schools. do they all have to be disbursed up front? which is typically what happens. or can they not be disbursed at other times during the semester? that would also deter fraud rings. is joe, live call, washington, d.c. caller: thank you to c-span. i think even the moderator had a suggestion and the experience i just had with getting a home loan for probably the amount of money that is comparable to sudeten, i had to submit sworn statement, allow the lender to view my social security and iraq, etc., and i was just wondering if there is any statute that prevents the staff from requiring sworn statements, a relatively modest

investigation to prevent this fraud. the last one i would like to make is that i'm not even sure how much money a student can get because my son because of my income, not because of his income, was prevented from even getting close to the income threshold. i am wondering if the guest could say if she is a political appointee because it is my experience at the obama administration always tries to over fund the programs, the student loan programs, they're way to funnel money from people who have it to people who don't. host: thank you. politicalm a appointee, but i.g.'s are unique because we are appointed without regard to political persuasion, and we do not change with administration, so there are i.g.'s appointed in the

bush administration you're still here. i.g.'s are somewhat unique in government. as far as the issues, i think the caller brought forward, aid is dispensed based on expected family contribution, at least from the student's at a certain age. i think in graduate school, it becomes a different analysis. kathleen tighe talkingik about student aid and issues. there is a number if you want to call, inspector general, if you had any question, what is the number? guest: one 800 misused. , thank you.en tighe we take you now to washington, d.c., event sponsored by the u.s. chamber of commerce. we take you to it now. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> klees be sure when you get the mic to identify yourself when the time comes. thank you. >> it is a pleasure to be here today. i'm glad all of you were able to make it with so much going on around the world. it seems that a little thing like the economy probably would not attract that much attention, so thank you for being here, and if i see you all run for the doors in the middle of this, i will know that something is biggern that is somewhat than what we are discussing here today. we're going to talk a little bit about the u.s. economy, where it has been, where we think it is going. and that a little bit about the labor markets sensitive labor day. when you look at the economy today, unfortunately what you see is an economy that now for four years has not been doing very much. we have grown at an average pace of 2.2%, as you can see from the chartered has not really been up or down. it was not as fast as what we were growing before we went into

the downturn. it was not as fast as the way it grew when we came out of prior downturns. it has really been a very odd and moribund, lackluster economy now for about four years. we are making very gradual progress. --are hoping that this year hoping it's the right word -- that the economy will pick up at the year goes on. we're seeing some improvement in the housing market, the energy sector. we are so creating a number of jobs, and a fair amount of income. positive.all real we have a couple of issues that we are going to have to deal with in the not-too-distant future. the federal reserve tapering process, how mr. bernanke or his decliner negotiates the in fed purchases, and then the fedmate divestiture of the

assets and ultimately, i think, or to down the road, an increase in interest rates is going to be difficult for the markets to deal with as we are going to richard if growth were significantly higher, if growth were more normal, and the 3.5% range, it would be a much easier task here at we just got news today that the gdp report for the second quarter was up more than was expected. so it was buys up from 1.7% to about 2.5%, and that is good, but when you look at the component that drove that, it was not as good as it could have been, it was not a basically revision of the economy, it was an upward revision in structure. it was an actual decline in the trade balance. it was not really a good

report. it was not a report that was a harbinger of better and more robust times to come. i'm not going to walk through the whole economy. i'm going to zip through to this chart, and then we will walk through the rest. this try, i like it because it is a chart that cbo produces quite often. 90% ofs at microeconomics. he have the red line which is long-run potential, that tells people healthy economy should grow. how we could grow if we fully use our resources. it is an indication of what the increase in our standard of living is on an annual basis or could be, rather. my number tois look at and kind of aspire to. the blue line is the cycle where we are today. it oscillates around that red line, down during recessions, up during recoveries. at least during most recoveries.

what has happened in the most recent recovery is the four years now we have more or less paralleled our long-term rose. the slope of that red line is right around 2.2%, 2.3%. and the blue line has averaged 2.2%. so in parallel. in fact, the only two reasons the two lines have become closer together is the redline has been pulled down by the fact that so many people are now participating in the labor force anymore. our potential standard of living in the future has been reduced by this economic downturn. that is something that is not normal. normally we do not see the redline being pulled down as it were by the blue line. the redline is more the rock in the blue line is how we aim for that long-term growth rate. -- there are ate lot of reasons for that. some will say with the steepness of the decline, but we have steep declines before. 1970 4, 1935, percentagewise very steep declines. the second deep -- dip in the

1982 wereof 82 -- of 16 months recessions. this one was 18. this with a single 18 where the 1982 with a double dip. when a six-month decline followed by six month increase followed by 16 month decline. we came out of those economic downturns like gangbusters. if you look at the normal course of a recovery, you will see that there is nor shouldn't -- normally a v-shaped recovery. a strong period of economic growth are merely following the economic downturn. and then a bit as we get closer to or above our long-run potential. you can see the last chart that when we do that we generally put people back to work fairly quickly. nine months, one year, 15 months. it hashe 1991 downturn, taken much longer. it took 23 months in the so- called jobless recovery here it

took 39 months in the second bush's jobless recovery. this time around, we have already been out this row well over or nine months. even back tot where we were. created 7.5we million jobs in the last few years, we are still almost a million surhort from where we were let alone where we should be. when we look at this economic cycle, it is very abnormal. it is one that has resulted in a tremendous amount of pain for people that are in the workforce. so much so that many of them just quit looking for jobs and have removed themselves from the workforce. that is the bad news. the good news is him as i said, some things are looking up. ae housing market has taken long time bottoming, but it is time to come up. sometimes tohard

look at modest increases in interest rates and say these things are going to derail the housing market, but the interest rates we have seen, anticipated in federal forecast like cbo and the like, are not anywhere near significant enough to derail a housing market that is really starting to perform the way it should. housing purchases are driven by a lot more than just interest rates. they are driven by income and the ability to make downn payments. they are starting to exhibit more normal behavior. that is a good thing. and the affordability of housing is driven by home prices and driven by again people's income and ability to make the down payment. those numbers are still has work lehigh. we're also stood -- still historically high.

all those numbers aren't in these charts. you can peru's and i your leisure. when we are done here. yourn peruse them at leisure. housing they ways to go and a pretty good run. as we see housing improve, we will see the ability for people to consume to also improve because one of the things that i think is interesting when you look at housing and household balance sheets is the big decline in net worth good we saw $15 trillion decline in network during the downturn. years tow taken us for make a backup. so we are back up to where we were. if you look at the components, financial versus will -- real components, it is about two thirds, one third. two thirds financial, one third real. and number that is around 70 trillion dollars. it is a big number. what we see is that the financial side has come back to where it was or a little bit of love. the real side has not come back

but is now starting to come back. if you look at where wealthy go in the future, it is not see isarily require thao c the stark market. it is growing because existing home prices are starting to go up because the backlog and the amount of unsold homes is starting to go down. all of that is a net plus going forward. household seeing formations and the like. household formations do not kick in in terms of helping is kind of a market as much as you might expect simply because the overhang in the market was more at the upper end of the market. so it was bigger homes, homes that people had over purchase. if they had bought a home that was bigger than what they could afford and the like. that is why they are running into financing problems. in this particular market, what we are going to have to see if

that's more of these starter level homes being developed, and market there is a ready as the newly formed household can get in and start the purchase. all of that moving in the right direction. the energy sector is a big boom. we are not exploiting the energy sector as much as we should. most of the exploration, almost all of it, all of the development and production, has been from private land and private sources. public sourcesf that we are not using. we're also not knowing things like the xl pipeline, which would help to increase employment and to stabilize supply and to make sure that the jobs that depend upon flow of crude are more secure. all of that would be tremendously helpful in an economy that is as moribund as this one has been. when we said and i hear the discussion then i read the discussions about well, it would

only create 2000 jobs or it ,ould only create 20,000 jobs there is a plus sign in front of both of those cared that is a plus 2000 or plus 20,000. all of those have ancillary effects and derivative fx energy economy. they all move the economy in the right direction. when the economy is averaging 2.2% over a four years and, i cannot remember in my economic history a span as long as that's where we had moribund growth and high levels of unemployment. it is just not normal. anything that moves us in the right direction ought to be contemplated and ought to be undertaken. when we get to the housing market -- excuse me, the labor market, this is where people really feel the economy. i travel around the country and i do about 50 of these things a year. gois very disheartening to from san francisco to charleston

and from new orleans up to fargo, north dakota, where i was on monday, and tell people that the economy is actually growing again because they do not feel it is growing. they look around and in fargo, they are actually getting a big boom because of the local energy development. but elsewhere, it is more like you have got to be kidding. it is really not happening. the unemployment rates are still high. the people looking for jobs is still high. we look at the data here, and you look at the top line data, the household employment for the nonfarm jobs and limit, the numbers and make the front page of the newspapers, we have not gotten back to where we were. so creating 200,000 jobs on average a month over the last couple of years, but that is not enough to get back to where we were. takes time.t just yes, it has taken over four years, and in all of the recessions prior to this and prior to this going

back to indy for the second world war, we have not had a period like this since the depression. there is no need for it now. think, dide, i amazing work in keeping the financial system together. we still have a banking system, we have not had to reconstitute it. people liken this to the depression, and there are some very significant differences. one, the depression was actually not cause as much by the great crash of that was by the collapse in the banking system following the great depression. fdic wheny we had the i first heard were. washington, d.c., and that is why we had changes in the federal reserve, we had the sec, we had a whole group of institutions that were put in because of that failure in the banking system. at that time, the banking system was the mechanism for the transaction. you cannot have a transacting economy if you do not have someplace to facilitate those transactions. this time around, bernanke was able to keep the banking system

together. we have seen a remarkable recovery in the banking system, but we have not seen the follow- up from that in the general economy. unemployment rate, depending on which one you want to look at, are still very high by historical standards. at the you look unemployment rate, underemployment rate is up above 13%. of the othert some measures, if you look at the civilian participation rate, this is a very interesting number. that isnally a number named a properly. participation rate. are you participating in the economy? do you have a job or are you looking for a job? are you out there on the side of put stuff in, or are you sitting on the side it takes stuff out? we have not seen participation rates like this since women started entering the workforce. when women entered the workforce, they boosted the

participation rate, they boosted our potential rate of growth. they contributed to the economy. all positive. andre now getting back having unwound 30 years of improvement in labor per dissipation. --are dissipation. -- labor participation. we would still be looking at it closer to 10% rather than around 7% at the measured rates are now. the marginally attached workers, workers that are no longer looking for work, therefore not considered part of the workforce, therefore not considered part of the unemployed. they are not imply because they're not in the workforce. that number is still up at over million,, 2.2 or so when a number more like one million would be closer to what we experienced writer to 2007. orton economics -- prior to

our time economic spirit on the service they indicate they would like full-time work, but they cannot find it. over 8mber is up million. a more normal number would be 4.5 million. you're talking it -- you are looking at 3.5 million people that would like a better job in a full-time job and a better paying job, and they cannot find it. the duration of unemployment, and it is down from its in-store at lehigh high -- its historically level. we look at other, broader measures. this is one put out an article a few months ago, and it is a good number because it says let's get away from the definitions and let's just look at big, broad numbers. let's just look at the number of people of working age and how many of those are working. number from the end of the recession to now. it is a virtually dead flat.

if we were in a hospital ward and saw a number like that, we would be running for the paddles and people would be yelling "clear." this patient needs a jumpstart. and we are not getting it. if you look behind these numbers,at the jolts the job opening and labor turnover rates, they are dead flat. that is not we want to see in a vibrant economy. when you look at the numbers behind this, it shows just how much the dynamism and our economy has been hurt by this very long, moribund expansion. that are up inrs the 50 million to 60 million range, when things are going good. you have the creative pr destruction. this one is not breathing. we have been on a respirator for

four years now. we are creating fewer jobs, we are seeing fewer separations, and the net is virtually flat at about 2 million a year. it is just not where we should be. salaries as a result have been fairly stagnant. when you have a lot of slack in the labor market, there is no demand to drive wages up. he'll get things like real paper worker. real hourlyat earnings, that it does it have a lot of variability. it has a lot of definitional noise. you look at broader numbers, total conversation, real paper worker, and what do you see you upward slope,l otherwise you would call it pretty much flat. that is our the economy should be. it is when you do not generate income and you are not generating a lot of wealth, you are not going to generate consumption. there is only so much economic shenanigans you can do.

you can have tax cuts, you can put in better financing rules, things like that, but you are not going to generate fundamental consumption, which is two thirds of the economy, without income and wealth. those are the things that we have not seen. wealth has been barely creeping back up to where it was, and incomes have been pretty much stagnant over the last four years. 3% have missing about 2.5% to growth in personal disposable income, just not enough. if you look at the poverty level, it is elevated. if you look at something like the -- the president is very fond of talking about equality. the higher it is, the more unequal the economy is. how much of the income is skewed to the upper distribution? and you see that in the unemployment rates because if you look at on implement rates by education, they are as you would expect. haeckel education or below --

high school education or below, their unemployment rate is significantly higher than college. alice unemployment is about 3.5%. if you look at the uneducated, it is up around 12%. you look at various ethnic categories, and there is a wide array of difference is there that are more closely associated with education than with anything else in that group of the background. 's background. we have seen an economy that is underperforming, poverty levels increased.nequality it has been increasing for 30 years. it is not something that this president has done. but that is interesting. it is not something the last president has done or the president before that or the president before that. this is something that we have been seeing going up since the 1980 for the. 1980's.

we kind of know what we should do. this is education and skill level and general economic growth. those, you'll see mobility in the distribution and the distribution will improve. it is interesting that the distribution actually became more disparate during the clinton administration than it did during the bush administration. everybody says that it's not true. well, the numbers are there, and the numbers don't lie. it is kind of interesting because what happened during the clinton administration was we had an economic boom and the technology area, the people invested generally the table with money to invest, were able to benefit from it. then you have the decline at the end of the london administration and on into the getting of the bush and administration, and then you and the bush menstruation with an economic downtown -- downturn, and you will see that the attribution actually flattens. because the people with money

and with investments and to bear a bigger share of the economic downturn. years,ke it up in the up but they lose in the down years. so you actually see the kind of perverse results. this time around and in this economic upturn, we really have not seen that same type of a dynamic. and so if we really want to address the income distribution -- and to remember, clinton taxes, any distribution got more disparate. not because he raised taxes, ok, because taxes are not the way to address the distribution. the way to address the distribution is through fundamental skill levels, education and a vibrant economy. of income the shares held by the various income quintiles, and we see the share of taxes. taxn, you can talk about fairness or paying their fair share, the kind of class

rhetoric that we hear all the time, but the fact of the matter is that these things have not changed dramatically. the fact of the matter is that we do have a disparate income distribution, and we do have a disparate tax this region in these same directions. the rich pay significant more. so this idea that you can address the prior charts by affecting the distribution after the fact by going back and essentially redistributing via the tax code does not appear to have had much success over the it duringther it is the clinton administration or during this particular obama administration. aspect, theize this economy is not growing the way it should, and until it starts growing the way it should, you are not going to get the beneficial impacts at the backend. you are not going to get the mobility will you want, the growth you want, the standard of living you want, and we have to

figure out what the type of policies are that will generate that. in the midterm, the question that seems to be most on everyone's mind is what the fed going to do. the fed ran interest rates down to zer. that was a good thing. what that did for the consumer can why the consumer a spend is it reduce the does that the american consumer has in total by about $220 billion a year. that toll have to send the existing loan holder. spend it onturn new purchases. if interest rates were to go back up, that would work in reverse. a 220ld act like about billion dollar tax increase just on the existing level of consumer debt. so i don't think bernanke is going to do that anytime in the future. when they talk about interest from the is distinct fed talking about tapering.

tapering has to do with this chart. it has to do with the dallas sheet into their purchases of distressed assets. i find it interesting that no one has ever really looked into this whole program of quantitative easing. you remember that bernanke and said we are and others have to buy distressed assets. and the program was eventually supposed to be -- originally suppose be -- originally supposed the purchase of distressed assets. it cannot work that way because the europeans jumped the gun and because they did not have a mechanism in place as to who they buy an asset and how would price those distressed assets. so over the two years that tarp was in place, we worked th rough tarp. at the end of that, bernie he came up with qualitative easing. which is purchase of distressed assets. he purchased them only from the banks or the near banks, and he

was able to set the pricing mechanism. study did not have to worry about the markets setting the pricing mechanism because these things are set one-on-one. now, he did not want that money necessarily flowing in and ,reating a lot of gdp growth especially nominal gdp growth that was not real gdp growth or so he was worried about the inflation. so he put eight with on it. so he bought the assets, and then turn around to commence the banking system put the money back in the fed. redeposit what they just got into the people that just bought the asset from them. so it provides them a better class of assets to hold and at the same time provides them a 25 basis point spread on the arbitrage. $6 billion or $7 billion a year in profit for the banking system. he allows the banking system to stay more liquid, and allows the banking system to earn some profit. during the downturn, those two things were paramount in his mind.

a lot of people worried about inflation, that middle line, that green line there -- that is the money supply. at least when i took monetary economics, the transmission mechanisms from the fed to the general economy ran through the money supply. the fed affected reserves, researchers affected the money supply, that with the money multiplier, and the money supply affected nominal gdp. that was the quantity theory of money. they still teach that stuff today. the fact of the matter is i could never find any impact on the money supply. why? line accessbottom reserves virtually mirrors the top line. so the first injection was kind of an injection of capital that went to make up for the loss, and everything else after that was sucked back into the fed. the problem is the fed has got to unwind of this at some point because you cannot run this type of process in perpetuity. that is what bernanke is talking about right now when he talks about weaning the economy off. in a sense, he is trying to reload the anti-recession gun.

we get recessions on average about every seven to eight years, and we have already been four years into this one, so a design conceivable that in the next few years we might see another economic downturn. i'm not predicting it, i'm just saying the timing would suggest they would not be a total surprise. so you look at that and say what will the fed do in that case, qe4 acuity five, qb six, and so the fed has got to walk away from this. the problem is the market believe the only thing that is popping up the economy at the fed, so they are looking their only leg to stand on. -- losing their only leg to stand up there died and i think that is the case, but it will take them time to figure that out, and during that time, we will see a lot of volatility. next question in the final question is what we're going to do about this. we have to trigger dates coming up. at the end of september, a continuing resolution that has to be debated and passed, so that we

can continue to keep the government operating. and no one really wants to see the government -- we talked about that back in the 1990's, and it was not conveyed appropriately. on the one, i think the republicans would like to see a smaller, more efficient government, but he really can't get away with no government at all. and so at some point between now and the end of september, we have got to figure out how to keep the government operating. shortly thereafter, at least according to mr. lew at the treasury, which was a surprise when i read it, that we will run out of money, that we will hit the debt ceiling sometime in mid-october. i would have thought that the revenue streams that we've been seeing this year and the positive surprises on the deficit that the projection would be a little bit later. in fact, the projections that were made before we got the big influx of money from fannie and freddie were that we would run out of money in october. now we have had a big influx, lower deficits, yet we are still running out of money at the same time. it is not exactly make sense to me, but i will take it for what

it is, an estimate of when we are going to have to make a decision on the debt ceiling. really only one decision that can be made, and that is that we have to do whatever is necessary to keep the u.s. government from defaulting. have $17 trillion worth of debt out there, $6 trillion in our own accounts, and $10 trillion held outside of the u.s., and we cannot allow those to default. so it is really not an option. we would love to see improvements in the long run on debts and deficit, but you cannot play around with the full faith and credit of the u.s. government. it is something that is paramount. if we were to see a spike in interest rates because of something like a default, it will increase the funding cost us tremendously. last year, we paid $223 billion in interest. it is projected that in 10 years, we will pay over $800 billion in interest.

with interest rates at what i lowd call pollyanna-ishly excitation level, that is to say the interest rate increases that are projected are low by historical standards. if they were to get back to more normal rate, you could add 1,000,000,000,002 $1.5 trillion for easily. another just kick in , $100 million. every percentage point increase in interest rates, when it works through the debt, which is primarily short-term, is going to add a cost of something around $170 billion total. 110 billion of that is going to and no and builders -- holders outside the united states and abroad. every percentage point.

back in 2007, i think the deficit was 160 billion dollars. now we are talking about $160 billion added to the deficit for each percentage point in interest rate. this is the problem. if you look at your south side debt, that is the problem if you look at total debt. there were are some that will say the problem has been solved, that we have stabilized a debt level. even these debt levels over 10 years are not stabilized. they're going up gradually. the problem is that the compound interest works and repulsed -- in reverse. you will see these numbers take off and write very to radically. we have to get the deficit down -- thatthan 4.5% of gdp is our long-term nominal rate of growth -- and that way the economy can grow and bear the weight of bigger deficits heard . any deficit above 4.5% starts to

add to the debt to gdp ratio. we cannot even achieve that. we will for a year or so under the best of circumstances. beyond that, we do not. the problem is and has been entitlement costs or to that of the big piece that is expanding. if you look at projected entitlement costs over the next 10 years, you'll see that medicaid, medicare, and social security grow dramatically. so that entitlements and interested together our three quarters of public outlays. in fact, if you look at those mandatory programs, medicare and decade, social security and interest, that will be the red square on the left. it is equal to 88% of all federal revenues projected to exist in 10 years. 88% will be mandatory and interest -- or mandatory payments, entitlements and

interest. that is a start projection for a time period that a supposedly relatively benign. and if we end up in a situation like that, i can almost guarantee you it will be a lot worse than what these estimates suggest. we have to get the entitlement programs under control if we expect them to be in existence down the road. economy is gradually improving, i expect it might get up closer to the 3% range by the end of this year and on into early next year if continued improvement in housing and if we don't see an oil spike from whatever is going on in the middle east right now, and we don't see a prolonged oil spike. and we continue to see good energy exploration and the like. that could happen. but even if that happens, we are going to be facing the federal we are's process, and going to be facing the entitlement process down the road. either or both of those could be

very damaging to our long-run relative growth. it is very hard for me to be gravy optimistic on this today. we are going to be able to employ the people in the future that we used to employee in the past and be able to provide the people in the future the kind of increases in the standard of living that they have become accustomed to over the last decade. thank you all three much. >> thank you, marty. first of all, i want to mention there are a lot of great handouts out here. i hope you got them. a lot of them you will not use today, but the big red document does go through the regulatory agenda of all the things we think that we are working on. i know it is about 60 pages, but it does have a handy table of contents. whether you use it today or later, i know you will find it a useful document to keep in your files third there is also a ece that is a broad

outline of where we think the labor agenda is going under this administration, which i think you will find useful, and in some powerpoint slides. my flights go in and out of my presentation, and sometimes i use them and sometimes i will talk from justlabor day is a day in which we do celebrate the contributions of american workers and rightfully so. also -- often it turns into a dated the unions used to friendly chris of employers for not doing enough for the workforce, the implicit message that you should join a union and pay us dues, which non-right to work states or mandatory. and would be better by you. -- and we will do better by you. i think it is useful to spend a little time to talk about what employers are doing for workers out there. i know these stats are sort of macro in nature, but still they are quite compelling. thathese are statistics

are all from beos or reliable sources. we can certainly give you those if you want. wages and salaries that employees pay -- and that's it not include state or local government -- $6.9 trillion. employers sent more than 1.7 trillion on employee benefits, almost total percent of composition baird health benefits -- i want to mention that a lot of people think particularly in his post obamacare area that employers are under a federal mandate of some sort to provide health care benefits. that starts in 2014, although that deadline has a post one by the amended -- the it ministration. employers cover 170.1 million americans under employment-based coverage. that is state and local government employers, but it is not medicare, medicaid, federal programs. in the private sector, the data is tougher, but the kaiser 100 49foundation, million americans are covered through private employer-

sponsored health-care coverage. this is triply on a voluntary basis. it is not forced by the federal government or under obamacare. you look at retirement, we have issues of retirement going forward in this country. we had a symposium with the aarp a few weeks ago on looking at retirement solutions going into the future. that being said, there is a lot going on in terms of coverage of americans. to find benefit for cover -- 49% ofent plans cover participants. most of all right them off as a dinosaur of today. and fact, they still are very robust and cover close to 50 million employees. participantsillion -- you see a high rate of participants and nose, close to 90% by employees. this time of year, always mentioned about how we need to change the federal family

medical act, paid leave benefits or expand the act generally. in fact, according to the data, employers provide employees quite a lot in terms of leave benefits. three quarters of employees, including part-time workers, receive paid time off. obviously full-time did receive more than part-time, but pardon workers is generous also. -- but the coverage of part-time workers as generous also. sickly, personally, family leave. a lot of these policies now are not sort of formalized paid family leave, etc., they are put into a pot and called paid leave generally. we certainly haven't at the chamber. i mention that here because sometimes in these surveys when people talk about well, there is not enough paid family leave, sometimes those surveys do not reflect a movement in the employment committee moving toward we call consolidated leave.

day, we also talk about typically the union membership and the steady decline in union membership. unions as they probably will say today or tomorrow, that is true, it is undeniable, but it is not because we don't have a product workers and one, is because organizing. i think the short answer to that is the law is basically unchanged since the 1950's when union membership was at its height of about one third of the workforce. more pointedly, the union membership decline has continued of aghout the 10 years very prounion appointees to the national labor relations board. it is not like the law has been skewed against enforcement, against organizing. there is obviously another issue here for unions to keep coming back and say we need to change the law to reverse this trend and members of the client, and of course that is their job to reverse membership decline, is a bit of a strongman.

there is something else going on, and i think the root problem is suggested by the flight i just had, which is in fact are treating their families fairly well in most employees do not see the need to see union representation much less the desired mandatory dues. are -- reflect union representation in terms of the number of workers represented by unions. the bottom is the number of workers to join unions. that interesting to note many workers who are represented by unions obviously still opt out from being union members even though they typically have to pay the dues called an agency fee even when they opt out of the membership. we can talk about that. i'm going to leave enforcement for a second.

given the limitations on time here, i want -- the regulatory agenda, we just had, i this one out of town for three days, we had to regulations come out of the department of labor. got them here. 600 some odd pages long. that is to regulations out of a myriad of regulations. was on silica, and interesting regulation. we are taking a careful look at it. . put on your radar screen very concerned about the small business administration. i looked at this several years ago. lower the pell amount from distinguishing increased enforcement, counsel for small regulatory affairs under small businesses. the other one was the new requirements under 503 of the

disability act, which reflected government contractors. we are taking a close look at that. i will say that the knowledge that he do carmen of labor appears to listen to a lot of, then improve the relations it mckinley, nevertheless -- significantly, nevertheless high costs. concern ourjor regular that the department of labor. we look at that as information with the snap election regulation as really making a to resistployers immunization campaigns. it is interesting that the american bar association expressed significant concerns with the regulation. to theery much a concern business community. again, that is all summarized in your material. that is the regulatory area.

most people don't focus on what , theally a lot bigger area base of the pyramid, which is enforcement. it is a lot tougher to get your hand a lot because it is not written at the federal register. is determined case- by-case rather than one big mosaic. but i have a few cases from the eeoc. i just want to mention these because they really are very unusual, but less unusual cases where the government is really going over the top in terms of bringing cases against employers to make you wonder fair to bring why arends of cases -- they bringing these kinds of cases yo? in these cases here where the 88rts have stepped in and where he eeoc continues to litigate the claims, had it become clear that there were no grounds on which to proceed. the eeoc claims were frivolous, untraceable without foundation. the court awarded $140,000 in

attorneys fees and costs. this is because the case was without merit. $140,000 of taxpayer money awarded because eeoc currently cannot find a meredith case to bring. ritous case to bring. $4.7 million in attorney fees and expenses because of the outrageous nature of the eeoc litigation. again, these are brought by the general counsel, not by the members of the eeoc. it is important to distinguish where concern that the board at the eeoc, the five-member simply have a handle on what the general counsel is doing. no one is really minding the shop. a case under disparate impact, it is a consultative statistical method. here the count found -- the court found that the eeoc's statistical analysis was skewed,

laughable and an egregious example of scientific dishonesty. you can imagine how much money the employers had to spend in terms of experts on their own side and lawyer fees to get to this point for a case that should never have been brought. beenis money that could've put into productive uses and creating jobs. here is one -- again, you really need to read this. you do not see this language from the courts. the last sentence -- to require less would be to condemn the use of common sense and is simply not with the determination laws of this country require. though they have something better to do over at that agency then to bring these kinds of cases? naturalo shift to the labor board. knowoster relations as you , the chamber was successful in a lawsuit against that case, it has been struck down in the courts. i don't see that coming back despite the fact that the board has now been reconstituted with the comeback.

again, that is on the regulatory side. below that is this area of expansion. this is an area where the board -- has said employees do have a right to engage in activity that is well-established for example when the factories to hot, we can work your. union workplace, employees have the rights. this is a situation where the board has taken this theory and expanded it's too ridiculous situations. again, you wonder what is in their mind over there that they cannot find more legitimate problems to go after. employerse where the role was courtesy is irresponsibly of every employee. everyone is expected to be courteous, polite to customers, vendors, as well as to their fellow employee. no one should be disrespectful or use profanity in

representation of the dealership. that was struck down as too broad. where the employer at&t had told employees that they could not wear t-shirts mimicking the fact that they were in prison when they were doing service -- house calls to service telephone. people still do have hard-line phones. and the board struck the sun as saying it interfered with section seven rights, the right of the employees to express their opinion. this was a situation where the community had had recent break- ins from inmates who had gotten out of risen, and the board said that down. -- struck that out. these are just a small sampling of what is going on below the legislative level at what we call the base of the pyramid in a regulatory area.

onto --ust go quickly here is my portfolio. immigration. look, i just came back from --iana and nashua, nashville, tennessee. the best way to summarize what is going on is the grassroots on the sides of the business community, evangelicals, religious community, catholics, you lutherans, etc., is exponentially better than it was from 2005 two 2007. we are better shape than we were in the past and we will stay with us today goes. the chamber had a conference call with paul ryan a few days ago in which hundreds of our members were on. i think the indication is that the congressman feels very optimistic about a number of bills going forward. and reaching the house floor. -- not mash-up, but going to conference against the senate bill. we will see what happens.

there are lots of other priorities as marty pointed out in terms of the budget issue. this is more of an october gain in a them again. we do that but immigration is much as you would like or not like. to give ai'm going percentage, a 50-50 shot of the visa bill getting to the president. on health care, look, let's just say i think had the president taken the time to not jim the bill through and maybe a bill had gone to conference andes issues had been resolved, we would be in much better shape than we are. obviously, the imposed employer mandate, that suggest the problems with the legislation. notably, many unions have come out express thing serious concerns with obamacare. at some point asking for a repeal. i've got a lift your quotes, which i don't have time to go through. -- a list here of quotes. american people so have questions about the law and a lack of willard he -- a lack of

clarity of who is going to benefit or not an actual outright opposition. had the president perhaps sold that initially as an effort to spread insurance across more individuals rather than as an ,ffort to drive down the costs and it knowledge that it was going to cost money because that is what insurance is all about, i think we might be in a different place rhetorically here. but that was on the course that the white house took originally. in fact, i know there have been a lot of debate later about cost increases. step back and look at this logically, just as the sun is going to come up tomorrow, if you have a build in -- that imposes mandate on employers that requires a certain insurance benefits be provided any covers more people, the costs are not going to go down, they're going to go up. in the self-insured area, the cost have likely gone up less. there are many studies out that said an individual market and the small insurance market,

goinge -- these costs are to up. it is a leading to look at certain states like new york and say the cost of not going so obamacare is not driving costs up. you have to look at each state individually and with debate to the violation was and then compare that to cost increases are certainly like in india now in ohio, the studies have come out and shown huge increases. in new york less so but that is because new york was heavily regulated to begin with. you have got to look at the causal connections between what causes what, what state are you talking about, but it is counterintuitive for anyone to pretend obamacare is not going to result in increased cost. that is is a logical to begin with. and why the president led with that several years ago continues -- i know why -- it continues to puzzle me. with that, i will close.

>> [inaudible] >> mr. johnson, correct me if i'm wrong, but i heard you to say you believe there is a 50-50 chance that the president will end up signing a pretty good bill -- to sign into law. what if that confidence based on? >> a lot of gray hair. [laughter] this is my third time around on this issue. having frankly worked on the hill for 10 years as a republican counsel him i think that the republican party wants to find a way to get this behind them because it is the right thing for the country and because it is a good thing to do lyrically. politically. it is based on feedback we have gotten with hundreds of visits from members, including those of

the so-called tea party. no one is in the camp of where they were six years ago, except for maybe 10 people, where if anybody is talking about deportation -- and there is a general acceptance of even legalization for the undocumented. huge shift from where it was a sixes ago when people were still talking about no legalization, deportation. so what is it based on? visits, 50om lots of people at the chamber here spread out across the country, and we collect all that feedback into a big pot and take a look at it. >> how would you define a pretty good bill and would that include a pathway to citizenship? >> i think it would be a bill that would -- i am not going to negotiate the details here, but a bill that would have something in the four areas, border

security, by the way, those of you talking about border security first need to look at the corker amendment. there is a ton of stuff it in there and terms of boots on the ground, cameras, drugs, etc. to protect the border. there is a way to combine that with border security and move forward. -- borderrity security, something a temporary worker probers, heiko, low skill, and of course legalization. i don't think -- there is obviously not with the senate did on legalization is not going to fly in the house, but something between their. has to beory e-verify part of the bill. we prefer the house approach on the, might on the e-verify mandate. we recognize that employers are going to have to have a mandate. something that those areas -- what the details are, that is

for those guys on the hills to figure out. does it have to have a pathway to citizenship? i think that he can't cut off a pathway to citizenship. there is a way to structure things where you move from legalization to green pad -- green cards that this. -- status. i do think when people stop, said back, you certainly do not want a situation where you have a second class tier of people in this country who are merely seen as workers and not part of the american fabric. there are lots of ideas on the table. >> thank you very much. >> this question is for marty. you said you hope that maybe the economy will get back up into a 3% gdp growth, but then you

think about the fed unwinding, and i guess my question is is 3% gdp growth going to be as good as they get the do we have another recession? >> i think so. >> i think so, and that is unfortunate. you would like to see it do what it has done in the past. when you look at that second chart, we have grown 7, 8, 9% in past recoveries, and averaged 4- 5% during the first three years of the recovery. you love to see numbers like that. but with of the question -- the caveat you just brought up, why won't it get better? people looks better, will have more money to spend, gradually incomes are growing, we are starting to get back to where the jobs numbers have at least replaced the jobs we lost. all of which suggests momentum. then what happened? we have a situation in the

middle east like we have right now where the price of oil spikes, not as we have seen -- not because we have seen demand go up, but because of the perceived threat. then you talk about the fed. the fed has to remove the purchases at some time. they have to essentially reload the gun. this is not normal for the fed to be purchasing this much in the financial markets, and they should try to get themselves out of that position at the appropriate pace. i think bernanke has said that. anytime he said it, it spooked the markets. they are going to do it. when you talk to many economists, it is kind of 50/50 as to when it starts in september or the end of the year. the we think they are going to do it ash but we think they're going to do it. wen you've got to it -- what think they are going to do it could then you've got to address the long-term debt and deficit albums. you need a cup -- long-term debt and deficit problems. you need a couple of things.

you need strong growth, because that gives you the way and generates tax revenue and less in the way of transfer payments, all of which are helpful along the way. but you have got to address the fundamentals on the entitlements under the program and the amount of money that the government is putting back in -- excuse me, taking out of the economy via ta xes in order to provide these services. these rings generally don't promote long-term economic growth. i know of no economies that were successful in having the government promote their long- term growth. successful in offsetting downturns and the like and providing certain fundamental bases for an economy to flourish , like national defense and education and that kind of thing . but no economies that i know of where the government generated do ireponderance of growth know of a successful economy. i just haven't seen those. when i look at what is happening

out here and i say that every time -- it is like whack a mole. every time we seem to get a head of one ground in one area, it gets whacked down in some thing else. we are here dealing with these situations. growthomy has to nurture . an economy more concerned about distribution is not going to provide the growth to redistribute. that is the problem. if you really want to see the economy in a more balanced and more even way, you have got to have the growth to do that. you have got to provide people at the bottom with opportunities and then provide them with the bases to meet and benefit from those opportunities. if they don't have the skill levels on the education, even if the opportunity is there they won't benefit from it. it is a synergistic thing. we keep hearing in the administration and from speeches and the like about

since thetion president passed speech yesterday. a very good speech, but all about inequality. inequality is not something to aspire to. we don't want to see more inequality. the question is, how do you address the inequality, and just talking about it isn't going to fix it. and just trying to after-the- fact redistribute to a more hasn't worked in our society and i don't think it will. these sorts of missteps and misdirections and policy will keep the overall growth rate down for quite some time. i don't think we are any of us generation or lost decade system like we have seen other like japan go through, but at the same time it is hard to generate growth rates when you look at the components in the economy. we tried in this particular

economic expansion to stimulate investment before we stimulated demand. we had all kind of tax cuts. ofmally you do that kind thing because you are trying to shift the start up and are trying to get the engine running. we have tax cuts, they were good, they were well aimed, they were well directed, they benefited. we saw big increases investment in the year after the downturn. there is no real reason for people to invest. a slide on industrial production , the pastor utilization -- the -- you willization not see the need to expand until you get to 82, 83, 84, 85%. that is when the numbers start to jump.

a modest uptick, but they are not back to above where they were before the economic downturn. every, get going, it is like the great scene from "the godfather," the third movie, where he says "every time i try to get out, they pull me back in." every time this economy gets a leg under it, something pulls it back. we looked good second year, and then what happened? japan, the in nuclear meltdown. that seemed to sap a lot. we thought that coming out of the recession europe was going to look good. the trade deficit was shrinking, and then what happened? the european debt crisis hit and the euro went to the floor and the dollar rebounded a little bit relative to the euro and as a result, the price shifted again, and they were generating no income to spend on exports. that is what was wrong with the chinese economy, that they build the economy based on x ports to -- basedof the world

on exports to the rest of the world. it is these kinds of things. very hard for me. economists -- some like me, anyway -- always see the glass .s half-empty but when it really is half- empty, it is half-empty, and that is where we are right now. thanks. randy, you said on immigration that it was going to be more of given that the, ceiling is set for october. why is october even at all -- >> in the budget negotiations and the debt ceiling, separate but related, of course. september 30, the budget will run out. and of october, early november, i think that they are in town more in october than in september.

i think that is what we are picking up on on the hill. thisu think that fall, year, continues to be realistic? >> yeah. perhaps it goes to conference and in the conference is set up over the three days that congress is not in between christmas and new year's that the staff will work on the conference report and then the conference report comes out in late january. i am not into that school of people who say, oh, if we don't get the whole thing done this year, the election is next year and nothing is going to happen. the politics on this are clear right now and they will not change between now and just because we get into next year all of a sudden. into october of next year, that is something else. but there's is still time to get this done and do it right. >> could you also say based on your local branches, meetings with members, whether you think that there is a majority of the majority right now for some kind

of path to citizenship, whatever permutation it might end up being? >> i think that if it is carefully crafted, a certain sort of border security trigger, yeah. 120,, you're talking 118, not a majority right there, but a majority of the majority. but that is a lot, and what i just gave use depending on the trigger, and it is important that people understand that there are several steps to this -- legalization, green cards, possibly provisional status, meeting certain criteria of citizenship at the very end. that could be a long process to get to citizenship. but that is my gut reaction. and i think that when members come back in september we will be going back to the hill and be gauging people's views. >> [indiscernible]

wonder oni just health care if there are still changes you think you have a shot of making either on the hill or through the regular process, and whether priorities may be. that's what the priorities may -- and what the priorities may be. >> we had a year-long health- care solutions council here, comprised of both small and large employers, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, and insurers, that is reviewed normally don't see in one room working on common solutions. -- 65 issue a report exciting pages. technical changes to obama, such as perhaps expanding the age ratings. isthe short term, there something -- some things we are

-- trying to make the employer mandate a little bit rational by changing the -- iition of employer mean, full-time employee -- from 30 to 40. changing deductibility of the fixable spending account rules. the health care insurance taxes, several of them in the medical device and the health insurance task. we continue to argue, correctly, that those will result in health care costs -- driving up health care costs reasonably. lower hanging fruit and then there is shoot for the moon. why shoot for the moon? there may be five or six things we can get done and those are the things we will focus on. i do think the report is worth reading. hi, "buffalo news."

mr. johnson, we have a new labor secretary, and i'm wondering if you have any thoughts or concerns about what he will do in terms of regulation or enforcement and if he may be more aggressive than his predecessor. if so, what the areas of concern you have might be. is a very think he articulate and smart guy, secretary perez. we have some concerns along .hose lines a lot of the regular issues were -- a lot of the regulatory issues were held up pending his confirmation and now they are lined up to come out. active inwas quite maryland on independent contractor issues and an independent contractor he is not. as marty well knows and i know, as you guys know, that is a big area sometimes. we may have the worst the envelope on that -- we may have to push the envelope on that and trying to classify contractors

as employees. i do want to make comparisons to past secretaries -- i don't want to make dresses to past sectors, but you will probably not be hesitant to go to capitol hill -- he will probably not visited to go to capitol hill and defend what he is up to, what his agenda entails. realtor aspects are one part of it. -- regulatory aspects are one part of it. but what happens below the enforcement level, we are going to track that. we are working on a report on eecoc enforcement policies, and we will be doing the same thing with the department of labor, and the best thing to do is talk about what happened and show that to you guys in the press and painted the story that these are not based on reasonable, objective evaluations of the cases. the answer is, yeah, we are concerned and we are watching and we will do what we can. but we hope to be very cooperative and have a relationship also. [laughter]

hi, good morning. you hear me? ok, good. this morning, president of the afl-cio and richard trumka, said he had been working with the administration and in particular , the labor department, to get tweaks to the law or get rules written in a way that will help unions address concerns about multi-employer plans, the health plan, and allow union members to possibly access -- to stay on those plans and possibly access the exchange. you know, government subsidies. just wondering what you think about that. mr. trumka said he is hopeful that there will be some sort of solution reached. wondering what you think about that. will answer that as vaguely as the question was posed, which is i am not quite sure what he is talking about there, but a multiemployer plan

-- they are multi-trust deed between employers and employees, and typically trustees on the employer side are unions. we'll work through a solution on that. there is an issue with regard to multiemployer plans interrelated with obamacare and that accounts for some of the union opposition to it. but that might be an area we can work together on. >> ok, last question. >> michael rose with bna. back in june, the house education and workforce committee had a hearing on two bills on secret ballot representation elections and the targeted bargaining units, and i was wondering if you were engaging on dollars -- on those at all. do you see a future for those bills? >> i think you are referring to the legislation that would reverse the health care decision on micro unions. sure, we are strong supporters

of those. we certainly thank commerzbank smithkline for moving those through to the floor. kline for moving those through to the floor. they're not moving to the house -- the senate. a good piece of legislation to talk about in scoring off the issues rhetorically. long on the union agenda come sense of obligation the board fished out, to focus on organizing smaller units because they are easier to organize. and slanting a lot with that purpose -- slanting the law towards that purpose, that is what it is about although it doesn't say that on its face. tom harkin is retiring, so maybe there will be a shot after that. i love senator harkin and we have worked together on disability issues, but on labor issues he is a tough nut to crack. that get to things

the house, a likely won't get through the senate. we hope they at least sent a boardcross the bow at the that they need to be somewhat careful in moving forward on these issues because congress is houses holdinge hearing -- the house is holding hearings on case law. >> all right, with that, thank you for coming. we went a little bit over, but a lot of good information here. stay tuned, let us know if you have any questions. 5682.63- thanks again. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute]

>> we will have more live coverage this afternoon on c- span with naacp president ben ealous, talking about the trayvon martin case and to stand your ground the loss. i will be at 1:00 -- that will be at 1:00 eastern for the national press club on c-span. u.s. chamber of commerce president tom donohue is our guest on "newsmakers" on sunday. he discusses a range of issues including the debt limit showdown in congress. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. president, afl-cio richard trumka, speaking live at monitor"stian science on the labor preference for the next chair of the federal reserve. >> that is the irony of today.

when we talk about immigration reform, the chamber of commerce will squeal about the shortage of workers out there -- "we can't find workers." say thatof economics if you can't find workers, those wages should be popping up. they happened, which indicates that there is no shortage yet. that is why the decision on who becomes the next that secretary is so awful important -- who becomes the next fed secretaries so awful important. 2 jobsd of the fed has -- one, to fight inflation, and 2, to seek full and flaming. all the way back to paul volcker in the mid-70s, -- to seek full employment. although it back to paul volcker in the mid-70s, he said you would not concern himself with full employment, only with inflation. that is generally been the fed policy under every president. his next person is going -- this

text person is going to have a decision to make. main candidates have a slightly different position on those things. and so the candidate that can the american topic, or at least the president and then ,hose that confirm him or her that they are going to pursue with equal vigor both of those charges, to me should be the candidate that becomes the next fed head, head of the federal reserve. >> you want to come out for ms. yellen now? >> well, history would indicate that she is for a much more balanced approach, and thus a better approach than larry is. hasn't, i don't think, declared on that recently. he has before, and i think if he continues to say we are only going to deal with inflation,

then we would not support that, because that has been corrosive to the country and bad for the economy. president richard trumka earlier today. you can see his complete remarks from this discussion on our website. go to cspan.org. overseas, british parliament has been recalled from their summer break a few days early by prime minister david cameron, so members would have a chance to debate the u.k.'s response to serial following reports that the syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people. prime minister cameron led off the debate, which began just after 9:30 eastern this morning. >> the president of the united states, barack obama, is a man who oppose the action in iraq. a one could describe him as president who wants to involve america in more wars in the middle east. but he profoundly believes that an important deadline has been crossed in an appalling way, that is why he supports action

in this case. when i spoke to president obama last weekend, i said we shared his view about the despicable nature of this use of chemical weapons, and that we must not stand aside. but i also explained that -- let me make this point -- i also explained to them that because of the damage done to look confidence by iraq, we would series ofllow a incremental steps, including the united nations, to develop a public confidence and intro that there is the maximum -- inshore inshore theunt -- maximum public legitimacy for any action. let me say, mr. speaker, i remember in 2003, i was sitting two rows from the back at the opposition benches and it was just after my son had been born, and he was not well, but i was determined to be here. i wanted to listen to the man standing right here and leave everything and he told me -- and believe everything that he told me. we are not here to debate those issues today, but one thing is indisputable -- the well of public opinion was truly

poisoned by the iraq episode, and we need to understand the public skepticism. >> that debate is expected to continue for several more hours. we are airing it on our companion network, c-span2, right now if you would like to see it. according to a white house official, president obama is expected to hold a teleconference on syria with congressional leaders and the chairs and ranking members of the national security committees . it is part of an effort to reach out to legislators about the u.s. strategy in syria. that is expected to begin sometime this afternoon and we will bring you any news that may develop from that conference. earlier today, vice president joe biden airing an event was asked the question about syria, and he responded that the president has not yet made a decision about an attack on that country. speaker boehner yesterday released a statement in which he called on further negotiations by the president with congress, and within his letter he

included a number of questions, what specific evidence the administration has about the use of chemical weapons by the government as well as the administration's long-term goals. we will continue to follow this story and update you as the news becomes available. as the president considers the u.s. response to syria's alleged use of michael weapons, the washington institute yesterday hosted a discussion on the u.s. relationship with syria and opposition groups and the applications of a strike on that nation. this discussion is about 90 minutes. ,> if i may have your attention i'm the director of research at the washington institute for near east policy. i would like to welcome you here today and start with a logistical note -- please follow my example and turn your cell phone off rate it interferes with reception, even if you put it on stun. i am pleased to see that we died the depths -- that we got in the

depths of august a pretty decent turnout and a nice alternative location that we at the washington institute for near east policy have been using while our facilities are being rebuilt. i hope i see some of you here on tuesday, when we also have an hezbollah's toeboard reach. matthew levitt of the washington institute has a book by that name that is being released on tuesday. today we are holding this event in association with a study that we will be releasing shortly. a study about syria's military opposition. it is written by three authors from the washington institute. we have advanced, on proof copies of the study which are at the registration table, and you are welcome to pick one up on

your way out. it will be released soon but not yet and is not on the website yet. today, to draw upon the study and discuss the potential for u.s. military action, we have three speakers, two of the study's authors are jeffrey jeffe and andrew tabler. will speak first, and he will analyze the military opposition as a military force. the focus of his presentation is indeed about deposition itself and that is also the focus of andrew's presentation. will talk about the opposition as an opposition force -- that is, political force.

following their remarks, we will have our very own michael eisenstadt talking about the u.s. military response options in light of the chemical weapons allegations and what syrian response options to u.s. options might be. let us get started with jeff white. >> thanks for coming to this. events in the region could not be more dramatic or more significant. in that context, the discussion of the syrian armed opposition -- a little lester medic that a little less dramatic, but maybe for the long term it is more important for the outcome of the war. can everybody hear me? to start with, the first thing i

say is this is not your father's insurgency. this is a different kind of animal altogether then we talked about in traditional insurgency situations. there is no central political direction. there is no central military command. there is no central -- no national nationwide military strategy being employed by the rebels. i use the historical analogy in the past and like all analogies, it is flawed that this is somewhat like the french resistance early in world war ii. without degaulle and churchill to hammer them into shape. the whole resistance is a complex phenomenon in the traditional sense of complexity theory.

lots of different actors. it is also a self organizing phenomenon. there has been no overarching planner concept for building the armed opposition in syria. in many ways, it just happened. as a result of various events on the ground. it keeps changing. it is not what it was in march of 2011. in six months from now it will look different than it does today. this is a thing in motion. there are some important analytical challenges involved in looking at the syrian opposition, armed and otherwise. i spent a long time doing intelligence analysis on the middle east and this was as formidable a problem as you can imagine.

just to get your head around and understand, to figure out what is going on and so on. it is a big data problem. just trying to look at that, the flow of information, and has major challenges in and of itself. there are multiple -- many multiples of diverse sources, ranging from good to my reliable to totally unreliable and sources that are trying to push the situation in one way -- one direction or another. there are also some dangers involved in the analysis of this. i am as subject to these agers as anybody. there is a danger of getting too close -- up close and personal with the resistance. many of the leaders and people involved in the resistance, individual resistance leaders

are highly attractive characters, definitely interesting. they are doing real stuff. some of them are even romantic figures in the 19th century sense of romantic figure. that is troublesome because that puts an impression on the analysis of the rebel forces or can put it on. the second danger is being swept away in the tide's battle. this is something that i try and fight against, not always successfully. events in syria move rapidly and they often move in contradictory directions. when people lay down and say this is what is happening and this is the way it is going, you have to say ok, but they be not. you have to be very careful about saying that the situation is definitely headed in one direction.

it will change. we have seen multiple changes in the course of the war over time. and we will see more changes regardless of what the united states does. related to that there is a big problem with instant analysis. when something major happens in the course of the war, there is a flocking to that event and a lot of emphasis put on a single event drives analysis for some time. this is -- when i did current intelligence at the pentagon, we used to see this amongst ourselves all the time. the present looms large. to put these into context is hard. sources i use for the paper, it is all open sources.

there is lots of social media. conventional media, contacts with journalists, fieldwork, all those kinds of things underlie my conclusions. another important piece of the story here is in a sense on this you always need to do net assessment. you can never consider the rebels in isolation. you always have to think about them in terms of what kind of a challenge the regime forces are posing to them. and we see, i think, a serious regime challenge. the regime is not a great military force. it does not have great military forces. the syrian army is not a great

army. irregular forces are not great forces. they proved to be good enough to keep the regime in power for over two years. in this work, the regime forces are not too bad. they have certain advantages i think, over the rebels, persistent advantages, not just transient ones. the fundamental one is the continuing firepower regime forces have. firepower, artillery, missiles, air, and now we see chemical. the regime has the ability to deploy forces and coordinate their firepower. the regime is pretty effective and getting better at it, amassing forces where they think it is important and operating them in an effective fashion. the single most important thing the regime has done in the war was to raise, organize, and

train, and deploy large numbers of irregular forces. this aspect of the regime's behavior has kept the regime in the war. this is the popular committees, the local militias, volunteers, and so on. the regime has been successful in generating large numbers, tens of thousands of these people and getting them to fight it or over time. not perfectly, but not too bad. the key aspect of -- two key aspects of the battle in june was the entry into the battle by large numbers of hezbollah forces. they also were not world leaders. they had their own problems and issues. they did not prove to be elite soldiers, either, but there were a lot better than anything the regime had.

what they provided was reliable light infantry that would execute their orders and die in trying do that. this is something that regime regulars do not always show willingness to do. so the injection of hezbollah forces gave the regime the ability to fight effectively on the ground. they took a lot of losses. finally, amongst these important regime challenges, i would say, is the will to win. -- in counts for a lot. war, will counts for a lot. they are determined to persevere through the war. determined to do whatever it takes as we have seen again to win this war. not just to force it to a stalemate, not to go to geneva ii with an improved the medic position but to win on the battlefield.

what is the current military situation? the basic factors that we see as the increasingly sectarian nature of the war. we have -- it has been talked about a great deal. the increasingly important foreign involvement on both sides, actually. used by both sides with heavy weapons to my increasing use of heavy weapons by the rebels. the ability of science to sustain a relatively high level of combat. it is pretty impressive that the regime and rebels have been able to fight the way they have over the amount of time they have. increasing combat casualties on both sides. i will talk about this a little more. both sides are losing lots of people in the fighting.

many more fighters are being killed than civilians. civilians are being killed in significant numbers but military casualties are higher. another major characteristic of the conflict we see is there is still a lack of anything that remotely looks like decisive operations. the war is essentially a regional war. it is not a war of sweeping maneuvers, it is not a war that is conducted on an international basis. when i try to say how to analytically look at this animal, you have to have some kind of framework of analysis. there are lots of pieces to the rebel forces. i came up with 10 things we ought to think about. that is not a small number but it is more than a couple. a lot of the discussion, you hear about the rebels and their focus is on what kind of weapons they have got or whether they are moderates.

currently 80% of the discussion of the armed opposition focuses on those kinds of things. maybe that is a generalization but anyway. the first thing about the rebel forces is what is their nature, what is the sociology and ideology of these forces. the rebels come from all elements of syrian society. they represent a huge spectrum ideologically. from moderates which are relatively hard to find all the way to jihadists. the area of battle is the second factor i looked at. rebel forces fallen to the category of irregulars or guerrillas.

they are not a standard form, well-organized force. the actual order of battle for the rebels i think remains a mystery. it is a mystery we have some inkling about and we can still see some pieces of in order of battle, but we cannot discern the exact structure, organization, lay down of the rebel forces. it is for sure the rebel combat units number in the hundreds. if you believe some reports it could be in the thousands. they are a massive rebel units. they range in size from maybe a handful of people or a couple of handfuls of people to a few thousand people or maybe even somewhat larger so you have this very great spread of units. the rebel command and control is another difficult thing to figure out. what we see is multiple command

type structures. in the paper i put command in quotes because there are nine different command type structures that have been identified. these vary from highly formalistic and broad command and control structures that may have little influence on the battlefield to very ad hoc and local type of command structures, controlling a relatively small number of forces. you have this very great variation on how the rebels are operating. the main point i think here and i alluded to this at the beginning is that there is no overall command structure. there is no group anywhere, including in the supreme military council that actually commands to forces that are doing the fighting inside syria. there are a bunch of local and

regional groups who command forces but there is no national command. the weapons these rebels have are significant. there has been a notion i think and this is dying out now but there has been a notion for a long time that the rebels are these lightly armed guys with some kalashnikovs and general of purpose machine guns and some rpg's taking on this goliath in the syrian army. the little david's or mohammed's, they are getting heavy weapons and a lot of them. they operate tanks, field artillery, they have bmp's, and it looks like they have antitank guided missiles. the number of those seems to be growing. much of what they are using they have taken from government stocks. the guided missiles, it looks

like those are coming in from outside but much of the heavy weaponry that have contributed to their effectiveness on the battlefield has come from the syrian army. you see this all the time on youtube where they have captured significant numbers of weapons. logistics for the rebels are difficult. the rebels still have significant problems with ammunition supply. keeping weapons in the field, and so on. basically, logistics for the rebels are negotiated. operations are also negotiated. there is not a system that pushes ammunition or whatever to units. on any kind of rational or planned basis. the units that have ammunition are the units that have money, external support, and are successful in the battlefield. units who do not have those things have much less ammunition.

there are videos out there showing rebel commanders disturbing handfuls of bullets to their troops. that is not every unit but you still see these problems where some rebel units sadly do not have ammunition and we still get reports of the rebels basically being defeated or having to withdraw from combat because they run out of ammunition. even units that you would think that should not happen with. one of the most important things in assessing any kind of military organization is the combat qualities of the forces. discipline, cohesion, willingness to fight, leadership, those kinds of things. sometimes these are called the unquantifiables. what we see is a great variation in this. you have forces that are amateurs.

they do not know how to use their weapons and so on. there is a significant issue here with the rebels with significant variation in the abilities of units and combat qualities of the units. what this does is it makes for very uneven performance on the battlefield. some rebel units unfortunately, these are mostly on the islamist side. this seems to have high combat quality. they fight hard. even in very difficult circumstances. the strategy for the rebels simply does not exist. there is some broad notions ringing on the regime and having democracy and all that. in terms of military strategy, in normal situations, you have political goals that are set by the political leadership and you have the military strategy that implements that.

but because of the chaotic state of the political leadership, there is no real strategy, no political goals that can be communicated to forces and they will then go out and execute. you have -- again, you have this every man does what he wants kind of situation. i think it is important -- another major thing we see here is attrition. i talked about this a little bit. as of the end of july the last time i really crunched the data, the rebels were losing 32 killed in action per day. sorry, the regime was losing 32. the rebels were losing 52 killed in action today. regular forces. what we're seeing now is an increasing number of the national defense forces, these

are the regime irregulars. increasing numbers of those people are being killed in combat. which is a logical extension of their increasing role. the regime has lost according to the rebels, a claim loss of 120 aircraft. that is certainly an exaggeration, but they continue to suffer attrition amongst the air force units and in particular, they have lost a lot of helicopters. the helicopter fleet of the regime has been significantly degraded. in terms of armored vehicles, we see continued attrition of the regime's armored vehicle fleet. it had a huge armored vehicle fleet because they prepared for war with israel, but they are continuing -- continuously losing armored vehicles and tanks and bmp's, systems they rely heavily on.

between march and july, over 600 tanks and bmp's were claimed to have been destroyed, damaged in combat, or at least hit. that is not a small number. some vehicles can be put back into action if you are able to recover them, but that is a significant number. so, in closing, the big challenge for the rebels and to some extent, they have met it over time, as they have to keep face with the regime or get ahead of it. they cannot fall behind the regime in a military sense. it looked in june like they were definitely doing that. more recently it looks like they studied them selves and are coming back. the single greatest weakness of of rebels is the disaster

the political echelon and the failure to have any kind of command that could execute a national military strategy. these are weaknesses that cannot be cured by giving more weapons. these are weaknesses that have to be cured either by the likeval of a de gualle- figure or somebody from the outside imposing some order or cents on the higher levels of rubble organizations. with dash of rebel organizations. with that, i will conclude. organizations. with that, i will conclude. >> thanks for that, and thanks to all of you for coming out today for lunch. i am going to deal a little bit with the opposition politically jeff left offere in his presentation. i have been dealing with the

syrian opposition for about 13 years, in one way, shape, or form. it has changed a lot over time to there are a lot of theories out there. the one thing you hear about the syrian opposition is that it is , it is unable to come up with a coherent, linear leadership, unable to plan. all of these things are true, but that is an mean they are not worth investigating -- that does not mean they are not worth investigating. everyone also has different theories about why this is. some folks here in town have argued, well, it is because the dis and thethe sau turks and everyone else fun to different groups and have different clients inside the country, that is what is causing the differe -- the divisions. there might be something to those theories. i have my own. it goes back to my regional dealings with the syrian opposition and the older opposition, as i call them inside of syria when i lived

there. i think there is a certain psychological aspect to it that is often overlooked. bitite about this a little and i introduced my segment of this work with it. when you have people emerging from -- living under a tyrannical system like the assad regime, which is so brutal and where power is so arbitrary, during the time they are under the boot, so to speak, they are terribly depressed. they smoke a lot of cigarettes, they eat a lot of caloric food. i have very long interviews with people pontificating about why they want to free syria, and i enjoyed listening to them and i ever brings of all of them. -- and i have recordings of all of them. we noticed this when the uprisings began, when they begin to see the light and began to emerge from that malaise and

began to stand up from the -- stand up for themselves, unfortunately, depression gives way almost immediately to grandiosity. that is what really drives a lot of members within the syrian opposition could oftentimes when you meet with them at conferences, they will talk more about them and their individual aspirations than their collective party or body or the syrian opposition as a whole. it is an unfortunate characteristic of a number of the members of the opposition coming out of syria than and coming out of syria today. what happens is a lot of people in the region, different sponsors and so on, take advantage of it. as problematic as that is, such divisions actually created exactly the kind of headless opposition that syrian president bashar al-assad cannot decapitate. while they have proven the achilles' heel of the

opposition, they also make it -- it is one of the survival strategies. over time, and many of you have watched this over the course of the uprising in syria, the regime has played a nasty game , where theyole tried to wipe out an opposition division and fighting force only for it to pop up somewhere else. it does where the regime down considerably. unfortunately, with considerable iranian assistance, russian assistance, and political cover, the regime has been able to continue doing this, and it has led to over 100,000 killed in the country and no end in sight. and unfortunately, the use of chemical weapons inside the country. my piece of then talks about -- looking back, i spent a long time alongside opposition members from the beginning of the uprising going forward. it wasn't just in western capitals or in istanbul or some of the arab capitals.

i spent a tremendous amount of time in border regions, both with the civilian opposition as well as the armed opposition from a very early stage, and i watched their development. my peace talks a little bit about the development of the syrian national council, which is now part of what is called syrian opposition coalition, and its development and problems with personalities as well as coming up with a common platform, and being unable to overcome personal differences and the differences between the three currents that continue today into the soc. othere the liberals, the is the muslim brothers, and the third are the salafists. not time, snc early on did spend enough time in the border regions and they lost traction inside the country, both with

peaceful protesters inside syria, and that over time with the armed groups who began diring back at the assa regime's attempt to put on the uprising in the fall of 2011 and forward -- to put down the uprising in the fall of 2011 and forward. also deals considerably with the attempt by the international community last andmn to assemble the snc get it to reform, and by "refo rm," the goals of the regional powers and the united states was to get the snc to branch out and said the country impact soc with soc member -- and to sopack with more member since the country. qatar,ppened in dohar, in november of last year. it was a mixed success or failure, however you want to look at it.

representation from inside the country did increase. 's participation inside the organization was maintained at about 40%. but unfortunately, many of those included from inside the country were not based on any kind of selective process from within their individual desserts, but were instead hand-picked by many of the same currents inside the snc. the overall effectiveness of soc inside the country expanded but did not expand enough, as per the outlines and intentions of a number of those not only within the syrian opposition, who wanted to see the body come together, but some of the western and arab patrons. a little-known story that happened a long side this meeting in november of one the 2,th -- november of 201 there was a parallel meeting in doha of the provincial military

council leaders. they had a parallel meeting in order to try to organize the different groups, fighting groups come inside syria into something coherent. that meeting was followed by an official meeting on december 7 in turkey to form what was called the supreme military council, what is today known as the smc, which is headed by general adris. there were a couple of early signs that there was a lot of outside fingerprints on the smc. for example, all 230 members who were present that day agreed suddenly by consensus to the 30- member leadership body that currently heads the smc. for someone who tracks the syrian opposition, that is nothing short of a miracle. but actually, one of the main sosons why the smc was form

quickly was because of the presence and involvement of western and arab intelligence agencies. there are a lot of reasons for that. i'm not saying they are not justified. there were a lot of concerns at that time that the number -- that the weapons going into syria were indiscriminate, that they were going to extremists within the opposition, and that some sort of organized structure -- by channeling all of the one source, would hopefully bring the army units together inside the country. the smc today, as it stands, is a blend of 2 regional models. tar-basede qa military council model, and the 5her is the saudi-backed fronts model. if you look at the diagram, the excellent diagram by the serious support group in washington, it outlines the different fronts and also the membership.

at first glance, if you look at the membership of the smc, it seems like any foreign government's dream of a coherent, linear opposition structure that would be needed to arm and introduces the against -- arm and introduces the against the -- arm an insu assad regimet the and take it down. i encourage you to look at them. however, and you can look of this in terms of the individuals listed on your -- them have different political orientations. this discussion was formed in discussions in the summer of 2012 that were happening behind closed doors between members of the syrian opposition and arab --ulgence agencies. intelligence agencies. at that time in the syrian opposition, sophists -- salafists and extremists were not present inside the organization. what you see today is a

collection of nationalist battalions that could be secular or mildly islamist but are primarily focused on syria, but mixed together also with a jihadist -- sorry, one of the giant pink elephants in the room on the smc is the role of this. originally, this was not seen as a bad idea because there was an attempt that was quite thoughtful that the important thing was to co-opt some of the moderates who only had aspirations for an islamic state within syria into the structure so that over time they could then be moderated, dealt with, incorporated into an overall resistance against the assad regime. that would have had a better chance of happening had the structure been armed and financed at the time it was originally constructed. i can point you to the deliberations in some of the stories about the deliberations

inside of the american administration, specifically hillary clinton and other backings of the army of the structure in general. that path was not taken. over time, the syrian opposition continued to fight against the assad regime and quite formidibaly did a good job. they had to rely on patrons from north africa and beyond to sustain financing and weaponry. these are outside of primarily the group, but they grew in stature and an overall firepower so the situation has changed considerably since then and now there is a real question in looking at the smc about what to do with it. president obama and the band

ben rhodes have announced that originally in times of enforcing the red line on the serious and chemical weapons use and this most recent incident was not the first, the united states would increase its military support for the supreme military council specifically, so we are not arming. but actually the supreme military council. as you have seen in the press that has come out that there has been a lot of complaints about the late delivery of those weapons. there are several reasons for that. one is arguments over how effect effective this can be because the fight in serious has ended up in the division of the country. some call it a stalemate and whatever we provide to them would not leave to the toppling of the assad regime but only sustaining the fight. the other more enduring argument has been supplying the smc wholesale could and likely would

lead to those weapons into falling into the hands of the extremists. as it is currently construct did, that is a distinct possibility. however, i am not rejecting the smc as a vehicle for supporting the opposition but rather, and we talked about this in the paper, and i think this is also partially born from the findings of my colleague, what we instead need going forward, which i think is the wisest choice, it is the one slowly being adopted i the administration and accounts for the trickle out of assistance is the discriminate support and arming of different members within the smc whom we have already existing relations and those that are also more of a secular, nationalist orientation that are not against u.s. interests not only in syria at the region as a whole.

it's very difficult stuff. it's a political game using military means but it is one we are going to the play ever so carefully if we are going to win the overall battle inside of syria. by winning the battle, what i mean is eventually getting president assad to leave the scene and hopefully having at the end of these negotiations between three different parts of syria, and i have a piece in the foreign affairs that outlines the de facto division into these different groups to get these pieces to eventually come back together, but that is a very medium or long-term goal at this point. i talk a little bit about in the piece about a couple of the examples of what has happened so far concerning the smc. there has been an attempt using croatian arms financed by saudi arabia to finance a number of the more moderate elements inside of syria.

it is called the croatian arms episode or incident in which the weapons were provided and within a very short time, some of them ended up in the hands of extremists. now just to be clear, the weapons were not given to the smc as a whole, but some groups within the smc were armed. it is not a hard test. it is nevertheless, a number of weapons that were supplied according to evidence that was taken by the internet and is explained by myself and aaron zelin, they ended up in the al qaeda affiliate currently active inside of syria. what i argue in the end is a cautious middle way forward. i realize that this in the context of the overall enforcement of the red line

seems to be getting ahead of ourselves but i assure you whatever happens in the next 48 hours or so, the war in syria will go on for a very long time and from a policy angle, what we have gone from is having a serious that was a u.s. state sponsor of terrorism into three syrias in which terrorist organizations are not only present but ascendant. that strategy, that situation, which some have written recently in "the new york times" and otherwise about how this worked against each other and the united states, that only works if they are all u.s. allies. that spill over is already occurring whether it is in the record of refugees fighting

across the border, sectarian tensions around and about syria. what happened there is not going to stay there. obama has talked about the impact of the syrian crisis overall on our regional allies and while i realize that the strikes appear to be coming to enforce the chemical weapons redlined, and i supported that even before the president outlined it, whatever happens out of that, the president is going to obviously be talking about the punitive measures involved. overall, i think the president is going to have to address and the government will have to address the strategic threats that are coming out of the syria crisis. ladies and gentlemen, the meltdown of this country is not going to end anytime soon. if i could tell you which way it's going, i would, but i cannot.

none of us can. as this meltdown continues, the level of threats to the united states and its allies are going through the roof. therefore, more assertive u.s. action whether it is discriminately arming the smc as a vehicle to supporting the unarmed opposition seems the best road ahead. it will be a careful and difficult effort, but i think it's one that we are up for and being more assertive now instead of waiting for others in the region or adversary to take our place would be the best way forward. thank you very much. >> aaron zelin could not be here today, so i am kind of standing

in for him as a poor man's aaron zelin. i have been asked to talk about the implications of potential u.s. military operations in syria. when undertaking these kinds of exercises, i always find it useful to refer to the quotation from the famous theorist of warfare who said the first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish the kind of war on which they are embarking. basically, that leads us to ask if the united states does act militarily in response to syria's escalated use of chemical weapons, what are our likely goals. how are we likely to go about achieving these goals? what are the prospects for success? how is syria and their allies likely to respond?

in considering american policy objectives, if they do resort to the use of force, there are a number of these that one could spell out potentially. first, simply making a statement. secretary of state kerry has talked about the need for accountability and, in its own way, the appropriate action would be to simply, kind of, it would stand on its own as america responding, as white house spokesperson jay carney said, america responding to an action that need their response. we can try to restore u.s. credibility. the third is to alter the balance of forces between the regime to set conditions for either a diplomatic settlement

or opposition of the three or, finally, a decapitation and regime change although jay carney says it is off the table because we are not seeking a regime change. even trying to alter the balance of forces is something in which the administration is not likely to pursue. other than making a statement, i think the likely minimal goal of any kind of military action would be to restore credibility and deter future chemical weapons use. how might we go about achieving this? the first thing that is important to say that based on newspaper descriptions of the kind of strike we can expect, and they are talking about the class destroyers in the east mediterranean being the likely source of the strike, each of them carries a couple dozen tomahawk land attack missiles and they're probably accompanied by one or two attack submarines and they have potentially much larger numbers of tomahawks on

board. some of them can carry up to 150. you are perhaps talking a strike of 100 to 200 tomahawk missiles. when you think about it in terms of the size of the warheads on the missiles, you are talking about something that really equates to between 30 and 50 striker craft, so you're not talking about a very big strike here, first of all. as a result, you're not likely to significantly degrade the syrian military capabilities and therefore i would argue if this is the kind of the strike that the administration feels comfortable with, they should focus on not degrading capabilities but altering the regime's risk calculus and achieving a mainly psychological effect. the only way to really accomplish this, maybe not the only way but the most desirable way is by targeting key regime units. now, the syrian army is a 12

plus division army, but in prosecuting their fight against the opposition, they have only used more or less used re- three division, the republican guard, and some special forces units. these are key to the survival of the regime, defending them against a coup. and the fourth armored division of the guard have been deeply indicated in the use of chemical weapons against the syria people. you can hit headquarters of these units so they are fixed sites. conceivably, it would be desirable, even though the tomahawks are not the best way or not even a good way to do it. it would be desirable to be able to destroy a large number of tanks and artillery, but most important it is to kill the senior leadership of these units or senior members of this unit.

the problem is even if you destroy large numbers of tanks and artillery of these units, only three divisions of the 12 in the military are really committed to combat. you conceivably have a large stockpile of tanks and artillery pieces that are not being used. maybe a lot of them have not been maintained and are not functional, they could cannibalize these other units. what is critical, what they are short of it is loyal soldiers. it is much more important to kill experienced, committed troops, the more senior the better, because they are probably related by blood and marriage to senior officials in the regime but the problem is now since we telegraphed our preparations to strike, they are probably not going to be in their headquarters or by their tanks.

we know this from our experience in iraq where time and time again we hit empty headquarters and even when we tried to bomb chemical weapons facilities, they were out in the field rather than in the bunkers. because of the lack of advanced warning, i think we have a limited ability to accomplish the object above this at this point. in addition, i'm not sure the administration would go for this, but in order to do it effectively, you have to rely on combat aircraft and tomahawks are not the tool to do a lot of this. that creates a problem in terms of the efficacy of this kind of strike. also, in considering how we fashioned the strike, if we are to go down this path, that we not respond in an asymmetric way to syrian provocations because it enables the regime to calibrate risk and this is something we consistently sell

into the trap with the iraqis in the 1990's. they would challenge us in the no-fly zones and we would -- really, they had an almost inexhaustible supply of air defense systems and personnel. they were not high on the priority list. they were not so important for the regime and they could afford to lose them if they wanted to challenge us and likewise with their wmd facilities. it is important not to respond in asymmetric matter but to hit other sites that are critically important for the regime. again, units that are key to prosecuting the fight against the opposition. i think it would also be desirable if we could do it to intimate that whatever we do is not a parting shot but an opening salvo. there is more yet to come. again, the problem is the administration has, for good

reason, been so reluctant to get directly involved and they have telegraphed their intent any military action will be seen as likely a one off event or at least their preparation would be that it is a one off event. therefore, psychologically, the regime in damascus will feel like they can ride it out and they will be free to continue with the degradation afterwards. if there would be a way to intimate that more is yet to come, that would be desirable. you try to degrade the air defenses to set the conditions for future strikes if you use manned aircraft in the future. they will not be operating in a less hostile air defense environment. i think it is also important in terms of changing the psychology of the regime to have supporting diplomatic moves to any military action. all the things the saudi's are doing to pull away the russians, good luck. i'm really skeptical, but i

think these kinds of efforts are desirable to the degree that they may be plant seeds of doubt about the reliability of the russians because we know in kosovo one of the things that caused them to eventually cave was the loss of russian support. they are an ally and anything that shows doubt in the mind of the regime in damascus about that reliability is important. iran is a harder target and we are less likely to peel them away, but i think we have a great information opportunity here in that one of the deep wounds in iranian society is the fact that they were victims of chemical warfare in the international community was silence. this is one of the most powerful talking points in terms of domestic opinion and world opinion and i think we should relentlessly make the point that

they are supporting a regime using chemical weapons against civilians. i wonder if they are getting advice from their iranian allies about how to most effectly use them. this is a great talking point we should be pressing. i do not know if it will have an effect on iranian policy. let me make a few points on lessons from the past we should keep in mind if we go down the military route. corrosive strikes are almost never a one-off deal. it will be very important for the regime in damascus to try to prove that they will once again violate the red line perhaps by once again resuming the use of chemical weapons though maybe on a very low level, which will put the u.s. administration in a dilemma. do you strike again in response to a local use of chemical weapons that killed maybe 10 or 15 people?

they will be able to make the point that -- was that your best shot? it did not effect our conduct. we also know this from our experience in dealing with iraq in the 1990's that it was a constant struggle, a cat and mouse game, and the israelis have had similar issues with dealing with a rocket fire from hezbollah after they withdrew from lebanon and it was only until the israelis engaged in very far-reaching military operations that they were successful at least in dealing with the threat from hezbollah and had mixed results but i do not see the u.s.

engaging in those kinds of very far-reaching military operations at this point. the second lesson is to get it right from the start and do not try to deter or manage the problem on the cheap. again, this is one of the lessons from iraq in the 1990's. what finally put together all of the elements of a successful course of policy was operation desert fox but that was intended as a parting shot. we had given up on the inspections at that time and i see it really is a face-saving effort to hit the iraqis hard as we were walking away to kind of provide political cover for the administrative decision to give up on you and weapons inspections. it would have been better at those kinds of operations, if we carried them out at the beginning of our course of diplomacy because maybe the decade, we would have had an easier time with un weapons inspections if we started with those kinds of operations. a few points about the nature of the challenges we are likely to

face and the type of syrian response before i wrap up here. as a mentioned, advanced warning of a u.s. strike, key personnel are not likely to be in the headquarters that may be targeted if we were to target senior headquarters. by relying on cruise missiles, there are limits to what you can accomplish simply because even though our most advanced cruise missile has the ability to be up updated in flight, the intelligence that it is based on very often several hours old. a pilot overflying a target looking through a targeting pod can, in real time, determine what is on the ground that they will hit. there are limits to what you can accomplish it the enemy is moving things around on a frequent basis, which i assume the syrians might do. limited strike of the type we

are planning would preclude the u.s. from hitting assets that the syrians might rely on for retaliation such as surface to surface missiles or chemical weapon stock piles. newspaper reporting indicates that we are not likely to hit chemical weapon stock house for fear of collateral damage, that may be misinformation or the truth that we might yet find out in a few days. clearly based on our experience in targeting weapons of mass destruction type targets, we know from experience that accurate and timely intelligence is vital and our track record in this regard is very uneven. we also have to consider the fact that reports have said that the syrians have been consolidating chemical weapons arsenals, moving them around in order to prevent the opposition from gaining them so even if we had a perfect picture at the start, once they start moving around, it makes it more difficult and even if we know which bases they consolidated them on, we don't know which

buildings they are in. that could also complicate targeting. given the advanced telegraphing of the possibility that the u.s. would strike, that's possible it has been disbursed on the eve of the 91 war. in terms of syria's response, the last thing that syrians need this to open another front. they still have their hands full dealing with the opposition and therefore, i think their response will be limited at best. i would simply note that israel attacked syria in 2007 when they bombed its reactor and four times this year without an overt response from syria get. they have been pretty restrained in their statements except for statements that they will defend themselves but there is no bravado to the statements that they will set the region on fire. the potential for proxy terrorism is much more limited. our ability to stop the act and the today has been much better since 9/11. repeated, intermittent, and limited the use of chemical weapons is their most likely

response to bombing. to make the case that you bombed us, and we still are doing it. are you going to bomb us again for 10 or 20 people killed by chemical weapons? they will put the administration on the dilemma. i want to wrap this up now, but i think for various reasons, i do not see them acting in a big way in response to a u.s. strike. in conclusion, as for the possibility of a u.s. military strike, my recommendation is to do it right or don't do it at all and that means probably more expansive strike ban is being considered by the current administration. secondly, don't expect us to do one off because it will be very important for a sought to show assad to show that he is undefeated and he will continue to test the red line. finally, action of the type that

the administration appears to be considering i think can only modestly, at best, reduce the potential threat of chemical weapons into the opposition to really change the balance of forces in a positive way requires that we finally take seriously the possibility of arming the opposition and this would, in the long run, be the kind of response that potentially really matters. thank you. >> thank you. the one privilege of chairing an event like this as i get to ask the first question. let me ask our panelists. i listen to you and i hear about a very decentralized if not disorganized opposition, and i hear about a regime increasingly relying on irregular forces. i hear about limited actions that the united states is likely to take. what i was running through my

mind was, are you saying the united states cannot make much of a difference in this conflict? not only the united states will not do much to influence it but really, nothing short of dramatic u.s. action will have much of an impact. >> can you all hear me? i take that as a yes. i think the limits of u.s. power are exaggerated. even on a limited strike, provided it is not just a wrap on a knuckles or a symbolic tomahawk of a few places in damascus. that can have some important effects on the situation.

starting with what would be necessary and should have been done for a long time, real military assistance to the rebels. now, this requires the vetting business and all of that, as andrew outlined. it might migrate into the hands of people we don't like and you know, don't like us, but you have to think about the importance of the object is here. if you assume getting assad out of power and defeating the iranians and syria are important object gives, then certainly those types of risks are worth taking. we could do a lot to help the rebels beyond just giving them the man type aircraft and antitank missiles and there are lots of things we can do in the way of training and advice on how to operate and help them form real command structures and providing them with effective logistics for the forces and so on. we could do that in the future and we should have been doing

that for some time. that will not guarantee the democratic future society in the syria that everybody wants but it would at least help influence in that direction and give the u.s. some ability to influence the situation on the ground post-assad. we could do a lot more in terms of direct military intervention. this is something also that should have been contemplated and undertaken long before where we are now. we can still do it. as i outlined in my comments. the regime relies on firepower, significantly. we can reduce that firepower. we can stop the syrian air force from killing civilians on a daily basis and we can destroy the syria surface missile forces. we can degrade their command and control. we can take away a lot of the advantages they enjoy with

direct military action but to say that the united states does not have the ability to influence the situation in syria is wrong. we could expedite the removal of the regime significantly, but can we fix syria? can we ensure a democratic future? we can certainly do some important things there. >> just briefly, to echo jeff's comments, in the end, it's a situation where the u.s. could do a lot more but again, it is not just through direct or indirect intervention, although i agree with the way jeff set it up, it is just in terms of understanding what our is. the big problem that i see, particularly with syria, we are

used to dealing with syria through its regime and we had a very close not political relationship, but our intelligence services knew each other very well and it was very clear when watching operations of the u.s. embassy in damascus over the years when i was there, we knew them quite well and weak we cooperated with them and that structure, the one we are very familiar with and those that go around it, that system became destabilized and again it gets back to the demographics that have changed in the country. if you look at all of the videos that come out of the fighting units, you find very few gray hairs among those taking shots against the assad regime. there are those who were born in the horrific 10 years of the

massacre in 1982 when syria was among the top 20 fastest growing populations on the planet. the numbers have just radically changed. when you meet with these groups inside of syria or in the syrian border regions, it is a new set of elites. the people inside of syria now matter. what do we do with them? do we ignore them and pretend that the current streaming through the opposition is not there and just let them fester and grow? or do we try to influence that environment? i don't think that is part of u.s. policy in the syria or part of syria policy during this crisis. it needs to be part of our u.s.- middle east policy in general. how will we deal with people? people are a factor in this country. economics matter. the social aspect matter. it will not just the state to state anymore. a much more assertive, smarter role combined with some of the options that jeff has outlined would be the right move going ahead.

>> i agree with the comments of my colleagues here. all i was saying is based on what has been reported in the media, based on background and briefings by senior officials, what the administration seems to be considering is not likely to achieve the desired object is so i was just simply saying, if we want to accomplish our objectives defined as limiting back, we need to think of another way of going about it but i think we can do more to shape the environment but we can hopefully try to set conditions for the success of the opposition, but in the end it is up to them, but we have an important role to play in helping them get there. >> thank you. do we have any questions? right there.

>> i have a question for mr. eisenstadt. keeping in mind that propaganda is a potential war crime, what evidence do you have the your claim that this. syrian government has used chemical weapons? >> first of all, i'm waiting to see what the human inspectors say, and i'm looking to see what the u.s. government has to say in this

regard, and i think that is why the administration has actually said, it's interesting. they say that they are not waiting for the u.n. report because they feel that they have very detailed intelligence and it will be revealed later this week. again, i don't recall, i don't remember exactly how it was said they would say allegations and i would wait to see what the report says personally. i don't recall exactly what i said in my presentation, but i would like to see exactly what the evidence the u.s. government has to put on the table, but to be honest with you, given that this administration was elected in part due to their criticism of the preceding administration for going to war without adequate intelligence related to weapons of mass destruction, i would hope they would cross all of their t's and dot their i's when it comes to declaring war but when the secretary of state says there is no doubt that they used chemical weapons, i would probably invest a high degree and confidence in that. again, i want to see what kind of reports they come out with in

the coming days. >> can i weigh in? the u.s. has something we call the loose nukes program. if it is out, we will blame the person who reduced the weapon because every government that produces them has a responsibility under international law to keep weapons in their control. if the syrian government has lost control of chemical weapons and they are used by the rebels, it is the fault of the syrian government. they have a responsibility to keep control over chemical weapons they produce and it is in their territory. if they have lost control, they need to bring this to the attention of the international community and i assume we will be assisting them in the control of those weapons but the more important question we should ask

about what happened in syria is were chemical weapons used in? if the answer is yes, that's the responsibility of the syrian government. >> we don't have 100% forensic evidence yet of regime complicity or whatever to use chemical weapons. we have everything but that. we do not have ncis damascus so we will have to wait for the u.n. people to come back with a report. they will say that yes, they have been used and it looks like this agent and we kind of know that. the issue is resolving to some degree of certainty or high probability that the regime did it or somebody else did it. if you look at the regime, they

have a very formidable chemical warfare capability. methods, they have the units, the concepts, the training to conduct chemical warfare attacks. the opportunity was there and they also had some reasonable military rationale for striking. they're having trouble in the damascus area with rebel forces. they have been trying to clear the very areas that were struck for months and have not been successful. in that fighting, they have lost troops, tanks, armored vehicles, personnel from their allies without any significant progress. the rebels were having their own successes in those areas. there is plenty of stuff that points to the regime having done it. scale, all kinds of things. it takes a leap of faith to believe that it was not the

regime -- more than that. it takes fantasy to believe that it was not the regime, but we will see. it is not 100%. plus, we have a lot of reporting of actual intelligence evidence, imagery, and so one that definitely points to regime use. from the beginning, the u.n. team is not allowed to buy current mandate negotiated over five months to negotiate with this. the syrian government over the sites that would be inspected. it is not allowed to assess blame for who used the weapons. it can only say it was present in the site. no matter what they say in a few days, it is not that body. the team and not say who used the weapons.

>> my name is larry. my question is generally for the speakers. in thinking about the stratification of the syrian opposition movement, i am more reflect the on the stratification of the serious government. the reason i say that is bashar al-assad was basically a pinch- hitter. his father was grooming his eldest son to be his successor. the eldest son was killed in an auto accident. bashar was brought back and quickly groomed to try to take over. i would like your comments. is he truly in charge? does he rule or does he reign?

are there different centers of power, different military, political leaders who came up and made their reputations under his father and that he basically is a uniting symbol of syria as opposed to actually ruling the country? >> i think we got the question. andrew. >> i read a book about this. or at least it deals with this. i spent a little over seven years inside of syria during the time you talking about in his reign. one of the early explanations, there has always been some kind of question about, how do we explain his dual nature where he is a mild-mannered ophthalmologist who studied for a time in london who announces in his inaugural address when he took power from his father, as

you mentioned, that should respect the views of others, yet went out and began to hold discussions about respecting those views and trying to organize, there was a massive crackdown in the country. he was held back by the old guard, by some of the carryovers from his father's regime. that view about letting him off the hook in terms of responsibilities for the actions inside of one of the most centrally organized political systems in the world held until about 2005. and in that conference, most of those figures were retired from his father's reign and then there were just the new figures. then of course we have the crisis in lebanon. how could bashar have decided to kill him, made the political decision, whatever. they thought that there were other groups of people behind the scenes. one of whom was the president's brother-in-law who is married to

bashar's sister. that went on for a wild. the only reason syria would be important is to hold back those weapons. why did bashar pretend to be this nice guy in interviews, but then turned around and did so many things. the only reason syria would be important is to hold back those weapons. this went along in the uprising again. they continued to fire on their own people. it continued. there is a lot of talk that it was hard-liners behind the regime.

one of whom was killed in a massive explosion. after 13 plus years of bashar al-assad being in power, this who he is. based on my knowledge and we just released a study at the institute about the current structure of the regime, it is completely centralized in the assad family's hands and whatever goes on behind the scenes is within the family members and i think that means whatever happens regarding the regime in syria, bashar al-assad and his brother are complicit. >> thanks. this is a question for mike. you talk about the use of combat aircraft as a possible desirable option. what is your take on syrian air defense? some people seem to suggest it is rather formidable. do you think it would be

formidable in terms of the somewhat degrated capability? >> it's really hard to know. on paper, clearly they have very extensive air defense, very dense along the west side of the country, the populated part of the country, around damascus, aleppo, homs, the coastline. most of it is what people would call legacy systems from the soviet system's era that is rather dated. there are some newer ones that could pose a significant risk. i think the main question that i would ask is given that we know that the ground forces have suffered significant desertion and absenteeism, and a result they can really only rely on out of the 12 in the army, are the air defense is suffering from the same problem?

we just don't know. they did successfully shoot down a turkish phantom that was apparently on a reconnaissance flight sometime ago. they are viable, but in terms of how effect do, it is just unknown. and think we're pretty good capability to deal with it at but in the past we have lost aircraft in very small numbers for some of these older systems and as a result, they remain a potential threat. it's probably not as great as perpetrate, but it is something that we have to take very seriously. >> we cannot wish it away, for sure. you have to account for those systems and deal with them. but we do know that the system overall suffered a lot of degradation since the war and the rebels have overrun at least two facilities, the main strategic system. they have overrun a number of

those and support facilities. we also know that many of the air defense units are involved in a ground war. they serve as strong points to help the regime control areas and many of the wider antiaircraft systems have been committed to combat in support of this. the syrian army. this is a system that whatever its state was at the beginning of the war, march 2011, it is less, maybe a lot less, than it was. then there are things that mike pointed out and these are systems we have all gone against successfully, with the exception of maybe one particular system. as we said at the beginning, you cannot wish it away. it has to be accounted for in any kind of prudent planning process. >> the israelis have conducted

multiple operations over syria and perhaps added margins, certainly within the range of many of their systems successfully. >> it was also mentioned earlier that they had made some strikes and that there was no retaliation and that was just rhetorical. yet, the stories of the strikes are coming out of washington, not syria. you read in the israeli media that they are very pissed off at the u.s. for leaking stories about their operations. what is going on with that? >> who knows? some speculation is that there are people that the state department or upset and want us

to have a more forward leaning policy and we are therefore leaking this up to shame the administration into action and others, maybe there are people him with concerns of israeli action t. i don't know. maybe it is all the above, maybe it is none of the above. so who knows. i don't know. >> first of all my congratulations on an amazing mike,. following up, the question of retaliation. we'll talk more next week. in today's media, it seems to imply for one statement if there was a limited strike, they would not respond. or if there was something and at undermining the regime they would.

>> with regard to hezbollah, you should be answering this. hezbollah is like syria, they do not need to open a second front at this point, they have their hands full. as a result, the response would be very restrained. and the same for hezbollah. they are already engaged in a shadow war. hezbollah has tried to kill and conduct an attack against israelis. they are already engaged in these types of activities. does an israeli strike cause them to ramp it up? it has not been acceptable except for the one attack in bulgaria last year.

i am not so sure they would be willing to incur significant additional risk on behalf of their syrian allies. like you said, they see the survival of the regime that is critical for their own viability. that might make a difference. if there is an attack that is aimed at regime change, maybe that will change. all we are seeing in the media, it is going to be a limited strike and therefore, not the risk for them to put themselves out of the end of a limb for regime in damascus when they are not threatened right now. with imminent overthrow. >> let me see. please. >> hi. i was wondering, there was a report about leaked information

and part of the intelligence that they had, there were cables or something between senior assad officials and that is part of the evidence. more to the point, i was wondering that michael you had mentioned maybe we could have a dialogue with iran. but iran is threatening to strike israel if we strike syria. i'm wondering two things. if you could expand on what effect a strike that we do could have on our neighbors and also, do you think it is politically or operationally that it may be the west going into unilaterally? >> with regard to iran, i would note it was about three days before the israeli strike in

syria in january. supposedly getting ready for hezbollah. the supreme leader foreign- policy advisers, a former minister, said and the staff, he is not necessarily the most authoritative figure, he set an attack -- the israelis launched the attack later. and there have been several strikes since then. if america decides to strike on syria, i am not sure with everything going on and the nuclear negotiations that the iranians would want to act at this point. i think the way they respond is perhaps by doubling down on the

support for the assad regime, which they have already done. they have often -- their approach is to avoid indirect conflict with the united states or other neighboring countries. like after 2006, and their way of responding, we armed hezbollah after the war. double down with outside regime as a statement of defiance. the question about anti-american backlash, it is very important for the united states to get the broadest coalition. if we cannot get a un security council, we should get the most number of countries available and support from key arab and muslim countries.

paula from the american islamic congress. my question is for all three of you. thinking about the kind of opportunity that america strikes might provide to the opposition, it's an opportunity and if so, who is in the best position to benefit in the military and the political opposition recognizing there are certain entities that might benefit others? if you can comment on that. >> groups that will benefit from within the opposition as a whole, the united states already extends about $1 billion or over to the syrian opposition. what i mean is a combination of humanitarian aid and other kinds of assistance already channeled. the reason is not only because of our support for the

opposition particularly for the coalition, but there are other reasons. a lot of western aid and international aid is provided to syria. there's a lot of it. the assad regime is still the sovereign power in syria and still holds the un seat. the un still has to deal with the regime in order to provide assistance. in lots of areas where the opposition is prevalent, it is almost impossible to get assistance in without it. the u.s. over the past years has changed course and started moving assistance inside of the country. politically, we provide assistance to a number of local councils and other individuals on the ground. in terms of the overall, the armed groups, the primary recipients of any kind of

assistance in our primary area for opportunity would be members of the supreme military council. not so much of ideology, but a lot of the -- groups in syria have given the political situation have lurched to the right and are closer to some of the extreme groups. it is harder to find opportunity in the context than the mainline national groups. those are the primary ones we will be dealing with in the short run because we already deal with them and provide via these channels. the graphic from the support group and the opportunity will be with them and over time will increase and line not only with our assistance, but the

development of these individual leaders over time. >> i will add to that another criterion beside like us or they need to be militarily effective. it is not so easy to find highly military effective units not of an islamist strike. we believe there are some around damascus that are not too islamist or whatever. it is hard to put your hand on it and say this is a unit that is moderate. pro-western or u.s. or whatever or against us. that is where the u.s. intelligence community and other intelligence communities really have to do their homework to say this is a group that is ideologically ok.

>> i think you would agree with me that our speakers are both moderate and effective. we thank them for their efforts and you for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> president obama is gathering with leaders of the national security committees in a teleconference on syria today to discuss with legislators the way forward on syria. we will bring you news on any developments in the conference. prime minister cameron led off debates which began after 9:30 this morning. of the unitednt states is a man who opposed the action in iraq. no one could in anyway way described him as a president who wanted to involve america in more wars in the middle east. he believes that an important red line has been crossed in an

appalling way, and that is why he supports action in this case. when i spoke to president obama last weekend, i said we shared his view about the despicable nature of the use of chemical weapons and that we must i also explained to him because of the damage done to public confidence because of a rock we would have to follow a series of incremental steps to build confidence and inshore the maximum possible legitimacy for any action. out in theet action before the speaker tear -- speaker. i was sitting on the opposition row,, just after my son had been born, but i was determined to be here. i wanted to listen to the man standing right here and believe everything that he told me. we are not here to debate his issues today, but one thing is indisputable. the well of public opinion was

poisoned by the iraq episode. i give way. you can see the entire debate on serious this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. we will also air it tonight in prime time starting at 8:00. you can watch it anytime on our website at c-span.org. there will likely be more on the situation today. we will have coverage on c-span coverage getting underway and little late. and now the to the national press club, ben jealous. introductions are just getting underway. vann, naacp and chief

operating officer. guest of the speaker. tracy blunt, senior vice president of -- companies. joe madison. jealous, associate professor of law, washington university. news editor at outages zero and a member of the board of governors. today's event.r roup,r vice president msl g member of the national press club speakers committee. adviser to the president and senior director of voting rights. april ryan, white house correspondent. at wpfw-fm.

atolitical reporter bloomberg and a past president of the national press club. our speaker today is benjamin jealous, who became the youngest president of the national association for the advancement people.ed he grew up in a family always challenged i the issue of race. obstaclesarents faced live dating back to sla very. his father told him what it was like to be the lone white guy at a lunch counter sit in and getting worked over by the police who saw him as a race traitor.mr. jealous lady peekingite

out at him to make sure he was not stealing anything. hehas led advocacy, but could also qualify for mentorship at the national press club. reliable reports say he w ate tried his hand reporting. mr. jealous is also the executive director of the national newspapers publishers association. what may have been his biggest how he courted his wife and the struggle to keep her and win her over with little money and a new job in d.c. he succeeded, however, and is married to leah, and the couple have two young child ren.

yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. five decades since, the nation has its first black president, but still has serious issues for the african-american people, including record in carcertion. the naacp,emained if like many long-time organizations, is up to the challenge of heckling these issues. criticizedas been for and gave each -- for engaging in similar challenges rather than be leaders -- this week the president of the national center for neighbor and republicanld the national committee that the welfare of black americans is stuck behind other causes. your buddy has come out in front of them on the bus, you never

hear them talk about the conditions and fronting poor blacks and poor people. with these issues lay before him to address, please welcome to the national press club the naacp president, ben jealous. to my friend at the rnc, i urge him to listen but we are talking about. thank you for that great welcome. thank you for being here. i did not think anybody was going to be here. what an honor to be invited. i will be talking to the cameras. this is great, and it is a great honor. somebody who started out their r adult years as a

reporter in jackson, mississippi, this is a great humbling honor. i am pleased to be here with people who have helped make me who i am and supported me in this work. bond, whoah, julian has been one of my hero since i was a small child. [applause] julian's wife pam horwitz amid the great members of the naacp staff come including -- is leading the charge on our work to secure voting rights across this country. iriethankful to jeff and for extending this welcome to the press club.

to the press club staff and ms. cook. ever clearerecomes that the media continues to play and inform our conversation about race and being that the conscience of our country. we are grateful to "the new york and the role it played in helping stop and frisk in new york city. today i want to thank the man who is been my cocaptain of the national staff for the last five years, roger. chief operating officer, and last year you might recall there were a lot of questions. indeed, throughout 2011 and 2012, or questions, we would like folks turn out to the poll, many particular? roger was the man with that plan, and he got it done in an equitable way, and i just

want to say thank you, roger. president,ed by my the president of the maryland naacp, who has wrapped up the most impressive string of civil rights victories in the countries in the past year. point asan who is on we move black voters in support of marriage equality and the dream act and we took the lead in extending voting rights and expanding restrictions on guns, gun safety reform, and was point in abolishing the death penalty last year and completed a campaign that was started by that famous marylander, frederick douglass. this afternoon i want to talk about racial profiling, but i want to talk about the press release that will go this afternoon. the naacp five years ago, when i

national operation had been in tough times. a lot of you all reported on it. i had a conversation with " the baltimore sun's" leadership the other day, and i said, where are the reporters covering the and awanaacp? where are they? said because there is no bad news anymore? we have been in the black five years of euro. we have increased revenues 10 %, but we are now the laws just online, mobile, and on the ballot box. we have 1.3 million people organized online. list outside the obama campaign. and we moved more than one

million new and unlikely voters to the polls, and we have more than 1.2 million organized voters. that is how we do our work, and that is what gives us the power to do what you have seen a stew, whether in maryland or new york city, where we have worked with a broad range of groups to push mayor bloomberg, forced mayor bloomberg to stop what is the largest local racial profiling program in the entire country. and we just produced a veto- proof majority, second time in a row. first time for the vote, second to override his veto's, and we did that because we are organizing, we are building big, broad audacious coalitions. the march on washington will be referred to as a grand alliance,

and we are winning. today i want to talk about the history of racial profiling. we in this country, as a young country, have no excuse not to know our own history. and when we forget our history, we repeat our history, and we do so at a great price. specifically, i want to talk to a century or so of our national experience with racial profiling. raise your hand if you remember -- keep it up if you were living here during that time. so was i. and you might recall just how disorienting it was, how you were told if you go to a store near the beltway, do not walk in a straight line to the front door, you need is exotic, and if you are pumping gas, do not

stand still, deep your head moving. so you got inside it what themeody's personal song was, because not have easy playing at the gas pump, but did not have flat screens and music playing 13 years ago, which everybody had a different beat. there is this cacophony of people as they pump their gas. we did it because we were scared. and the police could not tell us who was doing this. and our neighbors kept dying, until eventually the piece felt compelled to put up a profile. a profile, a racial profile, but a police profile was put out there when you do not have a description. you use a profile in the absence of a suspect-specific description. the way the profile works is they start if you will the probable and the -- and they go to the possible. you start with anti-social. they are killing people, check.

trained --litary they are shooting at great distances with precision, ok, check. traveling alone or in small groups. that is believable. if they were in a big group, we would have found them by now . probably mail, probably white. and the police got good in setting up these dragnets. the killings were happening at rush hour, when there is maximum traffic on the beltway, and there was pressure on the police to be efficient with the searchers, because you were stopping everybody, getting into the war, in the morning, and so i'm sitting there at the watercooler at amnesty international and my friend walks in him and he says it was the most disorienting thing today. we were driving in, the long trip back home every friday, and the shooting happened and the

dragnets is put up, and next thing i know i am on the side of the road and i have my hands up and i look to my left and it is all white guys like me. i looked my right and it is all white guys like me. i said, stop their, brother, you were racially profiling. we began have a beer over lunch. this i was inf the states is lacy could possibly be. saturday night, there had not been any shootings that morning or evening. i was in the center of the city far from the aa. the basic comedy club. dave, my god brother, my godfather's son, every now and then he will call out to me from the stage. when we were in college i was known as his bodyguard, they big guy who did not smile much you sat behind him. there is a little bit of rapport

we had. the middle of his routine, he said, ben, i figured it out, i said, what, dave? when all the dust clears, the figureipers, we will out they are black. i say why, dave? because they are taking off the weekend. here's the crazy thing in dave's mind -- he was working his way police who, and the had my friend on the side of the road, all these other white guys, were starting at race and working there will ways toward behavior. our neighbors kept on dying. arrest, john mohammed and lee boyd malvo. -- a presserence conference, we stopped them 10 times. 10 times.

trunk we looked in the and found the gun. trunk, i in my friends lot of white men's trunks, they stop these two black men. when you are psychotic, you lose track of things. they were bathing once a week at the silver spring y. antisocial. check, check. you inject race into the equation, go on through. 10 times. raise your hand if you remember --haniel it happened right at the same time. i was writing a report on racial -9/11 in the midst

of the d.c. sniper. --haniel was based didn't nathaniel was a student at a small college in raleigh, north carolina, and he was commuting on aand forth to bwi on small plane. guilford college. one day he goes through security and he had a box cutter and he notices it goes right to. this is before tsa has set up. mers when guys who look like , vaguely, i do not know, order reagan, arab, i do not know what you are, brother. we are going to search you. i get checked every time. a friend of mine said, chief said it, naacp, he convince my middle name is random because every time i

asked them why, they say it is random. backaneuil goes to, the pack goes to. he said, that is weird, i left my ox cutter in here. takeniel would go on to box cutters and modeling putty which on an x-ray looks like plastic explosives, put them in the vanities in the bathroom summit in ziploc bags, where until heed for week, wrote an e-mail to tsa saying this is what i am, this is what you have never done. you have never found the box cutters going through. you never found a modeling clay goes through. this is where you can find them. they had x-rays, but apparently they were more focused on what nathaniel looked like, because guys who look like me, we could

not even get through the x-ray machine. we could not get through the metal detector. the faneuil was able to get a box cutter -- nathaniel was able to get a box cutter through. and you look at these cases and you think maybe that is how we are. ired thatare hardwar way. maybe race and gender will always infect our ability to discern what is really dangerous . then you remember squeaky fromm. raise your hand if you remember squeaky fromm. years the secret service and its predecessors have had a very similar protocol, look at every buddy in the crowd, look for the men.

squeaky fromm took a shot at gerald ford. how long do you think it took them to change 200 years of protocol? whose life to that save when they did? bush, because about 20 years later, a woman showed up to one of his rallies with a pistol in her purse, and they were doing something they had done for the last 20 years that they had not done the 200 years before then. a were checking purses, two, and they found that. yourself, maybe what we need, maybe what we need and racial squeaky fromm, instead of searching through the history books, you find out we had one. if you remember who was present before theodore roosevelt. no one remembered. if you guys, thank you.

put those guys on "jeopardy!" most people forget when roosevelt came into the administration he was vice president and was somewhat who is this guy, this showboat guy from -- fighting wars in cuba. him was thatabout vices a very popular president for a popular president. it was mckinley. he was at a pan-american exposition, a worlds fair if it in new york state. president mckinley was working the rope line, and a man atnding at point lank range the mine pumped a bullet into the president's stomach. before he could squeeze off a second round, the bullet glanced off to the sized and grazed him. i have done presidential advance

and worked with secret service and mapping out the event, setting up the rope line, watching them do their thing, and when you talk to guys, the only thing that has changed is technology. article is basically the same. you search everybody coming coming up head to toe. now we would do middle of the we would do metal detectors. you might imagine that the secret service agent in charge was pretty perturbed with the guy in charge of the rope line. he said, how did this happen? you are supposed to search everybody had to do. this guy walks to a checkpoint with a gun in his hand, hidden in a crudely faked cast. any, boss, he looks like other mechanic out for a day at the fair, and he had a well marked we did not want to hurt him. feel the squeeze

beneath the cast. it was actually a gauze. boss, i think he had a decoy. pause here for second. there was a profile at the time for potential assassins of western leaders, based that eastern european anarchists had killed a number of leaders throughout murderer and war leaders of the west that they would be next. and the profile was the person when you got to the ethnic and racial component would be swarthy, tall, and with exotic racial hair. -- facial hair. a guy outid this was for a day at the tail, he did not fit the profile. he looked like anybody else. boss, he had a giggle. what do you mean?

him, a tall man, swarthy, and had a long mustache , exotic facial hair. by all means, find him. we have good news, bad news. what is the good news? the good news is we found the tall, swarthy man with a mustache. what is the bad news? how do i say this? that is constable big jim parker, who tackled the assailant. it is not as if constable jim parker did not who he was, because newspapers were like cnn now. keep running the same story until it stops selling. for a week the president was surviving, there was an update every day, morning and night, and there was a sidebar about the man who saved the president.

that a week later, from bad health care, president mckinley parker fadedjim into our distant memory. in other words, we had our racial squeaky fromm, we had our heads up that racial profiling distracts dangerously, so dangerously that if you inject race and at the city into a person -- profile that is otherwise a stone behavior, die andgo up and people sometimes it is the president of the united states himself. race is our issue. gender we were able to deal with. squeaky fromm, boom, we saved george h.w. bush. race among we are stuck. we knew 100 years before the

while thers, police let john mohammed go at least nine times, that racial profiles are problematic. question is, what can we do about it? weneed to keep doing what have just done in new york city where we passed the community what is a, because failure or for national security is a failure for neighborhood security. we need to focus on people's behavior, not on their race. ed last summer said derisively's officer working a neighborhood and he had a black and latino neighborhood and he had a suspect description of a race sucked -- rape suspect. he came across four young ladies sitting on a stoop, and said, have you seen this guy?

no.soaid, they then stopped and frisked then. law enforcement is not that different from anything else. if you do one thing, you're not doing something else, so you better be doing the right thing. if you are searching for a rape suspect and you decide to stop and check if these for girls have a joint in their pocket, you are no longer looking for the rape suspect. that is why new york city is on par with john j university in solving on the sides, because they distract their line officers too much. we have got to be aggressive against in our country about doing everything we can to stamp out discrimination. we got to have a frank conversation about it. we got to be clear to the young people that it is real and they

are wrestling it. there are studies done, one,eton, uscla did the one from princeton said it is easier for a young white male with a felony conviction history to find a job and a black male solemn or money -- similarly educated, such, with no convictions. the white guy with the rap sheet had an easier time than a lack did who has never been to jail. we got to dig into that. we have got to be clear about it and we need to stop pretending to the extent we do that racism is a thing of the past. the most important thing is we got to be willing to open our hearts and shift our mindset. i will close on this. years ago, i was in south- central los angeles, the 10th anniversary of the rodney king

riots. the person speaking before me was the honorable jack kemp. and jack was on fire that a. day.at he said, our kids, our kids, and he was talking about the kids in the neighborhood. and an older black woman standing next to me, waiting to go out, just after me, and she n, where's he from. i said, man, as jack can. i said, who is he from? i know what he did. answer my question. where is he from? i said, ma'am, i do not know, but i do not think it is south- central if that is your question. not thinkyeah, i did so. she said, whose kids is he talking about? i said i thought it is pointless that they are all our children because we are all americans,

and they are all american children. and shesaid, huh, thought about it. and that is what we need to think about. try it, try it for a week. try to describe to a child you read about in the newspaper or you wrote about, just to your family, without using all the thistives, and just say american kid, our kid, see how hard it is, see how ingrained it is to dehumanize someone who has come into the world perfect, a child, before we get around to talking about what the story actually was. thank you so much. it is an honor to be here. i am happy to take your questions. god bless. >> thank you. what you said about racial profiling -- a questioner wants

to know, if you set aside the moral debate, does profiling have any utility in a national security or local neighborhood security system question mark -- system? >> i understand the questions were written before the speech was given, but i hope my speech got to that point. racial profiling is problematic because it is morally wrong. it is unconstitutional. that should be the end of the conversation. it is ineffective from a law enforcement respecter. that is a -- there's something about my grandfather's were, my background is in criminology, and there is this notion called carnival theory, and it explains basically how terrible things happen when a well-funded network is involved. they can be a drug shipment, it bomb. a gordy

when you have a network that has certificate resources, ultimately a number of people who appear very differently to accept the mission. and before they deliver the actual package, they send decoys to see who gets through and who gets stopped, and that it is why it is not surprising that jose the shoe bomber or the young jewish american spokespersonlam that al qaeda had for some time, that we see this diverse the in the actual folks who either carry the message or carried a weapon. and so we have to understand that if you use a racial profile, you are giving the enemy a formula for success. >> thank you. policek city come

commissioner said the beneficiaries of stop and frisk are overwhelmingly members of minority groups. he said without a policy in place, people who live in minority communities are more likely to be homicide victims in the future. your response? should remember what he used a, what he said about a decade ago, that taking credit for a drop in crime, is like taking credit for an eclipse of the moon. or when he referred to stop and frisk as dubious tough on crime tactics. was against stop and frisk before he was for it and he was against it for all the right reasons. guest today.d is a he said voter id laws are rolling back civil rights gains since the march on washington. do you agree? >> read that carefully. yes, i do.

what are some of the biggest challenges in you face navigating roche -- racial profiling practices? >> the biggest obstacle i have has been in new york city, and the willingness of mayor bloomberg toured short to scare tactics. and i really hope some point he will apologize for what he has done. back up no evidence to his claims that people will die if we and racial profiling. what he has chosen to do is what demagogues have chosen to do in history, which is to strike fear in the hearts of people, to force them go in a direction rather than wrestle with the facts. when you look at the facts, the decline in homicides in new york city peaks are in the dinkins administration, false alter the giuliani administration.

it goes from about 2400 down to under a thousand. 800, 900. then it continues to fall during the bloomberg administration over the next 10 years. 3/4 of the drop in homicides occurred before you thousand two. second, the massive increases in stop and frisk happened after 2002. bloomberge loo administration, crime fell by 29%. there is no evidence for mayor bloomberg's claims. cticsesorting to scare ta was a shame. because he is one of the met wealthiest men in the city, because he is one of our future media moguls, for all those reasons bears live get responsibility to sick to the truth. in this case he deviated in ways

that slandered an entire generation of new york city's children, and it is just not acceptable. >> switching back to a subject, and terms of a petition regarding the trayvon martin case and the efforts, where does the naacp stand and has there been progress moving toward a civil suit? >> for the civil suit, i will refer you. that is a decision of the family, and the attorney is involved in that. he had been pushing for charges to be brought against mr. zimmerman, not unlike they have been brought against officers after the rodney king case and some of the under instances. doj is doing exactly what they should be doing, putting things together. some of the facts are in from of the, witness number nine, witness who was the member of torch zimmerman's own family,

aftealled uin just days r, who believe that george zimmerman had done racist things before and had committed crimes against her when he was a child. the young boys who lived in that gated community with him said they targeted him because of their race. he said came up with a patterns of calls he made over the years. in this case, we have delivered 1.7 million signatures to doj from a diverse range of people in this country who feel the same way. what specifically is the naacp doing to address your

ground laws? the primary tool of civil shifted.vocacy has it is primarily state-level legislation. our friends are focused on finding sponsors to introduce repeals to stand your ground laws. are pleased that we have been somewhat successful in blocking other laws from being passed. >> there are issues that pop up that bring raced back to the front pages. does it take something like trayvon martin to spur action or can there's something be done without something horrible happening to make people pay attention? >> a good example of how we get

work done without -- in the absence of a horrible case. marriage equality, abolishing the death penalty, extending voting rights, and so forth. with that said, the role of cases is often to galvanize millions of people in a particular generation. if you talk to older friends, they might slip and say till when they mean martin. the same thing in their salt. my generation white say right making -- rodney king. beengeneration has baptized like other generations. oftentimes the most harmful cases are the gateways to a great cause great so people come because theyement, are outraged over a case, something that they identify with, but they see when we work

together we can get a lot of great things done on that issue and many other issues they care about. >> turning to politics, what do stateink so many republican legislators having laws, andletter id is that turning blacks away from the republican party to the point where they never come back? specialnot claim any knowledge into the minds or hearts of men. a gop leader in pennsylvania made it clear, and he was putting voter id to skew the vote in favor of mitt romney and ostensibly all future republican candidates. what we know is voter id disproportionately impacts young people of all colors, because they are disproportionately poor, and people of all races,

they are more likely to move frequently or have been out of date id/ to your question about the rnc -- like mr. bond, i grew up in a family with a great sense of history, and part of that history was an appreciation for the party of lincoln and the role it had played historically. my daughter is named for peter morgan, who was born a slave and was the first class of blacks in the virginia house of delegates, my grandfather's great- republican, and the party has a proud legacy when it comes to civil rights. faustian made a bargain 40 years ago with the southern campaign. they are now being called to reckon for it because our country is becoming majority people of color and they need to ask themselves, can they survive

with that bargain, or do they need to go back to their roots, the party of lincoln, the frederick douglass as well. when i look at the public and governors, if you put their different planks together, they great gop civil rights agenda, in alabama, they are pushing for early childhood education, georgia and texas where they are downsizing the prison system. unfortunately, the party is not there yet, but i believe that as to evolvey continues in a way and we get closer to that vision of the great public douglass, he said our composite nationality that every country has a destiny and

its destiny is based on its character and its character is the five as how it did at its best, not its worst, and our geography is unique. we are bordered by two oceans that connect us to every country on the planet , and two borders that connect us to nations a very different races. based onour geography, our character, the most perfect example of human unanimity that we have every seen. that was yesterday's republican party. if it becomes tomorrow's public that'srepublican party, great. if not, their party will fall apart. twopeaking of, all but republican senators voted for passage of the civil rights bill, but no republicans were president yesterday at the march on washington. what does that say about the

focus on the republican party? >> i would have liked to have seen republicans speakers there, and there is a message that could have been brought. what i was heartened by was the message that sensenbrenner delivered to a republican gathering in recent days over at the rnc headquarters talking about his commitment to restore section four of the voting rights act. i am heartened by cantor in sending signals that he might support the same thing. i am hopeful that mr. boehner will look into his heart and into the eyes of john lewis and recognize on this one any sort of recent tradition of we do not put anything forward unless the majority of the party is in alignment, that in this case it might be worth it to let that be the exception to the role and the part and let the majority of the u.s. congress have its voice heard, because we believe when the time comes to the boat, the majority of the congress will be

fair to restore section four of the voting rights act. >> if you were to pick up a newspaper 50 years ago, you would find the speech on page 15. in the ap version of the story, the 19th paragraph. what would you say is the most reckon we similar situation 80th,with the news missing the big story because it is consumed on an angle a stone preconceived notions? a good question. how we talk about our weng people generally, how talk about our young people generally, i would talk our young people of color in particular, the president of the -- naacp, active in communities that nurtures and can transform people into

byders, i am always struck when it comes to our young people, our media too often is rules we should apply only to adults, we focus on thenegative, we focus sex, we focus on all those things, and in the process we encourage ourselves to be afraid of our own children. story that is missing -- you look at the dream defenders in on the, the young people movement in north carolina, you look like geniuses in a program, the mathematical whizzes who won the math component of that omx we put on our convention every year, and you realize there's leadership and power and genus in area people that we ignore too often, and we fail, therefore, to acknowledge and therefore encourage -- and our country has a vested interest in

just the opposite. >> congressman lewis is the last surviving speaker from 1963. julian bond -- who would think is in the next generation of civil rights leaders? >> you are going to get me disi nvited to a lot of parties. what i would say is that there are people in states across this country who are doing incredible work at the national -- that the national media should pay attention. if you cover criminal justice, you should know that head of the texas criminal justice coalition because last year she passed, working with the naacp, the tea party, and the legislators to support together 12 progressive ,erminal justice reform bills to shut down its first prison

ever. this year she passed 50. it should not take such ever and for that person to become well known. he has been leading in coming together for great success for a decade. a president of the florida state conference of the naacp, who last year, when the sheriffs showed up the tuesday after martin richard team day to put her people and the representative and the league of women voters in jail because the new law said if you had your voter registration forms out for more than 48 hours, you were either going to jail or paying a fine. many other groups shut down and filed a lawsuit that she took the risk anyway and she let her group in registering moring then 100 20,000 new voters -- more than 120,000 new voters. the present only one form up by

60,000 votes. as an old woman with a big hat and a wheelchair, who is responsible for that. the story is in the states right now when it comes the change in our country, and the heroes are in the states, and the people we know nationally, will invariably be there, a person from mississippi who is doing great work, these are folks who are willing transformative victories, people who stood up in maryland we said we cannot win marriage equality. he said we can. >> president clinton admonished those assembling yesterday to stop whining about the gridlock in washington because it is nothing new. naacpoals with the support that would garner bipartisan support? >> voting rights, voting rights, voting rights, voting rights, voting rights, voting rights, it

should not be partisan, and signals from sensenbrenner and cantor say it will not. as do the actions of the governor of michigan laster, when he vetoed a footer id -- a voter id bill, and the ash of governor mcdonnell when he ofked the century old man incarcerated people voting in burger now by empowering the nonviolent offenders to vote. the criminal justice reform is a big untold bipartisan story. there has been some fascination with -- and there is a flipside to that, which is the entire community has been working with states across the country to get these reforms through. and people, whether rick perry in texas who signed these bills or the governor in georgia who has played a more active role, a decade from now we will have

tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of families that are grateful because these very large prison systems are being aggressively redesigned in a way that will result in the most dangerous people eating in prison, but other folks like laundry file it -- like nonviolent drug offenders, it is more effective to use rehab instead of her incarceration, they will be in rehab and their families will not be broken up. there has been criticism that from the punditry circuit about the naacp not speaking out when there are black on white crime, such as the young man, black man who beat up a world war ii veteran in washington state. what do you say to that criticism, and also to the concerned that the naacp has a fractured has

goal because there are so many issues like immigration or gay rights you are also pursuing? say, inirst i would that case, it happened fairly recently. from what we could tell, people were arrested quickly, and there is not clear evidence there was a racial motivation. criticizedl is often for being slow on cases because we let things take their pace. we were criticized for not moving asked enough on trayvon martin as well. he take our time, and we got so outraged by trayvon aren't, because somebody killed him and he was not put in jail, and a person's own family member said that race was a factor. trust me, if those factors were at play in a washington- would speak out. we stood out when white people

are the victims of hate crimes, and we in many places are not just if you will do civil rights organization rooted in the black community, we are the only civil rights organizations in those communities, and we championed ill, andhew shepard b that is an example of the power wide concern. the depth of our concern existed from the beginning. in word "negro" meant black 1909. sometimes all the colors were the gross amount to. dubois, thereke was a distinction. dubois walked into a naacp board meeting and said we have to change our name. if you have ever been involved in a voluntary authorization,

one does not change your name. at a time our name was the national negro association. said our mission is broader than that. our mission is to overturn the system that says one group is on top and everybody else along the bottom. ireland,inking about india, i whole world in which he was involved, the continent of our issue ate said the bottom is with white supremacy. the new name would be the national organization for the advancement of color people. he wanted to lift everybody up. if youck douglass said believe majorities matter and i believe they do, then it should of the world is colored, and not white. that is where we start. wilkins -- roy wilkins was

on fire when people try to , during the 1963 march, and it motivated him because he was gay, loaded fated him to turn that many more assists. right after the march on pushingon, we were through the voting rights act, we got rid of the europe only preference, part of the grand coalition put together, we were all together. onlyt rid of the europe preference for immigration. we have always been for sensible immigration reform. new naacp is nothing but a renaissance of the old naacp and wereultiracial and multiracial in our family, and yet fueled by the anger and the specifice that these

oppression of black people in , and thety generates inspective that it seers your soul, that in order to have friends, you have to be a friend, and in a democracy, in order to win, you have to have a lot of friends. >> we're almost out of time, but the last question, a couple of housekeeping matters. our upcoming events. september 7, we will post the 16th annual be the deadline 5k. hortone features tony and erika gonzalez. more information, go to press.org. 7th, device chair of

the national governors association. november 11, the president of the charles schwab operation. before i ask the last question, i would like to present mr. jealous with the national press club traditional mug. >> thank you. they could. this will go next to the ones i saw at "face the nation." >> if dr. king were with us today, gone the obvious of lap president,t what do you think dr. king would be proud of? >> on this particular day, i think dr. king would be very proud that today, in dozens of cities across this country, hundreds of job sites, thousands of people are merrily young, young people, walked out demanding they receive more than seven dollars 25 cents per hour, because you cannot survive on seven dollars 25%.

you can still qualify for public assistance. thating in his heart good even with all the isms we deal name list is a we have into many of our hearts against the poor in this country is what wounds us most probably. and his last campaign, the poor people's campaign that he never quite finished, he intended to go to jail for years after massive civil disobedience to the sinfulto tolerance we have for the suffering of our fellow hard- working citizens in this country. to thehave not listened voices of those people who are walking out in cities across country, i encourage you

to go online and listen. they are inspiring. somebody in my family way back help form a union, and wages went back and generations went to college as a result. they are those people, they are the ones who are making are putting their ability to pay the rent on the line to make sure our country is equitable from the top down -- is not equitable from the top down, but from the bottom up. [applause] you, mr. jealous. i would also like to thank the national press club staff and the broadcast center for organizing today's events. you can find more information on the national press club on our website. thank you.

we are adjourned. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> we do have more live coverage coming up on c-span. we will take you to wilmington, delaware tonight for the last of the health-care town hall meetings. speakers will include a texas pastor and the father of texas uz.ator ted cr that will get underway tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. the president will meet with ranking members of the national security committee in a teleconference to talk about the way forward on syria.

the white house daily briefing is underway right now. a number of questions on syria. it continues on our companion network, c-span 2. john boehner sent a letter yesterday requesting president obama clearly articulate his objectives, policies, and strategies for any potential interventions in syria. he included a number of questions. what specific evidence does the u.s. have regarding the use of chemical weapons? a number of questions inside that letter. we will continue to follow that story and we will update you as more news becomes available. members of the british house of commons returned a few days early from their summer break to debate the u.k. response to syria after reports that the syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people.

hour, 15 ow you a 2 minute portion of the debate. you can see it in its entirety on c-span.org. thee began with members of house motion, motion number 1. the leader of the house to move the motion. thank you. say aye. we now come to the motion in the name of the prime minister relating to syria and the use of chemical weapons. the text of the motion submitted yesterday as it appears on the order paper was incorrect. a few words were omitted from line 16. thehese are purely factual, motion should be moved in a

corrected form. a copy of the motion in its corrected form is available in the vote office. i can inform the house that i have selected manuscript amendment b submitted this morning by a member of the leading opposition. the text is also available from the vote office. i should also inform the house that i have set a five minute limit on back bench speeches on the debate. to move the motion, i call the prime minister. >> i beg to move the motion standing on the order paper in my name and in the name of my honorable friends. thank you, mr. speaker, for approving requests. the question is how to respond to one of the most abhorrence uses of chemical weapons in a uses of-- abhorrent

chemical weapons in a century. it is not about innovating. it is not about regime change, or even working more closely with the opposition. it is about the large-scale use of chemical weapons and our response to a war crime, nothing else. in reaching our conclusions, let me set out with the house has in front of it today. we have a summary of the government's legal position, making it explicit that no action would have a legal basis at the moment. we have the legal basis from the joint intelligence committee. we have a motion from the government to set back a pass of steps that need to be taken before britain -- path of steps that need to be taken before britain can participate in any military action. they include another vote in

this house of commons. even if all of these steps are taken, anything we do would have to be legal, proportionate, and specifically focused on th determining and preventing any further use of chemical weapons. to publishou refuse site,ll attorney general especially when legal experts withoutng that explicit u.n. security tontine -- security council enforcement, it is not legal under international law. >> this government has changed that. we published a summary of the legal advice. with this issue, we published a clear summary of the legal advice. i would advise all right honorable members to read it.

i am deeply mindful. i will make some progress and i will take a huge number of interventions. i am deeply mindful of the lessons of previous conflicts. there are concerns in the country concerns about what went wrong in iraq in 2003. what we are seeing in syria is fundamentally different. we are not invading a country. we are not searching for chemical or biological weapons. the case for ultimately supporting action is not based on a specific piece or pieces of intelligence. the fact that the government has ishas used chemical weapons a fact. the syrian government said it took place. president hasan said it took place.

the fact that the syrian government use these weapons is right in front of our eyes. we have accounts of chemical- filled rockets being used. we have media reports and 95 different videos documenting the evidence. the difference between 2003 and the situation with iraq go right. europe is united in the position that we should not let this chemical weapons use stand. nato made a clear statement that those who are responsible should be held accountable. in 2003, the arab league was opposed to action. now are calling for it. they issued a statement calling the syrian regime fully responsible and asked the international community to take action against those who committed this crime. ago, i was of days expecting to oppose the

government. is my honorable friend aware that his determination to go down the route of the united toions and his willingness share it in this house will be helpful in making up my mind tonight. >> i want to unite as much of the country and as much of this house as possible. on these vital issues of national importance, we should seek the break this consensus. that is the right thing and we will continue to do that. mr. speaker, the president of the united states, barack obama, is a man who opposes the action. no one could describe him as a president who wants to evolve in america -- involve america in more wars in the middle east. he supports action in this case.

when i spoke to president obama last weekend, i said we shared his view about the despicable nature about the use of chemical weapons and we must not stand aside. i also explained to him that because of the damage done to public confidence by iraq, we would have to follow a series of incremental steps to build public confidence and it sure the maximum possible legitimacy for any action. these steps are all set out in a motion before the house today. i remember in 2003. i was sitting two rose from the back on the opposition bench. from thest -- rows back on the opposition bench. it was just two days after my son had been born. i wanted to believe the man standing here. the wealth of public opinion was to be poisoned by the iraq episode.

i understand the public skepticism. grateful to the prime minister for giving way. his motion tells me that everything with and it could have been debated on monday. this house has been recalled and i believe it was recalled in order to give cover for possible military action. has the prime minister made it clear to president obama that in no way does this country support in the attack that could come before the u.n. inspectors have done their job? this house to debate issues that are absolutely vital. it is this house that will decide what steps we next take if you agree to the motion i have sat down. no action can be taken until we have heard from the u.n. weapons

before there has been another vote in this house. those are the conditions that we, the british government, the british parliament, are setting. let's we -- let me make a little more progress and i will take interventions. cynicism makesc it a particular responsibility on me as a prime minister. that is why i wanted parliament recalled. i wanted this debate to bring the country together and not divide it. i included in the government motion all the issues i could that were raised by the leader of the opposition and by many colleagues on all sides of the i want us to try to have the greatest possible unity on this issue. i read the opposition motion carefully. it has much to commend it.

the importance of the process to the united nations. . quite right. is decisione motion in two by the respects. respects. the motion does not make it clear that the conditions were caused by chemical weapons. thend, in no way does opposition motion even begin to point the finger of blame at president assad. at odds with what has been said by nato and by the president of the united states. it is at odds with the judgment

of the independent intelligence committee. it would be the wrong message for this house to send to the world. myill be recommending that friends vote against it. mr. speaker, i thank my right honorable friend for giving way. can he confirm to the highs that were we to find overwhelming opposition in the general assembly and the majority against it in the security council, we would not just go along? >> it would be unthinkable to proceed if there were overwhelming opposition in the security council. the best route to follow is to have a chapter 7 resolution, take it to the u.n. security council, have it passed, and think about taking action. that was the path followed with

libya. it cannot be the case that that is the only way to have a legal basis for action. we should consider what the consequences will be. you could have a situation where the government was annihilating half of the people in that country, but because of one veto on the security council, you would be hampered from taking any action. i cannot think of any member of any party of that house who would want to sign up for that. we have the doctrine of humanitarian intervention set out in the attorney general's excellent legal advice to this house. my rightrateful to honorable friend and i am extremely grateful to him for taking the time to listen to the concerns about further british military intervention in the middle east. why is it that our allies in the middle east like saudi arabia, does not -- do not

have the military intervention falling on them? chemical weapons used by syria -- that is the only basis i would support action. we need countries that are capable of doing that. one from my honorable friend right here. not the u.n. in 2005 sign off on the responsibility to protect? if countries default in their responsibilities to defend their own citizens, the international community has a responsibility as a whole to defend those citizens. syria has defaulted on its responsibility to protect its citizens.

we have a responsibility to undertake what we have agreed to do just recently -- just as recently as 2005. >> let me be clear about what we are talking about today. yes, it is that doctrine. it is also about chemical weapons. it is about a treaty a whole world agreed to. the question before us, is britain the country that wants to uphold that international taboo against the use of chemical weapons? my argument is, yes, it should be that kind of country. we have onct is aions today -- there perception of the prepared this to get involved in this conflict before the turn incident. it has an impact on the decisions of the day.

is thecase i am making house of commons needs to consider this issue of a massive chemical weapons use by this regime. i am not argue that we should get more involved in this conflict. i am not arguing we should get involved with the rebels. is, isstion before us this 1925 agreement, post world maintaindo we want to that law? is it in britain potion of national interest to maintain an international taboo about the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield? my answer is yes. uptain was parts of drawing that protocol, which syria signed. let me take an intervention from the democratic union. >> there are many people in this house who do not believe this is

a prelude to actions that will see us involved in syria. there have already been 14 instances of the use of chemical weapons. 100,000 people dead. why is it only now that the prime minister thinks this is the time for greater intervention? >> the point for considering this tougher approach is we know there are 14 uses of chemical weapons. now we have this much larger use. this does seem to me and to president obama and to many time to do it is something to stand up on the prohibition against the use of chemical weapons. you cannot accuse me of rushing into something and on the other hand ask me why i have waited after 14 chemical weapons attacks to do something?

i want to explain what we know. i want to set out the paths we will follow. let me try to make some progress. that we set out what we know about what happened. in three hours on the morning of 21 august, three hospitals in the damascus area received 3600 patients with systems -- consistent with a chemical attack. it was some of the most sickening human suffering of mail -- imaginable. there was no way this could not have been chemical attacks, particularly in the behavior of small children. agentmed to be nerve exposure. anyone in this chamber who has not seen these videos should force themselves to watch them. you can never forget the sight

of children's bodies stored in ice. young men and women gasping for air and suffering agonizing deaths. the syrian regime has publicly admitted they were conducting a major operation in the area at that time. the regime resisted calls for unrestricted access for u.n. inspectors, while rocket fire in the area reached a level of around four times higher than the preceding 10 days. the forces took precautions normally associated with chemical weapons use. the joint intelligence committee has made its judgment. it has done so in line with the reforms put in place after the iraq war by sir robin butler. states,s a letter that there is little serious dispute

that the chemical attacks causing mass cavities on a large 21 august.place on there is no credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate the claim of the possession of chemical weapons by the opposition. it is not possible for the opposition to have carried out a chemical weapons attack on this scale. the regime has used chemical weapons on a smaller scale on at least 14 occasions in the past. highlyactors make it likely that the syrian regime was responsible. the chairman makes this point absolutely clear. there are no plausible regimetive scenarios for responsibility. i am not say that some piece of intelligence i have seen that the world will not see convinces

me that i am right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. this is a judgment. we all have to reach a judgment about what happened and who is responsible. from all the evidence we have, the fact that the opposition does not have chemical weapons and the regime does, the fact that they have used them and they were attacking the air at the time, that is enough to conclude the regime is responsible and should be held responses. >> i am grateful to the prime minister. what has convinced him? what is the evidence that an action by the international -- 100,000 dead. continuing refugees, action, which is totally destroyed in that country. what is the evidence that convinces them?

-- convinces him? is no 100% certainty about who is responsible. there is no 100% certainty of what -- about what action might succeed or fail. when we have a regime that has used chemical weapons on 14 occasions and is most likely responsible for this large scale attack, if nothing is done, it will conclude it can use these weapons again and again and on a larger scale and with impunity. talk about escalation. the biggest danger of escalation is if the world community, not just britain, but america and others, stands back and does nothing. the prime minister is making a very pro full and a heartfelt speech. -- powerful and heartfelt speech. there seems to be no logic to

this chemical attack. >> if he reads the conclusion, this is where they find the greatest difficulty of ascribing militants. a lot of motives have been .scribed the most likely possibility is that he has been testing the boundaries. he wants to know whether the world will respond to the use of these weapons, which i suspect are proving quite effective on the battlefield. we cannot know the mind of this brutal dictator. all we can do is make a judgment about whether it will be better or not to act. >> does he know if there were any plans for military action before next week? cannot discuss the

details of potato action in detail in front of this house. ie american president and have had discussions reported in the newspaper about potential military action. we have had those discussions. the american president would like to have allies alongside the united states with capability and with the partnership that britain and america has. we set out clearly what britain would need to see happen for us to take part in that. more action from the u.n., a inspectors. it will be decided by this government and by votes in this house of commons. >> i agree with the prime on ther with the -- floor of chemical weapons. of chemical weapons.

can he convince the house that military action by our country would shorten the civil war, help harold in a post-war government? ald in a post-war government? >> i cannot make those decisions. it would have to be action that is about determine the future use of chemical weapons. in the story. if we were aware of large-scale use of chemical weapons by the opposition, i would be making the same argument and the making the same recommendations. my honorableful to friend for supporting britain's tradition. we have always stood against mass murder. does my friend not agree that

there is a humanitarian case for intervention, especially after what happened in 1988 when 5000 killed with mustard gas? >> i applaud my friend for mass murder against wherever it occurs. the second part of my speeches to deal with the actions. is to deal with the actions. there should be no disagreement that the use of chemical weapons is wrong. the world came together to agree on the 1925 treaty and to outlaw the use of chemical weapons. there was a determination that the events of that war should never be repeated. weapons happens, these

should never been used. president assad has crossed that line and there should be consequences. taken together with the previous 14 small-scale attacks, it is the only instance of regular and indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by a state. interfering in another country's unfair should not be undertaken except in the most exceptional circumstances. it should be a humanitarian catastrophe and a last resort. this is a humanitarian catastrophe. if there are no consequences, there is nothing to stop president assad and other dictators from using these weapons again and again. doing nothing is a choice. it is a choice with consequences. these consequences would not just be about president assad and his future use of chemical weapons. decades of painstaking work to construct an international system of rules and checks to prevent the use of chemical

weapons and story stockpiles would be undone. a 100 year taboo would be breached. people ask about the british national interest. is it not in the british national interest the rules about chemical weapons should be of help? in my view, it is. notwithstanding the timing and approach to conflict, can i bring up the issue of consequences? whomever is is possible for the chemical weapons attack should know that they will face a court, whether it is the international criminal court or a war crimes tribunal in the future. whether there is intervention or not, somebody is responsible for a heinous crime and they should face the law. >> i certainly agree that people should be subject to an international criminal court. the use of criminal -- chemical weapons is a crime and should be prosecuted.

not a signatory to that treaty. that me make a little more progress and i will give way. i have consulted the attorney general. he has confirmed the use of chemical weapons in syria. i want to be clear about the process we followed. the weapons investigators in damascus should complete their work. they should brief the united nations security council. there should be a resolution backing all necessary measures. then and only then should we have a vote in this house backing military action. i do not need to repeat that again. i would urge my colleagues to read this advice, which i put in the library at the house of commons. that we keep one more time -- let me repeat one more time, we have not made a decision to act. if there would be a decision to

act, this advice would be legal. >> would he agree that our constituents across the house are concerned with becoming involved in another middle eastern conflicts. he is speaking specifically on the war crimes use of chemical weapons. it is a different matter from britain being involved in a middle eastern war. >> i completely agree with my right honorable friend. there is wariness in our country linked to the fact that people have difficult economic times to deal with. they are asking questions about why britain has to do so much in the world. we should reassure our constituents by saying this is about chemical weapons. this is not about intervention. this is not about getting involved in another middle east war. >> thank you very much.

mr. speaker, the prime minister said a moment ago in the hearing of the house that one of the is thes of any action great thing of the chemical theons capabilities of president assad regime. it would involve hundreds of ships and aircraft and hundreds of thousands -- thousands of ground troops. would his objective be in grading the chemical weapons capability? >> referring to them as my constituents is a take away. [laughter] point,s a very good

which is what i think the letter was addressing. you wanted to dismantle syria's weapons arsenal, that would be an enormous undertaking. that is not what is being proposed. what is being proposed, were we to take part, is an attempt to deter and degrade the future use of. i do not want to set out a list of targets. it would be perfectly simple and straightforward to think of actions you could take to control the use of chemical weapons and the people and buildings involved in that, which would be tar sand degrade. how can we be certain any action will work? deter and degrade.

done, we are more likely to see more chemical weapons used. >> grateful to the prime minister for giving way. the joint intelligence committee says theyotivation -- have a limited, but growing body of intelligence that says the regime was responsible. appreciate the prime minister cannot share such information with the house as a whole. the security committee has top- secret clearance to look precisely at this sort of material. as members of the committee, would he be member -- willing for members of the committee to see that material? >> i am happy to consider that request. the intelligence committee plays an important role. not want to raise the status of individual groups and

pieces of intelligence into some cult.religious there is an enormous amount of open source reporting. there are an enormous amount of videos we can see. the fact that they were attacking that area and the fact that they -- the opposition does not have those weapons or those delivery systems. yes, of course intelligence is part of this picture. let's not pretend there is one smoking piece of intelligence. this is a judgment issue and one in which honorable members will have to make a judgment. >> the reason many of us in parliament opposed the farming of the rebels was that there were atrocities committed -- opposed the arming of the rebels was that there were atrocities committed by both sides.

there was a real risk that the violence would escalate. by this would be escalated within the country and on the syrian border. i have not agreed on every aspect of syrian policy. that is well known. if we were to take action, it would be about degrading and deterring chemical weapons use. the greatest form of escalations we have in front of us is the danger of additional chemical weapons use. this debate, this issue is not arming theing -- rebels. it is about chemical weapons. >> the use of chemical weapons has made syria our business. does the prime minister agree with me to send a strong message

to president assad and others that the house condemns the use of chemical weapons and we will stand by our obligations to ?eter them our constituents as the most is where is the british national interest in all of this? there is a specific national interest relating to the chemical weapons use we have seen and preventing its escalation. more in ae way minute. i want to make some more progress. to address trying the questions people have. is not some choice between acting to prevent chemical weapons being used against the syrian people and on the other continuing to push for a long- term political solution.

we remain absolutely committed to using diplomacy to end this war with a political solution. for as long as president assad is able to defy international will and get away with chemical attacks on his people, he will fill little if any pressure to come to the negotiating -- feel little, if any, pressure to come to the negotiating table. far from undermining the political process, a strong reaction to the use of chemical weapons can strengthen that political process. >> one of the consequences of intervening will be the effect it will have on other countries in the region. my particular concern is yemen, which is the most unstable country in the area. have you looked at the consequences of what will have with enter -- what will happen with intervention and the affected will have on countries

like yemen? look at all of a the impacts on the region. this is the next question that needs to be answered. the region has already been affected by the war in syria. jordan is coping with a massive influx of refugees. turkey has suffered terrorist attacks and shelling from across the border. that is why the arab league has been so clear in condemning the action and attributing it precisely to present a sigh and calling for international action. this is a major difference with past crises we have had in the middle east. internationalr laws and people in countries that are prepared to stand up to them. constituentsmy

like those in the rest of the house wants to the prime minister to make clear on behalf of this country that we are not going to walk away from the illegal use of chemical weapons, but we are going to give peace a chance. he willassure us that continue to engage, however difficult, with russia and other key countries to try to make sure the u.n. route is productive and the diplomatic process is engaged again as soon as possible? >> i agree with my honorable friend. process oftinue the diplomatic engaged in. i saw president clinton on monday and had a long discussion onut this -- president putin monday and i had a long discussion with him about this issue. action, its any would be immediately taken over by running a political process

once again. britain will do everything in its power to make that happen. let me ask a final question that has been in the debate in recent days. the question is if this will risk radicalizing young muslims, particularly those in britain. this question was not asked a lot in 2003. this question was asked by the national security council yesterday. the counterterrorism experts say there is no room for complacency. the focus actions that will be proposed will not be a significant new cause for radicalism and extremism. young muslims in the region and in britain are looking at the pictures of muslims suffering in syria, suffering horrific deaths in syria. i will take one more intervention from the honorable gentleman. would he agree that on the

question from my right honorable friend on the humanitarian situation, not just as it might appear in the future, but as it happens now with thousands of refugees go into neighboring countries? how can we be absolutely sure aid agencies have said this is the worst situation , there are century problems in north africa. >> we should be proud in this house and this country of the mass of role that british aid money is playing to relieve this disastrous humanitarian situation. we will go on making that investment because we are saving lives and helping people every day. is the unfettered use of

chemical weapons going to make the humanitarian situation worse? i believe that it will. if there was a way of deterring and degrading future chemical weapons actions, it would be irresponsible not to do it. when you study the legal device published by the government, it makes the point that the intervention based on humanitarian protection has to be about saving lives. let me conclude where i began. the question before us is how to respond to one of the worst uses of chemical weapons in 100 years. we must do the right thing in the right way. it must be sure to learn the lessons of previous conflicts. we must pursue every avenue at the united nations, every diplomatic channel. we must recognize the skepticism and concern that many in the country will have after iraq, explaining carefully all of the ways this situation and the actions we take are so different. we must ensure that any action,

if it is to be taken, is proportional and specifically designed to deter the use of chemical weapons. we must ensure that any action is accompanied by a renewed effort to forge a political solution and relief humanitarian suffering in syria. at the same time, we must not previouspecter of mistakes paralyzed our ability to stand up for what is right. there will be no action without a further vote in this house of commons. on this issue, britain should not stand aside. we must play our part in a strong international response. we must be prepared to take a side of action. that is what this resolution is about. >> the question is the motion on syria and the use of chemical weapons has published in corrected form. to move his amendment, i called

the leader of the opposition, mr. ed miliband. -- a move in favor of the amendment. --re was a moral outrage this was a moral outrage. the international community is right to condemn it. everyone in this house and most people in the country will have seen the pictures of men, women, and children gasping for breath and dying as a result of this attack. i can assure members of this house that the divide that exists does not exist over the condemnation of the use of chemical weapons and the fact that it breaches international law. nor does it lie in the willingness to condemn the regime of president assad.

the question facing this house is what, if any, military action we should take and what criteria should determine that decision? that is what i want to focus on in my speech today. it is right to say at the beginning of my remarks that the prime minister said a couple of times in his speech worse to the effect of, we are not going to get further involved -- words to the effect of, we are not going to get further involved in that conflict. i have to say, that is simply not the case. that does not rule out intervention. i do not think anybody in this house or anybody in the country should be under any illusions about the effect of our relationship to the conflict in syria if we were to militarily intervene. that does not rule out intervention. aboutd to be clear eyed

the impact this would have. , mr. speaker,y that this is one of the most solemn duties this house possesses. simpleoutline the question, which is out of holding international law and legitimacy, how can we make the lives of the syrian people better. the duty we owe to the of our military and their families, who will suffer the consequences of any decisions we make. the basis on which we make this decision is of fundamental importance. it determines the legitimacy and moral authority of any actions we undertake. that is why our amendment asks

the house to support a clear a legitimate road map for decisions on this issue. judge anyable us to recommended international action. i wanted to develop the argument about why the san quentin road map is the right thing for the house to support today -- sequential road map is the right thing for the house to support today. if we take action, we will follow the right, legitimate, and legal course, not an artificial or political timetable set elsewhere. that is important for any decision we make. this is fundamental to the principles of britain, a belief in the rule of law, a belief that any military action we take must be justified and we must train every sinew to make international institutions were to deal with the outrages in

syria. this is where the prime minister and i now agree. we must let the u.n. weapons inspectors do their work. secretaryn, the u.n. general, said that them do their work. we will have the support to the -- report to the security council. the weapons inspectors are in the midst of their work and will be reporting in the coming days. for this house, it is surely a basic point. evidence should proceed decision, not decision precede evidence. -- evidence should precede decisions, not decisions precede evidence. the weapons inspectors cannot reach a judgment on the attribution of blame.

that is beyond their mandate. some might state that makes their work essentially irrelevant. i disagree. if the u.n. weapons inspectors conclude that chemical weapons have been used, in the eyes of this country and the world, that concurs legitimacy on the findings beyond any list -- any country or intelligence agency. it is possible that what the weapons inspectors discovered could give the world wider confidence in identify the perpetrators of this horrific attack. there could be compelling evidence that the syrian -- the present assad regime is responsible for the attack. of course, as the prime minister said, there is always room for doubt. the greater the weight of evidence, the better. there was proof of regime culpability. we will wait -- await publication of that evidence.

that evidence will be important in building up the body of evidence that president assad was responsible. >> he has said he might be able to support military action of the kind the government is contemplating. he is put in his -- has put in his amendment a list of requirements, which also appear in the government also own motion. why can he support the government's motion in order that this house can speak with a united voice to the world? remarksl develop in my why i do not think that is the case. i will point to the fact that the government amendment does not mention compelling evidence against president assad. i am developing my remarks on the fifth point in our amendment, which is important. the basis in which we judge that actions that can be taken as consequences. in light of the weapons

inspectors' findings and other evidence, the u.n. security council should been -- and then debate on what should take place. i have heard it suggested we should have a united nations moment. those are certainly not my words. those words do no justice to the seriousness with which we must take the united nations. the united nations is not an inconvenient sideshow. we want to adhere to the principle of international law. agree with his doctrine that evidence should precede decisions. can he tell the house whether he believes that the evidence being presented to us today by the joint intelligence committee is compelling or not? >> it is important evidence. we need to gather further evidence in the coming days to

persuade the internet security and people in this country of president assad's culpability. that is important. that may come to his earlier point. i am clear about the fact that we have to learn the lessons about iraq. of course we have to learn those lessons. one of the most important lessons is the respect for the united nations. let me say, on the question of the security council, mr. speaker. i am also clear that it is incumbent on us to try to build the widest level of support, whatever the intention of particular countries. the level of international support is vital if we should decide to take military action. it is vital in the eyes of the world. the u.n. cannot be seen as a parthow, but has a special in building the case if intervention takes place. >> i thank the leader of the intervention for giving way.

he is right that the security council should not be a sideshow. why does he say the security council should have voted on the matter? to thatl come directly question. i will come directly to that question. there will be those who argue that in the event of russia and resolutionng the that any action would not be legitimate. de there is a proper case ma that actions will be taken without a security council -- mr. speaker, the prime minister did not go into much detail of the attorney general's legal advice. in the attorney general's legal

advice, there are three important conditions. conventional evidence accepted by the international community as a whole, objectively clear that there is no practical alternative to the use of force if lives have to be saved. that is a condition we need to test in the coming days. third, the proposed use of force that is proportional and limited in time. it is important for the house to understand this. there could be circumstances in the absence of a chapter 7 security council resolution 4 actions to be taken subject to those three conditions. that is the case that must be built over the coming peroid. in the upcoming period. >> i could have gone into more detail on the attorney general's advice.

the leader of the opposition mentioned the three conditions. the very next sentence is that all three conditions would clearly be met in this case. >> that is the attorney general's view. that is the view that needs to be tested out over the coming period. that is a judgment that have to be made. speaker, the mr. responsibility to protect the man's a reasonable prospect of responsibility to protect and a reasonable prospect of success. this takes me to the final point of the road map we have proposed. i am referring to the fourth paragraph of our road map. he has touched on any action

must be legal, proportionate, and time limited. he goes on to say it has achievable objectives. could he detail what those objectives are? thatam coming back to point. the government needs to set that out in the coming days. that takes me to the final point of the road map. any military action should be designed to deter the future use of military weapons. pitcher action would require further recourse in this house. mr. speaker, we must in -- further action would require further recourse in this house. the responsibility for that rests with the parties in that conflict and president assad. the international community also has a duty to do all it can before the geneva ii process.

any action must assist the process and not hinder it. that is a responsibility that lies on the government in the upcoming period, the government and its allies to set there will be some in this house who say that britain should not contemplate action even when it is limited, because we do not know precisely the consequences that will follow. as i said, i am not with those who rule out action, and the horrific events unfolding in syria ask us to consider all available options, but we owe it to the syrian people, to our own country and to the future security of our world to scrutinise any plans on the basis of the consequences they will have. by setting a framework today, we give ourselves time and space to scrutinise what is being proposed by the government, to see what the implications are. >> for the sake of clarity for the house, can the right honorable gentleman tell us

whether, if there was no un security council resolution, the labour opposition would back military intervention? >> it depends on the case that has been set out and the extent to which international support has been developed -- i say to honorable members on the government benches who are making strange noises that it is right to go about this process in a calm and measured way. if people are asking me today to say, "yes, now, let us take military action," i am not going to say that, but neither am i going to rule out military action, because we have to proceed on the basis of evidence and the consensus and support that can be built. >> the honorable member for hampstead and kilburn asked an

important question that i feel the right honorable gentleman did not answer fully. paragraph e of the motion amendment refers to "precise and achievable objectives," which i assume means that he has in mind precise and achievable objectives. can he please detail what they would be? >> yes, i can, because the amendment goes on to say, "designed to deter the future use of prohibited chemical weapons in syria." paragraph e also states that "such action must have regard to the potential consequences in the region," so any proposed action to deter the use of chemical weapons must be judged against the consequences that will follow. further work by the government is necessary to set out what those consequences would be. >> on consequences, i am listening carefully to the leader of the opposition and he is effectively making a strong case against military action. the consequences of the military

action envisaged are very unquantifiable, because the objectives are, frankly, pretty soft in terms of degrading and deterring and the link between military effect and the actual effect on the ground. he has also linked this to the consequences for the geneva ii process, which can only be negative. >> i am saying to the honorable gentleman and the house that over the coming period, we have to assess in a calm and measured way -- not in a knee-jerk way, and not on a political timetable whether the advantages of potential action, whether such action can be taken on the basis of legitimacy and international law, and what the consequences would be. >> listening to the right honorable gentleman's speech, any reasonable human being would assume that he is looking to divide the house for political advantage. what has happened to the national interest? >> that intervention is not worthy of the honorable gentleman.

i am merely trying to set out a framework for decision for the house. my interest all along has been to ensure that the house of the commons can make the decision, and do so when the evidence is available. some in the house believe that the decision is simple -- clearly there are such members on the government benches. some think we can make the decision now to engage in military conflict. equally, others believe we can rule out military conflict now. i happen to think that we must assess the evidence over the coming period. that is the right thing to do, and our road map sets out how we would do it. >> it is one thing to not rule out military action, but is not the problem with the government's motion that it asks for an in-principle vote for military action now, before we hear what the inspectors say and before the un processes take place? >> i say to my honorable friend

and the house that this morning, it was noticeable that the government motion would be presented, if it was voted for this is an important point -- as the house endorsing the principle of military action. that is why i do not feel ready to support the government motion, and why i believe the opposition amendment, which sets out a framework for decision, is the right thing to vote for. >> will the right honorable gentleman give way? >> will the right honorable gentleman give way? >> i will give way. >> will the right honorable gentleman confirm that in advance of previous conflicts, such as the intervention in afghanistan, political parties in the house were briefed in detail, and on privy council terms, on the nature of the evidence on why there should be intervention? can he confirm that there have been no such briefings in advance of this vote? >> i have had the benefit of briefings with the prime

minister, but i am sure that he, having heard the honorable gentleman's intervention, will want to extend that facility to him and other minority parties. >> will the right honorable gentleman give way? >> i will not give way. as i was saying, by setting this framework today, we will give ourselves the time and space to assess the impact that any intervention will have on the syrian people, and to assess the framework of international law and legitimacy. as i have said, i do not believe that we should be rushed to judgment on this question on a political timetable set elsewhere. in the coming days, the government have a responsibility, building on what the prime minister did today -- but it is also more than what he did today -- to set out their case on why the benefits of intervention and action outweigh the benefits of not acting. >> will the right honorable gentleman give way? >> no, i want to make this point. i do not rule out supporting the prime minister, but i believe he must make a better case than he has made today on this question. frankly, he cannot say to the house and to the country that

the government motion would not change our stance on syria or our involvement in the syrian conflict. it would, and the house needs to assess that. our amendment sets out a roadmap from evidence to decision that i believe can command the confidence of the house and the british public. crucially, the amendment would place responsibility for the judgment on the achievement of the criteria for action -- reporting by the weapons inspectors, compelling evidence, the vote in the security council, the legal base, and the prospect of successful action -- with this house in a subsequent vote. i hope the house can unite around our amendment, because i believe it captures a view shared on both sides of the house, both about our anger at the attack on innocent civilians, and about a coherent framework for making the decision on how we respond. >> can i thank my right

honorable friend and the shadow foreign secretary for the measured approach that they are taking on this very serious issue? does my right honorable friend agree that any reckless or irresponsible action could lead to full war in that area? we must understand from previous conflicts that war is not some sort of hokey-cokey concept, once you're in, you're in. >> that is why there must not be a rush to judgment -- my honorable friend is entirely right. >> the right honorable gentleman speaks of a road map. does he not appreciate that the first stage in our response to the atrocities is what we do in the chamber this afternoon? given that his perfectly legitimate concerns about consequences, evidence and so on are met by the government motion, may i urge him to support the motion so that we can send a united, strong message to assad and others? otherwise, we will undermine our national security. >> we will not support a government motion that was briefed this morning as setting

out an in-principle decision to take military action. that would be the wrong thing to do, and on that basis we will oppose the motion. we could only support military action, and should only make the decision to do so, when and if the conditions of our amendment were met. we all know that stability cannot be achieved by military means alone. the continued turmoil in the country and the region in recent months and years further demonstrates the need to ensure that we uphold the fate of innocent civilians, the national interest and the security and future prosperity of the whole region and the world. i know that the whole house recognises that this will not and cannot be achieved through a military solution. whatever our disagreements today, labour members stand ready to play our part in supporting measures to improve the prospects for peace in syria and the middle east -- it is what the people of britain and the world have the right to expect. but this is a very grave decision, and it should be

treated as such by this house, and it will be treated as such by this country. the fundamental test will be this -- as we think about the men, women and children who have been subjected to this atrocity and about the prospects for other citizens in syria, can the international community act in a lawful and legitimate way that will help them and prevent further suffering? the seriousness of our deliberations should match the significance of the decision we face, which is why i urge the house to support our amendment. >> no fewer than 99 right honorable and honorable members are seeking to catch my eye, meaning that necessarily large numbers of colleagues will be disappointed. as always, the chair will do its best to accommodate the level of interest, but it will not be assisted by members coming up to

it to ask whether and, if so, when they will be called. i ask members please not to do so -- calmness and patience are required. >> on a point of order, mr. speaker. >> the prime minister -- or, at least, a spokesperson -- told the media yesterday morning that a un resolution was to be circulated in the afternoon. i believe that it was, but when i asked the library for the text neither it nor the foreign office was available to provide it. will you, mr. speaker, look into that? >> the right honorable lady is an immensely experienced member she is now into her 26th year, she started extremely young -- and she knows that that is not a matter for the chair. she has candidly aired her concern, and the prime minister and other members on the treasury bench will have heard

what she had to say. >> i've listened in the most charitable manner i could to the leader of the opposition explaining why he cannot support the motion. given that the government responded not simply to his request but to those made by members on the government benches to wait until the inspectors had completed their task and to enable the security council to consider the consequences, we and the country can only conclude that the right honorable gentleman is incapable of taking yes for an answer. i want to use the short time available to me to concentrate on one set of words -- a reasonable phrase -- in his amendment -- the need for "compelling evidence" of the assad regime's responsibility for the chemical attacks. we should be clear what "compelling evidence" means. nothing could ever be proven 100%.

if someone charged with murder before our courts, he can be convicted if the jury is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. that does not require someone to say, "i saw him pull the trigger." sometimes -- usually -- that is not available. when we look at the situation in regard to the use of chemical weapons in syria, what we know for certain -- it is not in dispute -- is that chemical weapons were used. the assad regime themselves admit that. we know that such weapons were used in the middle of a sustained artillery attack by the syrian government forces on the very suburb in damascus where the chemical attacks then took place. we know that the syrian government are the only state in the middle east that has massive stocks of chemical weapons, and we know that there cannot have been any ethical objection on the part of the assad regime to

using chemical weapons, not just because they have probably used them before, but because any regime that slaughters 100,000 of its own citizens clearly would have no compunction in using chemical weapons as well. >> when the right honorable and learned gentleman says that we know that syria is the only country in the middle east that possesses stocks of chemical weapons, would he draw attention to the use by israel of illegal chemical weapons in gaza -- white phosphorus? surely israel, too, has such weapons, and we should take that into account in looking at the spectrum. >> let us use another occasion, if we may, to debate these important allegations. the issue is that the syrian government themselves do not deny that they have massive stocks of chemical weapons, and therefore the issue is whether

there is any credible argument that on this particular occasion, in a district controlled by the opposition, the opposition somehow had both the capability and the will, and indeed did carry out this attack. the inspectors' reports will be helpful in two respects, i hope. first, they will give confirmation of the scale of this chemical attack. if only three or four people die, it could be argued that somebody could have been carrying around a bag of chemical agent and dispersed it, as happened in the tokyo underground a good number of years ago. but when there are not just 300 people dying, but more than 3,000 people treated by medecins sans frontieres, clearly this was a massive chemical weapons attack which required rockets and a capability which, as we have heard, no one else in syria has now or is likely to have in the short to medium term. against that background, the

inspectors could provide us with some helpful additional information. the question then becomes, what is the purpose if military action is taken? it is not only going to be limited, as the prime minister has rightly said, but it has one overwhelming purpose, which has to be to deter further acts of the use of chemical weapons by the assad regime. let me be quite emphatic about this -- i hope no one would argue otherwise -- that at this very moment, the assad regime in damascus are watching very carefully to see whether they will get away with what they have done. if they get away with it, if there is no international response of a significant kind, we can be absolutely certain that the forces within damascus will be successful in saying, "we must continue to use these whenever there is a military rationale for doing so." there is no guarantee that a military strike against military targets will work, but there is every certainty that if we do not make that effort to punish

and deter, these actions will indeed continue. the other point that must concentrate all our minds very comprehensively is that a failure to act is not in itself an absence of a decision. it has profound other consequences, not just the ones i have mentioned, and most profound for the united nations itself. the league of nations effectively collapsed in the 1930's when germany and italy effectively prevented any sanctions or other action being taken against italy for the invasion of abyssinia. that, together with other similar acts of aggression which the league could not handle because of the absence of unanimity, created a chaos which led to the second world war. so if we can take action that has the support of arab states and of the bulk of the international community, far from suffering, the united nations and the concept of international institutions and the international community

acting to deal with such acts of aggression will be boosted in a way that would not happen through any other course of action. i believe that what is being recommended and will come back to this house is not only overwhelmingly in the interests of innocent syrian men, women and children, but is far more likely to boost the concept of international action to deal with gross atrocities and violations of human rights than simply wringing our hands, protesting at the action but failing to make any effective response to it. >> i was the final speaker in the debate in this house on 18 march 2003 on the resolution in which i had recommended to the house that we should take military action against the saddam hussein regime. that resolution was passed by 412 votes to 149. i have set out in detail elsewhere how i came to the conclusion that war against

saddam hussein was justified, on the basis of information that was then available and of widely shared international judgments about the threats posed by the regime. but whatever the justification on 18 march 2003, the fact was that there was an egregious intelligence failure, and it has had profound consequences, not only across the middle east but in british politics, through the fraying of those bonds of trust between the electors and the elected that are so essential to a healthy democracy. iraq has not, however, meant that the british public or, still less, this house has become pacifist. two years ago, the house and the public approved action against the gaddafi regime. the need for that action to prevent a massacre in and around benghazi was palpable. it was approved by the security council and it was plainly lawful. but iraq has made the public

much more questioning and more worried about whether we should put troops in harm's way, especially when intelligence is involved. the question before us now is whether the use of chemical weapons changes the considerations that, up to now, have determined that we should not intervene militarily in syria. we need to decide whether, as the government motion proposes, a "strong humanitarian response" to the use of chemical weapons may, if necessary, "require military action" by the united kingdom's armed forces. my conclusion at the moment is that the government have yet to prove their case. i think we are clear that chemical weapons were used, but we will get more information on that from the inspectors. we are also pretty clear that culpability for that is likely to have been with the assad

regime, but i say to the prime minister and to my right honorable friends on the opposition front bench that there was also very strong evidence about what we all thought saddam held -- no, he had held an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and the issue was much more one of what we should do about that than of a widespread sharing of the assessment by the security council that saddam posed a threat to international peace and security. >> the right honorable gentleman described iraq as an intelligence failure, but what actually happened was that tony blair said in this house that the information was "extensive, detailed, and authoritative," yet it later turned out to be limited, sporadic and patchy. that was the assessment of the intelligence services. it was not an intelligence failure, it was a political failure.

>> we can debate the iraq inquiries at another date, and i am sure that we shall do so. i accept my responsibilities fully for what happened in respect of iraq. i have sought, both before the iraq inquiry and elsewhere, to explain why i came to my conclusion. i simply make the point, which is widely shared across the house, that one of the consequences of the intelligence failure on iraq has been to raise the bar that we have to get over when the question of military action arises. >> will my friend agree that the house was told that there were weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the united kingdom, and we were also told, in 2006, that we were going into helmand province in the hope that not a shot would be fired? does my right honorable friend

acknowledge that the result of accepting those decisions has been the deaths of 623 of our brave soldiers? does he not realize that those are the reasons that the public no longer trusts government assurances about going to war? >> with respect to my honorable friend, the arguments about afghanistan, then and now, are very different. there will be other occasions to debate that matter. even if there is compelling evidence on culpability, the bigger question arises of the strategic objective of any military action and its likely consequences. the prime minister has accepted that such strikes would not significantly degrade the chemical weapons capability of the assad regime. we need to be clear about that. the right honorable and learned member for kensington spoke about trying to take that capability down.

however, if the first set of strikes failed to do that -- the prime minister seemed to accept that they would be more by way of punishment and deterrence, rather than a degrading of the capability -- what would happen after that? we all know -- i bear the scars of this -- how easy it is to get into military action, but how difficult it is to get out of it. there is also the issue of precisely what is the objective of the action. the case seems to veer between the alleviation of human suffering and some sort of warning for or punishment of the assad regime. if the prime minister comes back to the house to recommend military action, he must be clear about precisely what the purposes are. this morning, we woke up to hear the president of the united states, barack obama, saying that by acting in "a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot

across" assad's bow. let us pause and consider the metaphor that was chosen by the president, because it is revealing. a shot across the bow is a warning that causes no damage and no casualties -- shells fired over the bridge of a naval vessel. in this case, it might be a tomahawk missile that is targeted to fly over damascus and land in the unoccupied deserts beyond. this cannot be what the president has in mind. we need to know what he really has in mind and what the consequences of that will be. there will be casualties from any military action -- some military and almost certainly many civilian. i have one last point to put to the prime minister. he sought to draw a distinction

in his speech between our response to war crimes and taking sides in the conflict. however much he struggles to make that distinction, let us be clear that if we take an active part in military action, which i do not rule out, we shall be taking sides. there is no escape from that. we shall be joining with the rebels, with all the consequences that arise from that, and not maintaining a position of neutrality. >> there are a number of things on which the house will be generally agreed upon. the first is that, for whatever reason, there is widespread scepticism among the british public about any further military involvement overseas. there have to be a number of questions need to be answered before we become involved in any form of military action.

the first is what a good outcome looks like, the second is whether such an outcome can be engineered, the third is whether we will be part of engineering such an outcome, and the fourth is how much of the eventual outcome do we want to have ownership of. i do not believe that we can answer any of those questions to our satisfaction with regard to the civil war in syria. i believe that that is why the british public are deeply sceptical about our being involved in that civil war in any way, shape or form. i share that scepticism. i also believe that there is no national interest for the united kingdom in taking a side in that civil war. to exchange an iran-friendly and hezbollah-friendly assad regime for an anti-west, anti-christian and anti-israel al qaeda regime does not seem to offer us any advantage to us. however, that is not the issue before us today. there is a separate issue on

which we need to have great clarity, which is how we respond to a regime that has used chemical weapons against its own civilian population -- something that is against international law and is a war crime. i believe that the pictures we have seen in recent days have shocked us, even in our desensitised age. the pictures of toddlers laid out in rows was, and should be, deeply disturbing to all of us. the question is whether we are willing to tolerate more such pictures and, if not, how we go about minimising the risk of such pictures coming to our screens in the future. it is true that if we take action against the assad regime

we cannot guarantee that they will not do something, or similar things, again in the future, but i believe it will minimise the risk and shows the people of syria that we are on their side and that the rest of the world is serious about its obligations in enforcing the existing law about the use of chemical weapons. much of the debate has focused on the consequences of taking action, but we must also focus on the consequences of not taking action. does it make the syrian people more or less safe from the use of such weapons in the future? on the implications for the syrian regime, does it make it feel that it is more or less secure in taking such actions again in the future? on regimes in other parts of the world that might decide to use chemical weapons against their domestic populations, what

signal would we send them about the international community's willingness to stop such use in future if we do nothing? let us also not forget the onlookers in this -- iran -- who have their own nuclear intentions and are intent on testing the will of the international community. >> i accept many of the points that the right honorable gentleman is making, but many opposition and, i think, government members would say that this is not a choice between action and inaction, it is simply a choice of what action should be taken. some of us worry that military action might exacerbate the situation, rather than make it better, and draw us into mission creep, over which we would have very little control. >> i entirely understand the honorable gentleman's point, which is valid. as the prime minister said, it is a judgment call. it is incumbent on those who take these decisions ultimately to determine whether they think it is more likely that we will

be drawn into such a conflict or whether we will achieve the objectives without that happening. that is a matter for legitimate debate in the house. i believe that if we do not take action -- and that probably means military action -- the credibility of the international community will be greatly damaged. what value would red lines have in the future if we are unwilling to implement those that already exist? >> i will give way once more, to my honorable friend here. >> i thank my right honorable friend for giving way. does he agree that if we do nothing and stand by and watch as the horrific atrocities described by the prime minister take place, it will be as if we agree with these chemical weapons that have been spread across syria? >> if we do nothing i believe it would be an abdication of our international, legal, and moral obligations, which we should take extremely seriously. let me say briefly one other

thing. the government should be commended for taking the united nations route. it is right and proper that we do so and that the appropriate amount of time is given to consideration, but that comes with a caveat. it is clear that russia has military interests in the port of tartus and that it still feels very sore about its belief that it was sold a pup over libya. we are not likely to get russian support in the security council, nor are we likely to get chinese support there, either. we cannot allow a situation where the international community's ability to implement international law is thwarted by a constant veto by russia and china. therefore, i think we should be deeply grateful to the attorney general for the clarity of the advice that he has set out on how we can carry forward our international humanitarian obligations were such a

situation to present itself. let us be very clear that to do nothing will be interpreted in damascus as appeasement of a dreadful regime and the dreadful actions it has carried out. appeasement has never worked to further the cause of peace in the past, and it will not now, and it will not in the future. >> i rise to speak in favour of the amendment tabled by my right honorable friend the leader of the opposition. i was a member of the cabinet that decided in good faith that this country should join the invasion of iraq, and i know how heavy the burden is on those who are charged with such a decision. i also agree that, in many

cases, doing nothing is as much a decision as doing something and that the present catastrophe in syria demands a decision of us. as has been said, the use of chemical weapons is prohibited by customary international law and binding conventions. short of the use of nuclear weapons, it is the most heinous crime a country can commit, made even more dreadful when chemical weapons are used in civil war on its own people. i am therefore unhesitatingly in favour of taking the step that will deal as effectively as we can with assad. but what is that step? what is our locus? how can we be effective, and at

what cost? i want to deal with the last question first. the cost in human suffering and human life is clear, but there is another long-term cost -- the damage that we may do to the rule of international law in international affairs. it is obviously deeply frustrating that russia and china have formed a blocking minority in the security council, and i know that members will want to reinforce the importance of diplomatic initiatives to seek to engage russia, in particular, in negotiation with the syrian government. however, it is also clear that to go to war with assad -- that is what it would be -- without the sanction of a un security council resolution would set a terrible precedent.

after the mission creep of the libyan operation, it would amount to nothing less than a clear statement by the u.s. and its allies that we were the arbiters of international right and wrong when we felt that right was on our side. what could we do or say if, at some point, the russians or chinese adopted a similar argument? what could we say if they attacked a country without a un resolution because they claimed it was right and cited our action as a precedent? these threats may not amount to much, but it is all we have. it remains our best hope, and we cast it aside at terrible peril, hence the importance of the route map set out in the opposition amendment. i welcome the decision that the

government have now made to take no action until the un inspectors have delivered their report, but if or when it is proved conclusively that assad has used chemical weapons on his people, what can we do to prevent him from doing that again? there will perhaps be time in the future to bring him before the international criminal court, but in practical terms, what can we do, even if we are able to get a un security council resolution? here is what the us chairman of the joint chiefs of staff wrote to the senate armed services committee last month -- we are all grateful for the excellent briefing by the library -- about having examined five options. he said that controlling

chemical weapons would involve billions of dollars each month and involve risks that "not all chemical weapons would be controlled, extremists could gain better access to remaining weapons, similar risks to no-fly zone but with the added risk to troops on the ground." the situation is parlous, and -- >> it is no secret that, notwithstanding the horrors of damascus, i have reservations about the use of military action in the circumstances with which we are engaged. in particular, i have reservations relating to the absence of a proper role for the united nations. however, as the government motion now sets out, there is a role for the inspectors, there is a duty imposed on the secretary-general, and there is

an endorsement to use every effort to secure a united nations security council resolution under chapter vii of its charter. in addition, and i will come back to this in a moment, the motion also provides that for all of us -- supporters, sceptics, or opponents -- there will be an opportunity to pass judgment on any question of british involvement at a further stage when, not surprisingly perhaps, rather more information may be available. >> does my right honorable and learned friend agree that for some of us at least, tonight's vote will not predetermine that we are satisfied at the next stage that there is a coherent plan that does not inflict too much damage on neighbouring countries? >> i think my right honorable friend is referring, by way of inference, to the suggestion that there has been briefing

that those who voted for the government motion would be endorsing in principle military action. most of us have been around here long enough to know how often briefing is a long way from the truth. anyone who is in any doubt about that should read the precise terms of the government's motion. the effort to achieve a resolution under chapter vii is a vital component of the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, because if no such resolution is achieved -- here, i agree with the attorney- general -- we turn to what was once called humanitarian intervention and now is called responsibility to protect. it is a fundamental of that doctrine that every possible political and diplomatic alternative will have been explored and found not to be capable.

i want to applaud, if i may, mr speaker, the house for taking the unusual step -- in my view wholly justified -- of publishing the attorney- general's advice. those of us with long memories will remember that 10 years ago we were not favoured with anything like as much detail. it is also worth pointing out that there was no second vote 10 years ago. within 24 hours of the motion being passed by the house endorsing the labour government's proposals, the tomahawk cruise missiles began to rain down on baghdad. it respectfully seems to me that we need to examine the matter not in response to the emotion that it undoubtedly engenders in all of us. emotion is no substitution for judgment in matters of this kind.

we must look beyond what might be achieved in the short term, to the medium term and the long term. >> the right honorable and learned gentleman spoke a moment ago of the responsibility to protect. one of the criteria is the prospects of success. is he satisfied with the objectives of this action and the prospects of success on those objectives? >> we cannot arrive at a conclusion on the prospects of success until we have more information than is currently available. the honorable gentleman is right. i should have mentioned that the prospect of success is a part of that evolving doctrine. we should also remember that the doctrine is not universally accepted, and that the mere use of it is, on occasion, regarded as highly controversial. i rather fancy that at the g-20 summit in st. petersburg next week the doctrine of the

responsibility to protect may not get considerable support. my questions, which i do not expect to be answered but i hope will lie on the table, are these -- will military action bring the geneva conference any closer? is it more likely to produce the political settlement that everyone believes is necessary? although a strategic objective is set out, i hope i might be forgiven for thinking that military action is more of a tactic than a strategic imperative. that is why we must give consideration to the end game, to use a colloquialism, and in particular to the whole issue of regional stability -- what the consequences might be in an already very unstable region. what would happen were the next

horror to be carried out by some conventional means? what would our response be in the light of the fact that, for two years or so, a number of horrors have been brought about by the use of conventional weapons? my concern is that if we open the gate once, it will be difficult to close it. i have read the motion and opposition amendment and i believe that both are motivated by the same determination to do what is right and to see that the house endorses everything that is right. however, i have to confess that, even following the most narrow textual analysis, i can find no difference of substance or principle anywhere in the two offerings. that is why i shall support the government in the lobby this evening. i very much hope that the

opposition will, too. >> across the house, in all political parties, there is total revulsion at what has been happening in syria in the past months and years of the brutal conflict there -- in particular following the recent apparent chemical weapons attacks on civilians. there is absolute unanimity, here and internationally, that the use of these indiscriminate weapons is unacceptable and the united nations is right to be investigating the circumstances of the attacks. if we are serious about our support for the united nations, the inspectors must be able to complete their work and report back to the world community before any course of new action is undertaken. if, as we expect, it is confirmed that chemical weapons were used, one of the first things that should be made clear is that whoever ordered and carried out those attacks will, in time, face the full force of

the law. regardless of what may otherwise happen in the short term, the perpetrators of such a crime should understand that they face indictment by the international criminal court or by a specially convened war crimes tribunal. today, however, we have been recalled to parliament because of potential imminent military action by uk and other forces. we have been called back four days before parliament was to reconvene anyway, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that there was a high probability that intervention would take place before monday. the uk government expected that we should vote for a blank check that would have allowed uk military action before un weapons inspectors concluded their investigations and before their detailed evidence was provided to the united nations, or, indeed, members of this house. following our having been misled on the reasons for war in iraq, the least the uk government could have done was to provide

detailed evidence. frankly, they have not, as was underlined in my intervention on the prime minister earlier. in contrast with the sensible approach taken in the run-up to the 2001 intervention in afghanistan, today we were expected to give the uk government a blank check. however, members on both sides clearly reminded their leaders that this is a hung parliament and that there would not be a majority for a blank check. instead there should at least be safeguards. >> does the honorable gentleman agree that the public are suspicious about the argument that the issue is not about change?only a few weeks ago, the government wanted to arm the rebels. that argument is causing utter confusion among everybody. >> the honorable gentleman makes a good point that will be noticed outside the house. i appeal to government members to look closely at the amendment and ask themselves what is wrong with the safeguard it proposes. surely the un weapons inspectors must be able to conclude their

mission and have the necessary opportunity to report to the security council on the evidence and their findings on whether chemical weapons were used in syria. surely we must have definitive evidence that the syrian regime or opposition was responsible for the use of these weapons -- with the greatest respect, that means not just two pages of a4 paper. surely the un security council must consider and vote on this matter in the light of the reports of the weapons inspectors and the evidence submitted. surely there must be a clear legal basis in international law for taking collective military action to protect the syrian people on humanitarian grounds. and surely the aims, objectives and consequences of any intervention must be made clear and must not run the risk of escalating the conflict, causing further deaths and worsening the humanitarian situation. the safeguards in the amendment are absolutely clear and will bring the issue back for a parliamentary vote before any uk military intervention is possible. should these safeguards not be

satisfied, the scottish national party and plaid cymru will vote against intervention, just as we voted consistently against the iraq war. i urge the uk government to invest more time and effort in supporting an end to the conflict and stepping up humanitarian support for the hundreds of thousands of victims in syria and refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries. earlier today, i met jehangir malik of islamic relief, an organisation that deserves as much assistance as possible to help people in and around syria. he warned about the potential negative impact of military intervention and why that could significantly worsen the humanitarian situation. can i urge the government to do yet more to support islamic relief and the other organisations involved in the disasters emergency committee? with so many people watching our deliberations, i also urge the public to continue their great generosity in supporting humanitarian efforts. i also urge the government to renew their efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. do we think that tomahawk cruise missiles fired into syria will make that easier or more

difficult? it is clearly understood that this civil war is intractable and that there is little willingness to compromise. earlier today, i heard an appeal by sakhr al-makhadhi, the london-based syria expert and commentator. he said that the people of syria, from all backgrounds, are crying out for help to resolve the civil war. please can the uk government focus their attention on working with the united states and the russian federation, and all others who have influence in the region, including iran, to bring the different syrian sides to the negotiating table? in conclusion, the uk government must not have a blank check for military intervention in syria. we have already heard that it is being briefed that tonight's vote on their motion is an agreement, in principle, for military action. we should not give them a blank check for military intervention in syria, either in principle or in practice. i have only 30 seconds left. we cannot ignore the lessons of the calamitous iraq war. we need safeguards, in order to ensure that all is done to provide evidence about chemical weapons and to support the united nations and international

law. we need a coherent and comprehensive strategy that fully takes into account the consequences of intervention. what is currently a calamity for the people of syria could worsen and become a conflagration across the middle east. that is why this house should unite around the cross-party safeguards amendment, vote against the government motion, and make diplomatic and humanitarian efforts the key focus of the international community. four questions we have to address. is there a moral case? is unlawful? what is this objective? the moral case is what each individual mp will have to decide. are non-nds interventionist. others have a strong interventionist street. others say if this criteria is

met, then maybe. but to those who say that murder of hundreds of innocent citizens by chemical weapons is -- has nothing to do with us, it is easy not get involved, then i asked them to examine their conscience. syria is a signatory to the geneva protocol of 1925, were hitting the use of chemical weapons. it was a protocol drawn up in the aftermath of the first world rld said the wo never again. do we sit on our hands and let all the atrocities take place? this is a convention on genocide and the abuse of a sick morality. some say what is the difference between being killed by an artillery shell or sarin? like, thereing you is a red line. there is a straw that breaks the camels back, and to me, this is

it. in my judgment, faced with the mass murder of innocents, doing that this not an option. there's the question of credibility, a point made in an excellent speech by my friend. member of a leading nato. britain is chairman of the g- eight, and we have a permanent seat on the un security council. this is the huge domestic -- diplomatic clout, but with benefits come responsibilities. this is the moment we have to ask what those responsibilities are. we can behave like a minor nation with no responsibilities, we can put our head in the sand, or live up to the expectations that the community has for us. our objectives us the strategic, and a missile strike me as clear chemical weapons cannot be used without a response from the world community. it helps to degrade the si assad's regime's

future capacity. those are words that have my support. >> one of the components of the emotions that are common is that we could end up in a path to military action, and this is to theally two steps answer. the prime minister does not answer the question about what the action would entail, and the of troops oner -- the ground, so to a grade his to use chemical weapons, we would have a missile strike that would be damaging. world asve to take the you find it. the situation has been made clear and the prime minister to aimd this point --

assad's capacity. if that is not successful, i am sure he and i will be back here asking where do we go from here. if i could turn to the attorney general's views that there is a legal basis without a security council resolution, which poses more questions. >> i am grateful to the honorable gentleman, but could he be more precise on this issue? the prime minister said today and his objective is that it includes a degrading of their chemical weapons capability. general dempsey made it clear that that is only possible by the deployment of thousands of troops. we have to be clear about what we are anticipating will result

from the use of tomahawk missiles and such things before we embark on them, not afterwards. the point the honorable gentleman made to the prime minister, and i thought he dealt with that. general dempsey was talking about a wider picture. they are looking at the specific goal weapons regime we will be attempting to degrade. the attorney general -- that is my -- i turn now to the attorney general's opinion. his view is there a legal basis for intervention without a security council resolution, and i say this poses more questions than answers. since the present not turn was introduced in 2005, there's no precedent for this, and this step has in my view serious consequences. in effect, it means the united nations is now redundant and that the humanitarian doctrine

has legs of its own. it can be interpreted any way that the parties wish, and i hope when the dust is settled from this affair that this house and united nations revisit the responsibility to protect, because i believe at present it is not working the way that it was intended. then there is the question of the intelligence. those of us who were here in 2003 at the time of the iraq war theirthey had fingers burned. parliament was briefed him about we were only given part of the story, and in some cases, an inaccurate story. we have seen a summary of intelligence that has been published, bare-bones, and i urge the government in the following days to consider how more intelligence can be provided. the picture is clear in as far as it goes, but in truth it has no depth, and i am warmed to the

suggestion by my honorable friend that the intelligence of the security committee looks at the analysis and reports to the house on the veracity of that intelligence and to confirm that it coincides with the opinion that is being contained in the intelligence letter, which is before us. mr. speaker, as is a difficult time. there are no easy options. we are between a rock and a hard place. and we have to do -- to decide that i for one will be in the government lobbies tonight. members and the leader of the opposition and the foreign secretary or their intervention in the last 48 hours, it halted a headlong rush to war. it is acknowledged that the american president has set a timetable for an attack this weekend. he came under pressure last year set republicans to to

red lines. it was inevitable that that would escalate the demand for military action had a late stage. that would explain the american position, but does not explain why great britain should fall into line in support of military action. the lastis a lesson in 48 hours, it is no prime minister, no government should take his house or the british people for granted on matters of this nation. major. the relatively is time has moved on since iraq. lessons fromade directory three lessons -- approval no automatic or trust in the prime minister's judgment on an issue like this involving the country and military action without overwhelming justification, evidence, and thorough debate. the evidence before us says this

-- there is some evidence to in the regime of ability gas attack. secondly, it is highlythat the . i have to say, highly likely and some evidence are not good enough to risk further lives inflame the whole region, risk dragging other states into this war and at the same time increase the risk of terrorism on british streets. the second lesson of iraq is based upon the principles of humanitarian intervention, it must be objectively clear there is no practical alternative to the use of force. i don't believe it has been demonstrated that all practical alternatives have been exhausted. discussions around the eminent stationing of you when weapons inspectors to prevent the use of these weapons have not been exhausted. this link to an insistence and

participation of all sides in a unp's conference had not been exhausted. surprisedriend not that the british government appears to have made no rational efforts to try to build a relationship with the new government of iran which might be part of a road towards some kind of peace element? pointt leads to my third about the other lessons about iraq. is to ensure that any intervention does not cost lives and also make matters worse. the do no harm principle. strikeer how surgical a that is planned by the americans or by us, lives will be lost. lives will be put at risk. these is the only long-term solution. it has been expressed on all sides of the house. military intervention is more

likely to undermine the potential for peace talks. opposition, the so-called rebels will have no incentive because they believe the u.s. and the u.k. and others will be on their side and they can achieve a military victory. also, i have to say it alienates a run and the russians, the people we look to to bring to the negotiating table. if we have learned anything from iraq and afghanistan, it is this , military invention doesn't just cost lives, it undermines the credibility of international institutions that we look to to secure peace in the world and in the long run, undermines peace settlements across the globe. that wee, i believe should focus on conflict prevention and conflict resolution. we should not be supporting

military aggression. that is why i will not support any motion that in principle supports military intervention in syria that can only do more heart -- more harm than good. i suspect with all numbers of this house, i find this an exceptionally difficult issue. my constituents hate the idea of getting involved in syria and so do i. as i said earlier, i have not yet made up my mind which way to vote but the prime minister's flexibility over the last couple of days has been extremely helpful. i would like to look first to the legality of taking action. the conversation that have been had with the media over the past few days have been talking about impunity foring the use of chemical weapons.

that word, impunity, implies that there is a new doctrine of punishment as a reason for going to war, not deterrence, not self-defense, but punishment. i believe that if that is a new doctrine, it needs a considerably wider degree of international consensus than currently exists. >> he is making an important point. says suchey's advice intervention would be directed exclusively to diverting a humanitarian catastrophe. there can be no doctrine, new doctrine. i want to comment on the attorney's advice. my friend is an exceptional temerityd i have the to question one aspect of what

he says. the third of his conditions being met for humanitarian action is that the proposed use of force must be necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of humanitarian need. i believe that there is an admission a point which he needed to spell out which is that there must be a reasonable chance of success. therefore, the legality of this action in my view depends entirely on the precise action proposed. that, we do not yet know. that is why i think the prime minister is absolutely right to say that we need to have a further vote in this house once it is clearer as to what action is proposed. >> is his concern about a

possible new doctrine of war as by the factnformed that senior american political sources only last weekend talked in terms of retribution as being the basis for taking action against syria? that was repeated by a government minister here as well. if the international community takes action in syria on the basis of retribution as being the defining motive, does that not send a very dangerous message and a very dubious standard? although there is a question as to how far this doctrine extends. why was it not used earlier? i question the attorney's advice with temerity. next, the objectives.

what are the objectives of any military strike? the prime minister said that it calls to deter and degrade future use. a countrystand it, which can make a nonstick frying pan can make chemical weapons. personally, i found it very difficult to find any country that can make a proper nonstick frying pan, but nevertheless if syria could simply re-create any weapons which we destroyed, where would we have gotten by attacking the chemical weapons? what is the risk of collateral damage? of thinking the weapons we are trying to prevent being deployed? that is a matter which we need further information on. next, the evidence. i am certainly a minority in this country.

i am probably a minority in this house and saying that i personally believed -- when he said that he believed there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq. a minority in in the country when i say that i still believe that he was telling the truth as he believed it to be. exaggeratedthat he the influence -- i know, i am naïve. that hebelieve exaggerated the influence and the importance of intelligence. i don't think that we have got to the bottom of precisely the limitations of what intelligence can tell us. certainly, i will. used tocal weapons were get to the kurds. they were used in the iran-iraq

war. they were used on the people in gaza in the form of phosphorus bombs. isn't the real reason we are here today not because of the horror of these weapons but because the american president drew a red line and because of his position he is going to attack or face utilization? that is why we are being drawn into war. isi think the real reason that unless we do something, and it mustn't he something stupid, but unless we do something, then a side will use more chemical weapons -- assad will use more chemical weapons. chemicalto stop weapons, the use of chemical weapons the coming the norm, the world does need to act. wants us to act as the international policeman, then let the world say so.

in the past, when we have done so, the world has not thanked us. that only weued have the capability to act. there is a paradox here. we are a country which has the fourth largest defense budget in the world and yet, still, there are attacks that could be made on this country, weapons that could be used against which we have no defense. that is true of every country in the world. that is a concern that we ought to take into account in the way we decide to vote, not tonight. i think probably tonight it will be helpful to support the government. i think next week or whenever the decision comes up, we need to take that issue very clearly into account.

>> despite the statement that it this is watered down, something of a paving motion for military action. a reference to a legal basis to taking action, then backing military action. there is also the following, in spite of the difficulties of the united nations, they must be followed as far as possible to ensure the maximum legitimacy. the serious question is why was the motion not resented to the united nations before now? why the delay? diplomacy hasn't failed utterly. it was after all, the russians that pressed the government to allow the u.n. inspectors in on monday. my colleagues and myself believe

that any military action would prolong the conflict and lead to further bloodshed. we would call on the government to use its influence and also its relations with others to bring all of the rebel in -- relevant parties to the table. the key focus should be to prevent loss of life. there has been an ongoing crisis in syria for almost two years. government should be putting efforts and to ensure greater humanitarian response. previous military interventions in iraq and afghanistan, and early examples from recent history show the commitment of troops without an and plan -- end plan causes a high price. if the u.k. backs the u.s. government military action were indeed participate and it, than the conflict of drawing russia,

iran to back the regime, possibly making diplomatic tarts -- talks more ethical. toould at this point refer yesterday when hans blake said that even if the south -- assad used chemical weapons, the west is no mandate to act as global policeman. obama would therefore be doing the same as bush in 2003. >> in his legal experience and opinion, at what point does destroying air defenses and preventing a military capability start to become regime change? would that be illegal? change is unlawful. kind will of that have to take sides.

the timing of the decision must also be questioned regarding military action. as some of usn believe has already been made in washington and agreed by the government here, then that is really why we are here. because washington feels there should be some bombs falling this weekend. many atrocities have taken place in the last two years since the conflict began. surely, those seeking to take military action could wait a few days longer to ensure the facts are straight. it is obvious that there is no threat to the security of the u.k.. the government seeks military action in order to deter and undermine chemical weapons. that is fine. although military action has to be sanctioned by law, but surely it should wait until the full conclusive proof is available.

any decision on this action in this light, the government's own -- should the undeniable. that evenrative within the government's unreasoning, it should heed the secretary-general of the u.n.'s call for more time to establish whether chemical weapons were used and if possible, where did they emanate from? >> i thank the honorable gentleman for giving way. there appear to be two conflicting objectives. --ld you agree with me that on the other hand, a humanitarian agenda and legal reasons why this would be possible? be necessary at any time over the last couple of months? which is the real objective in taking us forward? >> that is a very good question.

if you look at the legal opinion, it presumes that there will be progress by the u.n. it goes on in detail to talk about unitarian intervention and there are at least four different flaws in that they -- debate. even if nothing else is learned from iraq and there are many lessons to be learned, it is surely that weapons inspectors should be given time to carry out their work. egypt is aon in timely reminder of western governments fickle appearance to universal principles. first of all, supporting movements rising against mubarak in favor of democracy, then siding with the army when it carried out a coup and overthrew a democratically elected government.

in the recent past, assad was once lauded by the british government. his actions are now clearly deplorable as have been many other groups. recent military action has been confusing. last friday, the united states and u.k. governments were pressing for weapons inspectors to be allowed into syria. on monday, the inspectors went in. on monday evening, all indications were that the u.s. and u.k. had made up their minds that a strike was indeed imminent and that is why we are here today. on tuesday, the u.k. soft and stance. -- softened its stance.

we will be voting against the government motion and supporting the amendment by the official opposition and the amendment by the honorable lady for civilians. we have seen the u.k. embroiled in many bloody wars and failing to secure any peace. the middle east is in a very precarious state as we now speak. we must learn from these mistakes very carefully. i would like to make one thing -- place one matter on the record. our support for the opposition amendment is not in any way implying that we shall in any way vote for a military strike in due course. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] see more on c-span tonight at 8:00 eastern followed by your phone calls. some of the comments we are seeing on twitter. we are talking to rand paul.

>> another one from blake. >> we will take your phone calls at about 9:00 eastern on c-span. later this afternoon, white house officials discuss the situation in syria. congressional leadership and ranking members will be included. president obama asked questions including, what is the intended effect of the military strike? also, if president assad escalates the use of chemical weapons, would president obama escalate his response?

read the rest of speaker boehner 's questions on c-span.org. war about the syrian civil on today's white house briefing. josh earnest spoke to reporters for one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. great to see all of you. i couple of announcements before i get started. is, today the administration announced two new common sense executive actions to keep the most dangerous firearms out of the wrong hands and ban almost all re-imports of military surplus firearms to private entities. these executive entities -- actions are part of the cover

offensive gun violence -- come preventive gun violence reduction plan. even as the government fares to act on commonsense proposals, the president and vice president remain committed to using all the tools in their power to make progress. that is why today we announced two additional executive actions. first, closing a loophole that would keep some of the most dangerous guns out of the wrong hands. second, keeping surplus military weapons off of our streets. the second thing that i wanted to appraise you of, the president today conducted a phone call with german chancellor merkel. this is part of the series of to medication the president has series of-- discussions the president has initiated.

he has called a number of our other allies in europe. the international consultation is ongoing and will continue in the days ahead. that specific one occurred this morning. now we will let you get started. >> congress is getting briefed this evening by a series of administration officials on reports of syria. given that there reason appears to be unclassified, is there a question that the public will get the report today? >> that is correct. there is an unclassified among a scheduled handful of senior administration officials including national security adviser susan rice, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of national intelligence and the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. they will conduct a conference call with members of congress

who dial in from their congressional districts across the country. that conference call is the latest in a series of robust thatessional consultations everybody in the administration have been engaged in. the reason for that is simple. as the president contemplates what kind of response is appropriate to the situation in syria, he believes it is important to consult with congress. we have done that in a robust reading has involved involvedons, that has the share of intelligence, although that is difficult to do in this setting because the call is unclassified. it also includes a conversation about some of the options that are available to the president responseof a specific to the syrian regime's use of chemical weapons. this call is something that we have been working to schedule

for a number of days now but it is just part of the ongoing robust consultation that this administration believes is important for us to have with congress. samee we going to see that unclassified report? separate from the conversation that they are having today, we have discussed our commitment to producing for you and the american public to review, an unclassified version of an intelligence assessment about the assad regime's use of chemical weapons in syria. it is my understanding that that report has not been finalized as of this moment but that we are to produce that report before the end of the week. >> not today? >> right. i am not ruling out today. >> can you also set some

expectations for this? several officials say that this will not be a slamdunk, that there is no proof in the intelligence that the chemical weapons attack was carried out by assad or his senior advisers. what should the public be looking for? is there a guarantee in this intelligence? >> there are a few facts that we already know. from a previous intelligence assessment that the assad regime had used chemical weapons against civilians in syria. we know that the assad regime maintains stockpiles of chemical weapons in syria and we have indicated from this podium and from other places that the assad regime will be held accountable for the security of those chemical weapons and would be held accountable if they were used. we also know that it is the

regime alone that has the capability to use the chemical in the that were used attacks that we saw on august 21. we also know that the assad regime was engaged in military campaigns targeting the specific regions where this chemical attack occurred. there are a lot of relevant important facts that we already know. facts for a number of reasons, intelligence assessments. thatso aware of reporting has been conducted by journalists on the ground that has documented the horrific nature of the attack. we are aware of reports from nongovernmental organizations on the ground in syria trying to meet the humanitarian need of the syrian people. they have been witness to those attacks and the people have borne the brunt of those attacks. there is a lot of publicly available information that we already know that is very

convincing. >> but everything you're referencing is largely circumstantial. i am wondering, is that circumstantial evidence enough to have the president make it -- make a situation to enforce military action? is there something that we will get that goes beyond circumstantial evidence, that is the candidate proof? >> based on the facts i just laid out, there is a conference of evidence to indicate that the assad regime carried out chemical weapons attacks in syria. that is what the president, the vice president, the secretary of state had said. we have seen partners around the globe say that. everyone from senior officials in the u.k., and france, even the arab league has put out a statement to this effect. i also want to read to you one other piece of relevant information to this question you are asking. there is a difference between

what can be provided publicly and what classified intelligence is available. ofhave to be conscious protecting sources and methods. there are other diplomatic sensitivities. theave talked about intelligence sharing relationship that we have with countries around the world including some countries in the region. all of that information is combined to provide an assessment. that is provided publicly has to be different from the assessment that is provided privately. you might need to ask about the quality of that classified intelligence assessment. i cannot talk about it from here but i have seen figments -- statements from people who have seen these assessments. the first is senator feinstein. believes the

intelligence points to an attack by the assad government. i would also direct you to a statement from the vice chair of the committee on intelligence. this is a republican senator. a gentleman who has not shied away from contradict and the president in public on a wide range of issues, but in this case his assessment is similar, if not same. the senator said, based on available intelligence, there can be no doubt the assad regime is responsible for using chemical weapons on the syrians. has the intelligence community can they did -- completed the classified version? i am not in the position to talk about classified assessments. how robust tenor consultation with congress. congress hasn't been provided with the classified details?

>> there are some classified details that have been provided to congress. case thatke the robust consultation with congress involves more than just sharing intelligence. thenvolves insight into perspective of our diplomatic partners around the globe. reading out conversations that the president and others have had with our review of involves a the options available to the president as he considers an appropriate response. there is a pretty wide range of topics that should be covered in any robust consultation with congress and that would be the as it relates to the conversation they will have today. it is constrained by the fact that the conversation will take place unclassified but there is

information that can be shared. i don't want to leave you with the impression that this conference call is the first or for consulting congress. it is not. there have been a range of other conversations that senior administration officials have had with congressional leadership, with committees and with other members of congress. there will be more conversations. some are classified, some are not. some of them cover intelligence issues, some cover diplomatic issues. conversations about different capabilities. there is a lot of consultation that is ongoing. this conference call at 6:00 p.m. is an important part of that confrontation. >> what is your opinion on what has happened in the u.k.?

what are you going to be able to tell congress or us about whether that happens here? >> a couple of things. i don't want to get involved in commenting on debates that are ongoing in british parliament. i have my hands full with the u.s. congress. we certainly do appreciate the strong words that have come from senior leaders in the british government. you have heard both the prime minister and the foreign articulate their strong objection and condemnation of the use of chemical weapons. we have heard them talk about their desire to see the us on regime be held accountable for its actions in carrying out this chemical weapons attack. we have also seen an

acknowledgment from the foreign secretary about the united totes's right and ability make our own foreign policy decisions that are in our national security and interests. states aree united able to make their own decisions. we will remain closely coordinated with them. i speak to my counterpart secretary every day and have done so this evening. this is what he said yesterday. they will be able to make their own decisions. to determinenue that the world should reject the use of chemical weapons and the united nations has a role -- united kingdom as a role to play in that. >> is there a concern about , that delaysong could make the mission more complicated? if you wait until after g 20, you have given the syrians plenty of time to position

themselves for any kind of response that might come. what about that concern? >> you have heard the president talk about, in other settings, talking about the conduct of foreign policy and how that relates to our use of military authority. and how these are some of the most difficult decisions that he has to make. he takes the requirements to make these decisions very seriously. he is carefully considering the , and heances before him is doing that in a reasoned, robust way. he is doing that in consultation with members of congress. he is doing that in close consultation with our allies around the globe. he is doing that in close consultation with his national security team. there is a role for a number of people to play here as they assess the situation. president is going about that in a very reasoned, orderly

fashion. i would also point out that the president acknowledged in an interview with your network one week ago, he acknowledged there was a compressed timeframe in which a decision needed to be made. part of that is driven by the idea that there is an international norm against the use of chemical weapons. it is important for the assad regime and other to tell it. dictators around the globe to understand that the international community will not tolerate the indiscriminate widespread use of chemical against particularly women and children as they sleep in their beds. >> speaking of that interview, arelso said that there questions in terms of whether international law would support a response and when he was talking about that, he was talking about whether or not he would have some sort of international partnership in

taking action against syria. would the united states at this point, given delays overseas, go alone? >> i don't want to presuppose what kind of judgment the president reaches about the appropriate response in this circumstance. however, the president dave acknowledge in that interview -- did it knowledge in that interview the role international law would play. that is a fact that has been considered in among other things. also seen pretty clear statements from our allies around the globe, from the arab league, and others who have said that the assad regime needs to be held responsible. the opinion of other world leaders in this situation matters. absentnt u.n. mandate, some sort of definitive word from key allies in great britain

, those words of encouragement, those separate statements made by the arab league and others, might that be sufficient? is that what you're saying? >> i am saying that i am not in the position to offer up legal justification for a response at has not in -- being decided upon. they -- however, it is relevant that a wide range of other international leaders and bodies have weighed in on this the jewish and. they have weighed in -- situation. use have weighed in on the of chemical weapons, on the use of chemical weapons against civilians. those viewpoints are relevant to this discussion. there is one other part of my answer that is important for you to understand.

the president of the united states is elected with the duty to protect the national security of the united states of america. aboutcision he makes about our foreign policy is with our national security interest front and center. >> just a follow-up. last night, he said that there is a chance that chemical weapons might be turned against the united states. i was just curious. he said that was part of his national security deliberations. does he really think that syria is capable of launching,: set the united states? >> what we are -- chemical weapons at the united states? >> what we are concerned about is their capability to use chemical weapons. it is apparent that they did so on a large scale that had horrific results.

assessed by our intelligence community that there have been a number of other occasions, admittedly on a smaller scale, but important nonetheless where the assad regime has used chemical weapons. we know they are sitting on a large stockpile of chemical weapons. they have demonstrated a willingness to use it. they, in violation of clear international norms. it president leaves firmly and he said this in the interview he did with chris cuomo and the interview he did last night. these international norms are important. it is not appropriate for totalitarian dictators to flout them with impunity. protecting the international norm is something the president cares deeply about but it is also a norm that other world leaders are very concerned about having been violated.

or are other ways in which our national interest intersect. we are talking about a volatile region of the world. maybe the most volatile country in one of the more volatile regions. so that instability is a cause of significant concern to the president. he also mentioned that this country borders a nato ally in turkey. it borders one of our most in porton -- most important partners in the region, jordan. it is in close proximity to israel, a country whose security we have vowed to protect. there are a wide range of interests and that doesn't even get into military bases and other interests that we have in the region. there are a number of ways in which the national security interests of the united states are at stake in a pretty big way here. >> a number of members of congress say i believe they should be able to vote for military action.

does the president agree with that? he doesn't believe is that as he considers the response to this circumstance, that it is important to consult with congress and a important way. since this event was first reported, we have seen fewer officials consulting with members of congress. whether it is congressional leadership, senior members of the relevant committees, or even just members of congress that have expertise in this area. there is ongoing congress consultation. the next step will occur this evening at 6:00 p.m. where a number of senior officials will be gathering on the phone to consult again with some of these senior members of congress. thinks he should have to consult with congress but he doesn't think that covers the to vote? -- congress needs to vote? >> the president has made it a

priority and senior members of the administration have been involved in consulting. >> i want to go back to the british parliament. they don't want to vote until you went inspectors come back. does the president -- u.n. inspectors come back. does the president agree with that? >> let's talk about what the mandate is that the u.n. inspectors in syria have. the mandate is to assess whether or not chemical weapons were used. the entire international community acknowledges that chemical weapons were used. -- regime hasm acknowledged that chemical weapons were used. it is not the mandate of those inspectors to assess response ability of use of those chemical weapons. seen is ave also

repeated willingness on the part of the russians to block action at the united nations. that is unfortunate. the united states believes strongly in the u.n. process. that is why we spend so much time engaged in the process. it is why you have seen the newly confirmed ambassador spent so much power -- time consulting with her colleagues. at the same time, we are seeing that process circumvented by russia that is refusing to allow the u.n. to hold syria accountable. what the president will do is he will take -- he will make a decision about an appropriate response based on the national security interest of the u.s.. not in a position to offer timelinence about the

during which the president would make a decision. >> if russia block session in blocks action in the u.n., go around that? >> they are doing it again. >> congress says, we won't have a vote. what happened to the barack obama of 2008 the said you have to get congressional authorization before you can go with military action. >> that is presupposing a decision that has not been made. i didn't say anything close to that. >> so he is not talking about military action. >> i am not going to parse the president for some words in him -- in an interview he conducted with pbs. we can go back and forth. it is true that he hasn't made a decision yet.

>> but you know as well as -- there is not going to the military action? what happened to the barack obama of 2008 who said you have to go to the u.n., get a resolution, go to congress? >> he has demonstrated a clear willingness to consult with the u.n. process. that is something we have done throughout the president's tenure. unfortunately, what we are seeing right now is russia repeatedly blocking efforts of the u.n. to hold us responsible. that is very disappointing. the president is not going to allow that obstruction to

prevent him from making decisions that are in the best interest of our national security. when it comes to congress, the president believes strongly in robust congressional consultation. that is something we have been engaged in and stay one of this circumstance. it is something that will continue. will -- there will be additional consultations tomorrow and in the days to come. >> our allies all right there. is a standard being set that if there is no u.s. military action, that if in six months, a side uses chemical weapons against israel, turkey, jordan, the u.s. is ready to go back in again? >> let me unpack a couple of things you said. the president believes strongly ,s does the global community

all indicating strongly that it is important for the international community to protect international norms against the use of weapons of mass destruction, particularly like these chemical weapons used in syria against the billions. that is an internet -- against civilians. protecting the normative priority of the international community. the president also made the case that protecting that international norm is within the core national security interest of the united states of america. protecting that international norm is important. what we also have with turkey is a defense treaty. we are committed to the defense of our ally, turkey. you have heard me and others talk about the united states commitment. our relationship with jordan is

different. they are an important partner in that region. a nation with whom we cooperate on a wide range of national security and counterterrorism efforts. i will not speculate on the hypothetical scenario. suffice it to say that the protection of that international norm is a priority for the president, for the international community. we cannot allow a to tell it. dictator -- a totalitarian dictator to allow weapons of mass destruction. pretend there is one smoking piece of intelligence that can solve the whole problem. the american people went through this for with a rack. -- iraq. there are similarities. beforethe president taking possible military action have something close to a smoking piece of intelligence so

the american people can know with as much certainty as possible that this is the right course? >> let me read one other thing that david cameron said. he said, we know that they have both the motive and the opportunity, whereas the opposition does not have those things. the opposition's chance of having used chemical weapons in our view is vanishingly small. the assessment that david cameron has reached about the use of chemical weapons overlaps to a large degree with the assessment that has been reached by the president and the vice president and secretary of state and other world leaders. as it relates to the situation in iraq, i don't agree that these are similar situations. there are very important differences. circumstancen that was the administration searching high and low to produce

evidence, to justify a military invasion of another country. with the final goal being regime change. that was the articulated policy. what we have seen here, tragically, is a preponderance of evidence available in the public domain that the assad regime used chemical weapons against innocent civilians. we don't have to search high and low. that evidence exists things to social media, thanks to videos that have been broadcast, thanks to the work that independent journalists are doing on the ground. thanks to the reports of nongovernmental organizations on the ground. that is the first thing. the president has been very clear that he is not contemplating open-ended military action. somethingemplating that is very discreet and limited.

third, the president was also candid in his interview about the fact that we are not talking about regime change. enforcing ang about critically important and her national norm. i reject the suggestion that these situations are similar. president gave his speech in 2002 as a senator, he came out against the war in iraq. nosaid that saddam was is imminent threat to the united states. owned -- on his own people, but he poses no direct threat to the united states or his neighbors. , he can be contained until he falls away into the dustbin of history. be can't a side -- assad contained and fall into the dustbin of history?

thoroughly looked at the and knowledge -- analogy you're trying to draw. i think what you have read might be an appropriate justification for why the president has concluded that our policy is not regime change. what we are looking for is a response to the use of chemical aapons that will enforce international norm. the global community believes it is important for us to enforce that norm. view that there is not a military solution to be brought or conflict that is taking place in syria. we have seen thousands lose their lives. displaceden millions within the country or to neighboring countries. what we are seeing there is a tragic situation even outside of the abhorrent use of chemical weapons. and we have been

working with our partners around the globe to bring about a transition of leadership in so that the syrian people can have a government that reflects their will. that is somewhat different than the approach taken by the previous administration with iraq. quote, intelligence officials say they cannot pinpoint the exact location of assad's chemical weapons. track of we have lost who controls the chemical weapons supplies. that is according to two intelligence officials. do you agree? >> i am not in a position to talk about classified intelligence. clear, the u.s. government is certain that the syrian regime has been in complete control of the chemical weapons supplies?

people in the government saying they are not sure. >> you have anonymous individuals quoted. i haven't on the record statement from the chair of the committee on intelligence and the vice chair. i have on the record statements from the president, the secretary of state. we have the president of france. we have a multilateral resolution passed by the arab league indicating these things. i leave it to you to decide. whether you believe anonymous quotes or an on the record statement from people who have looked at the same information and reached a different conclusion. they are willing to put their in theehind their belief intelligence assessment that has been conducted. >> but those statements are not a response to the central question of absolute certainty

that the syrian regime retains control of all of its supplies of chemical weapons. >> i can go through them if you like. that is exactly what these people have said. that the assad regime is responsible. people who have looked at the intelligence -- as you conceded, because we are bombing in this disputed area, evidence might have been destroyed. there may not be absolute evidence. it is a circumstantial case that the regime controls the chemical weapons, therefore the regime used them. >> you're quoting anonymously, right? wereck to iraq,, there people who raised their hands and said, we are not sure. i want people who are convinced.

we have a history of people have raised their hands and said, i am not sure. high people say they are absolutely sure. all i am asking is, are you saying with absolute certainty the u.s. government knows that every piece of equipment and supplies is retained by their control? i am not in a position to offer an intelligence assessment. the united states and this administration has vowed to release a public version of the intelligence assessment that is compiled of the intelligence community. you have an opportunity to evaluate. let me finish. i will allow you the opportunity to consult that public document and review and assess for yourself how convincing you find it. i have already acknowledged from here that whatever that document is, it will have to differ from whatever classified document is

also produced. what i can also convey to you is that others who have seen the classified intelligence that includes leading members of congress in both parties, that includes leaders of our allies a learned the globe, that includes , theys of the arab league have all seen this evidence and have reached an assessment that dovetails with the assessment we have conveyed to you publicly. the other part of this that is relevant is there is other information about the use of chemical weapons, about the terrible impact it has had on people in syria, and you are also aware of previous intelligence assessments that indicate that the assad regime has used chemical weapons on multiple occasions before.

there are a lot of facts that you already know that you can compile to assess for yourself what has occurred. you also have the opportunity to consider a document that is prepared and consolidation -- in consultation with the intelligence unity. we are not in a position to provide all of the intelligence but there are importing pieces that can be provided that will substantiate the conclusions you have heard the president articulate about what happened in syria on august 21. it is inesident saying the national security interest of the united states as we might be attacked, the president doesn't actually believe syria will attack the u.s. with chemical weapons. he mentioned other allies and overall volatility. there is not a contention that this will come to america, correct? >> there are american interests