looking back, so much has changed. at the end of his life, he said justice has not been done for black people. >> it is a very interesting topic. >> we will return to sagamore hill, the family home in long island and learn more about their collection that shows family life of the roosevelts. >> this is a fascinating piece. most people take baby pictures and snapshots. the roosevelts at some point had three other children, permit, have bas-and edith relief stun.

it just fascinates me that it was done. we don't have similar pieces for the older children or for quentin who is the youngest. we have this piece. and it is kept on the wall outside the nursery on the second floor of the roosevelt home. she kept souvenirs. tr's letters there is reference to bethel walking around in little red shoes. childrenhat all of the had little red shoes at some point or another. .dith obviously cap those the book is peter rabbit in french. beatrix potter books were brand- new and for coming out and they bought them and they read them to their children to read them with their children the children would eventually read back to them.

thes were important to roosevelts at all ages. i love the fact that this one is in french and obviously a way to introduce a child to a new language. helped to make it easier to learn french. this was done in the 20s and 30s by edith roosevelt. it tells the story of her family's life. in the top row you can see representations of her husband and herself. it goes on to show highlights of theodore roosevelt's career. his actions as vice president, for cuba, for being president. it goes on to show he was a , a pelican on the third row to show his conservation nest tendencies.

a gold star for quentin who was killed during world war i. and she hadly piece learned to do needlework is a small girl. she did needlework throughout her lifetime. it is very poignant and very touching, a representation of what was important to her. video is on our website. there is also a special feature and we have been accumulating all of the programs for the serious. if you have been watching us along the way, we will have done individual biographies of each of the women who have served as first ladies. thesebsite has all of resources plus many tours that didn't make it to air so you can see other things. he also have a special feature each week. the special feature for this one is another item from sagamore hill.

it is a dog bowl that edith had under the desk of her study. you will have to go to the website and click on the link to find out what that story is. one other resource i would like to tell you about is our partner for this series is the white house historical association. they have been helpful in helping us prepare the way and the resources. they have published this , "biographies of the first ladies of the united states." we are it available to you at cost. there is a link on the website if you'd like to order it. be prepared for the biographies that are coming up in the years ahead. if we can show that on screen that would be great. there it is, that is what it looks like. you can have this as part of your own collection. like to get to the part that people have been asking us about. the early years of edith roosevelt. the amazing thing is they the new each other as small

children. how did that happen? >> they grew up together in new york city. tr grew up on east 20th street and she grew up near union square. was his younger sister corinne's best friend. they watched the invalids core marched down the street together marchedvalids corps down the street together. she cried when she saw the invalids soldiers. that was 1865, so they were really little. have pictures of that on the screen. if you get for a close you can -- the two tiny pictures

picture of two tiny children looking out the window. >> they were children together and people thought that there was a romance there, but it turns he married someone else. how did that happen? >> well, that is the mystery of the summer house. there is an argument. we don't know what happened but tr and edith were together. things seem to be going very well and then there was a fight. after that they broke apart and went off to harvard. alice, told a friend years going to marry that woman, and then he did. boston brahmans are usually distant -- are usually descendents of people who came over on the map mayflower. she was a very beautiful woman and really quite charming and athletic and tr was incredibly taken with her. she had many suitors and he had

to work hard. he sort of surrounded her and charmed her little brother and sister and her cousins and uncles. finally he became so familiar that she gave in. >> how old were they when they met? in 1880 he was just 21 and she was 19, so they were very young. but that is not unusual in that time. they when they married becca -- when they married? what happened of in the roosevelt house on that valentine's day in 1884. >> alice had already been born two days before, but alice the mother had a kidney disease. she was fading.

tr was in albany with the state assembly and so he got telegrams saying come down, your mother is ill. she had typhoid fever. what he got more telegrams that alice was not doing well either. he finally came down on the train to new york and came into the house. they both died that day. that broke hisy heart. he was distraught. he had already been west and he did flee to the west and was very sad for a long time. >> it is hard to imagine losing and young wife a few days after child birth. what happened to roosevelt afterwards? how did he approach this? was it surprising that he married again? >> it was surprising to him.

he told his sister don't let me run into edith at your house anymore, because edith was friends with both sisters. when theodore went to the dakotas he vowed he was never going to marry again. it was a very victorian notion that you are committed to your wife even though she had died. so he was heard to walk the floor out there. constancy, i have no constancy, when he met edith. they discovered that old flame that had died was rekindled and corded in secret. -- thatn't tell anyone old flame that had died was rekindled and they courted in secret. actually it is true. >> to show how far he traveled

emotionally, theodore was a diarist, and we have a picture on screen of his diary. >> the big x he put on his diary that day. the distance he traveled from that to marrying edith. was devastated. he was also very young and very vigorous and very much alive. she knew him before this tragedy happened, right? been to the death of his father the death of his mother sense it was aat lovely destiny that he would find solace in this old, dear friend. cordrey ist stacy the author of a biography on edith roosevelt.

what was the relationship like between the two women? very interesting question because edith said she did her best by alice. was less outgoing but she was a very good mother. she said alice had a leg problem and she stretched her legs, she was indulgent towards alice. her stepmother gave in to her wish not to go to boarding school. as she got older i think she was seeking attention that she never had. to find that attention, she couldn't get it from her father or her stepmother, she couldn't get it from her siblings. once alice began to cross these lines of propriety, the

relationship became much more strained. >> was a difference in the way she treated her children? >> she preferred ethel. i think alice knew that. alice was strong-willed. her grandparents would buy her anything. she had a strong will and i think edith would have preferred a little more client, traditional daughter. so i think that was tough. to talk to seemed alice about her mother's death. willing to explain to her why she had a different mother. on twitter asks connectionas a between tr and grammy. a smart anduite capable person.

she ran sagamore hill and set it up before edith moved in, so there is a bit of competition between annie and edith about who is going to be the political advisor. most of the time they worked together, but it is clear that --ie was quite a for medical quite a formidable woman. hill toturn to sagamore see how edith ran the household, which she established as her own . certainlye hill was designed to be a summer home. it was always their primary residence. in the first five or six years at they were married, they lived here year-round. after the white house he lived here year round again. it really was the center of their life, even if they weren't here, it was where their hearts were.

edith ran the house hold. in albany and in washington dc. she managed the family's accounts, she managed a family's investments. what we have here is an account book. it is an example of the annual accounts from 1891. lists every family member. she kept track of the expenses that she paid for each family member for every month of the year. it is also broken down into grocery bills, which is buying from the butcher, what she might pay for a plumber to come in and do repairs. she counted every penny and kept very good track of what her household was spending. sagamore hill was different than early residential homes because it wasn't ever a commercial venture. they did not try to be self- sufficient. what edith wanted from sagamore hill was basically to offset the

expense of living there. hay and alfalfa and dry, grains that they could feed their horses and reduce the cost of having horses here. he did have a lovely garden that produced everything from corn to strawberries. they had an arbor that had a different types of grapes. they had strawberry and blueberry fields, but the idea and theeed the family staff that lived on site and also reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. holding the book, it is the sagamore hill guest book. when people came here they would sign their names just like they were visiting the white house. it is just a casual list, it is not as formal as the white house would have been, but usually they would have -- there would have been politicians or government officials, but even family sign the book. visited.904 anna

that was tr's older sister being sisterbamie. there are signatures from them, so sometimes -- i don't think these people find their name. i think edith went back and made note of food been visiting. there is this wonderful illustration done by one of the ,isitors showing hope at sunset is what the illustration says. it is a way of the family to keep track of who came to see them. when the family were here, when their friends were here and what they were up to well they were visiting. >> a look at life at site a more hill. -- a life at sagamore hill.

just some statistics again and we try to choose some from a mean a two-m -- i term administration. this is hardly an exhaustive list. what was edith's influence when you look at what she contributed? >> edith played a fairly large role, but behind-the-scenes one thehe friends called edith perfection of an invisible government, which i think she would've liked. edith who said we were not call the present by his first name. she never called him by his

first name in front of other people in the white house. she made that a more formal issue. a role in personnel. we know that one time she suggested someone for the civil service commission. one time she tried to get rid of an ambassador to britain. she said i pulled every string that i knew to pull to get you here. she was a back channel to henry cabotsevelt. lodge for example would talk to her about the post office scandal rather than talk to him about it. -- ituld eat a pathway could be a pathway for roosevelt to discuss matters of diplomacy that he could not discuss with diplomats himself. all the time they spent together walking she sent newspaper

stories to him. she read four newspapers a day. he did not have time and did not like to read newspapers. current stores and handed them to him. she made sure certain topics were in front of him. >> what would you like to add about her influence? >> she favored his conservation policies. we have her on record about that. later when he ran for president in 1912 she cries the day after he loses. she edits his speeches and articles. he clearly talked with her about policy and she sits in political meetings like mrs. carter, but she was knitting, looking unobtrusive. but then they discussed what happened in the meeting afterwards. she isn't very active first lady. -- she is a very active first lady. >> concerning edith's life after

the presidency and after tr died or it was she active in washington society after that? withhe have much influence the relationship of franklin delano when he began his run in politics? >> the roosevelts leave the and today believe that their political career was over at that point? thought i believe they it was through. africa forsafari in a year and she joins him, they write camels together in egypt and travel to revisit sites of their honeymoon in italy and other places. and gets ins back political trouble.

tr gets back into politics in 1912. >> and so she supported his political run in 1912? >> she did. it was a painful run and she knew that he couldn't win. this is when the primary system comes in. states voted to have preferential riemer. preferential primaries. time to go to the convention, taft controlled the delegates. >> so seven years after his unsuccessful run, theodore in 1919. rise he was just 60 years old. how did he die? >> well, his heart gave out. and embolism got him. he was in the brazilian jargon

-- he almost died. he had rheumatism. he was in bad shape and part of it is the way he lived his life. >> it was a strenuous life. when he died? him >> she was in the house. she had been taking care of him and they knew it was serious. >> did he die at psycho more hill? >> how did she spend her years at the white house -- after the white house? travel, travel, travel. she went around the world. she traveled with kermit and the other children. >> what she political? sympathized.

theodore junior was the assistant secretary of the navy. he tried to follow in his father's footsteps and it didn't work for well. she also had a very sad family life in her post-white house years. quentin died in world war i. then she lost sons in world war ii heard do you want to tell the story? kermit kills himself and the family didn't want to talk about that. archie lived a very long life. and alice would outlive anyone. >> we would just have to say about the person that alice married and her relationship.

that would've been interesting. they have a torturous relationship i would say. child and her a husband would not be the father of the child. the most powerful man in washington dc, william borah, would be the father of the child. i would say she was more of a wise political observer. advice for 60 years. dc was an icon in washington . the other washington monument she was called. >> we have about six minutes left heard i'm going to show more of the clip we started of

the republican rally. if you want to understand the family politics of both sides of the roosevelts. >> [indiscernible] [applause] >> and rear their children.

>> what should people know about that relationship between the two roosevelt families and their political aspirations? >> she was mad at eleanor for the teapot dome scandal. she was being a loyal republican. herbert hoover had given money to the bull moose party and a lot of people saw hoover as a progressive republican in tr's mold. >> david welsh wants to know issuesf the progressive were closer to eleanor.

i wouldn't think of her as being in active or former, but she was sympathetic with some of the progressive reforms. >> let's first take a call from jolo in michigan who has been waiting. >> i have a question for stacy. i read her book about alice and i was totally impressed with it. it is the only book i've ever read about her. was her impersonations of eleanor as good as everyone said they were? >> yes, apparently they were that good. she was a pretty good mimic. >> today read that as they were departing the white house and the taft's are coming in, she was photographed sticking her tongue out? >> i wouldn't be surprised.

>> in what ways was edith well- suited to be a 20th century first lady? >> i think 20th century first lady's have had to be partners. it is such a demanding job, but the president really needs not only emotional support but he needs practical help. there have been quite delegations throughout the history of the first lady ladies time in the 20th century. >> that was an excellent answer. >> i have never seen in any other woman the power of being an advisor, the wisest manager of the household and at the same time the height deal great lady and mistress of the white house. what particular strengths it edith have that helped her >> shebecome president? was patient.

>> where tr was outgoing and never met a stranger, edith was much more reserved. knowingher wisdom was when to give health -- when to him help and went to calm down. he was more excitable and impulsive and she was quite calm and deliberate. but she was a better judge of people. whenever i went against edith's advice i regretted it. robert in pennsylvania. quick question. >> high, thanks for taking my call. you mentioned that roosevelt came from a wealthy family. i was interested in the source theyeir wealth and maintained their wealth during the presidency. why she seemed so conscientious

about money. family hadevelts merchant wealth, banking wealth. his grandfather was very successful and helped found the chemical bank in new york city. he also owned the lot of property. tr spent a lot of his inheritance from his father on ranching and was in for a careful about money. writinglly lived on his and his salary. that is why they were strapped. >> edith was very poor as a child. so she was in the habit of pinching pennies. it wasn't until they got to the thoughtuse that she they finally had enough money to entertain and relax a bit. , youleen dalton's book

might be interested in it if you want to learn more. as we close out, if we look at the pantheon of first ladies that we are going to be understanding and learning more edith'shat has been influence on american history? >> when eleanor roosevelt and franklin roosevelt came to the white house in the middle of the crisis of 1933, a told friends that we would really like our white house to be like uncle theodore's and aunt edith's. they were role models for other couples, presidential couples, because they were vigorous and active. a homey maintained scents and kept their personal life alive. sensey maintained a homey and kept their personal life alive.

>> she kept the embodiment of the ceremonial aspects of the job. she kept the same fulks he sense of this is your house as well as mine. same folksy sense. >> on that note we will say iq for being withy us tonight. thanks to both of you for your scholarship.

>> as a teenager she was invited to the white house as a party from that moment on she yearns to return as a first lady herself. she had a great influence over her husband, guiding his career and on his inauguration day she became the first lady -- the first first lady to ride alongside her husband in the inaugural parade. find out how she brought 3000 cherry trees from japan to

washington as we discuss her life and times on c-span and c- span three. we are offering a special edition of the book resenting a biography and a portrait of each first lady and comments from historians on the roles of first ladies throughout history for a discounted price of oil dollars $.95 plus shipping. $12.95 plus shipping. find out more at c- span.org/first ladies. >> former homeland security secretary michael chertoff spoke about the challenges facing the homeland security department which he read from two -- which he led from 2005 2 2009.

this event was hosted by george washington university. [applause] that,nk you very much for a very kind introduction. andk you for inviting me professor and students, i'm delighted to be here. this is a particularly significant moment to be talking about the issues of our security , because this is going to be a very important week in the history of this country. of course we're coming up on the 12th anniversary of september 11, which is always a memorable moment and causes a lot of reflection. we are also on the eve of a presidential speech that is going to lay out the case am a so we are told, for why we need to take effective and vigorous to thein syrian response use of chemical weapons.

that will lead to a debate in congress and perhaps to an authorization and military action. betweenery much poised the recollection of a horrible event for this country and a possible embarking upon a new challenge in another part of the world which could ultimately be quite serious, not only for this country but for the region as a whole. when i was standing here 12 aars ago, or maybe 11 and half years ago, which would be shortly after september 11, i would probably be given your very different presentation than the one i'm going to give you. i would not have personally had the experience of having had the secretary of homeland security because it would not have been such a department. our nation would still be coping with and recovering from the aftermath of the deadliest attack on civilians in the history of the united states. we would begin with an open wound and would be wondering not

if al qaeda would attack again that when and how. in the 12 years that have passed 11th, we haver invested very heavily in our homeland security infrastructure. we have done that both in the u.s. itself and we have done that overseas also. we have done a lot to protect our ports and our aviation. we have strengthened security across our borders and in our means of transportation. we have invested in training and exercises to identify and plan for future threats and to prepare us to respond and recover if a threat is actually carried out. steps inaken enormous sharing information and intelligence, which in dealing with modern threats is maybe the fundamental attribute, fundamental capability that we need in order to protect the country. you might say that in the world is the/11, what

equivalent of radar in the 20th century has become intelligence collection and analysis in the 21st-century. as a result of the investments i have identified, we have a lot of successes, both seen and as the dean pointed out unseen by the general public heard we have only had two successful attacks on american soil. a major net dollhouse on directed by himself, inspired by there was earlier this year the tragic calming at the boston marathon. as horrible and as outrageous as these acts of terrorism are, we have to acknowledge that nothing like the scale of what we faced haveptember 11, what we threatened with in the , by anying years reasonable assessment we would

have to say that the homeland security enterprise has been a success. let's be clear. we have been relatively successful, not because al qaeda and similar groups have not continually try to attack us. the 2006 airline plot which was an effort and a plan to take 10 to 12 airliners down with bombings that would have occurred over the atlantic ocean on flights originating from heathrow airport and going to north america. that plot was frustrated to some very fine cooperatives were -- fine cooperatives effort. remember09 you would the so-called underwear bomber which fortunately did not result in a successful detonation. within the next year there was another effort to put tom's on printers on cargo planes. they were very highly sophisticated bombs that again were only deflected because of

good intelligence work. anotherill recall terrorist attempted to attack the new york subway system with bombs, but because of good intelligence work that plot was frustrated. in april of this past year, to individuals detonated two bombs in order to maim and injure people attending the boston marathon. these continued threats remind us that while over 11 years has passed since its september 11, we cannot be complacent. we have to continually rethink adaptrategy, innovate, and stay ahead of the enemy. the enemy is also adapting. skills in 2013ng are much more advanced than they were in 2001. so we face a much more capable enemy. we can't fall into the trap of

thinking that the war against -- orism or terrorism terrorist groups will be one on a single moment. it will not. it will ebb and flow. we will manage it, we will reduce and mitigate it. it will not end with a bang or a persist.it will the question is, how do we use these lessons of september 11 to propel us into the future and help us deal with the dynamic threats that we face? i propose that we need to step back and look at homeland security in a broad sense. i would describe it eight as a strategic sense. all recognize that today's battlefield is different or hundred 25, 50 years ago. it is a global battlefield. it takes place in a conventional type of war environment like you see in afghanistan or in iraq,

but it also takes place on city streets like boston. networks, global travel, global communication, global finance. these elements have all transformed the nature of what the battlefield is the nature of where the struggle takes place. it also means that unlike wars foright study back 50 or 75 100 years ago, there are no bystanders and the struggle. everybody, like it or not, gets enlisted either as a combatant or a participant or a victim. so we all have to conceptualize the nature of our strategy in a much broader sense. the second point i would make is , there's often a tendency to think about strategy. particularly when you deal with terrorism and what was said -- in what your professor and i

describe as hard power. what are our military assets, however going to strike back using military force or similar types of force against the adversary? in reality what we need to do is consider our strategy moving forward. we need to look up power in the broadest possible sense. is soft power and smart power. to use another timeworn analogy, we have to use all the tools in the toolbox. sometimes it does mean military tools, but it also means intelligence capability, our ability to understand and analyze not just tactics but strict strategy. one great example of this is how in the last 10 years the fbi moved from being a conventional law enforcement organization to an organization that has deployed people around the world in battle zones to collect

fingerprints and forensic evidence, not for purposes of making a criminal case in a courtroom, but in order to collect biometrics and other kinds of detritus of terrorists so they can be used to analyze and identify other potential terrorists and terrorist acts. we have brought the capabilities of law enforcement into the battlefield. enhance the intelligence collection and understanding of those people involved in combat. there are other elements of national power we have to consider as well. diplomatic ability, our economic power. our ability to lead and invest in other countries will which become critical in our international strategy and have to be considered as important assets. even aid and assistance is a critical part of strategy. one of the less known accomplishments of this country in the last 10 years has been

the vigorous investment that we have made in assisting people in africa and fighting aids and malaria. not only is it a good thing to do for its own sake but it yields enormous dividends in goodwill for the united states. the people who benefit from these programs don't view the u.s. as an invader or as an exploiter but as an aid and and assistance to the very important problems. you see that sometimes here in washington. we are blessed with a very broad international population. from time to time i get into a taxicab and i think the cabdrivers must be very high consumers of news because i often get recognized as having been the former secretary of homeland security. it is striking the number of cabdrivers from africa who say i want you to know my country is really grateful for what you did to help us fight malaria and aids. at a time that people question the value of foreign aid, to the

united states, it is an investment that pays enormous dividends and dividends that out cost people their lives. strategy,nk about a we have to consider how we use all of these tools. other identify three principles that are important as we discussed what our strategy is, dealing with the threats that we face in the coming years. first, the homeland and what happens overseas are not separate. the department of homeland do the sames not function that the department of defense does but there is an anonymous amount of overlap. the fact is that in a global environment the threat moves back in force -- moves back and forth. we are not bystanders to history. we are not optional participants. we may have thought 20 years ago that it was up to us what we wanted to get involved in kosovo or korea or in other areas, but

9/11 taught us that like it or not if we don't reach out and touched a world that it will come back in touch us or strike us and hit us. we need to make sure that the distinction between the homeland and what occurs internationally is not viewed as more significant than it is. second, a strategy has to be one that recognizes that one-size- fits-all. i will talk about strategic challenges in three or four areas during my talk. i hope the lesson that you come away with is if there's anything the strategy that has to fit the circumstances. that doesn't have to be tactical, simply taking each problem in trying to fix it and move on, but it does mean you have an overall strategy but you adapted to what the local conditions and requirements are. the third and final point i would make is this.

the regions are connected. it is easy to put the template of regional studies on the way we look at the world, but in reality these regions overlap thatheir are consequences may be felt across multiple regions. to take a strategic vision, for example, when you look at how we deal with china, you need to also look at how china behaves in africa and what our policy in africa is and how that affects china. those things are going to be linked and interconnect it. with that in mind, let me talk about four areas where i think a strategic focus deserves a little bit of attention. first and most obvious is al qaeda. , we haveen said visited an enormous amount of damage on what is sometimes described as core al qaeda, the central group of leaders that ran al qaeda in 2001. we have degraded what i would

, but it as al qaeda 1.0 has morphed and adapted. it also has improved its capabilities. now seeing what is 2.0 or 3.0. this is an al qaeda that is regionally distributed. some of the regions may be more autonomous, but make no mistake, there is a unified ideology, there is mutual assistance and a recognition that what benefits one benefits others. you are dealing now again with an organization that is different than it was 12 years ways canthat in many be more dangerous because it is more widely distributed. whiche seen it in yemen is now widely regarded as probably the most dangerous platform from which attacks against the u.s. and western interests are being lost. we see days iraq, where in recent

the al qaeda in iraq has begun to experience a resurgence. we have seen it in west africa and in east africa. we have seen it in nigeria. --give you a sense of how let's take the example of libya. we went into libya a couple of years ago and the thought was --t qaddafi was purely risk was poorly responding to an uprising. we were going to support europeans in first trying to stop the killing, but then ultimately it morphed into removing qaddafi. i am second to no one in saying that was a bad man who deserves any bad thing that happened to him. we had toegically consider the implications of removing him from libya. remember, this was an individual that as bad as he was, in the mid part of the last decade, he

decided he was going to give up his weapons of mass destruction program and begin to try to cooperate with the west and with the united states. did he do that because he had an epiphany in which he decided he was going to reform himself? no. to be honest, he got scared at what he saw in iraq and he became afraid he would become a victim and so he wound up surrendering in advance. was he a cooperative ally? no. was he someone who was making reducing hisrds program and cooperating? yes, he was. there was some forward movement area and so what was the strategic implication of removing him and particularly doing it with the condition that we were not going to go in as western powers and actually put boots on the ground and stabilize the country? i would submit there are a couple of things that emerged. first, we lost control of some

of the weapons that he had in surface-to-air missiles which are still out and about in various parts of the world. fell, hisen he mercenaries and sympathizers began to move south. they began to connect up with terrorist affiliates. some who moved south were released from qaddafi's prisons of theame reinforcements al qaeda franchise in north africa. we soon saw and asked remus takeover in mali. andaw an attack in algeria stress placed upon other parts of libya. , from a strategic standpoint, we may have injected more instability and more danger in the region than we removed. at the same time i have to wonder whether the message we sent to tehran, to those leaders of iran who are contemplating what their position ought to be

,oing forward on nuclear rising the message we sent was if you renounce your weapons and cooperate with the united states, we kill you. the message -- i'm not suggesting that going into libya wasn't easy analysis. what i am suggesting is strategically when you look at that, questions are raised about whether it was a strategic win or a tactical win. that return to syria. very much on people's minds. between the time i started my speech and the time i and, this may change a couple of times. it is only good for about 10 minutes. some would argue that what i said about libya applies to syria and therefore we should not get involved. but actually in many ways the strategic position is different. first of all, syria is located in a different part of the

region. what happens in syria is not like what happens in vegas stays in vegas. what happens in syria hasn't impact on turkey, jordan, lebanon, iraq and possibly israel as well. the geographic dynamic of syria means it is much more strategically significant than the case in libya. second, the use of chemical weapons and the fact that the regime is acting in many ways as an extension of iran and in cooperation with hezbollah means that the strategic outcome of what happens in syria is much more significant for the united states and our allies in the case inhan was the libya. unlike qaddafi, assad did not renounce his weapons of mass destruction. he actually used them. so the strategic tactic here is very different from libya. whencee -- here if assad it is a triumph for iran and hezbollah with the potential of

destabilizing the gulf and the whole region. if assad loses but is replaced --extremists like almost run that would be a failure. the key is to have moderate groups of opposition be sufficiently strong to be able to ultimately claim control of syria and give us a reasonable shot, not a guarantee, a reasonable shot at controlling that country and reserving some kind of peace for it and its neighbors. again, superficially to very similar looking situations. i would say from a strategic standpoint, very different in significance the united states. that of course has become all the more emphasized by what is going on right now, where the president has declared and the

secretary of state has declared that there is unequivocal evidence that chemical weapons have been used on a significant scale biocides, notwithstanding warnings. failing to respond to that, failing to show he can respond to that will show a direct strategic impact on iran. it will be the reverse of what happened in libya. the message will be, if you don't cooperate with the u.s. you get away with it. in yourut those perspective. the strategic framework within which we occupied the region. finally, egypt. egypt, happily is not in the state of syria or libya although there has been violence and there's a struggle. here is a challenging problem. where there was a moderately democratic election, although in an environment which i would not say there was a mature electoral process or immature all set of electoral

institutions, and yet it appears over time that the president who won the election, morsi, was accumulate in power and taking steps to degrade the existence of civil society to continue. remember, while elections are important, one election does not make a democracy. just as one swallow does not make a summer. were thercumstances elections turned out to be the last election because the people in power abuse their position to make it impossible for themselves to be replaced. there will be a lot of debate about whether that is what happened here or not, but i would say strategically we have to start from where we are. where we are is a military -- the muslim brotherhood is now out of power. the question is where do we go from here? important, obviously, to

move forward in the direction of restoring institutions of civil and ultimately having elections that are free and fair, but elections that are ofted in a foundation democratic institutions, including independent courts and protecting the right of minorities. is not merely a turnover of tyrants but actually has some sort of enduring framework for freedom. the strategic benefits of the united states for that are very clear. it means we are likely to have a stronger and friendlier ally. it means we are likely to have a model for the region and it also means having a hope for others who are looking at the countries that are now dealing with the aftermath of the so-called arab spring. we should't mean militarily intervene. this is an example where the strategy is about soft power is

about assisting with guidance with institution building, with the proper kind of economic aid and the proper kind of assistance. these tools, rather than military force, or be critical in helping the new government and frankly coaxing the new government into moving into the new correction that is strategically significant for us and for egypt. so

it can be quite effective when dealing with people that are about to or commit acts of terrorism. we have to use those as well as they are important parts and tools. be out, there needs to region understanding and what

cause people to become outlaws. part of the strategic approach again is to address those elements either of psychology or sociology or propaganda that have spurred troubling number of people to be willing to put bombs on themselves or leave homes somewhere to kill americans -- or leave bombs somewhere to kill americans. tactics is easy. while you have to have the tactics and it is ultimately one problem after another. as you embark on careers in the areas of international relations and international affairs, you will find a much more disordered world. a much more challenging world maybe then 30 four years ago. a world in which understanding, listening, appreciation of the value of all the tools and the value of having the strategy

will be paramount care to restrict we need in this nation 's next-generation of leaders also thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for such an interesting presentation. ,ow to continue the discussion with a lot of questions to ask in comments to give. professor david barton with us to help us moderate the discussion and answer questions. david barton has 30 years of experience in national security and foreign-policy having worked with united states senate, house of representatives, and the state department. investigationd an to develop a final report on the

senate intelligence committee of the terrorist events of september 11. he worked with the senate on security and veterans affairs, intelligence metals adopt as public law. -- that was developed as public law. mr. barton directed a project at the national academy, public demonstration requested by the congress and the fbi focused on the intelligence of the fbi and its relation to the rest of the community. for the past three years, he has been teaching courses on foreign-policy and national security at the george washington university. graduate of john hopkins school. please welcome -- please help me in welcoming mr. barton. [applause] >> as some of my students who thebe here no, -- know,

world does not rotate around the ivy league. stop very, very important -- important. i want to ensure you of that. la and thethank manue board for organizing this evening. since i have been teaching and national security and foreign- policy related to 9/11 for the last six years now, it is terribly important. terribly important to hear from somebody with experience and thatround and vision former secretary chertoff has. creating a to thank dynamic teaching environment here at the elliott school. it has been a pleasure to teach your. -- teach here.

because i worked for the homeland security senate committee and because i would have to with secretary chertoff would be coming for the committee to testify, one of my responsibilities as a staffer was to prepare very difficult russians for the secretary -- questions for the secretary. i would work the night preparing pages and pages of questions. sure enough home a -- sure enough, senator lieberman would , do i needwould say to address him as mr. secretary or as judge? i would usually say to him that my global work just fine. -- michael would work just fine. [laughter] askingthe privilege of the first question. and i guess what i most appreciate it about michael's

presentation to you was his emphasis on strategy. as those of you know and have taken my course, i talk about strategic thinking and planning and policy all of the time in my course. terribly important. i would like to ask mr. chertoff to focus on how a strategy that is a long-term vision that is a strategic vision, how do we address the kind -- continuing terrorist threat and persistence of the al qaeda network? and i would like to address what he feels are some of the root causes for the terrorism that seems to fester in middle eastern countries and what can we do in terms of hard power, soft power, visionary power, strategic thinking -- what are the things that comes to his mind on those basic root causes

of terrorism threat? >> that is a huge question and i will confess in the answer i do not really actually know the answer. i will to you during the time i served in government, when president bush was in office, his view was the fundamental problems is lack of democracy. regionhad countries in a that would eliminate the frustration that gave rise to some people become terrorists. i suppose he was modeling it after our own country and at least in theory that people have that democratic countries do not go to war. while i think there's a lot of appeal, it is not a sufficient explanation or approach the cuff there are other dynamics at work . some of them are social dynamics and cultural that need to be addressed and is not just about

the ballot box. the role of women in society, economic prospects are, where the young people feel frustrated and pressed down. it is about whether people feel an individual sense of fairness. more important than the ballot box is a courtroom, the fact that a person does not feel they can be imprisoned or punished arbitrarily. if you look at the tunisian uprising it was because a street andor felt unfairly abused by petty bureaucrat. maybe that is part of it, the idea of law. a lot of this is ideology. societies on a certain responsibility to communicate within themselves to their own people what is the doctrine and morale and appropriate. there were times for example in some parts of that region where

for reasons, and dictators or --ders had a tournament andlent type of ideology summit that took root -- and summit that took root and parts of south asia. i am afraid i do not have a simple answer. going to be doing something more or less pragmatic over the next few years as we watch the various integrations of the so-called arab spring play out. figure out what worked and what did not work and what did we learn from it. >> excellent. i want to open the questions as quickly as possible to the students and our visitors. handsree to raise your and i believe somebody will come over to you with a microphone so that you can ask your question.

ok, let's go right here. does the media and american public opinion played in homeland security strategy in the middle east? >> it plays a huge role. what you learn about homeland security is different from purely military activity is when you are dealing with the military, you basically have the you are intended to eliminate. your own forces, you have control over and then civilians but they are more or less bystanders in the process. in homeland security, civilians are actors. they have to cooperate. what we are trying to do is drive civilians to behave in a certain way to maximize security and minimize the threat.

sometimes it adds about the expression see something, say something. if you see something that is dangerous. a remarkable number of plots that were disrupted because somebody came forward with the fbi or the police said there is something funny here you have to take a look at. that is important way in which civilians attitudes are important. also civilian patience and commitment is important. we asked a lot of people. there are hassles in the airport. as smooth as we try to make the perfectlyothing to be smooth. you have to have identification or other things you need to do. and some sense, the public tolerates that. be peopleuence would will start getting killed. and likely revert back again. ideally would like to not have groundhog day play out stop would like to learn our lessons. that requires exactly what you

tom communicating with people and their attitudes. one of the lessons i learned was the public affairs element of how you deal with an event actually has tremendous significance. ,t is not just after thought since somebody else to deal the press. you have to look at all the ways of communicating as indispensable to carry out what you are trying to do. for the public operation in a domestic environment, you are going to have much more difficulty carrying out your efforts. >> a question here. >> first of all, thank you for coming to visit us and speak to us. the question i have in regard to syria and the strategy there since you mentioned strategy in syria is complicated. great britain has taken and a president it move --

unprecedented move in not supporting us as allies. advice to ourving president now on the best strategy to look out in terms of syria especially with the againstof reprisal american interests. >> let me begin i saying what i said which was we have to start with where we are will stop there are things i would revise it differently over the past year or two. those days are gone. we find ourselves in a particular situation. if he waslived as going to pushed out by the operation of the insurgency is self. now it appears to be pushing back. he has used chemical weapons. the president has said there is a red line and did say that a year ago. there seems to be quite compelling evidence that a line was crossed. we find ourselves. there are couple of things we

need to think about. strategically and admittedly a hard problem. what is the endgame we are looking for? 4 possibilities. assad wins, bad outcome. syria fails as a state and becomes a train on all of its neighbors and persistent fighting a bad outcome. the best outcome, not perfect as a moderate group is sufficiently strong that they are able to take control of the country and marginalize the extremists who are still a minority and syria is not a fundamentalist country. the best is what gives them the breathing space to put in place some kind of institution preferably with international help. that is the kind of strategic issue. the second strategic issue is the chemical weapons were used. we declared a red line. how do we not act without sending a message to iran and everybody else that i'm a all,

we tell you if you do x, we are going to do y, never mind. if they an idea floated get older chemical weapons to u.n. with that stopped thanks? ?- would that stop things a cynic would say it is a last- minute maneuver to push things out in many months. ask yourself these questions, do we have an adequate race line of what assad has? how would we actually inspect and enforce in the middle of a war going on, absent to cease fire? how would we know if everything has been given to us? these are challenging questions will stop if you remind the clock back, for many years in the mid-1990's we did this with iraq.

they would say they were destroying things and inspectors will come and he would not let the man and it will look like something had moved. that left the matters in a very unresolved way and in that circumstance, basically what happens is the person who has the weapons is trying to where the patients out of the west until they finally give up. again, as you evaluate that, i ,nderstand there are reasons you have to consider whether in a practical sense this is measurable and achievable and whether it is likely to be a way of delaying well a site continues to do what he does. continues to do what he does. >> maybe at the end of the row here? >> excuse me. do you consider the cases of

bradley manning and edward snowden indicative of the success of the departments if you say something do something slogan? >> no. [laughter] >> what is the proper action of insider when they know the government has lied to the people? >> let's take these two cases. i do not know that manning put out there would be publicly disclosed, sure the government lied. most people that the sestak said the u.s. government act pretty much the way they say. were there some may be harsh comments made about local political officials are candid assessments, yeah. that and thed have ability. that is why with students and this room get comments from their professors that are candid

on their papers, they do not post them on the internet so everybody can see the criticism. i do not know if manning qualifies as a whistleblower. as far as snowden is concerned, a lot of the stuff that he damaging while highly does not reveal illegality. i am struck by the contradictory nature of the criticisms. there was a period of time where the fight the court -- fisa court would use whether the nsa did as a rubber stamp. then it will be declassified when the fisa court gave a paddling to be nsa. the story was look the court is attacking the nsa. which one is it? becausesy to glamorize a, they can be rebuilt and the breathless way without context. i have yet to see serious

malfeasance revealed by this or serious illegality. still less have i seen that snowden went into the authorities, the inspector general, anything you expect him to do. what i have seen is this though. somebody what's gunned it to china, spent time in the and now russia where he considers the guidance light of future. the country where they deal with whistleblowers is by killing them. , if yourppen to be sexual orientation is different from what putin likes, that is illegal. if somebody wants to use chemical weapons, you have shipped them the precursors will stop -- precursors. as ald not look to snowden whistleblower.

>> maybe in the back there? or 5 rowsck -- 4 back. >> thank you, mr. secretary. arrestedn citizen was and sentenced -- sent to syria where he was tortured. he sued. the canadian government a look at him a $.9 million for what happened. a british citizen was captured and morocco and tortured at guantánamo and this case was thrown out by the american court using the state secret privilege. several british ports upheld what happened to him was illegal and he was given several million dollars. it was revealed that the department of homeland security was open u.s. mail from a foreign source. yes? in 2009, it was revealed by the media that homeland security was targeting groups for terrorist

activity based on antiwar group or islamic lobby group. numerous times will we try to have oversight, the government has invoked the state secrets privilege. do you believe the state -- department homeland security can be trusted to uphold the rule of law if they have little public or judicial oversight? >> i would not say there is very little judicial oversight. with have a whole discussion about this. if you look at the totality of cases and discount media reports because there's a wide variety of still outlet -- of outlets and professionalism. if you look at the totality, here's what is striking about the united states. in many cases, the u.s. has lost cases in court. in no case, did the u.s. government defy or failed to carry out what the course

instructions were. some the big cases are cases where the u.s. did not either partly loss or loss at significant argument. and when the court later down the rule about what would happen, the government acquiesced. that is why there is a different process for people in guantánamo then there was several years ago. whether you to say when a particular case is not the judge -- is not the basis of the judge of law but whether that the courts are independent and whether that the courts do rule against the government upon the government obeys. if the united states, the government does oprah. -- does oprah. if you look at the work -- does obey. if you look around the world, that is pretty remarkable. >> wait for a microphone.

but mr. secretary, how has your department responded to global terror threats with communication may not be as fast as large organizations, financial transactions may not be as easy to track as well? >> a great question. we first putwhat into place after 9/11 when you are dealing with people coming from overseas is one that looks out. just in international terrorism relies on global communication, finance, and travel am a those are also vulnerabilities that can be exploited. they may not committee kate with anybody else. they are living in their hometown. low finance operations. wherely that is

increasingly we have seen communities and local police that play major roles. the behavior, the person who behaves out of character that actually is the tipoff that something might happen. again, if you look at some the cases we have had in the past with disrupting a lone wolf has been because a small group because somebody in the community came forward and said there's a problem here. we had a case some years back where people from a particular somali immigrants came forward and said our to somali to fight and that tipped off the authorities that there was a pipeline. tech as you have your high- kind of well-known national security agencies that deal with threats to the global, when you are dealing with local threats and lone wolves, it is police

boots on the ground, local folks , community leaders with got to be part of the process of identifying threats. >> right here. right here, second row. secretary, i wanted you to address the boston marathon. he said communication is key but in that situation one problem was communication between certain departments and government and certain governments. ts are not inac and i do not want to speculate. you have to look at this and several stages. be,set of questions will why? somehow they lost track of tsarnaev, the old when once he went over -- the older one with the went over to chechnya and

was over there for a few months. why there was not an alert on that. why the russian warning was not integrated or taken seriously. the second set of issues is whether with in the u.s. government where people did have warning, how come they did not pursue it further communicate? i do not know the answer but that's a second case of issues. amonghe bombings occurred -- occurred, where the authorities effective? they were effective. to the a tribute training and exercises that had gone on for years to get the police and gear to do with they had to do in order to shut down these folks. cases,lustrates in many it's important to mitigate damage as to prevent it. you would not prevent everything but if you can stop it, prevent the sir knights from going to --

yorkaevs from going to new , that is encouragement. are not in. all of these tragedies and all of these occasions to do a hot wash, to really review and reconsider what the lessons learned are. they'll be some useful lessons here. >> right here in the middle. back there. she will wave to you. >> with have a lot of questions of the middle east and obviously what is going on over there. ice,e part of dhs is also over the summer -- was huge in the news and there is nothing

going on about it. my question is do you think this will come back 2014 and then 2016 and do you personally think it will come back? >> i've spent a fair amount of time in 2007 when i was secretary, the president requested -- and that means you have to do it. i wanted to do it. requested me to work with senators on both sides of the aisle to put together the migration reform proposal. we actually came out with the proposal not terribly different from what you see now that had a broad array of people supporting it, quite concerned for postings and liberal democrats. is going tok this happen. it has to happen. the only argument is if you think -- i'm not yet ready person who said great. there are a number of different problems.

while we have made a lot of progress in controlling the border, in many ways the real challenges are people, get legally and having visas and overstaying. what drop them in is illegal employment. how do you address that problem? we need people to perform certain jobs that americans do not want to do that we should open up a managed, clearly identifiable program that people can use to come to work temporarily. we have had that in the past. you identified them and they have to play by the rules and they pay their taxes. that both eliminate some of the demand and if you put in an enforcement system, you make a heart for people who are not here legally to get work. you kind of force those people into a legal channel but given the opportunity. second problem is we educate, probably some people here from other countries in important

skills. they get advanced degrees that we say goodbye, go gray jobs in india or china -- ago created jobs and india or china. why do we not want to encourage the people to greater jobs here, not only for themselves but others? that's another thing that has to get fixed. we have people here illegally. many of the are rooted here and we have to find a way to deal with them. so you are not exploited and also crate reservoirs where they can be preyed upon by criminals. that is coming up with some fair way to resolve the situation that involves some combination of penalty. where you canod model them and make sure they are in compliance but not forever closing the possibility of them being citizen if they want that was the main will not. history shows that only a modest

percentage of people who actually have the opportunity want to be citizens. many want to go back home. i understand there are challenges with all of this. we have taken three or four swings at this ball and pretty much everybody ends up with roughly the same vision of what has to happen will stop which tells me nobody is, with a genius idea for fixing this that does not have the basic outlines laid out. the fundamental question is this -- if you think the system is good the way this thomas you should vote against reform -- the way this, you should vote against reform. i think the american people are coming around to that. it is going to be very tough but a lot of stuff going on to get on the agenda will stop -- agenda. it's time will eventually come. >> right here.

sorry to all of those with their hands up. >> thank you, mr. secretary. given the recent situations of anddiplomatic row -- realm the limitations on the security council's, how do you think the diplomatic strategy will be effective and how relevant will he be in the future for other situations? >> in terms of what is going on with syria and the security council? i do not think anyone was shocked at the fact the security council was unwilling to take action. it had made it clear they do not want to take action. the russians were not willing to take action in the balkans in the 1990's and there was resistance to taking action in -- that2003 even though

was a breach of multitudes -- resolutions. there's a question of the role of the security council and whether it paralyzes the ability to deal with issues that occur internally with karen this activity. i was in cambodia. i went to the trial of the remaining -- i read about it but you really have to take a deep breath and when you are confronted by the fact that almost 2 million people were killed. also one third of the country will stop it was a deliberate, painstaking form. murder over a pita of 18 months. -- period of 18 months. is there any point in which there is self-defense for the people in the country who are being victimized?

we all agreed that we have rates of self-defense. is there such a point that a government forfeits his obligations to its citizens they have to say somebody has to protect them from being killed and raped. that is a moral challenge. the security council does not answer. they should not be taken lightly. one of the big challenges for international activity in the next decade is going to be how do we deal with mass atrocities when governments cannot be reasoned with or sanctioned. i do not know the current mechanisms will be adequate. >> select questions. thank you very all for asking the questions. -- excellent questions. >> would like to thank all of you for coming. secretary chertoff, thank you

for such insightful remarks. thank you for comment. -- coming. this was our first academic event of the year. we hope to see you and the rest. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> defense secretary chuck hagel joins martin dempsey as secretary of state john kerry will testify about military stores on syria to stop will take questions.

span -- live on c- on c-span three. president obama address the nation tonight trying to make the case for military strikes on syria. we'll have live coverage. >> national security adviser susan rice says the you suck and what this is. if threat to u.s. national security and the countries in the middle east occluding israel. she spoke at the new american foundation for 45 minutes. >> hello, everybody. i am the very new president of the new america foundation. i have been here a week and i have already come to appreciate the enormous work that goes into setting up an event like this one. thanks to all of our teams. since all of you are here to see

ambassador rice, since she has kindly help us gather you, i cannot go without a love for the weekly long, our new digital magazine. sign up for that on your way out. it's a great pleasure to be will to introduce susan rice, the national security advisor. she became national security advisor in july, the first woman to her deposition in a democratic administration. she moved back to the white after four very successful years as u.n. ambassador. she was on the frontline of what seemed like a steady series of national security and global security crises in north korea, iran, libya, sudan, molly, and syria. this is her second tour in government. during the clinton administration, she was the

director for peacekeeping and international organizations of the national security council and then the senior official for african affairs and the assistant secretary of state for african affairs. i have written a lot about the arc of successful careers. there is not a lot of art to ambassador rice's career treat it is a straight upward. she did take a break between her two tours of service to be in the brookings administration and she is a mother who took her infants into her senate hearings. a mentor, friend, and strong supporter of lots of foreign policy people in this town. i am personally very glad that ambassador rice is sitting next to the president at this particular moment. she has deep experience of many different types of conflict. she has been part of the

complicated dance between force and diplomacy, and she's a tough negotiator and forceful advocate and she ensures all sides are heard and also understands the law of unintended consequences. she has first hand experience of assuming the responsibilities of leadership both at home and abroad. in many ways, i think ambassador rice represents the very best of a new america. she is going to speak to us today on why the united states must act in syria. ambassador susan rice. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone.

let me begin by thanking annemarie for your kind words and your invitation to be here today. and apologize to all of you for the late start. if i've learned anything in my new job it's that i'm not the master of my own schedule anymore. i want to thank you for your principled leadership both in government where we work together so closely and now at the new america foundation. and i want to commend you and your colleagues for the many contributions you make to our national security discourse, including on the challenge that brings us together today. in response to bashar al-assad's barbaric use of chemical weapons against the syrian people, president obama, after careful consideration, has decided it's in the national security interest of the united states to conduct limited military strikes against the syrian regime. president obama has asked congress for its support in this

action because in a democracy, our policies are stronger, more effective, and more sustainable when they have the support of the american people and their elected leaders. tomorrow evening, the president will address the nation and make his case for taking action. today, i want to take this opportunity to explain why syria's use of chemical weapons is a serious threat to our national security and why it is in our national interest to undertake limited military action to deter future use. there is no denying what happened on august 21. around 2:30 in the morning, while most of damascus was still asleep, assad's forces loaded warheads filled with deadly

chemicals onto rockets and launch them into suburbs controlled or contested by opposition forces. they unleashed hellish chaos and terror on a massive scale. innocent civilians were jolted awake, choking on poison. some never woke up at all. in the end, more than 1400 were dead. more than 400 of them, children. in recent days, we have been shocked by the videos from neighborhoods near damascus. as a parent, i cannot look at those pictures. those little children lying on the ground, their eyes glassy, their bodies twisting, and not think of my own two kids. i can only imagine the agony of

those parents in damascus. sarin is odorless and colorless. so victims may not even know they have it exposed until it is too late. sarin targets the body's central nervous system, making every breath a struggle and causing foaming at the nose and mouth, intense nausea, and uncontrollable convulsions. the death of any innocent in syria or around the world is a tragedy, whether by bullet or landmine or poisonous gas. but chemical weapons are different. they are wholly indiscriminate. gas plumes shift and spread without warning.

the masses of people it affects are immense. the torturous death it brings is unconscionable. chemical weapons, like other weapons of mass destruction, kill on a scope and a scale that is entirely different from conventional weapons. opening the door to their use anywhere threatens the united states and our personnel everywhere. there is no doubt about who is responsible for this attack. the regime possesses one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world. assad has been struggling to clear these neighborhoods in damascus and to drive out the opposition, but his conventional arsenal was not working well enough or fast enough.

only the syrian regime has the capacity to deliver chemical weapons on a scale to cause the devastation we saw in damascus. the opposition does not. the rockets were fired from territory controlled by the regime. the rockets landed in territory controlled or contested by the opposition. and the intelligence we gathered reveals that senior officials were planning the attack and planning to cover the evidence by destroying the area with shelling. we assessed that he has used them on a small scale multiple times since march. but august 21 was very

different. whereas previous attacks killed relatively few people, this one murdered well over 1000 in one fell swoop. assad is lowering his threshold for use while increasing exponentially his attacks. his escalating use of chemical weapons threatens the national security of united states and the likelihood that left unchecked, assad will continue to use these weapons again and again. it takes the syrian conflict to an entirely different level by terrorizing civilians, creating even greater refugee flows, and raising the risk that deadly chemicals would spill across borders into neighboring turkey, jordan, lebanon, and iraq.

obviously, the use of chemical weapons also threatens our closest allies in the region, israel. where people once again have readied gas masks. every time chemical weapons are moved, unloaded, and used on the battlefield, it raises the likelihood that these weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists active in syria, including assad's ally, hezbollah and al qaeda affiliates. that puts americans at risk for chemical attacks targeted at our soldiers in the region and even potentially our citizens at home. equally, every attack served to unravel the long established commitment of nations to renounce chemical weapons use.

189 countries, representing 98% of the world's population are aware of the convention which prohibits the development, acquisition, or use of these weapons. the united states senate approved that convention by an overwhelming bipartisan majority. binding america to the global consensus and affirm that we do not tolerate the use or possession of chemical weapons. the assad regime's attack is not only an affront to that norm, and also a threat to global security, including the security of the united states. failing to respond to this outrage also threatens our national security. failing to respond means more and more syrians will die from

the poisonous stockpile. it makes our allies and partners in the region tempting targets of assad's future attacks. failing to respond increases the risk of violent instability and citizens across the middle east and north africa continue to struggle for their universal rights. failing to respond rings us closer to the day when terrorists might gain and use chemical weapons against americans, a broad, and at home. failing to respond damages the international principle reflected in to multilateral -- in two multilateral treaties. it must never again be used anywhere in the world. failing to respond to the use of chemical weapons risks opening

the door to other weapons of mass destruction and emboldening the madmen who would use them. we cannot allow terrorists bent on destruction or a nuclear north korea or an aspiring nuclear iran to believe for one minute that we are shying away from our determination to back up our long-standing warnings. if we begin to erode the moral outrage of gassing children in their beds, we open ourselves up to even more fearsome consequences. moreover, failing to respond to this attack could indicate that the united states is not prepared to use the full range of tools necessary to keep our

nation secure. any president, republican or democrat must have recourse to all elements of american power to design and implement our national security policy, whether diplomatic, economic, or military. rejecting the limited military action, that president obama strongly supports would raise questions around the world as to whether the united states is truly prepared to employ the full range of its power to defend our national interests. america's ability to rally coalitions and delete internationally could be undermined. other global hotspots might flare up if belligerents believe that the united states cannot be counted on to enforce the most basic and widely accepted international norms.

most disturbingly, it would send a perverse message to those who seek to use the world's worst weapons that you can use these weapons latently and just get away with it. now i know that many americans are horrified by the images from damascus and are concerned about the devastating, broader consequences. while they believe the world should act, they are not sure that military action is the right tool at this time. let me address this important argument. the reason president obama decided to pursue limited strikes is that we and others have already exhausted a host of other measures aimed at changing assad's calculus and his willingness to use chemical

weapons. as the august 21 mass casualty attack makes clear, these efforts have not succeeded. since the beginning of the regime's brutal violence against its own people, more than 2.5 years ago, we have consistently backed the united nations diplomatic prospects and urged the parties to the negotiating table, fully cognizant that a political solution is the best way to and the civil conflict and the syrian regime's torment of its own people. we collaborate with our european allies to impose a robust sanctions to pressure the assad regime. we supported the creation of the inquiry to document atrocities. when assad started using chemical weapons on a small

scale multiple times, we publicized compelling evidence of the regimes use, sharing it with congress, the united nations, and the american public. at our urging over months, russia and iran repeatedly reinforced our warnings to a assad. for the last year, we admonished syria directly. we all sent the same message again and again -- do not do it. but they did it. first, on a small scale, apart for the world to discern. in response, we augmented our non-lethal assistance to the opposition and expanded the nature and scope of our support to the supreme military council. we pressed for more than six months to gain united nations investigation team's unfettered access.

or if not, at a minimum, it could establish a shared base that might finally compel russia and iran, itself a victim of saddam hussein's chemical weapon attacks, to pull the plug on a regime that gases its own people. but then, when u.n. investigators finally entered the country, the regime launched the largest chemical weapons attack in a quarter-century while the inspectors staged on the other side of town. for five days thereafter, the regime stalled the effective areas to destroy critical evidence. so, only after pursuing a wide

range of nonmilitary measures to prevent and hauled chemical weapons use did president obama conclude that a limited military strike is the right way to deter assad from continuing to employ chemical weapons like any conventional weapon of war. the fact is that president obama has consistently demonstrated his commitment to multilateral diplomacy. he would much prefer the backing of united nations security council to uphold the international ban against the use of chemical weapons, whether in the form of sanctions, accountability, or authorizing the use of force. but let's be realistic. it is just not going to happen. believe me. i know. i was there for all of those you

-- u.n. debates and negotiations on syria. i lived it. it was shameful. three times the security council took up resolutions to condemn lesser violence by the syrian regime. three times we negotiated for weeks over the most watered-down language imaginable. and three times, russia and china double vetoed almost a meaningless resolutions. similarly, in the past two months, russia has blocked two resolutions condemning the use of chemical weapons that does not even a scribe blame to any party. russia opposed to mere press statements expressing concerns about their use. one week after the august 21 gas attack, united kingdom presented a resolution that included a

referral of war crimes in syria to the international court. again, the russians opposed it as they have every form of accountability in syria. for all of these regions -- for all of these reasons, the president has concluded it is in our national security interest to conduct limited strikes against the assad regime. i want to take this opportunity to address concerns now that even limited strikes could lead to even greater risks to the united states. let me describe as plainly as i can what this action would be and just as importantly, what it would not be. the president has been clear about our purpose. these would be limited strikes to deter the syrian regime from using chemical weapons and to

degrade their ability to do so again. what do we mean by limited? this would not be the united states launching another war. as the president has said repeatedly, this would not be iraq or afghanistan. there will be no american boots on the ground, period. nor would it resemble kosovo or libya, which were sustained air campaigns. this will not be an open ended effort as the president has said again repeatedly, this action would be limited in both time and scope. nor would this be new. the united states has engaged in limited strikes multiple times before.

recall that president reagan conducted airstrikes measured in hours against libya in 1986. president clinton conducted days against iraq in 1998. no two military actions are identical.

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>> as some of my students who may be here know, the world does not rotate around the ivy league. gw is very, very important i want to thank manuela and the board for organizing this evening. since i have been teaching and national security and foreign- policy related to 9/11 for the last six years now, it is terribly important. terribly important to hear from somebody with experience and background and vision that former secretary chertoff has. i also want to thank dean brown

for creating a dynamic teaching environment here at the elliott school. it has been a pleasure to teach here. because i worked for the homeland security senate committee and because i would have to with secretary chertoff would be coming for the committee to testify, one of my responsibilities as a staffer was to prepare very difficult questions for the secretary. i would work the night preparing pages and pages of questions. sure enough, senator lieberman would ask me, he would say, do i need to address him as mr. secretary or as judge? i would usually say to him that michael would work just fine. [laughter] i have the privilege of asking the first question.

and i guess what i most appreciate about michael's presentation to you was his emphasis on strategy. as those of you know and have taken my course, i talk about strategic thinking and planning and policy all of the time in my course. terribly important. i would like to ask mr. chertoff to focus on how a strategy that is a long-term vision that is a strategic vision, how do we address the continuing terrorist threat and persistence of the al qaeda network? and i would like him to address what he feels are some of the root causes for the terrorism that seems to fester in middle eastern countries and what can

we do in terms of hard power, soft power, visionary power, strategic thinking -- what are the things that comes to his mind on those basic root causes of terrorism threat? >> that is a huge question and i will confess in the answer i do not really actually know the answer. i will tell you during the time i served in government, when president bush was in office, his view was the fundamental problems is lack of democracy. if you had countries in a region that would eliminate the frustration that gave rise to some people become terrorists. i suppose he was modeling it after our own country and at least in theory that people have that democratic countries do not go to war. while i think there's a lot of appeal, it is not a sufficient explanation or approach, there are other dynamics at work. some of them are social dynamics and cultural that need to be

addressed and is not just about the ballot box. the role of women in society, what your economic prospects are, where the young people feel frustrated and pressed down. it is about whether people feel an individual sense of fairness. more important than the ballot box is a courtroom, the fact that a person does not feel they can be imprisoned or punished arbitrarily. if you look at the tunisian uprising, it was because a street vendor felt unfairly abused by a petty bureaucrat. maybe that is part of it, the idea of rule of law. a lot of this is ideology. societies on a certain responsibility to communicate within themselves to their own people what is the doctrine and morale and appropriate.

there were times for example in some parts of that region where for reasons, and dictators or leaders had a virulent type of ideology and some that took root in parts of south asia. i am afraid i do not have a simple answer. i think we are going to be doing something more or less pragmatic watch the various iterations of the so-called arab spring play out. figure out what worked and what did not work and what did we learn from it. >> excellent. i want to open the questions as quickly as possible to the students and our visitors. feel free to raise your hands and i believe somebody will come

over to you with a microphone so that you can ask your question. ok, let's go right here. >> what role does the media and american public opinion play in homeland security strategy in the middle east? >> it plays a huge role. what you learn about homeland security is different from purely military activity is when you are dealing with the military, you basically have the enemy you are intended to eliminate. your own forces, you have control over and then you have civilians but they are more or less bystanders in the process. in homeland security, civilians are actors. they have to cooperate.

what we are trying to do is drive civilians to behave in a certain way to maximize security and minimize the threat. sometimes it is about the expression see something, say something. if you see something that is dangerous. a remarkable number of plots that were disrupted because somebody came forward with the fbi or the police said there is something funny here you have to take a look at. that is important way in which civilians attitudes are important. also civilian patience and commitment is important. we asked a lot of people. there are hassles in the airport. as smooth as we try to make the process, nothing to be perfectly smooth. you have to have identification or other things you need to do. in some sense, the public tolerates that. the consequence would be people will start getting killed.

we would likely revert back again. ideally would like to not have groundhog day play out. we would like to learn our lessons. that requires exactly what you said, communicating with people and their attitudes. one of the lessons i learned was the public affairs element of how you deal with an event actually has tremendous significance. it is not just after thought, send somebody else to deal the press. you have to look at all the ways of communicating as indispensable to carry out what you are trying to do. for the public operation in a domestic environment, you are going to have much more difficulty carrying out your efforts. >> a question here. >> first of all, thank you for coming to visit us and speak to us. the question i have in regard to syria and the strategy there since you mentioned strategy in syria is complicated. great britain has taken an

unprecedented move in not supporting us as allies. what would you say if you were giving advice to our president now on the best strategy to look out in terms of syria especially with the thought of reprisal against american interests? >> let me begin by saying what i said which was we have to start with where we are. there are things i would revise it differently over the past year or two. those days are gone. we find ourselves in a particular situation. assad, he lived as if he was going to be pushed out by the operation of the insurgency itself, now it appears to be pushing back. he has used chemical weapons. the president has said there is a red line and did say that a year ago. there seems to be quite

compelling evidence that a line was crossed. that is where we find ourselves. there are a couple of things we need to think about strategically, and admittedly a hard problem. what is the endgame we are looking for? 4 possibilities. assad wins, bad outcome. syria fails as a state and becomes a drain on all of its neighbors and persistent fighting a bad outcome. the best outcome, not perfect as a moderate group is sufficiently strong that they are able to take control of the country and marginalize the extremists who are still a minority and syria is not a fundamentalist country. the best outcome is one that gives them the breathing space to put in place some kind of institution preferably with international help. that is the kind of strategic issue. the second strategic issue is the chemical weapons were used. we declared a red line. how do we not act without

sending a message to iran and everybody else that, we tell you if you do x, we are going to do y, never mind. there is an idea floated if they give over their chemical weapons to u.n. would that stop things? a cynic would say it is a last- minute maneuver to push things out in many months. ask yourself these questions, do we have an adequate base line of what assad has? how would we actually inspect and enforce in the middle of a war going on, absent to cease fire? how would we know if everything has been given to us? these are challenging questions.

if you rewind the tape back, for many years in the mid-1990's we did this with iraq. they would say they were destroying things and inspectors will come and he would not let them in and it will look like something had moved. that left the matters in a very unresolved way and in that circumstance, basically what happens is the person who has the weapons is trying to wear the patients out of the west until they finally give up. again, as you evaluate that, i understand there are reasons. you have to consider whether in a practical sense this is measurable and achievable or whether it is likely to be a way of delaying while assad continues to do what he does. >> maybe at the end of the row here? >> excuse me.

do you consider the cases of bradley manning and edward snowden indicative of the success of the departments if you see something, say something slogan? >> no. [laughter] >> what is the proper action of insider when they know the government has lied to the people? >> let's take these two cases. i do not know that manning put out there would be publicly disclosed, sure the government lied. most people said the u.s. government act pretty much the way they say. were there some may be harsh comments made about local political officials or candid assessments, yeah. and you should have that and the

ability to do that. that is why when students in this room get comments from their professors that are candid on their papers, they do not post them on the internet so everybody can see the criticism. i do not know if manning qualifies as a whistleblower. as far as snowden is concerned, a lot of the stuff that he disclosed while highly damaging does not reveal illegality. i am struck by the contradictory nature of the criticisms. there was a period of time where the fisa court would use-- reviews whatever the nsa did as a rubber stamp. then it will be declassified when the fisa court gave a paddling to the nsa. the story was look the court is attacking the nsa. which one is it? it is easy to glamorize because a, they can be rebuilt in the

way without context. i have yet to see serious malfeasance revealed by this or serious illegality. still less have i seen that snowden went into the authorities, the inspector general, anything you expect him to do. what i have seen is this though. somebody absconded to china, spent time in the russian consulate and now russia where he considers the guidance light of future. the country where they deal with whistleblowers is by killing them. if you happen to be, if your sexual orientation is different from what putin likes, that is illegal. if somebody wants to use chemical weapons, you have shipped them the precursors. i would not look to snowden as a whistleblower.

>> maybe in the back there? 4 or 5 rows back. >> thank you, mr. secretary. a canadian citizen was arrested and sent to syria where he was tortured. he sued. the canadian government awarded him $8.9 million for what happened. a british citizen was captured in morocco and tortured at guantanamo and this case was thrown out by the american court using the state secret privilege. several british courts upheld what happened to him was illegal and he was given several million dollars. it was revealed that the department of homeland security was opening u.s. mail from a foreign source. in 2009, it was revealed by the media that homeland security was

targeting groups for terrorist activity based on antiwar group or islamic lobby group. numerous times, we try to have oversight, the government has invoked the state secrets privilege. do you believe the department homeland security can be trusted to uphold the rule of law if they have little public or judicial oversight? >> i would not say there is very little judicial oversight. we could have a whole discussion about this. if you look at the totality of cases and discount media reports because there's a wide variety of still outlets and professionalism. if you look at the totality, here's what is striking about the united states. in many cases, the u.s. has lost cases in court. in no case, did the u.s.

government defy or failed to carry out what the course instructions were. some the big cases are cases where the u.s. did not either partly lost or lost a significant argument. --d when the court later down laid down the rule about what would happen, the government acquiesced. that is why there is a different process for people in guantanamo then there was several years ago. i would have to say whether you when a particular case is not the basis of the judge of law but whether that the courts are independent and whether that the courts do rule against the government upon the government obeys. if the united states, the government does obey. if you look around the world, that is pretty remarkable.

>> wait for a microphone. >> mr. secretary, how has your department responded to global terror threats with communication may not be as fast -- as vast as large organizations, financial transactions may not be as easy to track as well? >> a great question. the model of what we first put into place after 9/11 when you are dealing with people coming from overseas is one that looks out. just as international terrorism relies on global communication, finance, and travel, those are also vulnerabilities that can be exploited. lone wolves may not communicate with anybody else. they are living in their hometown.

low finance operations. actually that is where increasingly we have seen communities and local police that play major roles. the behavior, the person who behaves out of character that actually is the tipoff that something might happen. again, if you look at some the cases we have had in the past successful in disrupting a lone wolf has been because a small group because somebody in the community came forward and said there's a problem here. we had a case some years back where people from a particular community in somali immigrants came forward and said our children went to somali to fight and that tipped off the authorities that there was a pipeline. just as you have your high-tech kind of well-known national security agencies that deal with threats to the global, when you

are dealing with local threats and lone wolves, it is police boots on the ground, local --lks, community leaders with who have got to be part of the process of identifying threats. >> right here. right here, second row. >> mr. secretary, i wanted you to address the boston marathon. you said communication is key but in that situation one problem was communication between certain departments and government and certain governments. >> the full facts are not in and i do not want to speculate. you have to look at this and-- in several stages. one set of questions will be, why? somehow they lost track of

tsarnaev, the older one, when he went over to chechnya and was over there for a few months. why there was not an alert on that? why was the russian warning not integrated or taken seriously? the second set of issues is whether within the u.s. government where people did have warning, how come they did not pursue further communication? i do not know the answer but that's a second case of issues. once the bombings occurred, were the authorities effective? they were effective. that is a tribute to the training and exercises that had gone on for years to get the police in gear to do with they had to do in order to shut down these folks. that illustrates in many cases, it's important to mitigate damage as to prevent it.

you will not prevent everything but if you can stop it, prevent the tsarnaevs from going to new york, that is encouragement. the facts are not in. all of these tragedies are always occasions to do a hot wash, to really review and reconsider what the lessons learned are. there will be some useful lessons here. >> right here in the middle. back there. she will wave to you. >> we have a lot of questions of the middle east and obviously what is going on over there. a huge part of dhs is also ice,

over the summer immigration reform was huge in the news and there is nothing going on about it. my question is do you think this will come back 2014 and then 2016 and do you personally think it will come back? >> i've spent a fair amount of time in 2007 when i was secretary, the president requested -- and that means you have to do it. i wanted to do it. requested me to work with senators on both sides of the aisle to put together the immigration reform proposal. we actually came out with the proposal not terribly different from what you see now that had a broad array of people supporting it, quite conservative republicans and liberal democrats. look, i think this is going to happen. it has to happen.

the only argument against it is if you think the current system is great. i have not yet met a person who said great. there are a number of different problems. while we have made a lot of progress in controlling the border, in many ways the real challenges are people, get legally and having visas and overstaying. what draws them in is illegal employment. how do you address that problem? we need people to perform certain jobs that americans do not want to do that we should open up a managed, clearly identifiable program that people can use to come to work temporarily. we have had that in the past. you identified them and they have to play by the rules and they pay their taxes. that both eliminate some of the

demand and if you put in an enforcement system, you make a path for people who are not here legally to get work. you kind of force those people into a legal channel but given the opportunity. second problem is we educate, probably some people here from other countries in important skills. they get advanced degrees that we say goodbye, go create jobs in india or china. why do we not want to encourage the people to create jobs here, not only for themselves but others? that's another thing that has to get fixed. we have people here illegally. many of them are rooted here and we have to find a way to deal with them. so they are not exploited and also crate reservoirs where they can be preyed upon by criminals. that is coming up with some fair way to resolve the situation that involves some combination of penalty. probation period where you can monitor them and make sure they are in compliance but not

forever closing the possibility of them being citizen if they want that was the main will not. history shows that only a modest percentage of people who actually have the opportunity want to be citizens. many want to go back home. i understand there are challenges with all of this. we have taken three or four swings at this ball and pretty much everybody ends up with roughly the same vision of what --s to happen will stop which happen. which tells me nobody is, with a genius idea for fixing this that does not have the basic outlines laid out. the fundamental question is this if you think the system is good the way it is, you should vote against reform. i think the american people are coming around to that. it is going to be very tough with a lot of stuff going on to

get on the agenda. its time will eventually come. >> right here. sorry to all of those with their hands up. >> thank you, mr. secretary. given the recent situations of the diplomatic realm and the limitations on the security council's capacities, how do you think the diplomatic strategy will be effective and how relevant will he be in the future for other situations? >> in terms of what is going on with syria and the security >> yeah. i do not think anyone was shocked at the fact the security council was unwilling to take action. it had made it clear they do not want to take action. the russians were not willing to take action in the balkans in the 1990's and there was resistance to taking action in iraq in 2003 even though that

was a breach of multiple u.n. resolutions. there's a question of the role of the security council and whether it paralyzes the ability to deal with issues that occur internally with this activity. i was in cambodia. i went to the trial of the remaining -- i read about it but you really have to take a deep breath and when you are confronted by the fact that almost 2 million people were killed. almost one third of the country, and it was a deliberate,

painstaking killing. murder over a period of 18 months. is there any point in which there is self-defense for the people in the country who are being victimized? we all agreed that we have rates of self-defense. is there such a point that a government forfeits his obligations to its citizens they have to say somebody has to protect them from being killed and raped. that is a moral challenge. the security council does not answer that question. this should not be taken lightly. one of the big challenges for international activity in the next decade is going to be how do we deal with mass atrocities when governments cannot be reasoned with or sanctioned. i do not know the current >> excellent questions. thank you very all for asking the questions. >> we would like to thank all of

you for coming. secretary chertoff, thank you for such insightful remarks. thank you for coming. this was our first academic event of the year. we hope to see you in the rest. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up on c-span, a

conversation on global terrorist threats. morning's washington journal, continuing the conversation on syria. then the house is back this morning. , morning ourrn speeches. chuck hagel, martin dempsey, and john kerry will testify about the use of military strikes on syria. they will take questions from members of the house armed services committee live at 10:00 eastern on c-span 3. president obama will address the nation tonight, trying to make the case for military strikes on syria. live coverage at 9 p.m. eastern. now, and conversation on counterterrorism and al qaeda's influence on syria's civil war. we will hear from former c.i.a. officer mike early -- mike

hurley. this is about 90 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. it is a pleasure to welcome you to the release of a report on jihadist terrorism, a threat assessment for 2013 and a discussion. the bipartisan policy center's homeland security project is led

by tom kean and lee hamilton. sustaining and active, bipartisan voice on homeland security. our national security threats are always evolving. assessing these dynamics is far from obvious. predicting the contours of these threats is harder still. we are solemn week, determined to advance a discussion of the terrorist threats facing the nation. we also hope to stimulate an active debate on the measures that should be taken to most efficiently meet these new challenges. to toalways my pleasure welcome congressman lee hamilton to the stage. he will be presiding over today past discussion. -- today's discussion. all of you.ing to thank you for coming.

jason, thank you for sponsoring this at the bipartisan policy center, we appreciate that. project'snd security mission is a bipartisan voice on homeland security issues. andeek public discourse develop policy solutions and recommendations for security challenges, especially the threats posed by terrorists. part of our responsibility is to report to the american people the threat, as we see it, facing the nation. we do not do this two-stroke fear, but strike rather to inspire an accurate, thoughtful discussion so that citizens and lawmakers alike can make up their minds and take up the steps that they think are necessary to protect the nation. has been pretty

good. not perfect. pretty good. the second paragraph in the "sinceent says this -- then, al qaeda is zero for 12 in the u.s. it has been 12 years since 9/11, and there have been no major attacks on american targets. the record is not perfect. you can all remember the fort hood incident and the boston marathon, the attacks in benghazi, but it is a pretty good record, of which our nation can be proud. incidents that have occurred do not represent a strategic attack by al qaeda or they areated group, certainly tragedies, but they are not catastrophes.

serious damage has been done to al qaeda central in pakistan and afghanistan. its leadership has been decimated by drone strikes, while the terrorist organization has been dealt harsh blows it has not been eliminated. as the report says, they are resilient. affiliate in yemen and somalia have suffered significant losses as a result of u.s. and allied countries' counterterrorism operations. the threat is evolving as inscts of the world are tumble, creating conditions for sponsor organization -- are in tumult, creating conditions for splinter organizations. " tom kean and i are proud to announce the publication of this

report today. also by some genuine experts. uthored by some genuine experts. it would be hard to assemble four more qualified persons than the authors of this report. they will be introduced. in my judgment, they have produced a very good report. it would bee possible to get a better one. a thorough provides assessment of the threat facing our nation. we aim to make this report the first of an annual report. i get a little nervous when i hear people making predictions about terrorism. we have had some off the wall once, to be blunt, as we look back over the past few years. this report sums it up correctly.

is too soon to predict the long-term threat posed by al qaeda and affiliated groups. as the movement is undergoing a upnsition that may end proving to be its last gas. but, the right set of circumstances in the middle east could also revive the network. " that is the kind of careful language typical throughout this report. to, i turn it over to you make the introductions. >> lee, thank you very much. outlined, the threat 12 years after 9/11 has shifted. we must now recognize that individuals who are radicalized inspiredternet, often

by al qaeda's message, pose a serious concern in this country. may notese lone wolves be able to kill and mass numbers as happened in 9/11, what happened at fort hood and boston show that alienated people can do a lot of damage. -- onlineaging messaging can rack allies -- can radicalized these people. the fiscal situation in this country is far different. ajit cutbacks demand that we get cutbackse -- bud demand that we review how we spend our money. it is important to reveal the threat and revise our strategies, to ensure that we have the smartest policies and programs in place.

know,s a time, as we all that a very strong bipartisan -- of strong bipartisan division. it is so important, that in this area so important to national security, that we maintain a bipartisan approach. that republicans and democrats agree on the most important problems facing the country -- from terrorists abroad and at home. the country's safety, not political advantage, have to be what we are about. that is why it is so important, and why we welcome this report. from these four excellent authors. they have developed 11 recommendations for policymakers in both of the executive branch and the legislative branch. time, i will let them discuss these recommendations on the rationale for each.

so that we can begin the public dialogue to keep our nation safe. i would like to recognize -- we worked very hard on the 9/11 worked harderbody than richard. nice to see you again, thank you for your work. this very solemn anniversary, this week, when we remember those who lost their lives on 9/11, the self-sacrifice on so many who responded, and that men whowomen in the military died and went it in service of their committee. we must commit ourselves to rnsure that this never, eve happens again. it is my pleasure to introduce carie lemack, director of the homeland security project at the bipartisan policy center. she moderates today's panel.

>> thank you. thank you all for coming today. it is my duty to introduce the authors of this report. discussed, this is a real group of experts that probably do not need introduction. it is my task as moderator to do so. the first one is immediately to my left, peter bergen. the author of four books, three of which are new york times best sellers. many of you have heard of his most recent book, " manhunt: the ten-year search for bin laden from 9/11 to abbottabad," many of you have seen the movie as well. thank you. hoffman, heis bruce has been studying terrorism for more than 30 years. he is the director of the center for security studies at georgetown and was the corporate chair in counterterrorism at the rand corporation.

hurley,eft is michael who i have known for some time and i'm proud to say i have on thewith when he was 9/11 commission, where he led the counterterrorism policy investigation. he was in the cia for 25 years. on 9/11 to go to afghanistan for two tours. one gentleman who is not here dr. saunders -- dr. southers. agent and was fbi governor arnold schwarzenegger's deputy director for critical infrastructure. he is currently the associate director of research transition ofthe dhs's center for risk terrorism. these are the four gentlemen who authored the report. i will turn it over to peter to

tell us about what they found. >> thank you, carie. thank you for having us on your bbc, forank you publishing the report. thank you to the researchers who played a critical role in the report. what does the reports that? -- say? we deal with the domestic and international threat. news on thee good domestic side and also some bad news. the good news is, the number of cases of jihadist terrorism cases has been following. it is not a perfect indication, but it is an indication. in 2009, there were 41 jihadist terrorism cases of people living in the u.s. accused of some kind of terrorism crime. this year, there have been only six.

report, ae in the downward trend. another take on the domestic keaway on thea domestic front is that none of the people in the past year's trade abroad. that is significant because somebody who goes overseas and to beraining is going more effective than someone radicalized on the internet. the 9/11 hijackers received training in afghanistan. no fact that we are seeing one, at this moment, going overseas to get training is significant. boston bombing did go overseas, did make contact with jihad egrets and -- with jihadi groups in dagestan, it is not clear that they had any role in that operation. another takeaway, we are seeing very few or no groups involved

in these attacks or plots. in the immediate post-9/11 era, you had the virginia jihad case, several people involved, the four decks case -- the fort dix case. individualsseeing and at most, paris. individuals like major nidal has the bostonlike bombing. smaller groups that can do less damage than more organized groups. about onee to see violent, serious terrorist incident a year. since 2009, the little rock recruiting center. hasan.idal

a job by shooting in virginia, by shooting in virginia. and then we had boston. about one a year. another good thing to stop of the 221 jihadi terrorism is a single one11, not a involves acquiring or deploying chemical or biological weapons. we are seeing other kinds of people motivated by other political ideologies developing crude chemical or biological weapons. right wing groups, two cases from left-wing groups -- one case, and two with idiosyncratic motives. if there is an attack with this kind of weapon in the future in the u.s., it is likely not to come out of the jihadi background, it will come out of people with other motivations. on to the international side,

bruce will amplify these points, the picture is a mixed one. --ill conclude by saying bruce can deal with individual places -- one of the wildcards. we conclude the report with five wildcards. ofre are two interpretations what is going on now. bruce and i debated this, al qaeda central, that attacked us on 9/11 is basically on life- support. there is debate about that. under president obama, 33 leaders of al qaeda have been killed in drone strikes in pakistan. one of the reasons that ayman -- the bench in pakistan is more than decimated. it is almost m.d..

empty. you can also interpret that things are looking pretty good. because of the following five factors -- what happened in egypt, the fact that there was a military coup against an elected muslim brotherhood government -- we are all very focused on syria , but in a way this is more important. centralrms al qaeda's narrative, that you should not get involved in elections, that the muslim brotherhood has engaged in elections against islam and will fail. the crusaders and their allies will never allow a true muslim government to come to power. that narrative, which ayman al- zawahiri has been proposing, seems to have been confirmed in egypt. if you saw what happened, the interior minister survive an assassination attempt. we are likely to see people who in politicslined

take up arms. this is a problem in egypt and elsewhere. another factor, a small one, but not insignificant, prison breaks. huge prison breaks in places like iraq. senior members of al qaeda and iraq are getting out, hundreds of their colleagues. we saw a similar one with the pakistani taliban in july. another big factor is the sunni- shiite divide. iraq,have seen in syria, and lebanon, sectarian tensions are being amplified. who is lining up behind the u.s. in a war against a side? important sunni states -- saudi u.a.e., turkey. if the war is amplified, it will look like city states lining up against a shia alliance of iraq,

syria, lebanese hezbollah. this conflict could spread. finally, syria could be a training ground in the future. it could also turn out to be a place where a lot of foreign fighters go to die. we were concerned during a rock that what there would be blowback, it turned out that many foreign fighters went there as suicide bombers. the blowback that we feared in iraq did not happen. syria could be true or it could look like the afghan war. syria is a much more important conflict than the afghan war, which was a sideshow. is afghanistan post 2014, there are different ways this could go. if the election in april 2014 is flawed, and a

stay and ours, we allies stay, we have an agreement with the government until 2024 -- if we say all of those things come afghanistan could look ok. if the election is flawed, no clear victor emerges, it is contested in the second round, we give a series of conflicting messages as we have done in the past about our intentions there, you could see the situation reverting. aready members of al qaeda drifting into areas like kunar and nuristan. i don't need to tell you what a disaster it will be for al qaeda to rebase itself in afghanistan. peter's thanks to the bpc.

peter is much too modest. i have to pay tribute to peter and his remarkable team at the new america foundation. they did all the heavy lifting, some remarkable young analysts. they contributed enormously to the report. i have 30 plus years of studying somewhat of a cynical view of the field. things are worse than when i started in the 1970's. that is what struck me about working on this report -- how much things have changed over the past three years. first, bin laden is dead. one of enormous plus. we also see the threat environment changing far more than we could have anticipated. there is much better news domestically. what we saw back then it was

really a burgeoning domestic radicalization problem that seems to have diminished. we have experienced a tragedy like the boston marathon attacks. the biggest change is that the iere may be in decline -- car promised us that it was good, she was right, to have some disagreements and to arrive at a consensus. i think the al qaeda core is in decline. i am agnostic what state of decrepitude it is an. what it oncely not was, in part because of the death of bin laden and the inroads made by the cia drone attacks. what we found worrisome is that the growth of al qaeda is not. al qaeda has a presence in more country today than it did on 9/11. its presence has basically doubled from 2008 2 some -- to 16 theaters of operation.

that is worrisome. secondly, hand in glove, the al qaeda brand seems stronger than it has ever been. that is in large measure a reaction to events such as the overthrow of the morsi government in egypt, which has added fuel to al qaeda's fire saying that you cannot trust of the democratic process. islamists will be always stabbed in the back. al qaeda's strategy and expanding further afield to new el, expanding in north africa and east africa. we see groups like al qaeda and iraq, that were the target of inroads against other leadership.

the key leaders were killed in airstrikes or drenched tracks. yet at the same time, al qaeda in iraq is stronger than it was in 2008. the game changes are syria. i would argue, as we do, al qaeda has hitched its fortunes to syria "the kudlow report has hitched its fortunes to. syria. landlocked. it is mentioned in the koran, it has religious significance. treaty -- the carve up of the middle east western powers achieved after world war was part of the territory were islam's shrines

are in jerusalem. ni islam has struggled --inst what was called the author of religious and moral precepts of jihad has a text of that has been used as a battle call. is a historical, and emotional, a religious connection. the report that assad is the perfect villain. this is a worrisome trend in the al qaeda movement. al qaeda, and the old days, was about killing. , wey, especially in syria

see arms of al qaeda, especially engaging in social welfare activities designed to win friends, provide food, running bakeries. all of the kind of things that the mainstream core al qaeda never did effectively. they are doing. not incidentally, they are running a fairly effective information operations and propaganda campaign in syria. that is enormously troubling, it seems like al qaeda has learned the lessons of its failure in iraq. that seems that they are rather dangerous. two final points on the domestic issue. what concerned us, especially in assessing the reaction to the boston marathon bombing, yes, it was successful. the immediate response by police, fire, ambulance crews

was spectacular. a reaction may have laid the groundwork or sent the wrong message. iots, two amateur terrorists were able to paralyze the entire boston pitcher politan area. to close down logan airport, mass transit. to message that may convey terrorists is that terrorism pays in terms of attracting perpetratorsthe and their cause. in terms of having a disproportionate psychological and financial effect on a target audience. the lesson is that terrorism may succeed. i worry that our adversaries may be hanging back in the run-up to our withdrawal from afghanistan in 2014. we may not be out the tsarnaev's