perhaps we north korea has what it describes as a human rights agenda towards south korea.

they demand that south korea abry investigate the national security law. that south korea stop blocking pro-north korean websites into south korea. that south korea stop prosecuting south korean citizens who "illegally" travel to north korea. and that south korea, the government lift restrictions on leftist labor unions in south korea. if you follow the north korean media there is a fairly constant raising of these demand on south korea. , guess the question i have is is there any possibility or perhaps should we give some consideration to try to take advantage of these north korean

demands to put some pressure on them to negotiate on the elements of their system that mbassador king talked about? in terms of a north/south negotiation on all of these issues, both of what north korea is demanding on the south and the agenda that ambassador king has laid out, is this something perhaps we ought to consider in terms of counter proposal from south korea? saying, yes, we'll negotiate with you on these issues but there are things about your system, your treatment of your citizens that will have to be on the negotiating table as well. is there any consideration that we might sit down with our south

korean allies and talk about in terms of taking this kind of initiative to try to perhaps put the north koreans in a little bit more of a difficult position with regard to the human rights issue? >> thank you, larry. >> one of the issues in terms of dealing with north korea for the united states is making sure that we deal with north korea in way that is done in cooperation fully with south korea. these are two countries -- two people that are the same people, basically. they are divided by governments. the real question becomes what is the role of the united states? one of the things we have tried very hard to do is to make sure

what we do on north korea is done in cooperation with south korea. we try to make sure they ing to and what we're try do and we want to make sure we understand what they are trying to do and make sure we croopts in doing that. it is difficult for us to maybe allowing south korean citizens to go to north korea. they have sensitivities they have to deal with. we work with the south koreans and we talk about how they do what they do. it is difficult. it is, for example, american citizens can travel to north korea. e don't have restrictions in going. there are economic sanctions on what you can do and spend money on and take with you, that kind

of thing. there is no limit on your ability to go to north korea. the south korean government has they are ssues, closer. we work with the south koreans and we try to cooperate with them. whatever we do we try to make sure we're working together and pushing in the same direction on these issues. we like to engage the north koreans in discussions on human rights issues. we have human rights discussion, ongoing dialogues with the chinese. we have significant differences with the chinese. most of you here are too young to remember this but earlier china was in a different situation on its own human rights situation. while we still have problems with where china is today, remarkable progress has been made.

if we can get north korea to move as far as china has moved, we would all be cheering. we're trying to move in those directions. part of the problem is our relationship with north korea has been strained in the last while and it is difficult to do that. i have had some discussions with north korea in engaging on human rights. it was an earlier time when things are more positive. we'll see where we continue to try to do that because we're trying to move forward with with north korea. >> very informative discussion, mr. ambassador. what role does china play in the north korean human rights situation? do they determine it is more external in north korea's affairs? >> our relationship with china is an interesting relationship.

in a lot of areas we have strong agreements, in some areas we have disagreements. it is interesting to see where we are and we've made. on north characterization it's a complicated issue for china. it's a border country. they're nervous about who is across their 800 kilometer border. one of the areas of concerns for us is that for north koreans who want to leave north korea and go elsewhere, the only way out is through china. the north koreans have kept the border very tight. there are indications that it's become increasingly difficult to get across the border in the last year or so. we have expressed our concerns to china because when north koreans make it to china, frequently if they're captured,

they are returned to north korea as economic immigrants. it is hard for us, with our own border problems, to be too critical of china on this issue. we have argued that in fact these are not economic immigrants as much as they're people who want to leave north korea and go elsewhere. if they don't want to stay in china we would like them to be able toe go to south korea and we hope the chinese work towards that. 2,800 there were around who left north korea, went through china, made it to north korea. that number was only 57% last year, just a little more than half of that number, and the numbers so far this year have been still lower. it's a concern for us because we

feel that people who want to leave their cub to travel freely should be allowed to do so and we'd like to see that happen. it's an issue that we have concerns about but it's an issue that we discussed with the chinese. in many areas we are very cooperative in terms of our relationships and efforts with the chinese. i think china has many of the same objectives in terms of stability, and we continue to work very closely with the cloins. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. i really appreciate how difficult your job must be. in particular, the fact that i think your work is much overshadowed by our focus on north korea nuclear weapons. i can't prove this but i would throw out there that i'd say in the last 60 years that north

korea is responsible for more deaths through their human rights violations than their current stockpile of nuclear weapons could ever cause. you know, i say that with some sarcasm but we should realize -- and i'm very appreciative of the work that you're doing that we remember those 24 million people that are suffering at the hands of the kim family regime. i have a couple of points and then one really hard question. i can't agree with you more about information flow and i agree that we're seeing much more information getting in there. the defector organizations, the d.v.d., as you mentioned. i've had some communications with diplomats about cell phones and some dip la malts have traveled from pyongyang and back and had entire cell phone coverage the entire way and i

think that's encouraging because those are things that can be exemploymented. i can appreciate if you can't answer this but i think we need a comprehensive influence campaign to try to influence -- you touched on that -- voice of america radio for europe and i'm glad you mentioned to be eight hours a day in the prime listening time and that's often criticized why we're not broadcasting 24 hours. i don't think people understand the assessment you just provided there and i think that's very important. one -- one of the thing we're t doing is the use of sort korean psychological capabilities. and there's been a moratorium on that. i would say as part of a comprehensive program, and as you pointed out, we do everything in concert with south korea. but for the military aspect to contribute to influence operations in the north, and i think we should do that and we

haven't. need to tyke a holistic approach because i think information is the key. and i'm really optimistic because of some of the things that have happened recently. we know kassong has been closed. those 50,000 workers have not en asim litted back into the population. the reports from kenneth bay on the government as recently as today, they are saying that he was bringing in information, trying to conduct subversive activity and the like. i'm getting the sense that the external information is having a difference and the reveal is afraid of that. so i think we really need to reinforce that and use all of

our capabilities supporting south korea to be able to influence the north. i'm glad you talked about the u.n. commission of inquirpey and i don't think that is in the news enough and i didn't realize that march 14 was the time for their findings. my real question is what do you think the prospects are of being able to operationize those findings? being able to do something with those findings? i think we all know what the findings will be. the reports, as you've independence indicated, cornlt to show a pattern of real tragedy and abuse but will the u.n. be able to take those findings and orbleize them somehow, some kind of plan to influence the north. i guess that would be my specific question. >> i think it's dealing with the

human rights situation, it's a long-term continuous effort and the main thing we've got to do is keep it up and i think one of the things that the commission of inquiry does sort of raises the level of attention on north korea and north korea's problems. the north korean's don't like being singled out. they don't like the u.n. security council voting on sanctions against them, military activities and i think the same thing is true in terms of the commission of inquiry. i think we continue to document and we continue to establish the facts and there's a growing sense that north korea is out of step with the rest of the nations of the world. now, i think this commission of inquiry is part of that process. the economists intelligence unit

produces reports periodically. they did a report on freedom. what countries have the greatest amounts of freedom, who are the best countries in terms of human rights and so forth. so they went through a process of giving numerical values to certain times of criteria and then ranking all of the nations of the earth as to how they stand on human rights. the united states was in the 20's. north korea, there were 16 countries in the study and north korea was 167. now, no matter what your country is, that's not a good place to be and i think we need to continue that effort. we need to continue -- and as information into north korea increases, i think this nformation is going to have an effect on the leadership.

in addition, to -- you've mentioned some of the things -- i talked specifically about radio and video and this type of thing getting in. one of the thing that's also happened, because of some economic improvements with china, there are increasing numbers of north koreans who travel to china and you can't go to china, particularly niese china and see the vibrant chinese economy, the relative freedom, particularly compared to what you see in north korea and not have an inspect on the -- impact on the people who see that. and there are thousands of people who are going back and forth in china and doing it legally from north korea. so i think we continue. it is very hard in this day and age for any country, including north korea, to remain totally isolated from the rest of the world. you just can't do it. we live in a global world and eventually north korea, whether it wants to or not is going to

the -- be dragged kicking and screaming into the 1st century and i think we need to continue to work on that in terms of the uman rights records. >> is this on? this is the first time i attend been s meeting and it's my mistake, in spite of numerous invitations i have not come. i have just retired last year. and so in my college years, unification crone issues were predominant on my mind, the he's rest of my life has been spent on making a living, etc. ambassador king said that the recent survey, north korea ran 16 th.

i would -- 167th. i would disagreement it must ,175 out of 167 countries. many wonder how such a country can exist. actually, it's a little more surprising to someone like me. i was born in north korea. my parents are not originally from north korea but my father during japanese times had a little business there and out of six children, two of us were born there. i moved south when i was 4 years old. mr. bochy talked about, recommended a greater human intelligence effort in north korea and he expressed the hope like that all the other dictatorial systems, north korea will one day face a similar

fate. and ambassador king said in this day and age such a system cannot be closed forever. it must be opened up somehow. we has high hopes and so do i. i have homes deep inside. but many things indicate north korea is unlike any other country. a country like north korea never existed in the history of man ind. the "washington post" a few weeks ago talked about getting human intelligence of any intelligence of north korea, comparing that to iran, iran is like an open look. during the worst days of china with human intelligence, the c.i.a. and other were able to alk through the varies

provinces and -- various provinces and talk to people. they cannot do that anywhere in north korea. i have met some people who are unning a special university. king jong-un allowed to run. they were very intelligent people and educated mostly in science and technology. politics out of -- outside of it. they came and talked to us and we asked questions. the only thing he could talk out were the few people they met in that compound. the few people they met outside, they had no stories to tell at all. they haven't been outside. they cannot talk about north korea in general. that's the situation. now, the people of east asia -- asia often criticize western medicine because they observe symptoms and they true to cure

it. an ave a headache, take aspirin. get rid of the symptoms and the fundamental symptoms that caused the headache still remains. i think we might be doing the same thing here. we are gattering information and trying to do something about the symptom but what is the real cause? why is it not happening in north korea what happened to romania or mubarek in egypt, medium mar gaddafi in libya. is a doom husain and in iraq. what's to different about north korea? the chinese never had it so bad. north koreans -- there's a city a little bit west of upon yang. upon yang and this -- pang yang

is and this city's rhythm is similar to -- it used to be lled in japanese times jin nampo. the region jin menals in japanese, in chinese character pressure. control. the police officers of japan ould be stationed in numpo and they would be found dead the next morning. it was very difficult for japanese military to control the city. so they said change the name of the city. control numpo to nupmpo. most of the e-- rebellions started in the north. the people who are so silent today against this unspeakable system were one of the most

rebellious in our history. so what is the secret? i'm a sociologist. though one o -- person can write a book, a person can survive in the wilderness, but if you want to make any difference in the real world, you have to talk to somebody. you have to talk to somebody about why should we live like this? life can be better. you haven't seen rice? this is intolerable. this is the 21st century. somebody should be able to say to somebody in north korea about this. you cannot do that in north korea. can you imagine that? when he raged the military coup in 1960, i said in order to do that he had to meet some of his

people in a restaurant and talk about how to rage the coup. chinese e money to buy noodles. nobody in north korea has that. nobody has money enough to entertain five people at a dinner table and talk. five people cannot get together and talk for 10 minutes without somebody else knowing it. what would the human rights experts in the united states do about collusion like that? we gather more information? i don't know. >> ambassador? >> north korea is a tough place nd part of the difficulty is the repressiveness of the regime. burma was repressive but there su chee. an ong song

there's not in north korea because the government is so successful in keeping people repressed. one of the problems is simply the number. the number of people in political prisons in north korea is so high that that's one way they do it. there are just a lot more people in prison. the other concern is that virtually everybody in north korea knows someone who has been dragged off in the middle of the night and disappeared and when you see that happen, it makes you extremely -- why did they get dragged away? nobody ever knows the real reason why they were taken but you are very careful about not doing anything that could have that happen to you. a regime that is so regressive is successful in terms of keeping dissent down. and this is again why we need to have more information. because i think as people learn about what conditions are like

elsewhere, what conditions are really like in south korea or in the united states or in china, it makes a difference in terms of what people are willing to put up with. there are indications of problems, the attempted currency reform in december 2009. there were certain things the population would not accept and the government had to back down. this is something that may happen over time but it's very difficult and the north koreans are particularly good at repreparation. >> thank you. for example, all three gentlemen today had great presentations. i think that it's refreshing to know that at least some people in washington, d.c. understand what's going on in asia. unfortunately our politics i don't think follow our lead sometimes. >> we tell them do what we say. >> i wish that was the case. but i'd like to talk about the

human rights -- i think it's important for north korea but we have to think about the regime. we talk about how they're able to do the human rights violations. any type of regime like north korea, with the structural violence they have, in order to maintain the regime, they're going to have more structural violence. in order to counter that, the information flow helps but you can't get social mobilization of the people from the grassroots level up unless we're -- we're able to provide hope to the people -- i think it was back during the reagan administration, i think reagan said that we wouldn't use food aid as a sanction or a tool if foreign policy in that matter yet we do so when it comes to north korea. although we know that most of

the food aid goes to other places and not north korea, we know some of it does trickle down to north korea. we don't provide for them to raise up from a level of deprivation to meet and discuss the movies and how he we want to make changes inspect future. so having said that e-long lon gated the -- elongated the statement -- how to do we, in addition to the information flow that is necessary and the need to get today in there, how about other soft tools of foreign policy, such as with the former soviet union, the exchanges for fulbrights at the height of the cold war. ome said there was a great effect on the soviet union at the time. we don't do those things with small rogue nations or regimes.

what would you recommend for that, any of you gentlemen on the panel, who start using some of those other tools of foreign policy? >> i think it's extremely important that we engage the north koreans. and we have tried to, and there are a number of american n.g.o.'s that are involved in north korea. we have tried to encourage them. we've tried to help them provide assistance in terms of engaging the north koreans. quite frankly, it's probably more helpful if we aren't too close to them. but there are a number of american ngo's that are heavily involved in north korea. we think it's help helpful and encouraging. there are a number of programs that have teamed to be involved in educational changes.

-- exchanges. there's a lack of money and that's where it may be useful to talk to your members of congress and saying it is worthwhile in terms of us trying to do this. a number of universities have done exchange programs where they brought team to look at things like issues of economy, rule of law issues, how do you deal with foreign trailed issues. there have some that have done it with agricultural. these are things we all try to encourage because i think there's value in engaging the north koreans. it's difficult because there's not a lot of money available to do it. you mentioned the humanitarian assistance. we have probably been the country that has provided more humanitarian assistance, food assistance, than any other country. in the 1990's as the famine was going, the united states was the

major contributor. we've cribbed $800 million or $900 million in terms of today assistance to north korea. it is still the policy that we do not provide food on the basis of political considerations. ronald reagan's dictum is quoted by everyone these days. anything -- in addition to looking out how we provide food prals here are three principles. first of all, humanitarian aid has to be based on need. we have to go, in assess the need, determine what the need is, what's needed, how much, and that's the first consideration. the second consideration is that we have to look at assistance to a particular country in the erall global need demand for

resources that we can provide. right now there are problems in africa -- fairly serious problems in africa. there are problems in certain areas of the middle east where economies are having trouble adjusting egypt, and tunisia and so forth and a lot of these countries are in need of our assistance as well. so we have to look at demand. and the third thing we have to be able to do is be able to have some reasonable assures that the food and assistance we provide reacheses those who are most in need and this means we need to be able to monitor and carry out the monitoring. we've been able to do that in the past in north korea to some extent. it's not an easy place to monitor because it's a difficult place to get around. roads are terrible and it's difficult to get things from one part of the country to another.

i think that's probably not the issue. i think the issue is one of do we have assurances that there's a need, are we able to determine that, and what is the competition for resources. one concern we had -- i spent most of the year negotiating over the north koreans over whether we could monitor the aid, and came to the conclusion that we probably could. the issue was would the north koreans observe the agreements that we'd reached. in april, march of 2012, north koreans basically reached an agreement with us, an understanding with us on nuclear issues and then within two weeks announced they were going to violate it. we're sitting there looking at providing 240,000 tons of food. we've got people in africa and other places who are in need of food and we say can we trust the north koreans to creep the

agreement if we enter into it? we ultimate -- ultimately came to the conclusion -- we had agreed to provide 500,000 tons of food assistance in the fall of 2008, right at the end of the bush administration. we began the process of distributing that food. had districted 170,000 tons of food. there was another 325,000, 330,000 tons of food online to be distributed and the north koreans in march of 2009 said et out to all of the aid providers, the mercy corps, the world vision, the people who are there monitoring the distribution of aid and so forth and that was the end of it. the north koreans are difficult to deal with. in many cases they're their own worst enemy. there's a need.

there's no question there's a need for humanitarian assistance. it's just tough to provide and it's tough to provide it under circumstances like that. but very good comments. i agree with your oaks. >> a question to roland -- >> i was the first-ever defense at shea in albania, which was the only other country that had a similar level of isolation to north cree -- north korea. north korea has still got one. albania finally gave it up in the early 1990's. t at the end of world war ii -- world war ii, we tried to send people in to help overthrow the communists there. we gave up because the people we sent in got till killed. we said they're just too good. we stopped trying.

we found or the later the british head of half of the peration was a guy named kim philby, who was a communist spy in the british system. for 50 years we let those people live like that and perhaps if we had kept going we could have made a change, but we stopped. and when i got in there in 1993 i can't tell you how many people asked me why did you do this to us? why did you leave us under that government for so long? why didn't you do something to help us? you knew what was going on here. i didn't have a good answer for them. now, the ambassador and the folks like him, they're doing the best they can in the system e have, but we can't not try all of the elements of influence

and power. i don't mean to sound bellicose, and again, i'm not advocating we invade north korea, but we have to do more we've got to do more than wag our fingers at them and we have bekeep thinking and never satisfied with the result until the result is all those people are free or at least moving in that direction and they're not right now, they're all captives. >> thank you, steve. in the interest of time, why we do this. grace, george and dave, make a quick question. ok? grace? question has to do with the u.n. mechanism or commission of inquiry. there's little doubt on what its itdings will be and if recommends that the security dprk situationhe to the international criminal

will the united states support that or at least not veto and if not, why not? thank you, grace. question?ur just one thing i disagreed with, tae kwon do is korean. agree, we have to have a strong position to protect our interests and to have a better way to negotiate but engagement -- i have been engage with this north koreans since 1998, i have been giving american chocolate and candy, the marshmallow pies, hard to if i get them,k i love them, so i don't know, i'll have to bring them there time. we've even this them in new york state of the empire building, the staten island

fairy and new york pizza. them in central europe touring with the team. i got emailsied, from my north korean friends praying for the repose of my mother's soul. need to do this. it's not a question, if the comment is a request. us to engage, we depolitalize the process and have someone assigned to us through these things because everybody has said engagement and historically the record is clear, even ambassador bosworth and criv fer -- hill, we can't do this. to ask for -- i didn't want money makesoney but it a lot easier. thank you.

>> dave? one'd just like to make comment and i fully support all of ambassador king's work but with the comments up there, the is nothing the room will change as long as the kim family regime exists. that's it. george'somments, comments and steve's, this thers growing resistance potential in the north and it takes contact.t, it takes the best change will come from within and everything we can do facilitate that but kim il sung developed the most sophisticated control system in the world and that's what is kim familyit and the regime, as long as it exists, is still going to repress its people, it's going to develop its nuclear weapons, it's going to be a threat to south korea, region, and really, to the international community. so until the regime goes away, see anyt going to change but there is growing potential for change from within

support that.to >> quickly. fast, yes. we hear terms like political, diplomatic and so forth. theink if we look at behavior of the regime, we must with them politically and oflomatically in terms international systems but i termedhe behavior can be a a regime or a nation, it is headedthlogical nation by psychopathological heads of it's veryi think difficult to deal with that but than were a family rather a nation, we would be using

those terms and i think we're politically correct term "human rights violations." i think that's a gross understatement. >> thank you. turn tot said, your take all these questions and comments. all, grace's comment referral of the findings of the commission of inquiry to the possiblycouncil and the international criminal court, that's obviously one option. the's one thing, one of past officials suggested, winterbourn recommended it be referred to the security council. the securityof council goes well beyond my capabilities. the chinese and the russians, as well as the other

the security council, make it very difficult. it's certainlyd, something that we will look at. it's difficult because i'm not the chinese are going to want to do something like that a veto chinese have power. it is remarkable, however, that the security council in 2094 after the north lastns tested their nuclear weapon, the chinese tough language in that resolution and there are indications in the press at aret that the chinese moving in the direction to enforce those sanctions that in thateed upon resolution. but, youe surprised, know, hard to tell. i can be surprised at a lot of things these days. with regard to tae kwon do, your and we wentnoble through all sorts of contortions

getting visas for the group to to the united states. positive and we have been able to give visas to groups like that that come to the united states. the less official they are, the high they are in ranking, the easier it is to do it. keep up your work. thing.good it's important both in terms of states.ing the united it's also important in terms of them seeing what americans are in north koreae so you're doing good things, you're doing god's work, keep it up. problems ofto the the family and the repression in thingsorea, one of the that i think needs to be kept in regards to north korea, when you looked at central europe, the most repressive country in central

europe was east germany, the stasy intill -- infiltrated everything and it's not an accident that north korea is like that and that's because you nation where both countries are pulling in very different directions and i think of that is the intensity of the concern, the ability of people to go back and is much,oss the border much greater, it's much more toficult to send an american north korea. a south korean fits in very is thatand the result the intensity of the repression is much, much greater. hand, we saw with east germany that when the down, it breaks see very quickly and we'll what happens with regard to north korea. of -- yeah -- north anda is a difficult place

the behavior there, i mean, for a- good job ofialologist in terms looking at how these kinds of things are allowed to go on and how they're allowed to continue. it's a struggle. it's tough. that getps like this together and talk about these issues and raise issues and try raise awareness that ultimately are helpful in terms producing the kind of change that's positive. icas does good things, keep it up. i.c.c., we hosted judge hahn, the president of i.c.c., to philadelphia, a few months ago and his paper is on website so we have a good i.c.c. relationship with thinking andhe is

it's a long-term. he indicated the political international u.n. security council issues. >> the politics of the security council are very tough. what judge hahn said, among other things, he, as a judge, cannot engage in anything else other than traditional issues when the matter comes to his issues.-- judicial >> another way would be for the prosecutors to initiate action. >> prosecutor came along with him. people on thef commission of inquiry include expertise andgal a lot of experience dealing with situations so i have confidence they'll make good decisions. well, ladies and gentlemen,

let's give ambassador king a round of applause. [applause] thank you very much and our adjourned. thank you. [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> all of today's program available online in our video library at c-span.org. coverage coming up this evening, road to the white house 2016 coverage with governor bobby jindal of louisiana speaking at the new hampshire republican state senate fundraiser. that gets underway at 6:00 p.m. at 8:00 tonight we kentuckya where

senator rand paul will be speaking at the republican 8:00ln day dinner in iowa, eastern. we'll fill that in with your calls and comments on twitter and facebook live on c-span. earlier, white house press secretary wrapped up his the majorone of topics of discussion was a new report that alleges the talking points from u.s. ambassador susan rice about the attacks on by thei was revised tote didn't -- department remove references to terrorism. 1:05.s briefing is >> good friday afternoon, ladies forgentlemen, thank you being here. i appreciate your patience. before i take your questions, i it'swanted to note because been reported, we did, as many of you know, have a background at the white house earlier. i think 14 news organizations

represented ranging from broadcast tv to print and the like. we do those periodically. we hope participants find them helpful. here believes briefings like that are a substitute for i'm briefing which is why here to take questions on whatever issues you want to ask me about. the with that, i go to the associated press. >> two subjects, starting with the i.r.s. issue. says it targeted conservative groups with names like patriots and tea party for and has apologized. when did the white house become aware that the i.r.s. engaged in this and in the tax collection relies on trust, isn't the i.r.s.' credibility at will the white house as called on by senator

call for an investigation? >> i appreciate the question and we've seen those reports. my understanding is this matter is under investigation by the i.g. at the i.r.s. independents an enforcement agency with only two appointees. the fact of the matter is, what we know about this, is of and we certainly find the actions taken as reported to be inappropriate and we would fully expect the investigation be thorough and for be made in a case like this and i believe the i.r.s. has addressed that and has taken some action and there's an investigation ongoing certainly does seem to be, based on what we have seen, inappropriate action that we would want to see thoroughly

investigated. given that the president was so critical of some of these 2012, both in 2010 and isn't it natural for the public to think these things are politically motivated? first of all, two things need to be noted, which is an independent which ient agency believe, as i understand it, contains only two political appointees within it. the individual who was running the i.r.s. at the time was appointee from the previous administration. but separate from that, there is that if this activity took place, it's inappropriate and there needs to and then taken president would expect it be thoroughly investigated and taken.would be >> on benghazi and with all due credit to my colleague on the right, we have emails showing backtate didn't pushed against talking point language expressed.i.a. and

concern about how information could be used politically in congress. you have said the white house a stylistic change here but these were not stylistic changes. content changes so again, what role did the white just in making thatn directing changes took place? >> thank you for that question. the way to look at this i think to start from that week and understand that in the wake of in benghazi, an effort was underway to find out was happened, who responsible. in response to a request from selectse permanent committee on intelligence to the c.i.a., the c.i.a. began a process of developing points in public by used members of congress, by members of that committee, and that always the case, again, led by the c.i.a., involved input from a variety of

agencies with an interest in or a stake in the process and that include obviously the state department since it was a state department facility that an ambassadornd who was killed as well as three f.b.i.,- the nsf, the the lead investigating authority entities. the c.i.a., in this case, deputy c.i.a., tookhe that process and issued a set of that saturday on morning and those talking points disseminated. this is all in response to requests from congress and the the whitemade by house or the state department to those talking points generated c.i.a. was they changed from referring to the facility in benghaziacked from consulate, because it was to diplomatice, post. i think i referred to it as

facility, but it was diplomatic post but it was a factualantive correction but there was a process leading up to that that inputs from a lot of agencies, as is always the case isa situation like this and always appropriate and the thatt is always to in circumstance, with an ongoing investigation and a lot of accurate, someme not, about what had happened and who was responsible, to provide for members of congress and others in the administration, for example, who about it,k publicly that was based on only what the community could say for sure it thought it knew and generated bywas the intelligence community, by the c.i.a. >> this information that was information that the c.i.a. obviously knew was about prior abouts and warnings those. does the president think it was appropriate to keep that

becauseion away simply of how congress might use it? >> first of all, the c.i.a. was agency that made changes to mean to the i talking points and produced the talking points, first of all. of all, i think the overriding concern of everyone involved in that circumstance is always to make sure that we're not giving to those who speak in about these issues information that cannot be confirmed, speculation about who was responsible, other things like warnings that may or may not be relevant to what we ultimately learn about what happened and why. information, by the way, was and remains part of the investigation. iss information that provided to congress and to this matterng into last fall and throughout the and into this year and that investigation continues but on the substantive issues of

in benghazi and at intelligenceat the community thought it knew, that was reflected in the talking points that were used again that andend by ambassador rice by others including members of congress and i think if you look the information that's been reported, you can see that and it was -- the talking points were focused on speculation and not about what may or may not have been responsible or related. you would also say that all of information was provided months ago to members of congress, a fact that we made clear to all of you at the time, the confirmation process for gen brennan as director of there was request for more information, including deliberatingd the process involved in producing these talking points and this took the rather extraordinary measure of

toviding those emails members of the relevant committees as well as the and staff inmbers congress and that information was available again in late february to members of congress and through march and once that was reviewed, in the case of the senate, senate republicans, a number of whom record saying, now i feel like i know what i need to know, then allowed the process the confirmation of john brennan to go forward and he was confirmed in early march. you bring it up, why were those emails provided in a fashion? >> it is standard procedure for administrations of both parties that internalades deliberations are generally protected, is generally protected information that is regularlying that is shared with congress and that's to allow for a deliberative process in the executive branch, in this case, to answer just

members ofrns that congress had, particularly republican members of congress, that step was taken and provided they were -- they were able to review all of these emails which they have now leaked to reporters but they were able to review all of these emails for takeng as they wanted, extensive notes if they chose to and again, once that process was completed, the confirmation of brennan went forward. a number of republicans came felt theyd said they had the information they needed thet that aspect of benghazi incident and it's only now for what i think is again reflective of ongoing attempts tragedy that a took four american lists, we're togetherg it resurface with political assertions by theblicans that ignore basic facts here. there was an attack on our

thelity in benghazi, intelligence community provided the information it felt comfortable providing for public dissemination to members of thernment, congress and administration. as we learned more about what happened, we provided it. that's why everybody has iteived the information that has throughout the process. things that i think is interesting about the points is that from the very beginning included in the points the statement about demonstrations taking place outside the facility in benghazi. that is what the assessment, the consensus or collective assessment of the intelligence community was and from that attacksre spontaneous launched against the facility and when we found out that was the assessment changed, we made that clear and that was going back, if you had this when we discussion back in the fall, that was the point that republicans were focusing on and

it's clear from what you see washese documents that that the assessment made by the intelligence community and it's clear from -- as to the evolution of what public said about what we knewa that as we got more concrete information that we felt comfortable about, we provided it to the press, to congress and to the public. >> jay, the substance of these verys, though, have specific exchanges between state department official and the white house in which the state department aboutal raises concerns providing points that would include a mention of al qaeda a concern that congress would use that against the state department. >> i think you need -- the state said that the spokesman's office raised two concerns about the talking points. the points went further in

assigning responsibility than political assessments suggested and there was concern about integrity of the investigation and that concern other quarters, not just the state department. >> specifically concerned about of congressrs something to use against the state department. >> this was a process where effort underway, an interagency process, to develop that could be delivered by government officials, both congressional administration officials, about what we knew and not going what we knew. so the assertions -- of that email is pretty clear and the response is terms of saying victoriao address nuland's concerns. no matter who provided the talking points in the end, it seems clear there was an influence by the white house and thestate department on

c.i.a. talking points. >> you're conflating a couple of things here. madehite house, as i said, one minor change to the talking points drafted by and produced c.i.a. and even prior to that had very few inputs on it. the other discussions that went to this, in an interagency process, reflected of concerns of a variety agencies who had a stake in this f.b.i., because it was investigating c.i.a., obviously, and other and theence agencies, state department because an ambassador had been killed and a diplomatic facility had been attacked, and what, i think, the concern was, was that these points not to provide information that was speculative whether it was relevant to what happened and what could not be known at that time was the relevance of issues warnings, the discussion

you know, the republicans, in the ongoing effort that began hours after attacks when mitt romney put out a press release to try to take political advantage out of attack in benghazi and in a members ofed even by his own party and from that day there has been this effort to politicize it and the efforts to politicize it were always about were we trying to play down the fact that there of terror and an attack on the embassy and the problem has always been without assertion is that it's completely hollow because the the rose himself in garden said this was an act of terror and he talked about it ofhin the context september 11, 2001, and we had other officials of the refer to this as a terrorist act. rice, when she went out on the sunday shows using the very

talking points we're discussions discussions -- discussing now, talked about the possibility the we believed based on intelligence assessment that extremists were involved and suspicions about what affiliations the extremists but there was not hard, concrete evidence, so ambassador rice, in those shows, about the possibility that al qaeda might be involved affiliates qaeda might be involved or extremistsa libyan which i think demonstrates that there was no effort to play that simply a reflection of we did not and the intelligence community did not and others within the toinistration did not jump conclusions about who was responsible before wehad an find out the to facts. >> was concern about how factor inould react a the talking points? >> if you look at the development of the talking is,ts, the answer to that no, because the talking points reflect the intelligence

assessment of what happened and all the other about who was responsible, what specific haveizations may participated, what information was available or threats were known about the situation in benghaziin specifically, all of that was part of an investigation and to, again, provided congress, and as we learned more, to the public, by the administration. april? >> jay, since you say it was a minor change, the such a bignged, why deal today with this deep off-the-record briefing. >> it wasn't off the record. big deal because republicans have chosen in the latest iteration of their politicize this, to provide -- leak this information

information that we provided months ago to lawmakers from the relevant committees and republican leadership as well as democratic and there's an ongoing effort to make something political out of this but the effort is thatat it's never been clear what it is the think they're accusing administration of doing because. we were very open about what we knew, what we thought we knew. what we did for a fact no, and the fact that this was an ongoing investigation and would certainly learn more or change our view of what happened in benghazi. there was suche unmanaged effort -- ?t is such a minor issue now to takeright

your questions about this issue. we have a ground read things periodically. 14stages are represented -- stations are represented. as i said at the top, it is not a replacement for this briefing. and that is why i am here. >> there was a conversation that was apparently being not done between various officials of this government september 14. in those e-mails, there is a discussion about this. and then after concerns were raised on the part of the state department that references that group that was removed from the conversation and were removed from the talking points, that is not a stylistic edit. that is a major, dramatic change. >> i appreciate the question and the opportunity to again make clear that the cia produced talking points on that saturday

morning. let methat point -- just finish. from that, -- >> was there pressure from other parties involved? think there were numerous things from the top official at the cia, making it clear that they believed the talking points represented what they knew to the best of their knowledge at that time and it not include things they did not think they could be concretely sure of. .l-sharia is a good example if you will remember, there was an initial claim of responsibility by that group. a lot of people came said, well, it they are responsible. that is why you need to be investigating. we were not for sure they were responsible at that time.

we knew that extremist swear are dissipating. -- we knew that extremist were participating. the idea that saying extremist 's is somehow hiding the ball -- does anyone in this room not understand that extremist's in libya means people that would attack a u.s. target? > she may have made -- >> on the sunday shows, she talked about how sharia. she talked about the fact that they may have been responsible. what she did not say is that we know for a fact they are responsible. talking the basic points. again, this is all about talking points. this is not about all of the facts of the investigation provided to congress and countless hearings, countless

documents. i think 25,000 pages of documents. this is just the baseline of what republican officials, beginning with embers of congress, and then to ambassador rice. and then they proceeded on to what could be true, as opposed to what we thought could be true. >> so you are comfortable, you are absolutely comparable with the way you characterized this back in november? yes, it may have been the white house that made a single adjustment and perhaps it was the cia that drafted these talking points, that you had all of these other arteries involved. -- all of these other parties involved. this is a very context-driven change. >> let me make clear. i do stand by this.

when we were talking about talking points produced by the cia and the liver to members of the intelligence community and the house, -- and delivered to members of the intelligence community and the house, that document, it was suggested and it was accepted by the white house and that was a change emma to make it factual. the calling of the building in benghazi a council its when it was not a council it to a diplomatic post. in thiss iteration iterative process where there were discussions about what we know, what we are speculating about. and that had a whole bunch of interesting things. it is also the case that in that process the white house involvement in the talking points was very limited and non- substantive. the issue that you mentioned has to do with limiting the talking points to what we knew as

opposed to speculation about what may have or may have not been in the end relevant to benghazi. yes. >> you said the only changes were stylistic. is it stylistic to take out all terror references to and ghazi? >> i appreciate the question again. what i was talking about were the documents the cia drafted and sent around, then i would not precisely call the change of one word to another tries -- wereese were after they bitten by the cia. these were concerns from the state department. >> well, i think you are getting -- >> there are specific references to al qaeda. the original cia version includes extensive discussion of the ruby terrorist attacks in

benghazi. those were taken out. >> the cia wrote another draft -- >> based on input from the state department. >> this is what i'm saying. i have answered this question several times. i am happy to answer it, if you will let me answer it. there are a lot of people that have a stake in a matter like this. the investigative agency, the state department in this case, and the national security staff. everyone provided information and commented. , the ciaay morning said we will take a crack at these talking points based on what we know. do not forget the fundamental issue here, which is what can be said concretely about what the intelligence community knew to be true. not that some people thought it was all sharia. some people thought it was other al qaeda affiliates.

-- not that some people thought sharia.ll sharia -- al there have been protests out of which the attacks occurred. that was a response to be demonstrations in cairo, that were ultimately a response to that video. that turned out not to be the case. but it demonstrates the fluidity of the information, the fact that it was hard and continues to be hard in an investigation to know concretely, especially in the first days afterward, what happened. and that is why we were so careful to say, here is what we know or what we believe we know. every time we said that, we said we fully expect this image to -- this information to change as we learn more. and it did. the effort by republicans to find some hidden mystery comes to nothing because the

president called it an act of terror. the ambassador to the united nations that very sunday, which has caused republicans such concern, talk about al qaeda sharia. all of this is a distraction from the key issues. the diplomatic post was attacked by individuals in libya, in benghazi, for americans lost their lives. from the beginning, the president has committed all of the resources of this government to find two is responsible and bring them to justice. he also, very clearly, together with the secretary of state, said we need to make sure what went wrong, what problems there were with allowed this to happen, hold people accountable, and making necessary changes so it it does not happen again. that process happened.

that process was led by two of the most experienced and widely regarded figures in national security in washington, the foreman -- the former chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mullen and tom pickering. they conducted an extensive review of it. they said they had access to all the information they needed. they had access to all the old he needed to talk to. they produced an unsparing report with a series of very critical observations and very serious recommendations, every single one of which the state department has adopted. that is the way it should work. the president and the secretary of state insisted it should work that way. >> you said the only changes that were made to the white house or the state department were stylistic and a single word. what we see here is the state department raised objections about the reference and they raised

objections to the fact that the cia had warned of a terror attack in benghazi prior to the attack. those subjects were taken out of the cia talking points at the direction of the white house -- >> first of all, it was not under the direction of the white house. this process said, everyone is concerned. we have to be listened to and take into account. ultimately, these were intelligence community talking points that the intelligence community -- john, can i finish? you had a long time there. intelligence the community view of what they knew at that time about what happens. this would be more significant if we did not acknowledge from the beginning that extremist were likely involved, if we did not acknowledge from the beginning that it very well thathave been al-sharia

was involved or al qaeda affiliates. an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something we did not hide. in fact, we spoke publicly about it. we spoke openly about that possibility. information that has come out about what we know happened in benghazi, literally all of the information provided by the various agencies of the administration -- the investigation continues to this day. just last week, the fbi released photographs of individuals they believe might be connected to the attack on benghazi and the effort to bring those people accountable. that is what remains to be done with regard to benghazi. >> just one more question. said,ou said what you did you know this had gone through 12 versions and there had been extensive changes made

yet go -- changes made yet go -- changes made? >> there is always a deliberate process. i knew the cia said on saturday to draftwe are going these points. those points were delivered virtually unchanged, with the exception of the one change i .entioned to congress for years >> you acknowledge that your initial description was to some extent a mischaracterization? >> i think it is important to examine the information that we provided congress months ago, which they have decided to leak today, which i suppose is their prerogative. , the white house's involvement of the talking points was to suggest a single change. suggested change.

everybody's signs off or does not. this is a matter of fact. i i think people were fine with it. even prior, in the deliberative process i was referring to, that john was talking about, the white house was not involved in any actual -- the white house involvement in any actual substantive changes was extremely minimal. >> [indiscernible] why not offer that information, again -- answer thent is to question. the questions are related to -- this is the republican accusation everyone was very excited about at the time. did the white house change the intelligence community's assessment of what happened? did the white house tell the intelligence community to change what happened?

fact is theseted documents bear out what we said all along. the answer is no. >> speaker boehner -- [indiscernible] at that meeting, will you release those additional e- mails? >> i think we have seen what they were able to review and take extensive notes on. i think including these speakers house, and perhaps he is unaware of that. is the president unaware of those allegations? >> allegations of what? >> the irs story. pre-k's i have not spoken to be president yet, but you can be sure if there is an appropriate to be, he would want

made aware of it. >> when was the iressa -- [indiscernible] >> i know when they began investigating it for however long the irs has said, but i do not have as pacific answer for that. i can tell you based on what we have learned today, two things. the iressa has taken action to correct this. irs has taken action to correct this. we thoroughly concur with that investigation. >> conservative groups were 2010aining about this from and 2012. was the white house aware of that then you go -- aware of that been? >> aware of what? the irs? i do not have information about

that. >> [indiscernible] an independent agency. the secretary-general is an independent investigator. that office is investigating them. that is entirely appropriate. yes? >> speaker boehner's office says they have seen the e-mails, but they want them to be released to the public. >> as i mentioned at the top, there is a long president for protecting internal deliberations across administrations of both parties. ,e took the extraordinary step which is unusual, i think especially unusual with regard to our predecessor, of providing the relevant so committee members and staffers could review them, take notes, spend as much time with them as they like. that was an extraordinary step,

because it was demanded by republicans as part of what they were asking for during the confirmation process for john brennan. i would remind you in response to that, a number of republicans said that they felt they had the information they needed. the brennan nomination moved forward and he was confirmed. >> i guess people still have a lot of questions -- >> we provided this information to the committee. the very thought that we used it and leaked it -- they are asking for something they already had access to demonstrates, i think, what it was at the beginning from the republican end of it, which is in a highly political matter. the hours after the attack, from the republican nominee's unfortunate press release, there has been an effort to politicize the tragedy, the death of or americans, to try

to suggest that even though the president calls it an act of terror, even though the ambassador to the united nations says that the probable responsibility as al qaeda or al qaeda affiliates, that we were somehow not talking about that. when the publicly available evidence proves the boss reject -- when the publicly available evidence proves the opposite. >> the house will take up [indiscernible] new members who did not have a chance to vote on the affordable care act. what is your response? >> i appreciate that. i think what i said in the past holds true today. it would take 44 votes to repeal the of portable care act. it will achieve nothing beyond what it has achieved in the past, which i suppose is a waste of time. the congress passed the

affordable care act. the supreme court upheld the affordable care act. we are implementing the affordable care act. theust seems to me whether house of representatives vote on passing a measure that would -- default byts any other name -- basically accept the situation where they would tank the world economy if they do not get the tax cuts for the wealthy that they wanted, that does not seem like a representation of what the american people want the members of congress to be doing. and then we go through the charade again of voting to repeal a law that has been upheld by the supreme court and passed into law and signed into law. it just seems misguided. what would be great, i think, for members of congress to do is focus on things the american people want them to focus on.

like measures to help the economy. to focus on some of the things that the president focused on yesterday in texas where he highlighted the remarkable advances being made in high-tech manufacturing, the advances that are helping to build the economy of the future, where he announced at the initiative to find another innovation institutes so again we develop these jobs for the middle class, the jobs of the future, and then to assist middle-class americans to fill those jobs and ensure that those jobs pay the kind of wages the middle class likes. that is what the american people are focused on and what they want. the efforts to refight the political battles of the past are not looked upon kindly by a majority of americans. john christopher and then -- >> as the british invasion continues monday, prime minister

david cameron will be here. in russiah mr. putin today. aside from the discussions about the g-8 summit in northern ireland, how much of the discussion will be on syria, and can you give us any more details about the meeting and what will be discussed? >> as always, the president will be with prime minister cameron. the relationship between our two nations is extraordinarily close. we cooperate on matters across the international spectrum. the upcoming g8 will force the topic of conversation. the united kingdom will host that. they will also clearly discuss syria. they will probably discuss it ran. they will probably discuss the middle east these process. , as is host of issues always the case when these two

leaders get together. >> another question about the irs. did anyone at the white house know this was going on? i just learned about this today. i think the irs has addressed when it learned at the headquarters level, how it learned about it, and what actions it was taking in the investigation. whether the white house was involved or not, you can't say -- >> i can say. peter? is it not also political to say you want to keep something out of the talking points because it might he criticized? >> i think the state department has addressed the concerns when that office engaged with other

agencies in discussions about what we, what they knew and what the various agencies knew and what was appropriate to include in public talking points. i think one of the concerns is we do not want to put in information that would suggest by its inclusion that it is determinative about who is responsible, when in fact, we did not know that. as we learned more information, we have provided it. we are openly engaged in folks likens that al-sharia might have been responsible. remember, the issue at the time including we somehow in the talking points that there had been protests that led to this attack outside the facility and been gassy.

-- on benghazi. the president talked about extremists. i think everybody knows what extremist means. the information that we, that had,ntelligence community information that could not be confirmed. cia said. >> [indiscernible] is that not political in itself? >> i think the state department has addressed the concerns about this. they focused on not assigning responsibility prematurely. definition was likely to

change. and that we not use language whatis consistent with members of congress have been deploying information about this, which, again, was not what we believe to be true. in an effort to focus everyone who was talking about this up quickly on what the lead agencies here were -- the information they had, as opposed to speculating about who is responsible or what thatance there might be there had been threats and warnings in libya in general and benghazi specifically. does it,id, everybody basically. republicans and democrats. don't you think it encourages the idea that you had something or your colleagues had something they did not want to say out here?

>> not at all. that was an effort to do what we do periodically, to walk people through what we knew with granularity, which i am happy to do as long as you want here. >> [indiscernible] , we provideter information on background, but it is not a substitute for on the record, on camera rethink where i will take any question and try to answer it. >> what purpose is that? >> to provide information and follow-up with the ugly briefing. >> -- with the public briefing. >> [indiscernible] answer the questions. i was able to, you know, listen to the briefing as well. and i think it helps me answer the questions. think you gave much of this information from the briefing, the background, on the

record? >> the answer is yes. but my familiarity with the subject predates today significantly. --overarching, looking back the president satisfied with the way the investigation handled this? would you do something differently? would you want the administration to do something differently? >> no. the administration has focused on what is important here. investigating what happened. working to bring those who called for americans to justice. investigating what went wrong with security. and taking steps to make sure it never happens again. those tracks have been pursued from the beginning at the president's direction. and our effort has been to provide as much information as

we have when it is available and when we feel confident it is accurate. and i think this is reflective of a major incidents like this all the time, that information may not come out to be wholly accurate. from the beginning, we said the investigation is just getting. as more information came out, we would make you aware of that. that is exactly what we did. >> you talked right away about the video. now it wasou saying speculative. a lot of us then were wondering why you did not just wait. why are you saying the video -- basedas -- i was saying on the points that the cia had provided. >> writes. -- right. >> i think that is instructive.

at that time -- and obviously different people saw different things -- the leading intelligence agency and this process decided that is what it believed and knew at the time and that is what it provided to us as well as members of congress don't the series of the emails speculatet you not that, you were cherry picking? no -- thing that is consistent in the material provided is from the beginning that was in the talking points that the cia was prepared to disseminate, and it was based on what they do at the time. the fact that parts of that -- and the only part of that that turned out not to be the case, that there were protests over how fluidlects information is and how risky it

is to make declarations about what we know to be true in the immediate aftermath of an incident. it is important to look at that. the talking points that have been mentioned -- and remember these are talking points -- to this day, have been shown to be wrong and only one instance, and that was the existence of demonstrations preceding the attack. everything about them was true, including the assertion that extremists might have been involved, and the assertion that as we got more information on this account would likely be evolve and change and we would provide that information as we got it. all of this, the republican attempts to politicize this, as the base on that single thing which we corrected once we knew it was no longer a correct description of what happened. >> [indiscernible] because this has continued because that information was not

put out. >> i do not understand what you ."an, "that information are you saying we should rely on the intelligence community on what they knew? so did others. we made clear it was preliminary that was subject to change as more information became available. you are saying the first iteration of the talking points that the cia drafted was what they thought happened, and the last version was what they knew happened. whate case as i said know they thought they knew happen, and based on their assessment, that is what they thought they knew. it was couched in alterations, and the caveat that more information became available, the picture would like the change. >> by nature of the nazi i a's iteration of the talking points, cia'sere -- of the

integration of the talking why was it deemed necessary to than refer them back to not including certain information in the final draft version, if they were perfectly fine with that? thehe process began because cia got the request from the house permanent select intelligence committee, and they begin the process of drawing up points. again, as i have said, as the process evolves, there was clearly inputs from other agencies who had direct stake in this, including the fbi, the state department, the national city staff, and others. when the cia drafted the points on saturday morning, it kept those points to what they believed they knew at the time, based on the information -- i

have addressed that. there was no concrete determination, there were some people who believed it and who did not. there was no concrete determination that warnings about the threat that existed in libya were or were not directly related to what happened in benghazi. all of those matters have been discussed in matters of investigation, but they were not what we knew or the intelligence community knew to be true at the time. esther rice, who has been the focus of this in the use of these talking points and a very partisan focus of republican complaints on this, openly discussed the possible of the bat and in the likelihood that the extremist that we felt were involved might have some outcome of titillation or some other affiliation to an extremist group as to opposed to some unaffiliated silent actors. >> why would they sign up on the

first version? >> you are talking about a draft process that involves a bunch of agencies offering their views -- >> but they are not comfortable with putting it out there. goodwould say -- here is a point. there was and one of the stories i read and these are documents that somebody provided to reporters, but one of the things that has been noted that was removed is an assertion about a warning from social media about potential demonstrations in cairo. we do not hear a lot of republicans siding that because that would have come if it was included, reinforced the assertion that demonstrations greece he did an attack in benghazi, that they were the result of reaction to the violent demonstrations in cairo. the focus of these things was to

write just what we knew or what we thought we knew based on the intelligence committee's best assessment. >> it is coming up on eight months, the fbi just got around to releasing the people they were looking for information about the perpetrators. is the president confident the fbi is capable of solving this and find the perpetrators? is this a priority for the president? absolutely, and this is not a character reason that reflects the hard work that the fbi is working on, working with other agencies as well as authorities in libya, and that continues. this president has a record to keepe it that he will focus on this until those responsible are brought to justice.

this president has a record to back this up. about the talking points being about what we knew or one the cia believed in it. the first two drafts, we do know with atamist extremists ties to al qaeda participated in the attack. this is not couched. they say they do know. >> [indiscernible] and you should direct his questions to the intelligence community, where there were different inputs about what they thought they knew and the people who provided information thought they knew, and it was the assessment of the leadership of the cia and those who were -- >> when they said they knew -- >> it was reflected there was not enough concrete information,

and a director of the cia has testified on this, as has the acting director. and made clear that the points, as they emerged and were disseminated, reflected what they felt they knew, what they could say concretely, based on assessments, and the intelligence community does not deal in facts just picked off the shelf. they have to assess a wide variety of information, information just like what happened in benghazi that was so chaotic. they had to base it on a variety of streams of information, and they made the assessment they did. then, when being cautious not to go beyond what they knew, one of the points they made turned out not to be true, and when that became clear, they corrected it, and we corrected it, and in real time, and that is how the public and the press became of were a bit.

-- became a where of it. >> on the irs, your reaction to things that speaker boehner said, that this act of some of the most shameful abuses of government power in the 20 its century american history, and many asked that other federal agencies use government powers to attack americans for partisan reasons. [indiscernible] >> there is so much i could say about that, but all i will say is that it's a matter of concern and it needs to be thoroughly investigated. thes being investigated by inspector general, who is responsible for the irs, which is an independent enforcement agency. and the activity as described is inappropriate. that is the view of this white house and should be thoroughly investigated and acted on.

more, her voice of america. yes. >> to syria, [indiscernible] and interviews with people of coming close to the border. do they have different intelligence? >> we were offered with a number of allies and partners in assessing the situation in syria on the ground, and as of late in relation to this very important matter, the use of chemical weapons in syria. but the president and we have said is we have information that chemical weapons were used, but we do not have a complete picture about how that was andd, who was responsible wa, the chain of custody. you need information about that case before you make policy

decisions based on a. that is something the american people would expect us to do, to be delivered about this. also to rely on not just an intelligence assessment -- we have been talking about intelligence assessments and the fact they evolves and in sometimes in the first instance are not accurate -- and we need to build on that, and we believe strongly that the intelligence work done here has been very solid, but it is not the end of a process, it is closer to the beginning, and we continue to work with partners, continuing to press for the united nations to investigate, but we are not leaving it only to the united nations. as i have said, we are working with allies, partners, and the syrian opposition to gather more information and evidence about chemical weapons use in syria. thank you, gentlemen. providewe will have to it -- do i have here? thank you all very much for reminding me.

the schedule for the week of may 13, 2013, on monday the president will hold a bilateral meeting with prime minister cameron of the united kingdom at the white house. is this it will highlight the fundamental importance of the recession, to which we address a poor range of security concerns. on monday that president will travel to new york city for events before returning to and what else in the evening. open? those >> i will get that information. my trusted deputy says one is open. tuesday he will attend meetings at the white house. on wednesday the president will deliver remarks at the national peace officers memorial service, an annual ceremony honoring law enforcement killed in a line of duty in the previous year. on thursday the president will welcome prime minister of turkey

to the white house and a working dinner. the prime minister's visit underscores the close friendship between me and ned states and turkey and the importance we put on our relationship moving forward. on friday the president will to travel to baltimore, maryland. more details regarding this travel to bar the mall -- to baltimore will be forthcoming. >> [indiscernible] the edge ofhave that. we will get back to you when i have more details. thank you all very much. u.s.e attack on the embassy in benghazi was also part of today but state department briefing. talked about thearson white house developing talking points about the attack. here are some of his remarks. >> let me say a few points about the talking points.

to remind everybody, these were talking points developed during the process led by the cia, about how to communicate the best information the information had about the attacks, and one thing that was consistent throughout, despite some of the cherry picking or looking at 1 email, extremists were involved in the attack and we were clear, and the other thing, the question was not whether they were of violent extremists. obviously they were, but the question was who they work and whether it was also a demonstration at the time. it appears there was not despite the best assessment at the time. part of the reason that we made them available to congress earlier this year. the talking points were based on the assessments. they were the best assessment at that time. in terms of the stick to our role and you mentioned the

spokespersons office, let me be clear about the state department first reviewed the point on a friday evening after the attacks come up with the understanding they were prepared for use by members of congress. we in this office raised concerns at that time. the points went further and assigning responsibility than preliminary assessments suggested, and there was concern about preserving the integrity of the investigation. the points were a consistent with the talking points that have been made to date. those were the concerns we raised at the level of the spokespersons office. i cannot get into a full discussion and was held and every aspect of that. there were other agencies involved, and the white house, but that is what i can tell about our department and our spokespersons office role perrye. >> the main charge is what the

cia -- the first draft he seems to indicate the cia boards the state department several times about a growing threat in al qaeda and in simulates to these talking points that they said that they prepared at the state department ignored that warning. the the cia at anytime he warned the state department about a growing islamic threat? >> i cannot get into assessments and how they were shared between agencies or relate the back and forth between us and the cia in this regard. what i said earlier, is that two things are constant -- it was extremists and also this notion of the protest was in the assessment from the beginning. the intelligence committee talked about their updated information when they updated that assessment. i also had the opportunity to raise one other thing, and this

is something that has come up this week, the notion that mr. hicks testify to, that the fbi investigation was so down as a result of these talking points. i wanted to take that, and of the thing that i wanted to be clear about. to remind people, the libyan government granted visas to the fbi turned on the day of those sunday talk shows. they got their flight plans the next day, and they arrived in tripoli on september 18. the reason they cannot travel to benghazi was because of the security situation on the ground. this is a thing that seems to have been lost in the back-and- forth, that my people, when he was with secretary clinton, there was a press appearance on september 24, a week later, and he made clear that they would do everything necessary to expedite the investigations into the incident. we reject that claim as well. tois the first first lady

earn a college degree, and during the civil war she was called the mother of the regiment. opposing slavery, she influences her husband switched to the anti-slavery republican party. hayes.cy 9:00y night, live at eastern, on c-span and c-span3, also on c-span radio and c- span.org. >> on c-span on this friday evening, we are live in manchester, new hampshire, for the beginning of our c-span 2016 " oad to the white house coverage. we will hear from bobby jindal, who is here to raise money for the new hampshire republican

caucus, the state senate caucus, to be specific, a fund-raiser. he speaks to the group, and later on we will take you to republican party will hold their lincoln day dinner, and senator rand paul will be speaking. we will show you all that live, also open up phone lines in a little bit. as you can see on our screen, we're keeping an eye on twitter. we have also posted on facebook this afternoon a question about your early favorites in 2016. there are postings there already. we would like to read yours if you get a chance to weigh in. we will give you a chance to see comments this evening from joe biden from last week's in another early state, the state that will have the first republican primary in 2016. joe biden from south carolina last week, and ted cruz spoke to

the party there in colombia, that coming up. we will hear from bobby jindal expected to get started speaking in a minute or two. i wanted to look at twitter. we are checking the cash tag #cspan2016. there is a posting from jennifer jacobs, and color -- covering the event this evening. rand paul had a press conference earlier today in cedar rapids. hurt sweet says rand paul says he will talk at the dinner tonight about how to make the gop a bigger party, but coming blacks, hispanics, and different viewpoints. that is coming up at 8:00 tonight. first up, bobby jindal of louisiana in just a few minutes.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> bobby jindal will speak shortly. joining us on the line is a senior political from politico, jonathan martin. manchester is a familiar place. what are these dinners is important for the potential candidates and parties? >> important and the reason you see that candida is there so soon is because the kinds of people they will be speaking to our that donors in the grassroots supporters of the party, that they will need if

they run down the road. these are the people who fund the campaigns who really are the worker bees of the party. mick envelopes, and these events are designed to give those kinds of voters a first look a, an introduction at the candidates who will be back here in the next couple years. >> how to the candidate to arrange to speak at these events? >> a great question. interest, is based on and is also it just expressed in them. the good people of iowa and new hampshire know who is interested who is running into a dozen 16, and they have an appeal with their party and what they are supporting. they tend to invite people and they know who will be receptive to the invitation. it is a bit of a dance, but it works out this way every four years.

>> if it is a bit of an audition for the cannabis, for raising money, what is in it for the state party's tonight? >> they get to raise money. they build relationships and test out their stump speech and perhaps gather together a list for organization down the road. the state party, or in the state gop of new hampshire, they get to raise money for their forthcoming campaigns. they are the headliners for the dinners. [indiscernible] republican party had dinner tonight in cedar rapids, and just had for example local not getpresentativs, they would nearly the crowd. >> where covering -- we are covering two potential

candidates tonight. who is in line -- what are the potential democratic candidates we will see in the coming months? >> you are seeing martin o'malley starting to make their rounds. he was in south carolina earlier. governor cuomo and new york has been more cautious in stepping beyond the borders of the empire state, but he is somebody who is considering 2016. who, a number of senators are also going to give this a look. the presence of hillary clinton freeze theden does democratic field for 2016. >> [indiscernible] terms ofk in

commitments, financial and in terms of support, will freeze folks, for a least a year or two until we know that clinton and mr. biden are going to do. >> talking 2016 to the ballparks with jonathan martin from politico. thanks for being with us. >> thanks so much. >> as we stay alive, waiting as we expect to hear shortly from bobby jindal speaking to the new , mpshire republican party their state senate caucus trad. >> good evening, everyone. is anyone here? there ago, that is better. thank you for attending tonight. it is an absolute honor to serve with my republican colleagues, the majority leader.

promised all of you folks that if you gave us the majority, we would be the firewall if what happened happened, and here we are. we have been the firewall, we will continue to be the firewall, especially to these budget debates, and there is only one way you get to be an effective firewall, and that is leadership, and we are very fortunate in my view to have an absolutely terrific senate president. he lets other people get the credit, he stays in the background, he reads every bill, sometimes too many times. he has an encyclopedic memory, but he also gets the strategy of how you get things done, and in particular in this session, how you count to 13.

and that is an absolutely critical function in concord fort now, and bore it not peter's leadership and his ability to work for everybody and get the credit for things, and him just paying in the background and making sure the trains run on time, the far wall would have collapsed quite a while ago. it is with great pleasure i introduced not only my good friend, but my boss senator peter bragdon. [applause] >> banks. it is a great privilege to be the president of the state senate. it is a different environment than two years ago when we had a substantial majority and had it's own set of challenges, but this year, the challenge is getting those 13 votes to get it, because the senate is the far wall against all the crazy things going on in the state of new hampshire, all the tax

increases, spending increases. the senator pointed out earlier this week that the governor's proposed budget and the budget sent to us by the house revenue was was probably off $300 million. that means they invented $300 million and then spend it on us, and without 13 votes in the state senate, where all in big trouble. 2012 was a very difficult year for republicans across the country, and in new hampshire we lost the house, the governorship, the council, we lost the baby a congressional seats. the only thing left to prevent us from the democrats taking over and spending us to death is a republican majority in the state senate, and i thank you all for helping to support that tonight. [applause] our platform and what people in new hampshire want is a smaller government, lower tax burdens, and a thriving economy,

especially for small businesses. i am very thankful to our guest tonight for coming to help us in supporting hitting a republican majority in new hampshire state senate. in fact, our guest tonight is no stranger to small business. i found out today he started his newsletter and a company, andoftware that was only in high school. he became secretary of the louisiana department of health and hospitals became executive director of the national bipartisan commission on the future of medicare, president of the louisiana university system associate secretary for the u.s. department of health and human services under george bush. he was elected twice to congress and is in his fifth year as the governor of louisiana. please join me in welcoming

louisiana governor bobby jindal. [applause] thank you very much. thank you. thanks for that very generous to introduction, and thank you to and your colleagues. let's give the republican senators and a tremendous -- a round of applause for the tremendous work they are doing ver. [applause] not only as a republican and as an american, we're selliending kelly ayotte to the senate. she stands for our principles, and what an improvement to washington, d.c. it would be easy to give a speech with a loof