can choose whatever sample size it wants to audit. meaning no actual verification may occur before millions of dollars of taxpayer finance benefits are paid out. while i believe america is a nation of honorable people, we have to remember there are always those who will abuse the system. the f.a.q. sheet from c.m.s. doesn't change the status of the rule. states can continue to audit whatever sample size they see fit or simply not audit at all. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from north carolina reserves. the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: mr. speaker, i entertain a unanimous consent with mr. green. mr. green: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to place in the record opposing this unnecessary piece of legislation. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman from new jersey. mr. pallone: and now i yield

two minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. andrews. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey, mr. andrews, is recognized for two minutes. mr. andrews: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. andrews: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank my friend from new jersey for yielding. i'm glad he's back with us. the purpose of this bill is to make it as hard as possible for a hardworking person to get health insurance for their family. so somewhere in america today there's a person working in a nursing home or retail store or driving a school bus, and if their children got sick tonight they could not take them to the hospital with an insurance card in their pocket. they'd have to pay for it whatever way they could which is not at all. the new laws says that that person, under most circumstances, starting october 1, can sign up for health insurance policy as good as ones that members of congress have for reasonable and affordable price. maybe $30 or $40 a week for

that family. this is not someone on public assistance. this is not someone sitting around watching someone else pay their bills. this is a hardworking tax-paying american, and that person has to report their income. they have to follow the rules. they have to do all the things that are needed to be done. this bill makes it as hard as possible for that person to do that, and that's why it should be defeated. so here we are again. this is attempt number, what number are we using today, 44, 45, 46, whatever the number is, the government will shut down september 30 if we don't pass a budget. the majority said they'll bring the budget to the floor this morning but they're not doing that. instead we're having attempt number 44 to repeal the affordable care act. this is not only a waste of the country's time, it's an imposition on hardworking people who finally deserve a break after all these years. vote no on this unwise piece of legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from north

carolina, mr. -- new jersey, mr. pallone, has 45 seconds remaining. the gentlewoman from north carolina is recognized. mrs. ellmers: mr. speaker, we are prepared to close. i'd ask my colleague if he has ny speakers. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 30 seconds. mr. pallone: mr. speaker, i was going to ask if the 30 seconds left could be transferred to our ways and means committee's time in the next round. the speaker pro tempore: by unanimous consent? mr. pallone: i ask unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pallone: thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from north carolina is recognized. mrs. ellmers: mr. speaker, you know, here in washington we have a way of doing things, and one of those ways is to deal with problems after they've been created. prior to coming to washington, i was a nurse for many, many

years, and one of the rules that we had drummed into our heads was if it is not documented it did not happen. this is a rule that is not documented, so it will not happen. it is not enough that we simply ask to be on the honor system. this is a very important piece of legislation that we must ensure the hard-earned tax-pear dollars are protected -- tax-payer dollars are protected. i ask my colleagues to vote yes on 2775 for this purpose. i believe it is incumbent to the american people and the job that we do here in washington to ensure that this happens. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas, mr. brady, has 10s minutes. the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, has 10 1/2 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. brady. tom brady -- mr. brady: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent to claim time for the ways and means committee and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. brady: i rise in strong support for the no subsidies without verification act because too many of our precious dollars are being lost to fraud. that's the simple goal of this bill by representative diane black, stopping fraud and abuse in obamacare. you know, we wouldn't allow an individual to apply for a mortgage, a car loan or a credit card without varyfying their income. you can't go into a restaurant,

a grocery store, gasoline station and just pay on the honor system. yet, today because the white house, frankly, has botched the last 3 1/2 years, and obamacare is still not ready. somehow they believe it's ok for billions of dollars in new taxpayer subsidies to go out the door without the bat of an eye on the honor system. as hard as you work to earn every paycheck, how much more fraud in health care can we accept? today, we have the opportunity, and i think the responsibility to hold the federal government's feet to the fire and insist it puts in place strong protections that will end this pay first and chase later model that's been so ineffective at stopping fraud. this bill simply insists that the independent inspector general of the health and human services agency certifies there's a real genuine program

in place to stop fraud and abuse in obamacare. by stopping taxpayer subsidies from going out the door to those who aren't eligible. wow, that's radical in washington. not paying those who aren't eligible. this will give american taxpayers some assurance that we're protecting their hard-earned tax dollars. president obama's admitted in obamacare, it's not ready for business, so he waived that. and everyone knows it's not ready for families and workers either. is it asking too much to at least insist it be ready to pit taxpayers against a mountain of more fraud? now, the white house tells us and our democratic friends, trust us, we'll verify everything before giving out taxpayer subsidies. really? isn't this the same white house that said exchanges may accept

the applicant's attestation without further verification? this from the same health and human services agency that had to backtrack and explain, well, maybe they would audit all of the applications but not for state exchanges. they're on their own. sorry, but i'm not buying it and nor are taxpayers in my state of texas. time and time again, health and human services and the white house have ducked the real details about obamacare. they have no real plan in place. meanwhile, taxpayer subsidies will fly out the door as individuals pinky swear that their income is accurate. only members of congress who refuse to stop fraud, who enjoy wasting taxpayer dollars and who want to turn a blind eye to wasted money could oppose this bill. i strongly urge a yes vote on

this legislation, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. levin: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. levin: so why are we going through the motions once again? guess 41 times now. because the health care reform train is rolling. it's picking up momentum, and the republicans are once again trying to throw a monkey wrench in its way. in michigan, 14 different insurance entities are competing. tens and tens and tens of organizations are working to make this work. medicaid is now available. republicans see this happening, and they just can't stand the thought.

i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. brady: i yield two minutes to the gentlelady from tennessee, who's really led the effort to stop fraud and abuse in obamacare, who understands health care, so the gentlelady from tennessee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from tennessee is recognized for two minutes. mrs. black: thank you, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. as members of the people's house, protecting the american taxpayer from fraud and abuse is absolutely a critical part of our job. and if like me you spent the last few weeks visiting your constituents, you'll know that the american people are fed up and they're tired of footing the bill for washington's failures. that's why passing the no subsidies without verification act is so important. this bill would protect american taxpayers from the staggering amounts of fraud and abuse in obamacare exchanges by simply requiring that obamacare

live up to its original guarantee in their original law, that only those who certify to be eligible for taxpayer subsidies receive them. unfortunately, because this administration's clandestine rule change on july the fourth holiday, this is currently not the case, and it's estimated that as much as $250 billion of hard-earned american taxpayer dollars could be given out in fraudulent obamacare subsidy claims. protecting the taxpayer's money is not a partisan issue. the health care law originally -- yes -- originally written so that only those who qualify would receive federal subsidies in the exchanges. and the democrat-controlled senate appropriations committee has passed legislation expressing their sense the verification needs to occur

fore subsidies are dold -- dolled out. i urge my colleagues in the house today to join me in helping protect the american taxpayer, and i call on the senate to bring this for a vote so that we can send a commonsense measure to the president and protect the american taxpayer from fraud and abuse. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from texas reserves. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i now yield two minutes to the ranking member of energy and commerce, mr. waxman, and ask unanimous consent that the balance of our time be managed by mr. mcdermott. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. waxman: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding me time to speak against this bill. the american public should know what this bill is all about. it's the 41st attempt in the congress, in the house, to repeal and confuse the american people about the affordable care act.

it's a deliberate distortion of the actions that have already been in place to protect the taxpayers. we have letters from the department of health and human services as well as the congressional budget office that the verification system is in place so that taxpayers' money is being protected. but the message the republicans have been sending over and over again is that we should delay, defund, repeal but never replace the affordable care act. if they needed further evidence to ignore, just yesterday the nonpartisan c.b.o. reported that h.h.s. has already put the erification system in place. that their suggests we do. mr. speaker, what they want to do is create a duplicative process to certify a

verification system, and they want to give it to the inspector general of h.h.s. but the inspector general's office has told us they have no idea what this bill is proposing or what that office would have to do. they have no experience in doing it. so this is not a credible bill. it's a political bill. they can't repeal the affordable care act, so they're determined to keep it from working. it's a clear effort to delay the implementation of the affordable care act, and when i was home, my constituents, particularly those who are looking forward to the legislation going into effect, people that have had pre-existing conditions or inability to get insurance in the past, keep on asking me, is this really going to happen or are the republicans going to stop it? i urge we vote no on in bill because it's another effort by the republicans to stop health care for all americans. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentleman from texas is

recognized. mr. brady: i yield two minutes to the head of the republican policy committee and leader in health care, the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. lankford. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized for two minutes. mr. lankford: thank you, mr. speaker. this administration has been very proud of the work they have done to reduce fraud in medicare, in durable medical equipment. just a couple of weeks ago, there was a huge bust in puerto rico trying to deal with social security disability fraud that's happened there for years, but for whatever reason, they have chosen on this piece of legislation to look the other way, to actually turn away and say we're going to allow people to self-verify whether they're eligible for the subsidies when right now people don't know if they're eligible for the subsidies. if i walked up to 100 people on the street today and asked them two questions, does your employer provide you a qualified health plan, most of them would say, i have no idea. what's a qualified health plan? and if i said, do you qualify for the subsidies, every

american would say, i don't know, i have no idea. yet, they're being asked when no one knows right now to say, self-verify whether you know one way or another. they don't have the information. they don't know the information. we don't know what will happen on the exchanges yet. that's not been released yet and it starts in three weeks. so to say to people something that doesn't even exist yet, you got to be able to say whether you certify it or not, whether you can say, yes, i do qualify for this, is absurd. we're just asking the simple question, shouldn't we stick with the original plan on this if we're going to do this? the law itself said that it had to be certified. then they created a waiver out of thin air and said, no, this is going to be too complicated. we are going to delay that for a while. what is your plan? my plan is trying to keep our plan. we have to request to keep the plan we had for a while taking care of those in poverty. this is absurd. this is a straightforward simple way to do this that can

be done, but instead we created this convoluted mess. just this morning i heard those on the other side, the train has left the station on this. i heard health care reform, the train is rolling. in the senate, some are saying this is a train wreck and i agree, the train has left the station, and if we don't step out and say this has to stop, then we'll continue to have more and more fraud. we have got to take this on and take it on right now. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. gentleman from texas reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record four documents, one is a letter from the president's -- in opposition to the bill. mr. mcdermott: the second is technical assistance from the inspector general saying they have no ability to do this. the third is a cost estimate from c.b.o. and the fourth is a letter from h.h.s. detailing their verification plans. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, i

yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcdermott: we are here today because we are supposed to be dealing with the c.r. continuing the funding of the federal government. but the republicans are scrapping among themselves and can't figure out what to do. right now medical research in my district and across this country is grinding to a halt. grant money is disappearing. laboratories are closing. and potentially world transforming projects are being set aside. researchers are being laid off, and students are discouraged from entering the field. there is no end in sight. now, the question you have to ask yourself is, why is the see quester not being dealt with? -- sequester not being dealt with? it's the mechanism breaking our economy for the future because innovation, research, and our ability to compete in the global marketplace depends on research which starts now continuously. not to mention the lifesaving

cures and treatments we are losing because of this empty labs. what are we doing here today? thank god for obamacare. we got something to do. we can try and repeal it for the 41st time. obamacare, folks, is not going away. it's about to take off. in washington, oregon, and california we can't wait. the rest of the state may be sitting on their hands, but we aren't. and the fact is even senator cruz from texas says, quote, you aren't going to win this one. now, maybe these endless tantrums we have out here every two weeks wouldn't matter if there were so many much more important things that need to be done. we get it. we really do understand it of the the american people get it. that the republicans really, really, really don't like this law. but can't we move on? stop screaming about wanting a budget and pass one. you want to put the people

forward to go to conference committee. quit dancing around with the c.r. america needs jobs. and you can do something about it. it's not just some force of nature we can't control. our economy is weak because we are starving it. let's do something about that and instead of this biweekly announcement that you dislike access to affordable care. i urge my colleagues to vote no. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. brady: i yield one minute to a key member of the ways and means committee, the gentleman from arkansas, mr. griffin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arkansas is recognized for one minute. mr. griffin: when i look across this country and look at who opposes the president's health care law, obamacare, it's not just republicans. "new york times" today says the afl-cio is fed up with the law and ready to get it repealed if they can't fix it. employers across this country are fed up with it. that's why the president delayed it for a year until after the

elections. come on, let's get a grip and face reality. but my dislike of the law aside, that's not what this is about. this is about the federal government handing out money without verifying who is getting it. that's ludicrous. it's unbelievable. as ve to verify -- when i an army reservist sign up for try care select because i'm in the obamacare exchanges, you buy alcohol, you have to show up. this is basic. we want to verify who is getting government cash. that's it. and that's why i support the bill. it's common sense. let's pass it. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. doggett. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas, mr. doggett, is recognized for two minutes. mr. doggett: 19 days, in just 19

days millions of working americans can apply to receive premium assistance tax credits to help them get health insurance. these are neighbors who were previously denied coverage or who were excluded because of a pre-existing condition, or because a small employer could not afford to provide health insurance. and today's bill is about one thing and that is is to deny those americans their lawful opportunity on october 1 to obtain health care security. this bill is certainly not about fraud because there is already a comprehensive system to prevent overpayment and verify income. this very afternoon a family that suffers severe injuries in a traffic accident on i-35, or a san antonio family that is notified of a pred disease -- dread disease, those families that lack affordable health insurance are suddenly overwhelmed with medical bills

and they deserve an alternative and that alternative is coming on october 1 if these folks can't stop it. this bill would pull the affordability rug right out from under our working families just as they are beginning to learn about its availability. yes, this is the 41st time that they have tried to delay and dismantle and deny the rights of american working families. we know it won't be their last vote. in fact, next week they are so intent on blocking american families from getting health insurance coverage they are willing to shut down the entire federal government. as if that weren't enough, next month they propose to default on the full faith and credit of the united states of america for the first time in our history for the sole purpose of denying american families that don't have insurance now some health security. i think it's wrong. they talk about trust.

well, i don't think we should trust these zealots with our health care future. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington has three minutes remaining. the gentleman from texas has a minute and a half. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. brady: yielding myself 15 seconds. yesterday we learned the federal government is paying millions of dollars to prisoners for unemployment benefits. millions of dollars of your money to cons in prison. but don't worry, we'll stop the fraud in obamacare. i reserve the balance. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas voifs. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pascrell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for two minutes. mr. pascrell: thank you, mr. speaker. like my republican colleagues i, too, am concerned about fraud in any public program whether it's obamacare, food stamps, medicare. who could be against verification? but this is not about verification. again, 41st failed attempt to

submarine reform in health care. the question before us today is whether or not the risk of fraud in obamacare is so pervasive that we should shut down an essential part of the law. my friends on the other side would have you believe that the administration's decision to delay income and coverage verifications leaves the health care marketplace vulnerable to rampant fraud. this is not the case. first, federally operated and partnership exchanges still verify such information beginning in 2014. only 16 states and the district of columbia will wait until 2015 to begin more comprehensive verification. in those instances the incentive to provide false information is greatly overshadowed by the benefit doing sow. lying on the exchange form carries with it a penalty of $25,000. on top of that anyone that

provides false income information will have to pay back the extra subsidies when filing a tax form for 2014. additionally states will audit a statistically significant number of individuals, meaning that everyone has an equal opportunity to be audited. finally, fighting fraud requires an investment of funding and resources. how dare you get up here and talk about a plan when you and the regular budget want to cut every penny from resources, from research, from helping us get to the point where american people will be served. look, you can't stand success. help us improve the system. not continue a system where patients are playing second piddle. with that -- fiddle. with that i hand you back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington reserves. the gentleman from texas. mr. brady: mr. speaker, i would reserve in case the gentleman

from washington has additional speakers or would like to close on his side. mr. mcdermott: are you -- mr. brady: we are prepared to close. mr. mcdermott: i yield one minute to mr. blumenauer to close our arguments. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute, the gentleman from oregon. mr. blumenauer: thank you very much. let's be clear, this is not about the integrity of the tax system. there are any number of areas where we rely far more on discretion individual taxpayers, and there is no appetite actually to move in those areas. my republican friends are not interested in providing adequate resources to the i.r.s. to be able to appropriately enforce the tax law right now. and we have hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes that aren't collected. but this is part of a mean-spirited and shortsighted effort to sabotage the health care reform effort. bear in mind what's going on in states around the country. in missouri the republican legislature has been on a

rampage that will even make it illegal for state employees to tell missourians what they are entitled to under state law. this is a new low in, i think, political malpractice. the republicans are willing to flirt with shutting down the american government in their attempt to prevent americans from getting health care they are entitled to under the law. this is wrong, i strongly urge that we reject this mean-spirited approach. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. brady: mr. speaker, as i yield the balance of our time to the gentlelady from texas, i make the case this is simple choice. those who want to stop fraud in obamacare support this bill. those who want to turn the blind eye to that fraud oppose it. i yield the balance of our time to the gentlelady from tennessee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from tennessee is recognized. mrs. black: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, in closing even the

white house veto threat actually proves the need for the no subsidies without verification act. the white house says that h.r. 2775 would simply require the administration to verify whether people are eligible for taxpayer funded obamacare subsidies before they are dold out, would create delays is what they say. it would create delays. but the veto threat then goes on to say that the bill is, quote, unnecessary because the administration officials claim they already have, and i quote, an effective and efficient system for verification and eligibility. so which is it? does the obama administration have a way other than the honor system to verify whether someone is eligible for taxpayer subsidies? or will requiring the administration to have one create clays -- delays? if they a transparent verification system in place, one that actually worked, this bill would create no delays and

the administration should actually welcome it. and so should all of the members of this body vote for this. that's why we need this bill. because we need independent verification that programs are in place before taxpayer subsidies go out the door for all taxpayers. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on h.r. 2775. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution 339, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. the question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: a bill to condition the provision of cost sharing subsidies under the patient protection and affordable care act upon a certification that a program to verify household income and other qualifications for such subsidies is operational, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the

question is on o passage of the bill. -- is on passage of the bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, i -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington. mr. mcdermott: the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, this is a 15-minute vote on passage of the bill. it will be followed by a five-minute vote on approval of the journal, if ordered. a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 235 the nays are 191. the bill is passed. without objection, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal which this chair will put de novo. the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the journal stands approved. >> mr. speaker, i request a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays

will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of epresentatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 253, the nays are 157 with one answering present. correction, the anyways are 147 . th one answering present the journal stand as i proved. -- approved. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that i may hereafter be considered to be the first sponsor of h.r. 100 1, a bill originally introduced by representative bonner of alabama, for the purpose of adding co-sponsors and requesting reprinting pursuant to clause 7 of rule 12. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered.

the chair lays before the house he following enrolled bills. the clerk: senate 304, an act to direct the secretary of the interior to convey to the state of mississippi two parcels of surplus land within the boundary of the natchez trace parkway and norp. -- and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: can we have order in the house? please take your conversations off the floor.

for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks and take one minute for the purposes of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. hoyer: i thank the speaker. and i yield to the majority leader, mr. cantor. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. mr. speaker -- madam speaker, on monday, the house will meet in pro forma session at 2:00 p.m. and no votes are expected. on tuesday the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. on wednesday and thursday, the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on friday the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business, last votes of the week are expected no later than 3:00 p.m.

madam speaker, members are advised that pending ongoing discussions on the continuing resolution, the house may need to be in session during the week of september 23 and possibly into the weekend. members should expect an announcement next week regarding when the house would meet during the week of september 23. this is a change from the previously announced schedule. . next week the house will consider a few bills under suspension of the rules a complete list will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. the house will likely consider h.r. 1526, the restoring healthy forest for healthy communities act, sponsored by the chairman -- mr. hoyer: madam speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: gentlemen, please take your conversations off the floor. thank you. mr. hoyer: thank you, madam speaker. i continue to yield to my friend, the majority leader. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. the house again, madam speaker, the house will likely consider

h.r. 1526, the restoring healthy forest for healthy communities act, sponsored by the chairman of the natural resources committee, representative doc hastings. in addition to improving forest health and helping prevent catastrophic wildfires, this legislation contains a short-term extension of the cure rules -- secure rural schools program. in addition, madam speaker, i expect the house to consider h.r. 761, the national strategic and critical minerals production act of 2013 authored by representative mark amodei, and h.r. 6817, the southeast arizona and land exchange conservation act of 2013, drafted by representative paul gosar. the these bills from the natural resources committee will foster economic growth and create jobs for the middle class. madam speaker, the house will also consider the nutrition reform and work opportunity act authored by agriculture chairman, representative frank lucas. this legislation restores the

intent of the bipartisan welfare reforms adopted in 199 to the supplemental nutritional assistance program. it also refocuses the program on those who need it most. no law-abiding beneficiary who needs the income and asset test of the current program and is willing to comply with applicable work requirements will lose their benefits under the bill. finally, madam speaker, members should be prepared to vote on a continuing resolution as the new fiscal year approaches. i thank the gentleman. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. i would reiterate to members in case they weren't listening the majority leader has said that we ought to be clearing our calendars for the week of the 23rd of september. that's the last week of the month. originally we were scheduled to be off that week, but the -- in light of the fact that we have been unable yet to pass a continuing resolution or appropriation bills to fund the

government's activities after the end of the fiscal year on september 30, i'm pleased to see the majority leader is putting the house on notice. i have been telling my members for the last two months to reserve that time the contingency of which the majority leader speaks. mr. majority leader, before we left in july we had a bill on the floor to fund transportation and the house -- housing and urban development department, as well as other items. that bill was pulled. subsequent to that bill being pulled, hal rogers, the chairman of the appropriations committee, sent a notice out to a lot of people, i presume the gentleman had an opportunity to read it, it said, i quote, i am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the t-hud bill as it's

referred to from the house calendar today. the prospects for passing this bill in september are bleak at best. given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. he then made this statement, mr. leader. with this action the house has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted three months ago. thus i, hal rogers speaking, believe that the house has made its choice. sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end. mr. leader, as you know he went on to say this, the house, senate, and white house must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise that repeals sequestration, takes the nation off this lurching path from

fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic top line discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible and attainable way. at was the chairman from kentucky, conservative republican, his statement on july 31, 2013. i want to tell my friend, the majority leader, that i agree with mr. rogers. the sequester level is unattainable and unrealistic. that's the chairman of your appropriations committee who is responsible, and has been for many years, for judging what are the appropriate expenditures for our government to maintain programs important to our country, to our economy, and to our national security.

mr. leader, we have another issue beyond the continuing resolution which will also, as the gentleman knows, have a very substantial effect on the fiscal credibility of america, on the fiscal stability of america, and the growth of our economy and the confidence of our people and of people around the world, and that is the extension of our debt limit. this is going to be a shorter colloquy than we usually have because the issues that confront us are so very, very important. i want to tell the majority leader that i have -- we have not had any discussions about a possible compromise, nor have i had any discussions with mr. mccarthy about a possible compromise, nor have i or the leader had any substantive conversations with the speaker.

-- speaker about a compromise in our view consistent with what your chairman of the appropriations committee rightfully, in my view, observed are the fiscal realities confronting our country. you have said, mr. boehner has said, i believe, ms. pelosi believes that not extending the debt limit is unthinkable and if we fail to do so would have very, very serious adverse consequences on our country. so rather than discuss other further issues except to the extent that the gentleman wants to respond, let me say to the gentleman that in these two items in particular, i stand ready to work with your side. my side stands ready to work with your side on a compromise, but i will tell the gentleman with all sincerity we will not

pursue what mr. rogers correctly observes is an unsustainable and damaging process. to that extent we will not compromise on that issue because your chairman is correct, it's harmful to our country. so in that context, mr. leader, i'm hopeful that as we move forward, as you have just been required to have another week added to the calendar, because we have been unable so far to do our work, and this week, of course, one of two weeks that we were supposed to meet in september, we haven't done much, that's unfortunate. so we have used 50% of the time that we had for not much. so i would ask the gentleman if he thinks that there is a possibility to compromise, i would observe, the world has observed, the difficulty of the gentleman and mr. boehner, the

speaker, getting agreement in your own party, but we need to get agreement between the two parties, between the two parties, the senate, and president of the united states so that this country can be funded and can meet its obligations and stabilize our economy. i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, madam speaker. first i would say i'm glad he received the news that we may very well be in session the last week of september the way he has because i do think it reflects the seriousness with which both sides take the pending fiscal issues and deadlines that we are about to confront, both in the continuing resolution as well as debt ceiling itself. madam speaker, i setaside the statement that my friend, the democratic whip, has indicated about not doing anything this week because we just voted on a bipartisan bill enforcing accountability on obamacare.

as the democratic whip knows, obamacare is growingly unpopular in this country. in fact, the latest public poll out today, nearly 60% of americans reject obamacare as the direction in health care. and we are serious and committed on this side of the aisle for a better future for health care. the president himself has said it's not ready for prime time. and has issued waivers for businesses, for insurance companies. we need to have a waiver and delay for all people of obamacare. the law -- the bill that we pass today says that obamacare right now is hoping that the -- the administration is hoping that all the income subsidies that are still in effect will go forward in a transparent and accountable way. that's really impossible to

guard against fraud given that the administration has already exempted corporate america and the businesses from having to comply with the verification of someone's eligibility for subsidies. so there's no way that this law can work. and our side is committed to discussing how we go forward, which is first and foremost a delay of obamacare. and i say to the gentleman, i'm glad that he's willing to sit down and talk, and i would hope that he could impose upon the administration because as late treasury 3, 2013, secretary says, quote, the president has made it clear, we are not going to negotiate over the debt limit. well, i would say, madam speaker, history has shown us that in periods of divided government, in periods of

divided government there is always -- there's always been discussions around the fiscal issues of this country. and in fact, the issue of the debt ceiling has provided a forum for resolution on some of those fiscal issues. going back to graham rudman hollings, that was negotiated and settled around the debt ceiling discussion. as was the congressional review act, as was, madam speaker, we know two years ago, the budget control act. so i hope that the gentleman could take his dedication to try to work things out to the white house and say it's time for all of us to sit down and resolve these issues. now, as far as the sequester is concerned i would say to the gentleman, he knows, i don't think that the sequester is the right way and the best way to go about reducing spending. i mean just by very nature a blunt across-the-board cut treats programs you want to get

rid of in the same way it treats programs that are doing a great job. that indiscriminate type of cult is something -- cut is something we could do better. we could do a lot better than doing those cuts. which is our point. we need to sit down and discuss with this administration how we are going to effect the reforms that we need on the entitlement side, effect the delay of obamacare. that's what we got to do, madam speaker. i yield back. mr. hoyer: madam speaker, the problem has again been expressed of the a single focus majority party, madam speaker, on defunding the affordable care act. so many republicans have said it is an unreasonable and

irrational expectation to expect after an election has occurred in which that was one of the principle issues in the election -- principal issues in the election, for the president or frankly the senate to agree to the objectives of the republican party that lost in america on this issue. there was a poll taken, november, 2012, the president of the united states won that poll. but your focus on that one issue threatens to shut down government and put at risk the credit worthiness of the united states of america. that is not what the american people expect. and unless the gentleman wants to respond, i will yield back the balance of my time. i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair would remind members to direct their remarks to the chair. thank you. mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i believe i was directing my remarks to the chair. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute peeches. mr. cantor: i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet at 2:00 p.m. on monday next and regarding morning hour debate, not apply on that day. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? >> madam speaker, i ask permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, i rise today to recognize a truly exceptional hoosier company and a great langham logistics.

they'll be celebrating their 25th anniversary. they were founded by two sisters, kathy and margaret, who took the risk of starting a transportation business. kathy and margaret literally built it from the ground up, starting in a small office space and now operating a 300,000-square-foot warehouse. mr. rokita: their story is not unlike so many people in this country who dared to dream and then succeeded beyond and even their own wildest dreams. their customers aren't the only ones who have noticed their hard work. in 2003, then president george w. bush visited their company to highlight them as a model startup business that succeeded and was continuing to expand at an amazing rate. it was at that event that i first met kathy langham. not only has kathy and her family built this amazing operation but they did it the right way. through hard work and they gave back and continue to give back every chance they can. i could list all the numerous

charities and causes that kathy, her team and her family contribute to, but that will go well beyond the one minute that i asked for. so i'd simply say on behalf of hoosiers i say congratulations to kathy and langham logistics and may you have another 25 years like the last 25. with that, madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from connecticut eek recognition? ms. esty: i rise to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. esty: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, this week is national suicide prevention week. more than 38,000 americans die by suicide every year. 90% of whom have at least one treatable mental illness. veterans account for 20% of suicides in this country and military suicide is at an all-time high. the july, 2012, cover of "time" magazine described the tragedy of military suicide with a simple headline.

one a day. one year later these rates have remained largely unchanged. and we owe far better to those who have worn or do wear the uniform. earlier this summer, i added an amendment to the defense appropriations to add $10 million for military suicide awareness and prevention. it is our responsibility to care for our troops and for our veterans. and more work needs to be done. during national suicide prevention week, let us commit to ensuring that every american has access to treatment. thank you, madam speaker, and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i request permission to address the house for one minute, to revise and extend my remarks by unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. america has a lot of clean-burning natural gas. mr. farenthold: the eagleford

schaal in the district i represented created 400,000 jobs and roughly $2.6 billion in salaries and benefits in the 13-count area. similar booms are happening in other parts of the country like north dakota and pennsylvania. our domestic energy creates widespread economic prosperity and will continue if we don't ruin it with overregulation and red tape. exporting some of america's huge supply of natural gas will create tens of thousands more jobs, narrow our trade deficit by billions and help both our allies in need like japan and help the environment. and when you factor in transportation costs, gas here at home will always be cheaper. the d.o.e. recently conditionally approved export licenses but they still have a lot of red tape to wade through. i worry these contingent licenses artificially overstate pot tension for exports -- the potential for exports. i along with three of my colleagues, jim costa, joe barton and faleomavaega have created the export caucus to

help the development and timely export of l&g and encourage a rational regulatory environment that ensures production and export of l&g, creating jobs, helping the economy and cleaning the environment. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition? without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for ne minute. mrs. bustos: thank you, madam speaker. creating good-paying jobs and growing the economy in illinois. that's why last month i launched partnering for illinois' economic future. the goal of this initiative is to bring together regional leaders from across the economic sectors, from business, educational institutions and community organizations. we gather to discuss ways to increase collaboration, to create jobs and bolster the region's economy and manufacturing sectors. we held regional meetings in rochford and peoria and the quad cities in conjunction with the

university of illinois. and we will be holding a district-wide economic summit later this fall. but before we do this i want to hear directly from the hardworking people of my region, to get their thoughts on how best to create economic opportunity for all. the insight and input from my constituents, combined with the information we collected from the regional meetings, will help us develop solutions that will benefit all of our communities. thank you, madam speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. poe: ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: madam speaker, the united states is considering sending missiles into syria. also, c.i.a.-funded weapons have begun flowing to syrian rebels. the rebels are made up of the free syrian army, al qaeda and others. it seems the free syrian army is liberating areas and al qaeda comes in behind and imposes strict islamic shari'a law in those territories.

al qaeda is a terrorist group that is at war with the united states. richard engel with nbc interviewed abu adab-raman, one of the thousands of al qaeda fighters in sir yafment in the interview, engel asked are aman this question, the united states is considering launching military strikes against syria. would that help you? raman replied, we have a prayer, allah, please annihilate our enemies by other enemies. assad is an enemy and america is an enemy, let them fight. madam speaker, in this civil war, why would we ever consider getting involved by launching missiles into syria or arming the rebels which include our enemy, al qaeda? and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. veasey: mr. speaker, madam

speaker, i rise today to honor mrs. helen washington from my hometown of fort worth, texas. she is a recent recipient of the president's award for service, for her dedication and service to tar ant county senior adults. she has devoted her life to caring for her community, especially the elderly. she began her tenure at senior citizens services in 1973 and shortly thereafter became the director of fillow -- fellowship center at corner senior center on the south side of fort worth on new york avenue. here she has provided care for families through multiple generations, ensuring that they are able to age and place with health and dignity through friendships offered at fellowship corner senior center. here she empowers older adults to find new friends and improve their health with nutrition and exercise and contribute back through volunteer service. most notably, mrs. washington founded a dance group known as the stepping grannies which

performs around the d.f.w. metroplex, giving seniors an opportunity to have fun while staying active. for over 40 years, mrs. washington has encouraged older adults throughout tarrant county to live with purpose and independence. next week she will be given the award at the annual senior spirit awards given by the senior citizens services of tarrant county. madam speaker, again i would like to congratulate mrs. helen washington and commend her for her dedication to tarrant county seniors. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rom colorado seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute, to revise and extend my remarks. i ask unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. coffman: madam speaker, according to the "wall street journal," without the legislation just passed by this chamber, fraudulent subsidy payments under the affordable care act could account for $250

billion over the next decade. for this reason, i'm proud to have voted in support of h.r. 2775, the no subsidies without verification act. the white house has come out in strong opposition to this proposal. citing the fact that a program to verify eligibility already exists. i wonder, though, if a plan already exists, why the strong opposition to this proposal? and in the broader context, why the strong opposition to any proposal that seeks to create accountability with respect to federal spending? across the nation millions of families sit at their kitchen tables in order to figure out their limited finances and to make difficult decisions. ensuring that their hard-earned dollars are being stretched to maximum effect.

the federal government however shies away from any opportunity to ensure the same accountability. madam speaker, americans are tired of seeing their hard-earned tax dollars wasted through fraud. i hope to see this commonsense legislation signed into law. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? ms. jackson lee: to address the house for one minute, ask unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much, madam speaker. it gives me great opportunity to se today to absolute and praise dr. thomas f. freeman. educator, scholar and legendary coach and teacher of the art of debate at the historic texas university, supporting the historic texas southern university debate team. for those of you who have not heard of that team, i ask you to look closely at the number of awards that it has received

because of this great educator. he comes from a great family, with a great wife, who is also an educator. today i rise to salute him as a first-ranked scholar. but a person of great eloquence and talent and oration. someone who was inspirational to the rev rands dr. martin luther king and the honorable late congressman barbara jordan, my predecessor. a prodigy himself, dr. freeman grad from virginia university at 18 and went on to become a professor at virginia union before his 30th birthday. he would later receive degrees from andover school, harvard university, chicago divinity, the university of vienna-austria. dr. freeman was among a group of accomplished academies of color, academics of color, hired by texas southern university. what i want to say most about dr. freeman is that he is a renaissance man. he's a man of courage. he's a man who broke color

lines, teaching at rice university for 23 years. and he is a man that has a number of sayings that are so vital. one is, there is an ethical dimension to leadership. if you do not consider ethics, then your leadership is hollow. i thank dr. freeman for being the kind of icon that america can honor. his leadership will be rewarded by the many students who have gone on to greatness because of his tutoring. and in fact, even denzel washington was tutored by dr. thomas freeman. he is 95 years old and will be honored in his retirement at texas southern university tomorrow, friday, on september 13, 2013. however, his life will continue to shine for he will continue to work with students and to provide light to those who are willing to learn. thank you, dr. freeman, for being a great american and a great leader and a man of ethics, passion, christianity and courage. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following personal request. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. nadler of new york for wednesday, september 11, and thursday, september 12. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted. . the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013,, the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority eader. mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, it's my privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the united states house of representatives. to do so the day after the anniversary of the tragic attacks on america that took place september 11, 2001, and the tragic attack that took place against americans in benghazi, september 11, 2012. who would have believed, madam speaker, that a full year would

go by and we would still not have the truth, we would still not be at the bottom of the benghazi events. we still wouldn't have a timeline, wouldn't have a chronology, wouldn't have an autopsy report from ambassador stevens and others. we wouldn't have the testimony of those that were wounded, those that survived, and we wouldn't have the full story from the administration, and we wouldn't have the confession from the administration that they willfully, i believe, misinformed the american people and the united states congress. so the individual who has taken the lead on this benghazi series of events and called for special select committee to investigate is the gentleman from virginia, mr. wolf. i would be very pleased to yield as much time as he may con-- consume, to the leader on the benghazi, mr. wolf of virginia. mr. wfl: -- mr. wolf: madam speaker, yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly attacks on the u.s. consulate

and c.i.a. annex in benghazi, libya, which took the lives of four americans and seriously wounded several others. one is still out at walter reed hospital after one year. despite a year of investigations and five different house committees, most of the key questions about what happened in benghazi and why no response was authorized by the washington, remain unanswered. so far the congress has failed. that is why since last november i have been pushing for a house select committee to focus on this investigation, hold public hearings, issue subpoenas to key witnesses and survivors, and produce the final report that answers these important questions. 174 republicans in the house have now co-sponsored h.res. 36 to establish the select committee, 3/4 of the majority and six new co-sponsors joined this week alone. the select committee approach has been endorsed by family

members of the benghazi victims, the special operations community, the federal law enforcement association, and the editorial page of the "wall street journal" among many other prominent individuals and organizations. i was pleased, madam speaker, to receive a copy of a letter sent to the speaker earlier this week calling for the creation of a select committee and signed by some of the most respected and distinguished national security and military leaders that have served our country. these leaders include, former attorney general michael mccazey, who also served as the judge in the trial of the blind sikh, the first trial dealing with an attack against the world trade center. admiral james a. lions, u.s. navy retired, former commander in chief of the u.s. pacific fleet. general frederick j. crowson, u.s. army retired, former vice chief of staff for the army.

lieutenant general william jerry in, u.s. s. -- boyd army retired and commander during mogadishu during the blackhawk down incident that all of us know about. lieutenant general harry edward soyster, u.s. army retired, former director of the defense intelligence agency. ambassador henry cooper, former chief negotiator of the defense and space talks and the former director of strategic defense initiative. major general valley, u.s. army retired, former deputy commander of the u.s. army forces pacific. honorable mccoy, former secretary of the air force. lieutenant colonel alan west, u.s. army and former member of congress. honorable joseph e. schmidt, former inspector general, department of defense. honorable michelle van cleave, former national counterintelligence executive. vice admiral robert monroe, u.s.

navy retired, former director of the defense nuclear agency. and frank gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. it is good to have their support for this important effort and i would like now to read the text of their letter. they said dear mr. speaker, as former military intelligence and national security officials with extensive experience in security policy and practice, we are concerned about the american people's apparently serious loss of confidence in the institutions of their government. one factor contributing to this

of those institutions to respond appropriately to the murder jihadist attacks in benghazi on september 11, 2012. they rightly expect at an absolute minimum that congress will assure accountability of those responsible. as you are well aware, our country's nearing the first anniversary of the assault on the special mission compound and c.i.a. annex in benghazi. we all know that was yesterday. to date, however, the five house committees that shared your -- have held only a small number of mostly less than illuminating hearings into the policies that led to the events that occurred during and after the murder of four of our countrymen and wounding of many more. we appreciate the chairman of these committees produced four months ago a joint interim report, yet its authors acknowledged that they did not have the answers to many of the crucial national security questions. in addition, they go on to say, no time frame has been publicly announced for going beyond the interim report or holding additional hearings toward that end. this is particularly troubling in light of press accounts that the survivors of the benghazi attacks are being intimidating,

federal employees and survivors are being intimidated and risk job action should they come forward with their eyewitness account. if congress does not afford them the opportunity to do so without fear of retaliation by issuing subpoenas for their testimony, it will be complicit in precluding their help in seeing that justice is served. and in denying the american people the full accounting to which they are entitled. they go on to say, we believe in ample chance has been afforded for the regular order to operate and investigate benghazigate. it has failed to do so. now is the time for a select committee to be established with a mandate to draw upon the five committees existing investigative resources and results to date and to complete, if possible, by year's end, the necessary, author he row, and

competitive -- comprehensive inquirery. this approach can alleviate concerns about undue costs and further delay and inconvenience the select committee. mr. speaker, they go on to say, the survivors want to tell their stories and correct the record. two different books based on their stories are reportedly in the works. if the american people learn what happened from a published account rather than from those charged with congressional oversight, the perception of a ver-up or at least a serious dereliction of duty is inevitable. our republic is predicated, they said, on the trust of the government in those they choose to represent them. we must not allow the jihadists who have thus far paid no price for killing ambassador stevens murdering three of his comrades and affecting -- affecting the lives of so many others to do violence as well as other

people's confidence in their constitutional form of government. for all these reasons we call upon you to establish without further delay a select committee to investigate the benghazi attacks. i think they make a very, very powerful case. for the congress to fail to do his as they say the congress will be complicit in this, so i call on the speaker of the house to do what these gentlemen who had as much experience as any member who serves in this congress or either side to do and establish the select committee. with that i thank the gentleman and yield back. i thank him for the time. mr. king: thank you. i thank the gentleman from virginia. reclaiming my time, i ask if the gentleman could stick around for a moment i have a couple of questions occurred to me as i'm listening to this presentation here. i wanted to ask for the record, your knowledge of the benghazi incident goes more deep than

mine does. i think probably as deep as anyone in the congress does, mr. wolf. i wanted to ask, do we know how many survivors there were from the benghazi incident? >> there were roughly 30 or 31 or so that waited on the tarmac after the fighting had ended to be picked up, and they were not picked up in an american plane, they were picked up in a libyan plane. there were a number of wounded, one who is currently out at walter reed, and another gentleman who was severely wounded and several others who were wounded, they were flown out separate from that other group and they were flown out, not in an american plane. but in a libyan plane. maybe even commandeered. also we know that we lost four. several were navy seals. and we were also told by people who have been in touch with those on the ground there was a call from the consulate to the

annex saying, help us. they were told to stand down by the c.i.a. station chief, not knowing if that came out of washington or not. down. they got another call and they were told to stand down again. and they did stand down. they had another call and they finally said we are not standing down and they went. some believe that had they gone on the initial time, they could have saved the life of ambassador stevens. mr. king: reclaiming my time. the information you provided here, especially information as to the numbers of survivors, numbers of wounded, where they were picked up, and by a libyan plane not a u.s. plane, was that information that was forthcoming delivered to you or the american people by our administration? how did you learn those facts? mr. wolf: it was not delivered by the administration nor was it delivered by any committee up here. it was delivered by people who are connected to, related to people who were on the ground. mr. king: do we know has any of

that information been entered into the record under oath as far as witnesses are concerned before any of the five committees that have jurisdiction? mr. wolf: i think not, but i have not been in some of the closed doors. as you know that's one of the problems. the intelligence committee has everything in closed doors. quite frankly if you are a member of the house, you have very little opportunity to find out sometimes what even goes on on the intelligence committee. and he so they could have been sworn in. the people that i have spoken to have not even been called. and i spoke last week, last tuesday, to a person who was on the scene at the time of the attack, and he has not been called. mr. king: what? mr. wolf: he has not been called. mr. king: so, mr. wolf, is it possible that the select committee on intel could have had testimony before the

committee and because they are bound by the confidentiality of classified information that even if they learned something on an open source that they also concur what they learn in a classified setting they are now prohibited from speaking about that outside of that room? mr. wolf: i do not know. i do not serve on the intelligence committee. they are all good people on it. and mr. rogers does a good job. i can't answer. i think they could better answer that. i don't know what the rules are. mr. king: let me pick up on that. i have a measure of classified rating as a member of the judiciary committee. that's the rules we are bound by when we go into the classified setting when we speak about what we learn there, even if we know it from an open source, before we go in or even if we learn it from an open source and after we go out, we cannot speak to that topic outside of the room. that's one of the reasons why we need the select committee. even if all of the information we need to know happens to be gathered by the special select committee on intelligence, that doesn't get that information

that can be declassified, declassified, it doesn't get it correlated with the balance of the information that is public podge or the information that's come before -- knowledge or the information that's come before the other committees. do we have any autopsy reports from ambassador stevens or the other three fatalities killed in the action a year ago? mr. wolf: my committee that i chair, the house appropriations subcommittee that funds the justice department and the f.b.i., we have never received an autopsy report. we have been told how the death of the ambassador took place verbally, but we have never seen the autopsy report. mr. king: do we have a timeline that sets down the events that took place from its inception to its relative conclusion and the operations in the cleanup that also correlates with a timeline of the situation room in the white house and who was in the white house and what they knew and when they knew it? are you aware of any timeline that correlates that?

mr. wolf: there may be, perhaps the intel committee has it. i understand there are timelines out there that do not quite match. but i do not know the answer to that. that's why we need public hearings. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from virginia. that's my understanding as well. and this colloquy that we have had here i think illuminates the questions, some of the questions that can be answered with a special select committee that would be addressing the benghazi incident and a full year and a day has gone by. the trail gets more cold every day. and just yesterday i saw the announcement that the administration is going to make some of the survivors available to congress, finally, after a full year so that we can have some dialogue with them. i remember the 9/11 table, the american people watched in on all of those deliberations to so they to could draw their

judgment on whose version was the most accurate and the closer to the truth. when the 9/11 commission report came out, it was a bound book about that thick. i read it. a lot of us read it. but that was a definitive response of the united states congress that said, these are the facts as we can determine them. the reason judgment of the united states congress, that also happened of the warren commission report in the assassination of president kennedy. i think that the benghazi incident deserves a full investigation in that fashion. i applaud the gentleman from virginia for taking the lead on this. i'll certainly support it all the way to its conclusion. mr. wolf: i thank the gentleman. thank him for the time. mr. king: reclaiming my time. i appreciate having the dialogue to this extent. and i know that the gentleman from pennsylvania has a real focus on benghazi. week of had some ofs they this dialogue before. so i'd be very pleased to yield so much time as he may consume to the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. perry. mr. perriello: thank you -- pear pear thank you for -- mr. perry: thank you for

yielding the time. i thank mr. wolf for his leadership on house resolution 36. it should not have to come to a select and special committee to investigate this. but it's very apparent that the administration operating on point on this is doing everything they can and expending all resources to stonewall and keep the truth and the facts from the american people. and so while we appreciate the fact that there are numerous committees in the house investigating this simultaneously but individually, one concerted effort is probably whats going to take at the end of the day to answer the call of this administration who would rather this information not be let out to the american people. i just want to start out by saying that, you know, a year ago, a year ago on this day, americans were waking up to or hearing about on their lunch hour that the first ambassador in over 30 years, a united states ambassador, had been killed on foreign shores. and as a person who's operated in the military and as just a

citizen who thinks that, look, some of this would make common sense on the anniversary date of such a historic event. and shameful event in america, that we would increase our security posture especially overseas. and as a person who served overseas during 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11, i know very well that we did increase our security posture. so the fact that this happened really leads questions to what the heck was going on at the state department regarding these -- the security in benghazi and who was making decisions? it's disgraceful that an entire year later, despite the fact that a number of the terrorists who have been identified who were participating in this attack, not one of them has been brought to justice. not one. it's also interesting that this administration has the information, the intelligence information that it has regarding syria yet while we were in benghazi, while we had boots on the ground in libya, a year later we don't seem to have the facts about the intelligence that occurred there.

some questions that i have. it's my understanding that undersecretary kennedy will be testifying in front of the foreign affairs committee under which i serve next week and we have some questions for him. i think the american people want to know why this administration politicized national security during an election cycle regarding the talking points. and who made that order? who decided that? who's at the top of that? the reduction in security forces, again, on 9/11. it's my understanding with an outpost like benghazi that it could only have come from one person. there's only one person in the state department that is authorized to issue that reduction in security posture. and that is the secretary. we want to know whose signature is on the authorization. we want to know who authorized not sending help. we don't know, you know, in the military we don't have a stand-down order but somebody said no. and somebody didn't contingency

plan. somebody wasn't prepared. now, the boots on the ground, the fine soldiers, the airmen, the men and women who would have gone in to help, they were ready to go. the united states military was ready to respond. it's the chain of command that wasn't, somewhere along the line. and we want to know who made that decision. we don't know yet what the ambassador was doing there. do we really know? we've asked the question but we don't know what his purpose was. sure, we hear that he was there to solidify that location as an operations point for diplomatic actions and show that everything was normal in libya again. but on 9/11, you're really going to send him there with a reduced security posture? folks, ladies and gentlemen, these ambassadors don't roll in a car by themselves out to these outposts. they don't even go to their cons lates by themselves -- consulates by themselves. they have a security detachment of highly trained people. the vehicles they ride in are

not something that you buy on the lot. these guys are loaded up and they're ready to handle contingencies. this is abnormal. what was he doing there? why does this administration continue to stonewall? you're hearing that they're giving us everything that we ask for. the emails and so on and so forth. why is it that the emails come in a box to a secure location, our people in the congress, we're allowed to look at them, our investigators are a allowed to look at them, tribe information and then the emails go back into the box under armed guard and they're taken away. we're not allowed to copy them. we're not allowed to get them all at one time. they're meeted us to us. why is that? if there's nothing to hide, why can't we have all the information so we all know what it is within the confines of security postures and operational security and security clearances? finally, or maybe not finally, who's accountable? has anybody been held account snble sure there was some four employees at the state department that were excused

from their duty for a year or nearly a year with pay and then brought back in. having -- and this is not to disparnle those employees. -- disparage those employees. it's my understanding, since we haven't talked to any of them yet, since we haven't been allowed to talk to them, that they didn't even know they were held responsible until the day it happened and they still haven't seen the report that said they were responsible for the reduced security posture. nobody's been held accountable. why wasn't the secretary involved in the questioning of the a.r.b.? the accountability review board. the person at the top, not even questioned. that's like having a murder investigation in a family where the husband was having an affair and having strained relations with his wife, the wife was murdered and he was the only one in town at the time and not questioning that. that's what that's like. nobody questions the secretary. really?

was there realtime video information via drone, unarmed aerial vehicle? we heard originally, i was in the questioning -- in the hearing with the secretary, secretary clinton, when she originally came, earlier this spring. and she said that there was no realtime information. yet on national radio, i heard a guy call into national radio who was the payload operator. and to be clear, the payload operator is not the individual flying the unarmed aerial vehicle. the payload operator is the individual that handles the camera or the weapons system. so the individual handling the camera called into a national talk show and described what he was seeing as it was occurring. so if we had the realtime information, why weren't we acting on it? where is that realtime information? why haven't we seen it? finally, and finally, where was the president during this? i mean, this is a crisis of national proportion and national security. and know the president hasn't

come before congress to ask the question and every time we ask anybody else the question the answer's going to be well, i don't know, i don't keep the president's schedule. why can't the american people know the facts? we just want the truth. we just want the facts. the facts will lead us to the truth. we're not on a witch hunt. the american people deserve to know. the families of the fallen have -- they deserve to know. what happened here. and i know the administration is hoping that time will go by, debt ceiling, continuing resolution, obamacare, syria, anything will get in the way of finding out what happened here. but we are duty-bound, ladies and gentlemen, and mr. speaker, madam speaker, we are duty-bound to find out this information on behalf of the american people. i applaud you, mr. king, thank you for yielding time. and i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from pennsylvania. and appreciate his presentation on the floor. i'd ask if could he stick around for a moment. because i'm trying to do research of my own here. and that is that there's a

patchwork of information that's been gathered together, among the american people, they have collectively within their memory and their records all that's publicly available. if we could go out and pull it together and consolidate it. then if we could organize it. this congress is similar to. that we're representative it's of the american people and from each of our districts, each of our sets of responsibility and access to information, we can put together some of the puzzle here. but it's hard to put together a puzzle if you don't have the picture that's on the box. this administration has the box with the pieces and the picture on the box of the puzzle, what actually happened in benghazi. and they knew it almost in realtime. and they have been metering out the information as accepting or admitting to information as it was forced upon them thanks to the media, thanks to people that have done real research. i recall, i recall a statement made to our gathering and our meeting that there weren't any wounded from the benghazi incident out at walter reed hospital. one of our members went out there and hung around the cafeteria until he found out

otherwise. and made the personal contact and had deep conversations with at least one individual that was a survivor of benghazi, that was in a long-term rehab, walter reed. and so that's the level that we have to go to to get an admission and i wanted to ask the gentleman from pennsylvania, just a series of questions. have you seen seen a list of the survivors of benghazi? those survivors that mr. wolf talked about, were picked up on the tarmac at the airport in benghazi and flown out by libyan plane? >> i have not seen the list. mr. king: do you know the names of any of those 30-some survivors? mr. perry: i do not. mr. king: have you seen a timeline that shows what happened in benghazi from beginning to end, one that is credible, that you have confidence in? mr. perry: i certainly haven't seen anything that i have confidence in. there's been numerous pun ones put together. mostly by the side that wants to investigate this, trying to piece it together based on open-source information. mr. king: open-source time line.

you have seen any time line of the situation room in the white house? mr. perry: we have no knowledge of anything in the situation room in the white house. mr. king: just wondering, when the assault went on the compound that took out osama bin laden and i would ask the gentleman, did you see any pictures from inside the situation room and did you see a timeline of the events that took place on that assault? mr. perry: sure. the whole world saw that and rightly so. mr. king: exactly. as i draw a comparison to benghazi and the takedown of osama bin laden, those circumstances would have been similar except that we initiated the operation against osama bin laden, so i presume there was some people that got invitations to go into the situation room and be there. we saw the looks of worry and concern on their faces. i remember the president there in the front of it, secretary clinton was there. and others in that setting. but we have no visuals of who was in the situation room during benghazi. we have no time line of who came

into the room, who was in the room, who left the room or when. and in that list would be when the president came, how long he was there and when he left. we don't know the answers to that. even though everybody that was in the situation room would have known when the president arrived, they would have known when he left, they would have known -- they would have remembered precisely all dialogue that came from the president and almost all that went to the president. that's how i envision it. would you envision that the same way? mr. perry: that's exactly right. mr. king: so the american people need to know this. do you have any knowledge of who had custody of the body of ambassador stevens from the moment he was killed until such time as he turned up at the hospital in benghazi? mr. perry: there's been some conflicting reports between open-source, between the rebels and then he went to the hospital and was picked up by some of the folks from tripoli. but then he wasn't there and --

there's nothing congruent in that. i'm not sure the chain of custody regarding the ambassador's body. we're pretty sure we know what happened to it and it's fairly unpleasant. but again, without an autopsy we can't even be sure of that. mr. king: i would agree. and the individuals that delivered ambassador stevens' body to the hospital should be available to us. we should have been able to put them under oath. and gather the record of what took place there. we don't know who had custody of ambassador stevens' body. we just know his body showed up at the hospital and the balance of that is conjecture although we've seen at least one picture of him being carried through the streets in a vertical way and no knowledge whether he was alive or dead at that time. mostly that he was dead at that time. but just simply don't know. mr. perry: right. mr. king: can you imagine if it's your family member who had gone through this and to be locked out from the truth, if you'd lost one of the four lives that we lost in that, if you're one of those that are wound and been muzzled and the argument came out yesterday that the

administration asserts that they have not commanded people to muzzle them, to be quiet about what happened in benghazi. and yet the intimidation factor, if your top officers lean on you and say, you've already taken a confidential oath, you better stick with that confidentiality oath, as a member of the armed services, if you're bound by confidentiality, you've already taken the oath, your commander, your superior comes to you and says, you're bound to that confidentiality, would you honor that? , mr. perry? mr. perry: in the interest of national security, you're in a dilemma. you've taken an oath and you do have a confidentiality requirement. however, i would also say there is a compelling reason for you to provide information to the american people and certainly to the congress. i know that the foreign affairs committee has set up hearings with some of these folks and

they have said they were coming and then miraculously and mysteriously declined between the time they said they were come pping and the time they were supposed to appear. and so we're not sure why they would agree to it in the onset and then decide to change their mind hence. and so i think it's a very compelling question but i think in the interest of finding out the truth, that they would be compelled to testify under oath. . mr. king: do you think the attacks on our ambassador and the other victims was a planned attack or spontaneous eruption? mr. perry: there is no doubt. libyan intelligence, they knew it within 24 hours. the fact that our ambassador -- which by the way it besmerches her credibility, the president's credibility, the administration's credibility,

including foreign policy and decisionmaking to go out for weeks on end, including the president, and issue talking points that they clearly knew were false, they knew they were false. the world knows they're false now. most of the world knew they were false then. this is not a spontaneous eruption of violence including r.p.g.'s and coordinated attack. coordinated attacks requires planning, it requires resourcing. that didn't happen in a few moment's time over a video which maybe that gentleman is still in prison till this date. the only person that's been held accountable to this is arguably someone who had absolutely nothing to do with this. mr. king: do you believe that the administration knew in real time that it was a planned attack on our ambassador, an assassination attempt? mr. perry: since the ambassador or -- the ambassador himself and his deputy both reported it was a real-time coordinated attack, not a spontaneous

demonstration. i'm very certain in my heart and my mind that the administration knew what was happening. mr. king: you think susan rice knew when she went before the five television networks the following sunday? mr. perry: again, i don't want to indict her. if she was given the talking points. but at the level she was operating, she either should have known or corroborated the talking points. and so to a certain extent i think she's culpable and it's reason to expect that she did know talking points were changed and she was misleading the public. mr. king: and i would ask the gentleman from pennsylvania if he attended the classified briefing at 5:00? mr. perry: i did. mr. king: what level of confidence did you see susan rice there to lead the briefing? mr. perry: again, i suggest that the administration has a trust and confidence issue, not only with this congress but with the american people and that is one of the reasons. you can't send somebody out at the top levels of government to provide information on such a sensitive issue as potentially

going to war or an act of war whose credibility has been -- has been diminished by her own actions and the actions of this administration. so i think that that trust and confidence has been eroded because of prior actions, particularly with benghazi and libya. mr. king: and i would agree wholeheartedly, mr. perry, and one remaining component of this topic i think you alluded to somewhat in your statement, the question is, what was ambassador stevens doing in benghazi? we've seen the announcement that came out last night or today that our administration is funneling weapons now into some elements of the free syrian army. i'm concerned that those elements are the muslim brotherhood elements or the free syrian army but they announced they're finally getting some resources in there. if that was the plan and the strategy to funnel weapons into the free syrian army a year ago, that would have been a

better strategy because the muslim brotherhood hadn't completely tooken over that operation then. but some -- taken over that operation then. but some in the media have speculated that that was part of the business that may have been taking place in benghazi. i don't have confirmation that that is the case. i'd ask the gentleman from pennsylvania if you have seen any evidence that that might be the operation that was taking place and the reason that ambassador stevens was in benghazi that day. mr. perry: we've seen no evidence, we've been given no evidence. we've been asked the questions directly and been denied. mr. king: and denied any straight answers to that? mr. perry: denied any answers. mr. king: denied any answers. so what we know is the administration immediately announced it was a spontaneous eruption of violence over protest of a video. how they would tie it to it because it's disconnected and illogical, they sent susan rice out and she gave the same

story. now she's been awarded with confidence of the president within this administration and sat before the house of representatives in a classified setting to lead us in the briefing on the syrian -- potential syrian engagement. so we know it wasn't a video. do we know if the individual who produced that video is out of jail? mr. perry: i'm not sure. he may be out of jail. he was held accountable at some point and he literally did go to jail. i would say it's arguable he had anything to do with this or anything else. mr. king: the last information i had is he was still in jail. that's been some weeks ago. that may be a person that you may identify as a political prisoner. it's unlikely he'd be in jail his not meeting the parole requirements for this period of time except for the politics , t he got wrapped up into madam speaker. so all of these things that are

inaccuracies and some of them outright dishonesties, there's no question this administration went out and willfully misinformed the american people. they did so in open source setting. the president's dialogue directly to the united nations in multiple oblique references to a video, they knew in real time it was a planned attack. there's a reason why we know that. mr. perry knows the reason. why do we know it was a planned attack against our u.s. ambassador? mr. perry: like i said, you don't just bring heavy weapons, like r.p.g.'s and things of the sort, to a spontaneous, you know, eruption and demonstration. i mean, you must plan -- like i said, it requires resourcing, ammunition. this thing went on for hours and hours and with heavy weapons. you just don't show up with a belt-fed weapon and the ammunition to support it on a whim. it requires -- this is

something that's heavy to carry. the ammunition is heavy to carry. it requires vehicle and people and coordination and what we call fields of friendly so you don't shoot the friendly, you only shoot the enemy. this coordination takes time. it doesn't happen in a minute or two. mr. king: don't we remember -- i see at this moment we have guests that have arrived. i'll be happy to yield, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: madam speaker, a message from the president of the united states. the secretary: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: mr. secretary. the secretary: i am directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from iowa. you may continue. thank you. mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. in picking up where we left off with this discussion about if it was a video that began in violence and it was a spontaneous demonstration that took place, i recall the message that came out from the

administration that libya's a highly armed country and people walk around with ak-47's or else they have them handy so if there is a violent demonstration they can grab their ak-47's and run, not to the demonstration, but i know it was a possibility in iraq with the armament that we have or weapons they have in their homes. but we also know there are r.p.g.'s there. we know there were mortars there. we know there were two locations. the first location where the attack took place and then the fallback. one was the compound. one was the annex. we know there were mortar rounds dropped in the secondary location and it looked like the sequence of that that they had already dialed in that secondary location as a target. if that's the case, not only was it a planned attack, but it was a planned attack with intel that had the secondary location, the alternative location where they would retreat to once attacked in the primary location already set up

ith mortars zeroed in on that. right?at sound mr. perry: a mortar is an indirect fire. you lob the round into the target. so it requires coordination and known points where the mortar is located versus where the target is located and you have to shoot the right angle and the right area. it's not done capriciously or quickly. there's a thing called the base plate which holds the mortar. it takes several men or a vehicle depending on the size. and then the ammunition that comes in cases. it's not something you carry around in your pocket. it's heavy. you are not shooting one. multiple cases, again, logistic and support for this, planning for this. like you said, the planning on multiple locations of attack. they would have to know that. they would have to know the location, of course, and where their firing point was for the best field of fire and security

from opposing fire. of course, i think the ambassador described this in his phone calls. of course, our troops on the ground, some of them who perished, playsered the target, expecting support from the united states. you never go without knowing who your support ask, what your backup plan is. they expected some combided munitions to take out the assault, but it never came. and so there's no doubt in my mind this is a coordinated, well-prepared attack. there is no doubt in my mind that the administration knew this very early on. maybe they didn't know it within 24 hours, they certainly knew it within the span of a week. but the misleading of the american public went on for weeks, for weeks. mr. king: if the gentleman were going to set up a mortar and zero in on a target, what would be the minimum number of rounds that it would take to have confidence that you could zero in on, say, the top of a

building? mr. perry: well, the mortar has somewhat inspecific -- it's what we call an area weapon so it never is -- you'd never get -- you are not going to shoot a mortar into a window. when they fire them, they sometimes shoot long, they shoot over or they shoot short. so they bracket. if they adjust the tube back and forth until they get it to the range. but if you have a known point you're firing from and a known point you're firing to, you can do that with much greater accuracy and much less time. i would suggest they had that all figured out when they showed up which is how they were able to deliver rounds on the target immediately. mr. king: and i would ask the gentleman if the third mortar round was the fatal round for two of our brave americans, would that indicate that that mortar had been set up and planned in advance? mr. perry: absolutely. you must know it takes multiple -- what we call registration rounds and so on and so forth, to bracket a target. firing the tube or mortar to

hit the target. i'm talking half a dozen, a dozen times. and it's very precise. so they knew exactly what they were doing. they had this planned well in advance, in my opinion. mr. king: and we would have known that in almost real time in the situation room in the white house would be what i would say and still people went out and made the story that it was a movie. and then after the story the movie began to break down, it became it was a spontaneous response. people came running with the weapons that they had. and we have gotten more truth out in this dialogue that we've had here in this past 45 minutes on the floor of the house of representatives than has willingly been brought forward by this administration. i say benghazi is worse than watergate. i think that's a very easy position to hold in that watergate was a burglary that the president found out about it afterwards. and it was wrong for president nixon to seek to cover that burglary up. it cost him the presidency and it cost america dearly and the

events that history that unfolded from that. but this is something that goes deeper and worse. i believe it was a planned assassination attack on our ambassador, and i believe that we had a whole group of historic americans that conducted themselves very well. they deserve to be identified if they want to be, and they deserve their respect and the appreciation and the honor that the american people would like to give them. and the best thing we can do for the memories of those that are is to provide the full truth, and the full truth that goes outside that that must be classified. as history moves on, classification changes because the relevance of the need for it to remain secret also changes. so perhaps today we can pick up the momentum to get those final signatures on the wolf resolution, get to the point where we can convince our speaker that we need to have this select -- special select committee to investigate benghazi, that it incorporates the top people from the five

committees that have jurisdiction to do those kind of hearings with a significant budget where we can make sure it's well staffed and subpoena the people that we need to, put that record out in the public eye and public ear, record that record and build that and put it into a bound copy, a version that says this is the reason judgment of congress, these are the facts as they can be gathered and that has been scrutinized by the public in real time. if we do that we can draw our conclusions, historians will be able to draw their conclusions and we can do honor to those who lost their lives, gave their lives for us and we can do honor to those who have suffered serious wounds and we can do honor to those who were in that conflict and we can clean this up to the point where all of those that serve us in the foreign service and put their lives on the line -- and there have been, by my recollection, eight ambassadors who have lost their lives in the line of duty or died while in service to our country over the course of the history of the united states, ambassador

stevens the most recent, the most violent, but also the one they have the most questions about. you know, this was going to be an open administration, one of the most transparent in history, and now we have the secretary of state who presided over this, who was voiced, the one who should have given us the most direct response, has not given us full testimony. she did appear before a senate committee, and it was a limited amount of testimony, but she has not come clean with this, and as we see this, the situation of the cover-up of the facts of benghazi, we're also seeing the people that were engaged in this that do know the facts asking for a higher level of responsibility in leadership. in fact, all the way to the white house seems to be the direction that the former secretary of state would like to take, and i'm going to suggest, mr. speaker -- madam speaker, that this can't happen in america. you cannot have someone who covered up something worse than watergate find a path to go back to the white house and

then put this country back under another shield to hide information, a cover-up. the american people deserve the truth. one of the strengths we have as a nation is because we have been willing to face the real truths, face the realities and brace up and take on the enemies of the world. the people that serve this country and do so with dignity and honor and nobility are those in uniform, but it isn't those in uniform. it's those in the c.i.a., it's some of the civilian contractors that have served in our military, part of civilian security detail, those in the state department that know they're out there on the edge and on the end and we need to honor all of them by bringing the truth out. there are many people, especially within the state department, the c.i.a., who are sick at heart because they know the real truth. we need to give them an opportunity to bring that real truth out. i'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. perry: as you already stated, the american people deserve to know. it was scarcely six weeks ago i

talked to some of the families of the fallen who have not since that fateful day -- well, it's a year ago now, then it was just nearly a year, have still not gotten any answers from the administration. as a matter of fact, the administration doesn't talk to them at all. they're coming into congress asking us to find answers and i would ask the american people, is that how you want the people that serve this country overseas and in very dangerous situations to be tweeted? these are -- some of these are former military members serving in this capacity as security detail for the ambassador or that just picked up and went to the fight. even though they were told not to. and gave their lives. their lives were taken from them. and this is how their families are being treated. they're dead. and their families are getting no resolution, they're getting no closure on this thing. and it's at the hands of this federal government and this administration. it's reprehensible and it can be stopped immediately if they would just answer the questions that we have, that all americans have. mr. king: reclaiming my time,

i'd say a few more words, madam speaker, that i sat through a series of briefings over the last week or a little better, in different places around the world. in one of those briefings, one of our special operations forces personnel made a point that they were ready to go to benghazi. there's nobody there that trains that isn't ready. nobody's reluctant to step in and serve, no matter how dangerous a mission, no malter what the prospects are of success. if there are americans in trouble and they are given the green light and that's the order to go into ballot, they don't hesitate. . they don't shrink back. they don't think, i wish i wasn't here. they train for that. as they train for that, there's no hesitation. so we should always know that our military men and women, our security person el -- personnel, there's no hesitation on their part. they wanted to be there. that's why when they got the order to stand down at the third time they went anyway. because these are brethren that needed to be protected.

mr. perry: i would ask, mr. kirnings we were told that there wasn't -- king, we were told that there wasn't adequate time. that reinforcements and help was too far away. how did the administration know how long this was going to take? how long this attack was going to go on for? when the calls came from the ambassador, it was hours and hours later, until he perished. until others perished. during that period of time we could have sent people on their way. maybe they would have not gotten there in time and maybe that was still a failure in planning but i think the american people could forgive the mistake with the effort. but the effort wasn't made at all. and i wonder, who made the determination that this is going to end in two hours or three hours or 10 hours or 10 minutes? and said, no, we're not going to send anybody because it's going to be over. how did they know that? i would suggest they never knew that because they never had an intention of sending anybody because they never had any plan, they never expected this, they never wanted this and they hoped it would go away quietly into the night. that's what i would suggest.

mr. king: reclaiming my time, it appears to me that there was a political decision that was made in the situation room in the white house and that political decision was, we're in a tough, tight re-election battle, this is september 11, we are less than two months before the election date, this could become the whole pivotal issue that the election is decided upon. let's see if we can slide this thing down and tamp it under the rug and maybe it will go away, maybe it won't be as big or bad that we fear that it is. and that's the question that comes back. there's a time in this job to do your duty. there's a time in this political arena that we're in that you set aside politics. there's a time when you look at your re-election and you decide, my job here in this moment doing the right thing is more important than any prospects of how people will vote two months from now or a year or more from now. that's that sense of dutyy. that's why we take an oath to uphold this constitution. there's an oath, we all stand here on the floor of this house and take this oath, to preserve,

protect and defend this constitution of the united states. the president does so. the executive branch personnel do so. i look back through history, i can think of no time, i can think of no time that our leadership in the white house has decided that the political calculation was more important than the lives of an ambassador, that had an opportunity to be saved. and maybe we would not have been able to save the ambassador. maybe we could have saved two of the others that were killed later in that operation. but we could have at least been there to send that message and to intimidate and we're now a year and a day later, the press has identified some of the perpetrators. they've gone to benghazi and sat down and had lunch and interviewed them. there are at least three media networks that have interviewed one or more of these perpetrators. if we know who they are and justice was going to be brought to them, why hasn't that been the case? why hasn't this administration acted? meanwhile, they will tell us, they know exactly how to put a precision strike in on assad in syria to send justice the -- just the right message, that

won't tip the balance of power and change the result of the civil war in syria, but it will give him the message that he won't use weapons of mass destruction again. they have enough intel to apparently do that. but not enough intel to just follow their reporters around in benghazi and collar the people that they talk to. that would be just that simple. and furthermore, the intel that seems to have identified the elements of the free syrian army, i'd just say a few words about that, that i've gathered as i've navigated this globe and sat down in on a whole seize series of meetings that took -- series of meetings that took place, to put the pieces of the puzzle together on the intel with syria and in egypt and others. just on the syria side, we had a free syrian army that emerged. it emerged as a popular uprising against assad for his cruel and evil dictatorship of his people. and for killing some of his own people, even then as political enemies. the free syrian army emerged.

and so they should have easily been the people that we supported. well, as that battle went on, they were taking over different areas within syria, tactical objectives and communities and cities and large geographical areas of syria. and at a certain point, the muslim brotherhood stepped in, they took over some parts of the free syrian army, they set up an operation that essentially sacrificed the leader of the free syrian army. he was captured in an operation where he was sacrificed. they took him out of command. his successor commander now has been marginalized and pushed off to the side and the free syrian army, the knowledge that i have, is now controlled by the muslim brotherhood and radical islamist entities, including al qaeda. and that's the entity that we are now -- have a good enough intel that we are starting to send military supplies into. those two entities, assad and radical islamist components, which is a large component of the free syrian army, they're

the bad guys. they're both our enemies and yet the administration is in the business now, a year after that should have been happening in an aggressive way, arming some of the wrong people. and it's not that we didn't have good choices. there still have good choices and good people in siry and outside syria that want to have a secular syria, a syria that has freedom of religion, a syria that is run by the people of jair. those elements are still there -- syria. those elements are still there. that force can be put together. it takes longer than firing a cruise miller missile into damascus and picking a target to send a pinprick message. it can be done but i'm not confident that this administration has identified our friends. what i have seen is that when we're aligned with anybody in the middle east, it's been the muslim brotherhood. and whenever we've had 2 1/2 years of the arab spring and in every break that's changed power within the countries in north africa. the middle east, and every break has gone in favor of the muslim

brotherhood. except one. and that is now when the muslim brotherhood took over egypt, under morsi, 30 million to 33 million people came to the streets in a popular demonstration, the largest demonstration in the history of the world to unseat morsi. because they don't have a constitutional way toimpeach him. they didn't have a way to arrest him. the only thing they could do is go to the streets and demand that he be removed from power. our administration sent a message before morsi came to power that mubarak had to be gone yesterday. remember that word? he has to be gone yesterday. well, that upset the balance of power in egypt. that helped morsi come to power. morsi squeaked beebe winning an election with 5.8 million people voting for him out of 83 million or so egyptians altogether. now it's exactly what you'd call a majority of the people supporting morsi. morsi's complete incompetence, but also his very bold moves to consolidate power within egypt, it became clear that there was

not going to be another election in egypt. and the muslim brotherhood was going to impose shari'a law and you start seeing that happen. 30 million to 33 million people in the streets of egypt and egyptian military stepped forward to support the popular uprising that took place and now they have laid out a timeline, a road map to write a constitution, put a constitution out on a public vote to ratify. and then to elect a president and a civilian government and they have pledged, the general has pledged to turn over this military control of the egyptian government to a newly elected legitimate civilian government. that timeline is a good timeline. and it's a good commitment that has been set up and it's a good result. the problem we have is that our administration was against mubarak and helped push him out of power and that helped open the door for morsi who came in and one of the muslim brotherhood, and it's clear this new leadership, the interim resident of egypt, the general

of the, leading the commander military, and also they have the support of the pope of the coptic christian church in egypt, all of that, the new forces are clear, they oppose the muslim brotherhood, of the struggle within the middle east, muslim brotherhood, radical islam, radical violent islamist groups working against the free people in that part of the world. we need to be on the right side of everyone, not on the wrong side of everybody everyone and the administration's going to have to turn their course around in egypt and get behind the new administration and support new elections and a new constitution. mr. perry: i'd like to pose a question to you based on what you've seen regarding syria and benghazi and libya. the classified briefings and your travels. why is it that we look to punish syria after this administration, this administration reported to us that syria had used chemical weapons 11 times previously and on the 12th time, we want to send a message that that's not

ok and it's not ok, let's be clear about that, but why didn't we send a message and why haven't we sent a message that it's not ok to kill a united states ambassador? when is that message going to be sent? i'd like to get your thoughts on that and the dichotomy and the lack of parallel in some kind of strategy and foreign policy that is congruent and makes sense to our allies and our adversaries? mr. king: i would just say to the gentleman, that he's pointed out a stark contradiction in our policy. 11 or 12 times, alleged at least, weapons of mass destruction used against the syrian people. i'm going suggest that this push now is because some of the people that want those elements of the free syrian army that i described to succeed are saying, help us out by landing a strike or two in on assad. that's my guess. but with regard to justice for the people that perpetrated the benghazi incident, against our americans and our american ambassador, that justice needs

to be delivered. we know who some of those people are and it's irresponsible of this administration to shut information down to the united states congress, to the american people, and to fail to act when they have a clear act of war committed against the united states on u.s. territory. i'm aware that the clock has ticked down here to the end. i want to thank the gentleman from pennsylvania for coming to the floor. i'm sure that he wasn't aware that this wasn't choreographed, it was a spontaneous eruption, a protest calling for the truth to come out and a light to shine in benghazi. i thank the gentleman from virginia for his leadership on this. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair would direct mebts to -- members to direct their remarks to the chair. the chair lays before the house a message. the clerk: of the national

defense authorization act for fiscal year 2013, public law, 112-239, january 2, 2013, i hereby transmit printables for modernizing the military compensation and retirement systems requested by the act, signed, barack obama, the white house, september 12, 2013. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on armed services and ordered printed. under the speaker's announced the of january 3, 2013, chair recognizes the gentlewoman from the district of columbia, ms. norton, for 30 minutes. ms. norton: thank you, mr. chairman. as the house adjourns, i want to note that when we come back we will be five days before the end of the fiscal year. that could bring a shutdown of the federal government. what most americans don't know

is that that could bring a shutdown, also, of the government of the nation's capital, the district of columbia. i want to make clear that there's not a single member of this house or the senate who desires that outcome. there's nothing in that for anybody. in fact, many members of congress and the staff actually live in the district of columbia, so to have the nation's capital shut down is not anything that would even be in their interest. beyond their own interests, most members of congress and e in local control are mystified when they come here, whatever their party, to find that the congress has anything to do with the local budget of the district of columbia. $8 billion raised by the city,

which has to come here before the senate can spend a dime of its own money. the city has before the congress, as i speak, a balanced budget. one t, a budget that has applauds all around the country and even in this congress ecause of the fund balance that the city has managed to build, over $1 billion over ime. its very middle name should be prudence. the district of columbia should be an example of what we're trying to get cities and states all across the country to do. i understand why the leadership decided not to move forward with a congressional resolution which would have guaranteed that the government would

remain open until december 15. they need the time to get the votes and to satisfy their members. that's perfectly understandable. what would not be understandable is if we went through another shutdown crisis. the government actually did shut down about 18 years ago, and i do want to say here on the floor how grateful i am to the speaker of the house at the time, newt gingrich, who indeed kept the district of columbia, the nation's capital, open during multiple shutdowns of the federal government. and he did so simply because it makes no sense to shut down the government of the nation's ounce who has not one interest in or blame for the

ispute that has increasingly grown more often and have caused us to go on congressional resolutions bills we do not get our done in time. and so there needs to be time to reconcile those matters. it's important to note that the district of columbia's budget, which was submitted here on time, is in such good shape that it in fact did pass both of the appropriation committees that receive it. so there's no issue here involving the district of columbia, no reason why anybody would want it entangled in a federal dispute. in fact, i thought that my good friends in the majority above

disentanglement of the federal government in what should rightly be the work of the localities. o i hasten to say an unintended consequence that comes from the fact that most members don't even know it. members come here to do the business of their district and the federal government. they don't come here to be educated on the district of columbia. they have no idea that the district would close down if there was a closedown of the district. but they would understand that i must do my job, and that is to take whatever steps i can to ke sure that this unintended result does not occur. at the g to testify

rules committee when the congressional resolution is considered. that is the resolution, as i indicated, that would keep the government open until december 15. it's interesting to note, with only a slight change, the district of columbia would not be an issue here. want to thank the republican appropriators who must be at ast 10 years ago corrected another consequence that the congress never intended. the district budget used to be held up whenever the budget, of course, of other -- of the federal government was held up and for the very same reason it hadn't come to the floor. so you had a city whose budget

30 due out by september which sometimes got out in november or december. this wreaked havoc on the opening of schools, on the ability of the city to contract because the budget was over here and hadn't been passed. it's important, also, to lay on the record that the budget doesn't come here because any member of the congress is interested in the budget or thinks that their oversight is necessary to make sure that the budget is done correctly. in fact, the budget is virtually never looked at. what does happen when the budget comes here is that traneous amendments that reflect the views of not of the district of columbia but of the member who's offering it often are attached to our budget. but the appropriation committee

has never interfered with the budget itself. how could they? the budget has been put together from subcommittees and committees and it has a chief financial officer, the only jurisdiction in the united states that has a financial officer appointed for five years, cannot be fired except for cause, who has to pass on the budget and to make sure there's no overspending. but it comes here out of tradition. it comes here because for more than 200 years it has come here while the congress has been trying to figure out how to deal with the anomalous position that it has put its nation's capital in. so here it is. nd in order to avoid the budget getting out so late that ou cripple or certainly make

extremely difficult the ability of the city officials to run a ig complicated city, the appropriators agreed upon a small change, and i'm asking for us to act already on that existing change. that change says that in every c.r. there will be, no matter what the c.r. says -- and most c.r.'s say very little -- but the district would be allowed to spend its own funds at the levels that have been approved by its council and by the congress at next year's level. and that has had enormously effects on the city. we will be in that c.r. in the ame way. but as the district's member of

congress, i have to contemplate the possibility, at least, that even on december 15, the government could close down, and i would have to indeed look at what would even be perhaps better, that it didn't close down but there was yet another c.r. imagine trying to run a big city in the united states on multiple c.r.'s. that's what i'm trying to avoid. that's what no member of congress intends. now, i also have had to take precautions for the possibility that even the c.r. that comes before us -- i'm hoping next week -- could fail. have t c.r. fails, i also

a bill that would allow the district to run whiffer the federal government shuts down. -- whenever the federal government shuts down. this year and in perpetuity. again, if i am right, that there's no member who would like to shut down any local jurisdiction and especially the nation's capital, then i think the bill would take care of it. the reason i have to go to rules committee for the c.r. is that is the next step, that's the next opportunity to draw this matter to the attention of he house and to therefore by amendment allow the district to spend for the entire fiscal year, not from c.r. to c.r., but for the entire fiscal year. i don't think that is asking

too much, and i never had an objection when i've tried to keep the district open. but it has been difficult to do. three times the district almost shut down in recent history because we gott close to it. ow, the problem for the city when the city almost closes being like p to when it does close down, because the city can't assume the best. it has to assume the worst, so it has to call out its staff and its lead officials to prepare for a shutdown even if a shutdown does not occur. so the only responsible thing

for the city to do right now, in -- y five days left , least as it now stands because there is a recess beginning at the end of the month. so we have to assume the status quo and we have to assume the worse because it would be irresponsible not to, so in addition, i have to put in a bill -- that's in addition to the amendment that would allow the district to remain open. to illustrate just how unintended would be a shutdown, the house needs to know that the oversight and government reform committee on which i sit has passed a bill that would give the district more autonomy over its local budget and

importantly keep the district from shutting down. that bill is now pending and could come to the floor at any point. the president of the united a es has in his budget shutdown avoidance bill for the district. . and the senate appropriation committee has the same language in its bill. the house appropriators have taken the position that they do not believe the district should be shut down. of course they vow to the authorizers and indicated the oversight committee has legislation that has been voted out of the committee that is now pending. any member who has held local office -- by the way i did not

hold local office before i came to congress, therefore those who have held local office have i think a better idea of what such a threat means to a local jurisdiction and how, how much it is at odds with what both sides understand to be the american approach to federalism. where local jurisdictions get to run their own localities and states, and by the way get to raise their own funds. that is what the district has done, and it has done it well. these frequent shutdowns -- shutdown threats have had a very disruptive effect on the city nd on its employees and on its

residents. and it does something that we, no sure, appreciation elected official wants to have happen. it casts a pall of uncertainty right when you are looking forward to a budget for the coming year. that kind of uncertainty already has had its effects. wall street, juror example, understands that the dis-- for example, understands the district budget is not final until somehow it's passed out of the congress. the district pay as premium, pays a price for that because there are two bodies, not one, two bodies that get a say over its local budget. no city should ever have to wonder whether it will be shut

down. shut downs really don't occur at the local level because residents won't let it occur. they are close enough to the people so that that is not a threat you could much get away with at the local level. here we are some levels above that, and most members and most americans don't know there is a local legislation that is put in that peril as i speak. 630,000 ct has about residents. it's growing well. people are moving into the city. not out. there are cranes all over town. much this -- of this comes out of the excellent management of the city. out of the way the itsithy has

conducted its economic affairs. out of the fact it has an independent chief financial officer who cannot fired because he disagrees with the council or mayor and therefore has to tell the truth. it's all worked together to make the district the kind of jurisdiction that the congress, at least, should have no concern about, and i believe has no oncerns about. the price the district would pay to make clear to members because it would have to occur before they felt it. we have come close to feeling it and almost 20 years ago we did in fact feel it. ere are some parts of your

services to the people that continue, but huge parts cannot because the congress has not passed the budget, not because the congress objects to the budget. and not because any member of this house desires that outcome. this house does not mean to hold the district budget as hostage. if it did, there's something the district could do to get out of this hostage fight. so what makes this so frustrating is that there's nothing we can give, nothing we can do to extricate ourselves from a fight that is wholly

inside baseball within this chamber and the chamber across the way. to be sure i have contacted my senate allies, but frankly this has to be done here. we've got to get agreement on both sides of the aisle to the simple proposition that those of us who believe in the great and important freedoms of the framers would at least want to be held responsible for closing down a local jurisdiction, one with which we had no beef. this country was established on a pedestal of federalism. one thing we understand is the difference between a local

jurisdiction and its rights and responsibilities and ours, in anything there are members of this chamber who would want some of what the government does no longer done by the federal government at all, but in fact to be the work of the local jurisdictions. many in this chamber not only support but indeed believe that local jurisdictions do a better job at governing than any institution at the federal level. i can therefore find no set of principles here from any member of congress that would be in ay when the decision is made on my amendment to the congressional resolution or on e bill that i will introduce

as a fallback in case it does not occur. as we go home, perhaps earlier than expected, to ponder what to do with keeping the federal government opened, i ask that members bear in mind that they would be closing not only -- there would be the closing not only of federal agencies but the district of columbia government. and in the name of the people of the district of columbia i ask you wherever we stand on the federal government to allow the district of columbia to move forward to govern itself and to take care of its day-to-day business. i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the yeam yields back. - the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the the

gentlewoman from hawaii seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to be removed as a co-sponsor of h.r. 281. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. a couple of issues that certainly are worth elaborating on today. one is codified in the "wall street journal" article from september 11, yesterday, 7:35 p.m. is when it's timed out,

regarding i.r.s. supervisor lois arner -- lerner, article's entitled, lois lerner's own words. the article says, congress' investigation into the i.r.s. targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the syria headlines and it's turning up news. emails unearthed by the house ways and means committee between former director of exempt organizations lois lerner, and her staff raise doubts about i.r.s. claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in cincinnati master minded the operation. the article says, in a february, 2011 email, ms. lerner advised her staff, including then exempt organizations, technical manager michael sato, and then rulings and agreement director, holly

paez, that a tea party matter, is quote, very dangerous, unquote, and is something, uote, counsel and lerner advisor need to be in on, end quote. he should adds, since probably not, the word not capitalized, have these cases, unquote. that's a different tune than the i.r.s. saying in may when former i.r.s. commissioner steven miller said the agency's overzealous enforcement was the work of two rogue employees in cincinnati. when the story broke ms. lerner suggested her office had been unaware of the pattern of targeting until she read about it in the newspaper. quote, so it was pretty much we started seeing information in the press that raised questions

for us, enwe went back and took a -- and we went back and took a look, unquote. she said in may. and, mr. speaker, so no one misunderstands it is a crime to give false information to congress. the article goes on, earlier this summer i.r.s. lawyer carter hall, who oversaw the review of many tea party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in april of 2010. tea party cases came under review are, quote, being supervised by chip hall at each step, unquote, ms. paez wrote to ms. lerner in a february, 2011 email. quote, he reviews info from t.p.'s, or tea parties, correspondentence to t.p.'s,

etc. no decisions are going out until we go all the way through the process with the c-3 and c-4 cases here. unquote. article goes on, the emails also put the targeting in the context of the media and congressional drumbeat over the impact of conservative campaign spending on the 2012 elections. lerner 10, 2012, then advisor emailed ms. lerner a national public radio story on how outside money was making it hard for democrats to hold their senate majority. it pierce -- appears that the i.r.s. was weaponized for the political purpose of one party which would, of course, be one

of the worst nightmares for the founders of this country, george washington didn't even want us to have political parties. he warrant of the danger there -- warned of the danger there. and here we are all this time of democraticroup operatives doing things with the i.r.s. that richard nixon could only dreamed of doing. article from the "wall street journal" goes on, the democratic sentorial campaign committee had complained to the federal election commission that could conservative groups like crossroads g.p.s. and americans for prosperity should be treated as political committees rather than 501-c-4's which are tax exempt social welfare groups that do not have to disclose

their donors. quote, perhaps the f.e.c. will save the day, unquote, ms. lerner wrote back later that morning. having been a district judge presiding over criminal cases, that is what you would call, mr. speaker, a statement against interest by ms. learner in a prior communication that directly contradicts what she said the motivation was. in any event, the article goes on that that response suggests her political leanings, it also raises questions about her intentions in a separate email exchange she had when an f.e.c. investigator required about the status of the conservative group, the american future

fund. the f.e.c. and i.r.s. don't have the authority to share that information under 6103 of the internal revenue code, but the bigger question is, why did they want to? after the inquiry, the american future fund also got a uestionnaire from the i.r.s. again, that's from "the wall street journal" dated last night. when one power in the executive anch can weaponize its federal agencies against its own opponents, unless it is stopped, this little experiment in democracy will come to an end. it will bring about the very things, again, that the founders had hoped would not happen but were realistic

enough to talk about them at some length about when and if we might move to one person of able to grasp control the federal government. of course, one of the things they use to try to keep that from happening was to give congress the power of the purse, to give congress oversight over the executive and judicial branches. and when we have congress try to do oversight, whether it's over fast and furious, benghazi, the i.r.s. scandal, 've met with nothing but blinded opaqueness, not transparency, from this administration. they have on have i skated constantly, done everything

they can to prevent congress from getting the truth about what they have called, even phony scandals. well, if they're so phony, why don't you get the transparency out here, mr. speaker, have -- let's get people out here with the truth and then we can see fully whether or not they're phony scandals, but the more this drip, drip of information comes out, the more it becomes clear as to why this administration has been hiding evidence and attempting to keep congress from discovering things. i have personally been pushing for many months now to have a special prosecutor investigate the internal revenue service situation with regard to targeting for political urposes. the reason is there are statutes that pertain to the

i.r.s. that could make some of this conduct, potential crimes, for which people could go to prison. i am so proud that i became a friend of chuck colson before he passed. i think he's one of the great christian luminaries of the 20th and 21st century, and his coming -- becoming a christian all came about after his arrogance and his willful disobedience of the law during the nixon administration, brought him to prison. he had possession of information from the f.b.i. about someone, and as i recall, that got him about a year and a alf in prison. yet, we've seen during the clinton years as president, one

man having at the white house about 1,000 f.b.i. files. if he had been held to the same standard as chuck colson, he would have never gotten out of prison, but nobody went to prison. and we've seen, as time has gone on, abuses within the executive branch have not been dealt with properly. the abuses have continued and gotten worse, and from reports i hear from conservative groups, whether tea party, pro-israel, pro-marriage, as it's been known for the history of mankind between a man and a woman, groups that just wanted the constitution followed, all coming under attack -- not all of the groups have, but most of the groups that have have been these type of groups from the i.r.s.

then, i hear from others who are being hit by inquiries from the f.e.c. not about democratic matters but about contributions to the republican candidates and party. and then we hear that the e.p.a. and other federal agencies are going after conservatives. it is unbelievable how powerful this government has gotten and how dramatically tk -- it can affect the outcome of an election. we must make sure that these kind of abuses stop. we have the power of the purse to stop it and we should. and if the administration is not going to be forthcoming with information about the i.r.s., then it may be necessary to defund part of the executive branch until such time as they become truthful.

the department of justice still has not been forthcoming on information that in our judicial committee we've been trying to get. we still haven't gotten answers to all of the matters that ended up resulting in the attorney general of the united states being held in contempt for failing and refusing to answer, and it would seem in the fast and furious scandal where this administration saw to it that 2,000 or so guns made their way into the hands of drug cartels in mexico resulting in the losses of hundreds of lives in mexico and at least one or more here in the united states that someone should be held to account. when no one is held to account, when there is no accountability, the abuses get worse and that's what we're hearing. you would have thought once the i.r.s. scandal had been exposed

that people would be more cautious about going after conservative groups for political purposes. but since no one has been held accountable yet, no budgets cut, the arrogance and the political maneuvering within federal agencies seems to be growing much worse. i'm hoping that my friends on the other side of the aisle will understand that the pendulum swings back and forth, and i cannot imagine a single of my sdratic friends across the aisle -- democratic friends across the aisle be near as composed as we've been on the republican side of the aisle about the abuses. if the shoe were on the other foot and those abuses were over democratic groups that were

trying to elect the next democratic president. and if they were, i should be helping the democrats, and i would help the democrats, because there's no place for an administration that weaponizes for political purposes the agencies under its control. we've gone for over 200 years fighting and doing what we could to avoid that happening. yet, here it's happening and it is a federal agency i want to go to next that's been involved in carrying out the will of this administration. from cle from yesterday bright bart, written by john sexton where he says it's been nearly a year since the attack which killed four americans in

benghazi. during that time, various -by-minute attacks have been published. in addition, the administration's decision to refuse additional security requests and to revise its talking points after the attack have been examined in detail. mr. speaker, before i go on, i'd like to grab a couple of posters.

mr. gohmert: i would have felt good in life having ty woods and glen doherty covering my back just as they were trying our for the survivors for american government workers at r consulate and our annex in benghazi. these are the four people we've lost. ris stevens, sean smith, our two former navy seals, ty woods and glen doherty. they deserve the truth to come out. this article points out that benghazi may have been a case where most observers have missed the forest for the trees. this is not an attempt to add new information so much as it is to collate the information that already exists from the most reputable journalistic

sources. benghazi was a c.i.a. operation involving weapons. one which had no cover beyond a small mission that provided a diplomatic fig leaf for the effort. officially, the c.i.a. was there to track and collect dangerous weapons left over from the war that ousted gaddafi, but the evidence suggested that the c.i.a. was either actively involved in a multinational effort to ship those weapons to syrian rebels. our covert effort in benghazi, libya, was connected to ouress can lating involvement -- our escalating involvement in syria. the general outlines of this c.i.a. effort have been reported. one fact which has not been highlighted is that the u.n. arms embargo of libya, which the united states helped pass in 2011, makes shipping weapons in or out of the country a violation of international law. indeed, the way the u.n.

resolution is written, even knowingly allowing such shipments to take place may be a violation of the agreement. i want to add paraphernalia theycally, -- parenthically, having international tribunals that have jurisdiction over american citizens is that they may have laws that they may decide to enforce that are against or outside what our united states constitution allows. and i would submit that american individuals, whether they're c.i.a. agents, military, should be accountable to the united states under the united states constitution and not some world court, but it should be worth noting that as this administration pushed u.n. resolutions, i'm not sure what the statute of limitations is, but if individuals within this

administration then violated the international law that they pushed to create, then they probably need to be careful when they're traveling in years after they leave the white house or the administration efforts because, who knows, might get an indictment somewhere in one of these international tribunals that you violated the u.n. law you passed. you got guns into or out of libya. you violated the law. people in this country need to understand that participating in the making of laws and the participating in the violation of laws have consequences. this article indicates that in 2012 the obama administration publicly claimed it was working on dip low @ic and humanitarian responses to the situation in

syria -- diplomatic and humanitarian responses to the situation in syria but a network of arms shipments were being created to support the rebels. the network involves shipping weapons from qatar and later libya to turkey where they would be taken across the border and distributed to militias in syria. in june of 2012, "the new york times" reported that a contingent of c.i.a. agents were operating secretly in turkey to help bet which groups would receive the weapons. . later reporting indicated that the c.i.a. was doing more than just vetting. the article goes on, it mentions the "wall street journal" reported at the time, this is back in june, that the c.i.a., central intelligence agency, has begun moving weapons to jordan from a network of secret warehouses and plans to start arming small groups of vetted syrian rebels within a month, expanding u.s. support of

moderate forces battling president al assad. according to diplomats and u.s. officials briefed on the plans. to sum up, the c.i.a. encouraged the creation of multinational arms pipeline, help shop for weapons to fill it, vetted the groups who would receive these weapons in syria, and since june of 2013, contributed u.s. weapons to the mix with that backdrop in place, we can now turn our attention to libya. during the u.s. involvement in overthrowing libyan dictator gaddafi during 2011, the obama administration became aware that shipments of the weapons were making their way to gaddafi's troops. allowing them to resupply themselves and pose a greater threat to civilians. i might add parenthetically with gaddafi that gaddafi was an ally of this administration and this country at the time that this

administration chose to destroy and help remove. so february the article says, the u.s. and other allied nations including the u.k. and france pushed for a package of international sanctions which became u.n. security council resolution 1970. resolution 1970 condemned the bombing of civilians, imposed travel restrictions on gaddafi, and his inner circle, froze assets, and importantly banned any transfer to or from libya. in addition, resolution 1970 requires member states upon discovery of such arms to destroy them. a second resolution, number 1973 was passed a month later in march of 2011, a resolution creating a no-fly zone and reaffirmed that member states were expected to help enforce

the embargo by inspecting any sea or air vessels believed to be shipping weapons to or from libya. if discovered, such weapons were to be destroyed. but despite resolution 1970, "the new york times" reported in april of 2001 that shipments of arms were reaching libyan rebels from qatar. another in-depth story published in december, 2012, describes how the u.s. winked at these shipments despite concerns some weapons were falling into the hands of extremists. parenthetically i might insert, duh. the article goes on, in fact, the nature of our military strategy in libya made partnering with qatar necessary. the obama administration wanted to avoid getting immersed in a ground war which officials feared could lead the united states into another quagmire in the middle east. as a result the white house largely relied on qatar and the united arab emirates, and

frequent allies of the united states. after discussion among members of the national security council, the obama administration backed the arm shipments from both countries, according to two former administration officials briefed on the talks. quote, the u.a.e. was asking for clearance to send u.s. weapons, said one former official, quote, we told them it's ok to ship other weapons, unquote. but the american support for the arm shipments from qatar and the emirates could not be completely hidden. nato and air and sea forces around libya had to be alerted not to interdict the carg heo planes and freighters transferring the arms to libya. again that would be a direct violation of the u.n. resolution that we helped push into international law. article says this, the pattern of winking, the us us arms

embargo of libya was continuing after gaddafi's out ofers. the direction of the arms pipeline reversed it self whereas weapons had been coming into libya from qatar, they now headed out of libya back to qatar and from there on to either mali or syria by way of turkey. a june 21, 2013 "new york times" story points out that local militias were organizing these shipments, including flights this year from tripoli to benghazi, the shipments out of libya are said to be taking place for a year beginning several months before the 9/11 attack in ben -- benghazi that killed these four american patriots. to sum you up, the u.s. approved and cleared a path for a pipeline of weapons into libya during the revolution in 2011, that pipeline would eventually reverse course to provide the same spare weapons to rebels in syria, both efforts seem to violate the u.n. resolutions

which the u.s. helped pass in early 2001. but late in 2001 the united states realized its revolution on the cheap in libya had a worrisome downside. thousands of dangerous anti-aircraft weapons were loose in libya attracting militants who might wish to use them to commit terrorist acts against civilian air traffic. something had to be done. so the article goes on to talk about how we sent people into libya to try to reclaim the weapons that we had helped provide, including surface to air missiles. article says a month later, three days after the 9/11 attack in benghazi, the times of london reported that libyan ship carrying 400 tons of weapons, including sam-7, u.s. missiles, surface to air anti-aircraft missiles, docked in turkey, this

was the largest known shipment of weapons to syria at the time. the ship's captain was from benghazi. the article goes on to make light of the allegation that this is a phony scandal. if it's so phony why is there so much in the way of effort to keep congress from knowing what really happened? reports have been we have c.i.a. agents with direct knowledge of what happened during the death of our four patriots. they are being polygraphed every 30 days to keep them quiet and demanding to know if anyone has leaked any information to congress or the media because this administration is doing absolutely everything they can to keep us there getting -- from getting to the truth of what happened there.

and i have been greatly encouraged this week, and in a trip to the middle east where over the safety and future of the united states people in a bipartisan way were very concerned about our involvement in syria, that we should not get involved in syria. that it would be a huge mistake. some say members of congress should never travel outside their district or washington, d.c., but what i have seen and especially from a trip to the middle east last week, we are not getting the straight information from this administration. if we want to know what's really going on, where we are appropriating money, where we are making policy through our control of the pursestrings, or lack of control, we got to go to those areas and talk to the leaders involved. it's amazing what you find out. when leaders of allied countries

tell us we don't understand you, what you are doing. do you not know you went to war in afghanistan with the muslim brotherhood, against the muslim brotherhood? there you were fighting the taliban. then you go to libya and -- first to -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. gohmert: we have helped the muslim brotherhood in the wrong places and it needs to stop in syria as well. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas for a motion. mr. gohmert: i move that we do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the aye vs. it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m.

>> eric cantor and minority whip steny hoyer came to the floor to talk about the skettle for the next week and the rest of the month. we hear cantor announce that members should expect to be in session the week of september 23. a time they had plan to spend in their districts. they also talked about an upcoming bill to temporarily fund the federal government. the measure known as the continuing resolution or c.r. and about the raising of the debt limit. it's been reported that republicans want to tie

defunding the health care law to those bills. their comments from the house floor are about 15 minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. hoyer: i thank the speaker. i yield to the majority leader, mr. cantor. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. madam speaker, on monday, the house will meet in pro forma session at 2:00 p.m., no votes are expected. on tuesday, the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. on wednesday and thursday, the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on friday, the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative legislative business. last votes of the week are

expected no late than 3:00 p.m. madam speaker, members are advised that pending ongoing discussions on the continuing resolution the house may need to be in session during the week of september 23 and possibly into the weekend. members should expect an announcement next week regarding when the house would meet during the week of september 23. this is a change from the previously announced schedule. madam speaker, next week the house will consider a few bills under suspension of the rules, a complete list of which will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. the house will likely consider h.r. 1526, the restoring healthy forest for healthy communities act, sponsored by the chairman of the -- mr. hoyer: madam speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: gentlemen, please take your conversations off the floor, thank you. mr. hoyer: thank you, madam speaker.

i continue to yield to my friend, the majority leader. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. the house will again, madam speaker, the house will likely consider h.r. 1526, the restoring healthy forest for healthy communities act sponsored by the chairman of the natural resources committee, representative doc hastings. in addition to improving forest health and helping prevent catastrophic wildfires, this legislation contains a short-term extension of the secure rules -- rural schools program. in addition, madam speaker, i expect the house to consider h.r. 761, the national strategic and critical minerals production act of 2013 authored by representative mark amodei, and h.r. 687, the southeast arizona land exchange and conservation act of 2013 drafted by representative paul gosar. these bills, both from the natural resources committee, will foster economic growth and create jobs for the middle class. madam speaker, the house will also consider the nutrition reform and work opportunity act

authored by agriculture chairman representative frank lucas. this legislation restores the intent of the bipartisan welfare reforms adopted in 1996 to the supplemental nutritional assistance program. it also refocuses on the program on those who need it most. no law-abiding beneficiary who meets the income and asset test of the current program and is willing to comply with applicable work requirements, will lose their benefits under the bill. finally, madam speaker, members should be prepared to vote on a continuing resolution as the new fiscal year approaches. i thank the gentleman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for that informing. i would reiterate to members in case they weren't listening, the majority leader has said that we ought to be clearing our calendars for the week of the 23rd of september. that's the last week of the month. originally we were scheduled to be off that week, but the -- in light of the fact that we have

been unable yet to pass a continuing resolution or appropriate bills to fund the government's activities after the end of the fiscal year on september 30, the -- i'm pleased to see the majority leader is putting the house on notice. i have been telling my members for the last two months to reserve that time the contingency of which the majority leader speaks. mr. majority leader, before we left in july we had a bill on the floor to fund transportation and the housing and urban development department, as well as other items. that bill was pulled. subsequent to that bill being pulled hal rogers, the chairman of the appropriations committee, sent a notice out to a lot of people, i presume the gentleman had an opportunity to read it. it said, and i quote, i am extremely disappointed with the

decision to pull the t-hud bill as it's referred to, from the house calendar today. the prospects for passing this bill in september are bleak at best. given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. he then made this statement, mr. leader, with this action the house has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted three months ago. thus i, hal rogers speaking, believe that the house has made its choice. sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts, must be brought to an end. mr. leader, as you know he went on to say this, the house, senate, and white house must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise that repeals

sequestration, takes the nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic topline discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible and attainable way. at was the chairman from kentucky, conservative republican, his statement on july 31, 2013. i want to tell my friend, the majority leader, that i agree with mr. rogers. the sequester level is unattainable and unrealistic. that's the chairman of your appropriations committee who is responsible, and has been for many years, for judging what are the appropriate expenditures for our government to maintain

programs important to our country, to our economy, and to our national security. mr. leader -- >> we'll show all of this to you in a bit. we'll take you live now to geneva. secretary kerry speaking after his meetings with russian oreign minister. >> than that it is now prepared to relinquish it. president obama has made clear that should diplomacy fail force might be necessary to deter and degrade assad's capacity to deliver these weapons. it won't get rid of them, but it could change his willingness to use them. the best thing to do we agree is remove them altogether. our challenge here in geneva is to test the viability of placing assad's chemical weapons under international control, removing them from syria, and destroying them forever.

but the united states has also made clear that the deaths of more than 100,000 syrians, and the displacement of millions either internally or as refugees, remains a stain on the world's conscience. we all need to keep that in mind and deal with t and that -- deal with it. and that is why the foreign minister and i continue to work with joint special enjoy brahimi and oilerselves under the auspicious of the geneva communique, foreign secretary just mentioned this in his hopes. we share those hopes that could foster a political solution to a civil war that undermines the stability of the region, threatens our own national security interests, and compels us to act. that is our hope and that is what we fervently hope can come out of this meeting and these

negotiations. thank you very much. >> just two words. >> i am not prepared with the political statement today because our approaches are clear and they are stated in the statements of the russian federation, president putin, and his article in "the new york times." and all of you read this article and decided not to lay out here our diplomatic position. and be intent to find compromises and i'm sure the presentation of the american position that they would like to mutual consensus and be -- i hope we will achieve success. >> can you give me the last part of the translation, please. >> yes, hello.

>> that news conference from geneva just wrapping up. that was live coverage. we'll have all of that later in our program schedule on the issue of syria, just to let you know, russian president putin wrote an op-ed published today in the "new york times" that read in part the potential strike by the united states against syria despite strong opposition from many countries and major political religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation. we have linked to that op-ed by

president putin on our website at c-span.org. you can see it on the front page. lots of response on capitol hill, too, to that op-ed as well, including from senate arment services committee john mccain who responded in a tweet says, quote, putin's op-ed in the "new york times" is an insult to every american. house speaker john boehner, meanwhile, said in his news conference earlier that he was insulted by the russian leader's comments. we'll show you those comments in just a bit on the -- here on c-span. next up we are going to take you to comments from senator reed, harry reid, on the floor of the -- reid on the floor of the u.s. senate talking about the legislation being discussed there. an about what he calls some of the delaying tactics of the republicans on the senate side.

>> mr. president, america has and had for so many years have the most brilliant scientists in the world. many of them work developing new environmentally friendly energy sources, that's one way -- one area we have just been so good. every year for the last many years in august i host an energy summit in las vegas. we have had governors and presidents and all kinds of cabinet officers there. it's a bipartisan event. and one of the things we do there is recognize some of the smartest, most creative inventors in the world to show their latest discoveries. there are lots of them all the time. this august i learned about an energy summit -- learned about an american company that's developing a high-tech battery,

really great potential, they want to store solar power for use long after the sun goes down. i met the vendor of a flying wind turbine, looks like a cross between a giant kite and a small plane. and in nevada-california border, a few miles from las vegas, there's an amazing thing going on out there, they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of solar panels, mirrors, and they have three very tall towers, look like skyscrapers, and they do it to harness the sun. he reason this invention is so terrific is that one of the problems we found with solar energy, when the sun goes down it's not producing energy anymore. this will no longer be the case because in these large, as i said, skyscrapers, we have

imoltent salt stored in this. during the day it heats up. when the sun goes down that still produces energy. amazing. that's 98% completed now. so i'm constantly amazing by the ingenuity of the clean energy industry. a bright spot during the darkest economic times. but americans can't just rely on science inventors to solve our energy dilemma and break our own reliance on polluting fossil fuels. we need to be part of the solution instead part of the problem. that will reduce our energy consumption at home and at work. that's is what the sha mean-portman legislation is all about. be more efficient at home you could start with small choices. replacing a burned out light bulb with an energy efficient one. buy more efficient appliances, they are out there. we can do that. installing a thermostat that

turns heat down or the air down when you are not at hope. be regulated remotely. the effect of these choices and many others are real. we need also to make buildings we live in and work in as well as technology inside these buildings more efficient. what's happened for generations here in america, mr. president, is that you put a building out, you give it special, and people come in and build it as cheaply as they can. no one is concerned about at the time it's constructed, they want to get it done quickly and cheaply as possible, and the insulation not good, air conditioning equipment, appliances in there are not as good as they could be. so we need to make the buildings we work in as well as the technology inside these buildings more efficient. many of the elech terroristity created in america -- electricity created in america is wasted.

as a boy growing up in neural nevada look i did, a lesson from my home were these massive power lines coming from hoover dam going to california. lots of them. and we used to always be amazed, stand upped them, could you hear that electricity popping and snapping, it was from boulder city to l.a. think of all that electricity lost, transmitting that electricity down there. much of the electricity we use in america today is wasted. heating and cooling our homes and offices without data technology is one way we waste so much electricity. this legislation before the senate will spur the use of energy efficient technologies. here's what they named the legislation, the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act. that's what it's called. it will spur the use of energy efficiency technologies a in private homes, commercial buildings, as well as industrial sector.

all at no cost to taxpayers. so i commend shaheen and portman for their persistence and dedication in bringing this bill to the 234r50r. i thank -- to the floor. i thank chairman widen, chairman -- wyden, chairman of the full committee, and ranking member. it is one of the fastest and most effective ways to grow our economy. this legislation will make our country more energy independent and protect our environment but will also save consumers and taxpayers money by lowering their energy bills. this minimum wageor change would save american families today $14 billion per year. and will create more than 150,000 new jobs, according to some of the studies surrounding this legislation. this bipartisan bill makes it easier for the private sector to adopt efficient technology, and by 2030, that's real close, mr. president, even as a young man presiding, you understand how quickly 2030 will get here.

this legislation will reduce america's co-2 emissions as much as taking nearly 17 million cars off the road. the bill creates incentives for companies to use technology already available, right off the shelf. technology that can be used every state in the nation. and it will pay for itself right away through savings and energy. the federal government also has an important role to play in saving energy, and we haven't done very well in the past. the federal government's importance, the single largest user of consumer electricity. no one is a bigger customer for electricity in the america today than the federal government. reducing the government's energy use will be not only good for the environment, it will save taxpayers lots of money. i'm aware that senators wish to offer amendments. i have been told by senator shaheen there's 18 bipartisan mendments to be offered.

i look forward to work with them and with the bill managers to help american businesses and consumers play an active role in reducing our nation's energy consumption. because while some of the answers to america's energy dewlema will come from inventors and researchers, others must begin in the place we live and work. . why? havese the anarchists taken over. they have taken over the house and now they are in the senate. mr.'s -- the speaker could not pass a simple cr today. when asked at a press event yesterday, he said, what is

next? he said, you have a couple ideas, given to me, they will be shot down also. we have people who believe -- who do not believe in government are winning. that is a shame. or has not been a single amendment allowed to be offered on this legislation that has any and gearing aspects. there are all kinds of issues. defund obamacare. what -- iat is the guess that is what it is all about. want, but what you get rid of obamacare and we will not fund the government. the president has said he will not negotiate dealing with the debt ceiling. if the republicans in the house cannot pass a simple funding resolution for short time, it

will shut down because of that. even though i gave all the reasons why we need to do this energy bill, and senators have been talking to me for months and months, let's do this bill. amendments are on it. here we are. where are we? where we have been come of this whole you. what have we accomplished? not much, mr. president. >> we will take you live next to the white house with with jay carney holding his briefing. he has just been asked a question about russia. >> secretary kerry just spoke. these talks he is conducting are occurring on the same day there are reports of increased u.n. military assistance to opposition forces. tracks cancel each

other out? is there a chance that additional military support actually undermines the diplomatic track -- >> we have said for some time the president has said that we have been stepping up our assistance to the syrian military opposition. in june the administration announced following credible evidence that the regime used chemical weapons against the syrian people, the president authorized the expansion of our assistance to the supreme military council in syria. is the opposition's military arm. the expansion has been aimed at strengthening the cohesion of the opposition as well as assisting efforts to suspend themselves -- to defend themselves against the regime.

i think it is an important distinction to make in the wake of the august 21 attacks and our response to them that the issue of assad's can go weapons -- chemical weapons is distantly problematic and is separate from, although part of the civil war, separate from our policy response to the civil war in syria. that response is built around humanitarian support for the thean people, assistance to opposition, including assistance to the supreme military council, as well as an effort with a broad range of allies and partners, including russia, to bring about a resolution of that civil war through a political settlement, because that is the only way to end that war. these are distinct tracks. the problem that confronts us by the instrument it use of chemical weapons needs to be

addressed, and we are addressing that. the president has spoken clearly about his views on that. diplomaticoring the avenues, the opportunity that exists potentially to resolve this pirate movie -- removing possession can go weapons in order to bring about a political settlement in the syrian conflict. >> on the budget, i will not belabor the point, but the house leadership is don't try to find a way to get a continuing resolution that funds the government beyond october 1 through that house. they wanted to do it yesterday. the obamacare question aside, does the white house support andinuing spending levels 2013 sequester levels? this is at the rate of 986

billion over a year. is that a number the white house is satisfied with and are telling congrats to accept? >> let me step back and explain our position on this. first of all, and this pertains to legislation we have not seen, but clearly under discussion, we will not accept anything that the lays or defund -- that delays or defund obamacare. part of the persistent effort to battl a law that hases, righted benefits to of don't -- to millions americans and will allow for millions of americans who could not afford insurance in the past

to be in short. or millions of americans who have pre-existing conditions, cap the security of health -- to have security of health insurance that they did not have in the past. this has been upheld by the supreme court. we will not accept further cuts to strengthen the middle class. we will not accept the republican budget approach that further slashes the investments that families need. republican leadership has said at the least, setting aside all the policy significance of these decisions them at the republican leadership has said it would be politically damaging to them to allow the government to shut down, and we agreed they should not do that and not do it for a host of reasons. congress needs to act on this. when it comes to how that plays itself out, we want congress to responsibly fund government.

we have drawn the lines that we have drawn, and we will see what they produce. >> our current spending levels something -- aboutn you are talking extensions, we would consider a cr that allows congress to define a long-term solution to its budget challenges. when it comes to avoiding a shot down, there are big year issues -- there are bigger issues. president assad said his government will wait for a month after a joint chemical weapons convention before handing over information or data about its stockpile. is this acceptable? kary outranks me and we believe this needs to be done very quickly, and words do not count when it comes to the assad regime. actions count. the assad regime has committed

u.n.f to you and -- investigations for chemical weapons, and for months and months refused to allow inspectors in, even in the wake of the appalling august 21 at tax. -- attacks. they waited five days before they let those inspectors in and then shot up their convoy on the way in. action is what matters here, and delays are not something that we can accept. >> today a general said notsition forces have received any weapons from the united states. reports to the contrary. contrary?unter- >> united states support -- answer to a previous

question, in june the administration announced following credible evidence that regime had used chemical weapons against their people, the president authorized the expansion of our assistance to the syrian military council. the expansion of assistance has been aimed at strengthening the cohesion of the opposition and on effectiveness of the smc the ground and their efforts to defend themselves against a regime that has shown no foundries in its willingness to kill civilians. cannot detail every type of support we are providing the opposition or discussed timelines for delivery. it is important to note that both the political and the military opposition are and will be receiving this assistance. >> he is saying we have not gotten any -- >> important to note that the opposition are and will be receiving this assistance. jim? >> you were just saying you

wanted this done quickly. why not set a timeline so you can hold their feet to the fire? >> we are in the process of meeting with the russians in geneva, not just secretary kerry and the foreign minister, but also substantial teams with a great deal of technical expertise to work on this issue. i will leave it to them to all of the explain technical and logistical aspects that would be involved in securing assad's chemical weapons. the objective there is to have a serious discussion about the mechanics of identifying, verifying, securing, and ,estroying the chemical weapons and concurrently with that process, there is a process underway in new york at the

united nations security council security council where we are allies,closely with our eric close allies, united kingdom and france, on this a resolution that would be part of it. we are also working with the russians and the chinese on that effort. these teams in new york and geneva will be better able to work,bout how this will if it is agreed to, and what times and durations would be a part of an agreement. we are not at an agreement yet, and as i said yesterday, we are approaching this with open eyes. -- and it is that important for everybody to remember -- where we are now. u.n.e weeks ago you and -- inspectors were stymied in serious. syria would not admit it had

chemical weapons, and we had two of complete lack of cooperation with russia on the security council when it comes to dealing with serious, even on resolutions and initiatives -- with syria, even on resolutions and initiatives that contain no element of force, simply holding assad accountable for what he was doing to his own people. those efforts were blocked by the russians and chinese. three weeks later, and there's no question that there have been wee curves in the road as arrived to where we are now, but three weeks later the united havens inspectors not only inspected the sites that were bombed with chemical weapons on august 21, but they will be releasing the report about that inspection. denying it had chemical weapons, has admitted weapons,as chemical

has said it will transfer them to international control, and is prepared to sign the chemical weapons convention, and russia is putting its credibility on the line behind a proposal to place syria's typical epochs under international control. that is a love of travel in a short time, and it is significant to note that even as we conceive up front that this diplomatic road they are may not prove successful. but it is absolutely worth exploring. ed,getting back to the op- putin says we have every reason to believe that opposition forces used chemical weapons. how do you negotiate with somebody who does not agree with you on facts? >> russia has acknowledged and thesed that assad has stockpiles, has put forward a proposal that we are glad to see that syria give up its chemical

weapons, that be placed under international control and destroy. on the one hand, in the wake of the august 21 attack, making a claim unsupported by any shred of evidence that the opposition could be responsible for these attacks. there is no logic that connects those assertions. as i mentioned earlier, -- >> [indiscernible] >> it is an issue in discovery -- in securing chemical weapons stockpile. it is an issue in its claim to the relationship to the truth and facts, but that is for others to resolve. it goes to the general difference is that we have had on this matter. it is not an obstacle in our view to pursue this diplomatic avenue. >> you and others have said -- suprt thatfe to say if there assertion, "the new york times"

would have had time to have included in that article, but there's no evidence because there is no logic to the assertion that the opposition did not have the capability, weapons to do it could not have in any imaginable scenario gone areas to controlled fire rockets into opposition contested areas or areas. it defies logic and probability. the most important part of this russia has putt its credibility on the line in pursuing this with us and others and it is an important objective, and we are very pleased to see it and we are working, secretary kerry with his counterpart, very closely and collaboratively with russians to see if we can get this done. >> to follow-up, you and the

president and others have set this week trust them up and verify. that is a phrase that is going around a lot. does president obama trust resident putin? >> the point is actions speak louder than words and -- look, the fact is if we can resolve this without resorting to military force, if we can't relieve a day hater of his stock pile -- a dictator of his stockpile of chemical weapons, then credit will be due to the russians and everyone else to participate in that process to make it happen. we will see if it happens. >> a quick clarification. you said the iranians have blamed the syrian government -- iran saidsident of that syria was responsible for that attack. >> your reaction to the fact

that the rebels the united states is supporting have issued a statement saying they categorically reject the russian initiative. these are-- >> it goes to the point that we have been making that there is an ongoing sectarian civil war in syria. we have been appalled by it. any of our allies and partners have been -- many of our allies and partners have been appalled by what a stock has waged on his own people. assistance, we are not putting boots on the ground and we are not engaging militarily in an effort to take sides to resolve the civil war. when it comes to chemical weapons, which pose a threat to the region and the world, including the united states, and the violation of a century-old prohibition against their use, we believe we have to take action. rebel groups that the

united states is supporting saint united states is selling them out by going forward with this/ what is your response to that >> we continue to support the opposition and we are supporting that in tangible ways through substantial and set up assistance -- steps-up assistance. how we resolve the disposition of the very dangerous weapons and how we ensure that a dictator does not use them again against innocent civilians, including children, we will tosue a diplomatic course see if it can bear fruit, produce the result we desire/ in the meantime, as the president has said, we remain ready and the military remains ready to engage in a strike if necessary. you expect russians

to be operating in good faith when even in the and op-ed, in the op-ed, putin said it was the rebels who used chemical weapons. what russia has committed itself to and put its credibility on the line is the proposition that it supports and will help ring about the removal from assad's control of a substantial stockpile of chemical weapons, the transfers ockpile to international forces. that is a significant piece of business. it would represent a significant accomplishment i the international community and by russia. we will pursue that. theously we disagree with unsupported assertion that the opposition could have or did but -- and atrocity, we have a substantial body of

facts to prove our point and we have more than 30 countries that have already agreed to that opposition, and we have, there is not a member of congress who disagrees on the basic facts, is that the attack occurred and assad was responsible. >> if you have an agreement with assad to turn over his weapons and that starts to happen with 'supervision, do you support rebel groups who are fighting to overthrow the government your are working with? >> we are working to secure chemical weapons that need to be secured to prevent a dig hater from using -- a dictator from using them against his people. still u.s. policy that assad must go? cannot have aure

solid in the picture. it is inconceivable given what he is done to his people. this is something that we have said all along needs to be decided in a political settlement. it is not something that will be decided militarily. yep. >> [indiscernible] >> diplomats always choose their words carefully and today kerry said should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary. everything that the president has said up until now made it seem like if diplomacy failed, force would be necessary, and that is what he was trying to get congress to do. >> who saw a debate about the use of force, and you saw the president speak about it on numerous occasions. the formulation that secretary kerry uses is allowing, as we have seen in the last few weeks, there are always developments

that we cannot anticipate. what he is saying is that we of using aoption military strike in response to a on his- assad's attack people, the murder of more than 1400 syrian's, more than 400 children, cause of the profound ramifications of not holding him accountable for using chemical weapons. potentialsuing this diplomatic path to resolving this problem by seeing if we can prevent assad from using chemical weapons by relieving him of his weapons without these of force. you doiplomacy fails, not know whether force is going to be used or not? he did not say -- >> he said might, and that allows for a variety of things that could happen in the next days and weeks with regard to this matter. we have seen even this week that

this situation is fairly fluid. what is clear from what the secretary has said and what i am saying here and what the president said the other day to the american people is that he believes absent a diplomatic success here that a military option is important to maintain and it is the mere pressure, it is the credible threat of military force that has resulted in these rather remarkable changes in position that we have seen this week, and we need to maintain the pressure. i think i said april, yeah. >> in reading this op-ed, what was the message from putin, and also could you tell us about the message [indiscernible] that the picture of the hand in the article, the op-ed -- >> i saw it online. >> i'm talking about the

on theion of the hand, article of terrorism, and the signal about world war i -- >> i confess i am not sure what you are referring to. our response is what i said, which is the single most important thing about it is the theinued assertion by president of russia as well as his foreign minister that russia believes and will support and effort to secure a weapons,assad's google face them under international supervision with the ultimate goal of seeing them destroyed. that is a very important significant development. now we have to work with russians as well as the united nations security council to

ensure -- to see if we can turn that proposition into reality. >> [indiscernible] one of the conversations taking place between china and now as -- [indiscernible] i would say that you are right that when we have tried to bring this matter before the united nations security council in the past month not just russia, but china have blocked those efforts that have been supported by a broad coalition of nations. it is also the case that when it comes to syria, russia is syria's protector. bothll engage with nations, but i think that russia is a major player when it comes to serious, specifically.

>> [indiscernible] >> i do not have any specifics on the conversation in new york with the chinese. maybe ambassador power will have that. >> you said it was too early for the united states to say whether or not it would require the threat of military force to be and enforcing mechanism at the united nations. still to be determined. the secretary of state in geneva this, standing next to his foreign minister, as to whether it might be a military action, is it fair to conclude that the threat of military action is becoming less a part of this conversation as diplomacy moves forward? >> we are focusing on the diplomacy now. the president made that clear, that he asked congress to pause in its to liberation is, to postpone a vote on authorization. >> [indiscernible] >> there are two aspects here.

there is the potential congressional vote on authorization and actions by the united states, and then a potential security council resolution and the contents of that. these are related, but distinct enterprises. basic position, as the president described in his address to the nation, is the united states'military remains in position to execute a plan around holding assad accountable for his use of chemical weapons against his civilians. that remains true today. we are focused on as you have seen with secretary. 's activities and the activities unitedyork at the nations on pursuing the diplomatic options. that is the responsible thing to pursue, and see if it is possible to resolve this

peacefully and diplomatically. >> you mentioned you retain the ability to carry out a military strike, but as the pentagon has noted, maintaining all the destroyers in the eastern mediterranean is costly and there are operational decisions that have to be made about that are due crews back. are those factors are of a calculus as to how long the administration will wait to determine whether or not the diplomacy is actually -- >> i have not heard that discussed. the framework is testing about whether there is seriousness here and whether or not we can divide the plan that can bring about the transfer of those stockpiles to the international control. and i think that a lot depends on that process and that would include some of what you are discussing. >> help us understand the

definitions of seriousness, the benchmarks this administration has in mind when it is determined what are not this process is serious. a we have seen thus far degree of seriousness about this that we have not seen this before, and that is welcomed. actions,id that, concrete actions, speak much more loudly -- i am not going to negotiate the way forward from here. that would be counterproductive. >> [indiscernible] negotiating will know it when they see it, and from here this understandably will take some time and there should not be a next rotation that we are going to know everything we are going to need to know right away. but you saw secretary kerry and his counterpart in geneva discuss what they were looking for to trying to achieve in

their meetings, and we will look for results from those meetings as we move forward and assess the level of seriousness and commitment to get this done. the goal is to remove from a ssad's possession chemical weapons he has maintain. it is better positioned ,hroughout this conflict stockpiles have been a concern, it has been our assessment that his regime has been control of those stockpiles throughout the conflict and that is where you're going. >> you have talked to people who are experts in this new have spent a good deal of time analyzing the chemical weapons question, and he described our intelligence about all the we maye locations that not know where everything is and may not be able to catalog --

>> without commenting on this matter, i certainly accept that this is a relatively complicated piece of is this, and it is still our assessment that assad's stockpiles have been in sad's control. obviously the assad regime, if it is going to be co-op or at of, is better than anyone where those stockpiles are and the process of identifying and verifying the chemical weapons needs to be coiffed were 10. >> so we need to trust this regime? >> no, we are going to verify great if the process moves forward, we are going to verify. verification is a key element of that process. yes, sir. >> thank you. how could you convince the

opposition that you still intend to hold them accountable for gassing more than 1000 people? >> you're conflating two objectives. our objective when it comes to chemical weapons use, whether through military actions, limited in time duration, and limited in duration and scope, or through a diplomatic success here would be to prevent, to deter assad from using their weapons, or if the the romantic method receives, -- or if that the poetic method -- worhe diplomatic method ks -- we will continue to provide assistance to the opposition, including to the supreme military housel. [indiscernible]

what i saymeters of here, i will say it again, both the political and military opposition are and will be receiving this assistance. the united states and giving a pass to criminals for surrendering the weapon of a crime. have explained our policy on numerous occasions. we are not sending american troops into syria to fight somebody else's civil war. we are supporting the opposition. and it comes to the use and , the of chemical weapons indiscriminate use of chemical weapons against civilians, it is incumbent upon the international hold accountable the regime that used them. that is something we have been engaged in. >> would you agreed united credibility is also on

the line, not only the russians', on this proposal? >> i would agree, the united states, in part because it is an acceptable nation, is called upon to lead in circumstances like this. when it is unpopular, often, often when it is uncomfortable, and that is what this president and this country has been doing, and part of that is accepting that when circumstances change, as they did this week and diplomatic avenues that had been closed reopen that we explore them, because resolving this peacefully would be a better alternative. even as we approach this with a fair amount of skepticism and with wide open eyes. thathere is no question dealing with these issues is important and it is not always easy, and it is not always popular, either at home or

abroad. clarify the rebel question, you said earlier about opening the syrian opposition that one of the things we're doing is helping with cohesion on the ground. goods are on the ground to help them? not have boots on the ground. i will say that what i can say about the assistance we provide is that i cannot detail every single type of support, but we are providing assistance to the opposition, and it is important to note the political and military opposition are and will be receiving this assistance. that assistance has been stepped up at the president cost direction in the wake of the initial findings of high confidence by the united states, that the assad regime had used him go weapons. >> putin is scheduled to meet on friday with the new iranian

president, and the report putin is offering to sell five ground to air missile systems to the iranians and was offering to build a second reactor at their nuclear plants. does this raise any alarm? >> i have not seen those reports. beiously we continue to focused on and engaged in the have iran forsake its and we weapons program, hope there is an opportunity for progress in that effort. but it remains the case that obligationsuted its under a variety of un security council resolutions, and we are going to work with our partners to help ensure that iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. corker -- cank to

who hast to corker, said positive things earlier in this debate, and yesterday told cnn he is disappointed how the president has approached syria, saying he does not think the president is comfortable as commander in chief? >> i will not respond to any who mightndividual have been offering an observation. i would simply say a couple things. our approach to this problem in syria, the president has been very clear about the need to respond and why it is important that i sought be held accountable. it is somewhat ironic -- that assad be held accountable. it is ironic that service members to be critical of the efforts, which every one has reported and has been involved

in and in orissa amount of outrage, information, last by an unclassified, as well as in public effort to educate the american people. when it comes to being commander atchief, the american people least in my assessment appreciate a commander in chief who takes in new information and celebrate decisiveness for the sake of decisiveness. in this case the mother president's objectives are clear, and he believes that the american people were certainly some port the proposition that if there is a diplomatic opportunity here to remove from assad's control these chemical weapons, we would like to pursue it, and that is what he is doing. >> [indiscernible]

as raising the specter of a possible government shut down? are you concerned with the likelihood of that? leaders insay that congress of the republican party have made clear they understand that allowing a shutdown would unnecessarye an headwind to the economy and ,ause little problems for them and i assume the combination of those incentives would compel them to come up with a solution so we can fund the government responsibly and not engage in games that inflict unnecessary wounds on our economy when it is growing and creating jobs and we are continuing to move out of the worst recession since the great depression.

--is it primarily boehner >> i do not have a list of engagements. we are speaking with a number of leaders and members in congress on this matter. we are working with our democratic allies on this matter in both the house and senate. basicss has a responsibility, and one of them is to fund the government. another is to pay the bills that it has incurred. we simply ask that congress owned those responsibilities. >> [indiscernible] >> i'm not going to -- >> have you spoken with the president about the [indiscernible] it seems that he hit on so many hot button things. not a lot of democracy, but a whole lot of al qaeda, comparing him to president bush,

exceptionalism -- [indiscernible] does the president think that putin was trying to get under his skin? >> i gave you is the reaction from the white house on down. the most important thing about this is that russia has committed itself, and in doing that and in doing that, has put its prestige on the line, including the individual pressed each of its president behind the proposition that we can resolve regime having the syrian give up its chemical weapons stockpile to international control. that is important. we hope russia and through russia syria keeps the commitments there keeping -- they are making this week. we will work closely with russia and tried to ring this about. if achieved, it will be a significant accomplishment for the international community and for russia. these commitments

are kept. >> i want to go back to -- >> [indiscernible] assad said any agreement would require the united states to stop arming the rebel forces. [indiscernible] would the united states consider at all scaling back that -- >> we are and will continue to support to provide assistance to the political and military opposition. >> no scaling back? >> our position is we are providing assistance to the opposition, military and political, and again, conditions and demands placed by someone blithely weeks ago used chemical weapons against innocent children so we could all watch them die and videos

are hard to take. >> what is your angle from the news reporting in the region, thousands of al qaeda members are joining with rebel forces while these diplomatic talks are going on. does that square with your understanding? how does a company your efforts? >> i do not have specific numbers to attach to the assertion that we have made for some time that there are elements of the opposition that are extremists, not friendly to the united states, and that is why we have throughout this process worked to identify the moderate elements of the opposition and to support the moderate element of the opposition. but secretary kerry and others have spoken about this directly. >> several months ago you said you got confident you were able to identify who those moderate elements are. are you still confident about that, given there seems to be an uptick in the number of al qaeda

members who have joined? >> i believe that is the case. they're deliberate the process identifying hundred elements for the opposition for this reason. >> can you give us a sense of what [indiscernible] i am sure he will discuss at that meeting the efforts we all to help thege in economy continued to grow and that makesw in a way the middle class more secure, because we have always been at are strongest when the middle class is secure and expanding. i am sure the economy and economic policies will be the focus of that discussion. i do not have anything specific for you at this time. >> [indiscernible] >> thank you. andmain point putin made,

[indiscernible] nobody is above the law. the question is about -- does ins principle apply international law, and does it apply to the united states? >> russia blocked at united nations security council audible ssadlutions to hold a accountable that did not have force attached to them true or false? >> [indiscernible] block older law to people accountable. fine decisions a to take and i understand that the position russian government has taken, but it is not the position we think is the right thesion when it comes to agreement by 98% of the world's collation that chemical weapons ought not to be used and should be banned, and to support a regime that uses them against

a terribleple is thing. >> [indiscernible] yes or no? >> i would like a serious question. >> the congressional picnic -- can you say why that was canceled? does that say anything about the state of relations -- >> decisions had to be made about holding it. when we thought there was an enormous amount of activity that was happening on syria, and so that members could bring their families to those parties. >> the state of relations between the white house and the hill as we go to the fall? >> we sometimes have contentious, sometimes very effective relations with congress. to get theh congress business of the american people done, and whether it is shutting

down the government or engaging , likeological battles threatening to default over defunding obamacare, these are constructive approaches to getting the business of the american people done. but we keep at it. we believe the american people want their elected representatives to focus on helping the economy, the melville class, and certainly -- the middle class, and avoiding self-inflicted wounds. >> [indiscernible] constructive, contentious -- >> i think, as has been true since i got to washington under the clinton and bush administrations, this is a , and partiesiness hold different positions. everidual lawmakers hold positions. congress and the occupant of the oval office sometimes are at odds, and that is our system and you work within the system.

jay, can the white house give us a heads up on this op-ed, and i'm not clear whether president himself has read it. >> i have given the white house response. the president reads widely, including "the new york times," so our response is what i have said about it. he is the head of the white house. >> [indiscernible] >> i am not aware of any heads up. i did not talk to anyone about it. >> in the op-ed, at the very end, president clinton said over time there has been growing distrust with his relationship with the president. a month ago, that white house canceled a visit to moscow on the rationale that there was not much worth talking about with the president on a whole range of vision -- of issues, not just syria.

would obama share that characterization? wouldt president obama say is his conversations, even when we have not been able to see eye to eye, but president putin have been always been direct and constructive. with each president making his own views clear. that was the case in st. petersburg. as we have noted, one of the topics of the conversation that they had in st. petersburg was the possibility of pursuing a diplomatic initiative to take away from assad his chemical weapons. now it is certainly the case that this is a conversation that has been engaged in periodically, at the presidential and foreign minister level, at over the last many months without action come

and it was a new and welcomed development to see a public initiative to see if this could be achieved, and that is a good thing. -- this ispproach why i and others have tried to answer questions about the state of the reset this way, is that the whole point of the reset was opportunities to interestsch country's in our conversations with the russians, as with knowledge we were not agree on everything, and even during the early time of the so-called reset them a there were areas of serious agreement, including on missile defense. congress ae to a number of things that were intrigued interests of the united states, our national saturday, and in the interests of russia, and that is why russia pursued the reset.

it is also the case that we have run into a wall in our efforts to reach agreement with the russians on other areas, like syria, like some other things, some economic things, but even in that circumstance, the fact is on some of these other issues where we have found agreement we continue to work with them. it is important to acknowledge that. hotrelationship is not all or all cold. it is one where we agree on some issues and make progress and disagree on others, and hopefully rare we have seen an armistice agreement on syria we have now found eventually an avenue of agreement where we -- where success, if it comes, and we are a long way from that at this point -- if it comes, that would represent a real breakthrough. >> [indiscernible] >> you would have to ask the russians. >> i have one question, but it

has two parts. the first part being on syria, who is in the driver seat now diplomatically, russia or the united states? >> where working directly with russia. john kerry is with his russian counterpart. we are working in new york with all numbers of the united nations security council, including the other four permanent members from a one of which is russia, and because i saw the and the syrian -- assad and the syrian regime have been a patron of russia, rejected by russia, russia plays a huge role in bringing about this change in syria's handling of its chemical weapons. and it's at minutes that it's -- admittance that it has

chemical weapons is significant. moving this forward requires a joint effort of the united states and russia and the ed effort of nations on the security council. it is not one nation, it is many, but there's no question the united states and russia are key players. >> to allow me to play devils advocate here, has the united states, by excepting putin's gambit, put him in the arguably ironic position to be the peacemaker in this, which is op- ed is what he apparently believes? >> here's what i would say -- and we are a long way from there and i do not through this briefing or any other want to a sobernything but assessment of the potential for we are, because understandably skeptical -- but

if we were to see a situation sadold where i thought -- as were to give up his chemical weapons, all of them, the international supervision, that would be an enormous cut a congress rent and represent a wholesale change from where syria and russia were as recently as three weeks ago. dueink that would be significantly to the decisions leadership,russian but also the decisions made by the united states, by the president, to take the approach yet taken in response to the are a fine use of chemical weapons use of-- the horrifying chemical weapons by the assad regime. thank you very much. >> the press secretary mentioned the opinion piece written by

vladimir putin on syria in "the new york times" today. we have a link on our website, www.c-span.org. the news conference was dominated by questions on syria. at questions got underway 11:30 today. president obama before the cabinet meeting talked about syria. we will show you comments from syria -- from geneva. >> all right, everybody up? we are missing a few members of our cabinet here today. in particular, john kerry is thateas meeting on a topic we have been spending a lot of time on over the last several weeks, the situation in syria, how we can make sure that chemical weapons are not used against innocent people. the hopeful that discussions that secretary kerry has with foreign minister lover

avrov can yield a concrete result, and he will work hard over the next several days to make sure what possibilities are there. even as we have been spending a lot of time on the syria issue and making sure that international attention is tragedyon the horrible that occurred there, it is important to recognize that we have a lot more stuff to do in this government. the american people are still interested in making sure our kids are getting the kind of education deserve, that will put people back to work, that we are dealing properly with a federal that bills are getting paid on time, and that the federal government itself is in every single agency running

making surehould, that our constituents and the people are getting a good deal. we are going to spend time today talking about all the efforts that have been made by many of these cabinet secretaries to streamline operations, to cut out waste, to improve performance, to improve customer satisfaction. he will focus on specific somes, including managing of the budget debates that will be taking place over the next weeks. we will talk about the rollout of the affordable care act where we have seen some tremendous progress over the last several months and are confident that starting at the beginning of next month people will start signing up for health care, in many cases for the first time. and we will spend time talking about issues like conferences and -- comprehensive immigration

reform which is of enormous importance to make sure that america grows. i appreciate the great work that people have done. some of the cabinet members here are relatively new, but thanks to their confirmations and the great teams they have put around them, they are hitting the ground running. all right? thank you very much, everybody. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. >> thank you. president obama at 11:00 this morning at the cabinet meeting. john kerry has been in geneva lavrov, the sergey russian foreign minister. they held a news conference after their meeting and spoke to reporters.

>> dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for such attention to today's meeting. this interest will not in outweigh thely accommodation. we would like you to have an unbiased ideas about what we are going to do. before we start to tell you what we're going to do. serious begin the very work.

> the syrian organization, the chemical weapons. the documents are officially tabled by damascus to the corresponding agencies and will have to have a look at the corresponding documents. the rules that are established by the organization by chemical reference be perceived. this problem will make unnecessary any strike. , as president obama stated, that we should

follow the people of the resolution of the conflict at serious, and i shall say that we spoke several times. the development of the events. in order to move the situation from the stage of military confrontation. this is expanding in the region. the transition bodies will have all the executive function, and this is the common object is.

all other of birds that are going to continue will help us to move on. thank you for your attention. thank you very much. my privilege to be here with delegation. delegationhank your the military all action. we thank you for coming quickly to geneva in order to have this important conversation we will engage in. over one year ago president obama and president clinton to work together to inlare contingencies chemical weapons. we have been in regular contact visitthis issue since my

earlier this shoot. this challenge obviously took on 21at urgency on august president obama and dozens of the partners believe that that action is unacceptable and have in no uncertain terms made it clear that we cannot allow that to happen again. light of what has happened, the world wonders and watches the assadether or not

regime will live up to ca commitments it has made to give up chemical weapons and whether the world's two most powerful nations can together take a critical step forward in order to hold the regime to the stated promises. the syrian reports regime has suggested as part of the standard process they ought to have 30 days to submit data on the chemical weapons stockpile. we believe there is nothing standard about this process of this moment, because of the way to read james -- the regime has behaved. regime, inf this. our judgment, are simply not enough, which is why we have come here.

that is why we have worked with the russians and his delegation in order to make certain this can in fact be achieved. russiated states and have and continue to have disagreements about the includingin serious, the difference as to the what is we just offered important is there is much we agree on. we agree on august 21, theory and men, women and children died grotesque death due to chemical weapons. we agreed nowhere at any time should employ chemical weapons. that our joining

together with the international community to eliminate stock piles of the weapons in serious would be a historic moment for the multilateral non--- proliferation efforts. we agree on those things. we agree it would help to save lives if we can accomplish this. but it would reduce the risk of threat to the region. that it would uphold the norms established in geneva almost a century ago and would achieve the best of all of our for curbing weapons of mass destruction. to geneva today to begin to test these proposition, not just on behalf of each of our countries, but on behalf of everyone interested in a peaceful resolution. anguishedme the disc russian delegation and am proud that president obama's direction

we have a delegation here, which i lead, of some of the nation's foremost chemical weapons expert. people who dedicate their lives the proliferation of the weapons and to bringing about their eventual elimination from this earth. the russian delegation has put ideas forward, and we are grateful for that and respect it. we have prepared our own principle that any plan to accomplish this needs to encompass. expectations are high. they are high for the united states. more so for russia to deliver on the promise of this moment. this is not a game, and i have said that to my friend serge when we talked about it initially. it has to be real. it has to be comprehensive. it has to be verifiable. it has to be credible.

that has to be timely and implemented in a timely fashion. finally, there ought to be consequences if it does not take waste. diplomacy is and always has been president obama's and this administration's first resort. in achieving a peaceful resolution is clearly preferable to military action. president obama has said that again and again. it is too early to tell whether or not these efforts will succeed, but the technical challenges of trying to do this in the context of the civil war are obviously immense. ,espite how difficult this is with the collaboration of our experts, and only with the compliance from the assad regime, we do believe there is a way to get this done. we have come here to define a

potential path forward that we can share with our international partners. together we will test the regime commitment to follow through on promises. .e are serious serious, as you are, about engaging in substantive, even asul negotiations, the military maintains its current posture to keep up the pressure on the regime. only the threat of credible force and the intervention of president putin and russia based on that has rocked the assad regime to acknowledge for the first time that it even has chemical weapons and an arsenal and is now prepared to relinquish it. president obama has made clear that should diplomacy fail,

force might be necessary to deter and degrade the capacity to deliver these weapons. it will not get rid of them, but could change his willingness to use them. ,he best thing to do, we agree is to remove them altogether. the challenge here in geneva is to test the viability of placing assad's chemical weapons under international control and destroying them forever. the united states has also made clear that the deaths of more than 100 thousand syrian's and the displacement of millions, either internally or as refugees remains a stain on the world conscious. we all need to keep that in mind india with that. we continue to work with the joint special envoy and ourselves under the g neighbor

-- under the geneva communiqué. we share those hopes that could foster a political solution to a civil war that undermines the stability of the region, threatens our own national security interests and compels us to act. that is our hope and what we fervently hope can come out of this meeting in these negotiations. thank you very much. i am not prepared with the political statements because our approaches are clear and stated in the statement and the president statement and article that all of you read this article and decided not to lay -- the the book out of

intent to find compromises. i am sure during the presentation of the american vision, they would like to find mutual consensus. >> can you give me the last part of the translation, please? [laughter] >> you want me to take your word for it? >> a little late for that. thank you. secretary kerry and the foreign minister before their meeting in geneva today. meanwhile, al jazeera reporting the french foreign minister will meet with the russian foreign minister next week after a visit to china to talk about the chromatic efforts on syria. the associated press reported

this morning that the united received a letter from syria, the first step towards joining the chemical weapons treaty. for the russian president, vladimir putin, wrote an opinion piece today. it read in part, the potential strike of the united states become serious, despite strong countries from many will result in more innocent victims, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond the borders. website. on our lots of reaction on capitol hill. including john mccain who isponded by saying his op-ed an insult to every american. read more on twitter.

>> yes, the world is changing. no, we cannot control every thet, but america remains one indispensable nation in foreign affairs, and as long as i am president, i intend to keep it that way. >> the president talking about and disposable nation. -- indispensable nation. wars.not know how to win we have the best military in the world. we certainly spend more on the military than base -- basically the rest of the world put together but we do not know how to win wars. it seems to me there should be a very serious national conversation about why is that the case? is that the politicians? ?oo stupid >> general's clic it that war is

unpredictable by the very nation. to go to war is to roll the dice. you might win and you might not. armyre with retired professor, andrew base of which -- andrew bacevich. you in the putting room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, as a public service of high the industry. c-span, created by the cable industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. now, watch us in hd. >> coming up live at 4:00 eastern, comments from defense intelligence agency director, michael flynn. we will have no life when it

gets underway. earlier today they hurt him house intelligence committee chairman mike rogers and ranking democrat dutch ruppersberger. haveecent security leaks caused an intelligence cap in the u.s. ability to respond to terrorist attacks. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to the inaugural summit. our mission is to serve as a catalyst for public, private and orderic harder ships in to identify, develop, and theote solutions to national security challenges confronting the intelligence

community. all agree we have achieved the first part of the mission at the summit. we have been able to assemble an audience of more than 500 across thels from public, private and academic sectors. effects -- impressive of thosemoderators same sectors. i want to thank you all for being with us today. second thankend a you to all of our sponsors. in particular, our to host sponsors, northrop grumman and raytheon for their continued support of our efforts. in addition to the host sponsors, i would like to thank man tech for sponsoring the birth rest. deloitte's for sponsoring

registration. twc for sponsoring the speakers lounge. and social intelligence and eagle ray for sponsoring the morning and afternoon coffee breaks. , we wouldur support not be able to put on events such as this one today. like to thank the immediate partner, defense one. please join me in a round of applause for the sponsors. [applause] we have a full agenda today. over he -- over 40 panelists participating. each on a topic of critical importance to the intelligence community. we have four key intelligence

community leaders. since -- persons of chairman mike rogers. --king member dutch brooches rupert berger. and mike flynn. all of whom will share their vision for the future of our community and mission. i encourage each of you to visit the innovation forum throughout the day where companies doing great work within the community will be showing innovative solutions and services. we have wrought these key leaders together to facilitate the conversation, but it is through your participation and insight that progress will be made today at the summit.

when you registered each of you received copies of two white papers. we are proud to roll out that this morning. each will be a topic of discussion of breakout sessions later today. i am going to come back and analyze that sentence later on today. reviews have methods for proactive cyber operations, including intelligent and dynamic defenses to combat actual threats by adversaries. the second, a preliminary examination of insider threat programs in the or or isn't it initial review of practices for

cyber inside -- inside threat programs. i think you will find the paper conclusion very interesting. i would like to thank the volunteer members and councils and task force. your time and efforts have resulted in the ideas and white papers that provided the momentum for this and other policy -- focused events all as he-focused events. no surprise we have received a large amount of interest in the media.

with that being said, let me talk about bus before he introduced the panel. the events in syria is the whole wmd surrounding instability and sub-sahara africa is a poignant reminder, especially as america's military lowers the profile around the world, as it has been doing. intelligence becomes that much more critical to the national security of the united states. believeanother reason i it is a very timely conference all looknd i know we forward to the insides of the

panelists this morning. would liket said, i to introduce the first session of the day. the view from the hill featuring congressman mike rogers, chairman of the house permanent select committee and dutch ruppersberger, ranking member of the house permanent select committee on intelligence. moderating the discussion is nationalsend, cnn security analyst and executive vice president of macandrews and , and she was my predecessor of chairperson of in until last december. prior to that, she served her high-profileny

positions. groundwork originated from her time as chairwoman and today's success is in large measure owed to her. with those initial remarks, in welcoming the members of our panel this morning. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for the kind introduction. after having served three years as chairwoman, i am very proud and glad to be here. , i am ayou who know me stickler for time. i will skip introductions. you know who the chairman of the house intelligence committee is, mike rogers.

both have a long experience in the intelligence community. i will turn it over to them to make brief remarks. there is a lot to try to cover. open. my twitter feed we will take questions from the audience. there has been news that has broken overnight, which has become typical in the world of intelligence. i don't we start with you, congressman rogers. i will not talk long. eager to get to the questions. there are significant challenges around the world. a lot of things that keep dutch and i up at night, but if you go around the world quickly and apid changes, some things get lot of attention and some not at all.

just a few that months ago threatened a nuclear .xchange you have the russian military starting to reinvest in technology. --nched pretty subsist sophisticated submarines in the past year or so. vladimir putin eager to get back into the game of influence around the world as you have seen unfold. i do not know if you read his editorial. did to get lectured by the guy that invaded the country not too long ago. thank you. look at where the chinese are going. cyber espionage is breathtaking is getting worse. cyber planning is now a part of

majoramework of every nation state. unfortunately some that are not major nationstate are engaged in cyber military planning and using tech knowledge he around the world. interesting things time has done recently, they have announced the oil platforms are now strategic assets and will defend them momentarily. this changes the dynamic in the discussions of the south china sea significantly. you see that tension with china and japan got one notch hotter reselling. ist that means in their mind they did not want the u.s. navy

to be sailing in the south china sea. this is a new wrinkle we will have to work through. they have named financial institutions all the way down as a strategic asset in china. al qaeda on the rise. clearly we see what is a huge destabilizing and growing more destabilizing inferior. many colleges civil war. i think that is not accurate. i think this is a proxy for. if we look at it as a civil war, we will make a lot of mistakes. those are just a couple of the things we worry about at night. more and that in the fact that we are working aggressively to dismantle the national security agency that provides us information we need

to keep america safe. mind- boggling to me. hopefully we will get a chance to talk about that as well. with that, i will turn it over to my friend, dutch. >> thank you. great to see everyone coming together to talk about issues that are so important. i believe strongly intelligence protectest way to against attacks. they're smart, focused and have taken notice to maintain the confidentiality of information. i guess snowden did not get that. who knows. for years, the committee was not

doing the job they needed to do. a lot of partisan politics. mike and i took a we're going to work look at what team we have done. all good fbi agents must listen to the prosecutor in that we are the minority. i do is of that. i can die disagree on things. we have always come to a resolution. a lot of it has to do with respect, relationships, and trust. that is how you should live your life. things are evolving. we are very concerned about the cyber issue. m and i pulled together to decide we had to do something about the cyber attacks. we brought in all different groups.

we brought the white house, business community to try to to deal witha way cyber. estimated in the past three years we have lost $400 billion from trade secrets and information to mostly china, but other countries. you know the issue of terrorism and how serious it is. it will go beyond our lifetime i am sure. we have to continue to use the best tools. do it legally and for these individuals. i call it needles in the haystack. we have to find them. we have to make sure we stop them before they attack us. thehighest priority in united states. secondly, allies. very important issue. the china/russia threat. the cyber attacks.

these are things evolving. i can go on and on. i think it is better if i stop talking and listen to you all. >> thank you both. permission, i will call you by your first name. let's start with the news of the day for many refer to it as a proxy war. i call syria, the vietnam of the 21st-century. you have big regional players playing outand iran a larger political game at the expense of this. will. you, about both of the likelihood the russian proposal goes anywhere. do you believe there will be a credible plan, and can there be any plan without the threat of military force?

russians --he first, let's try to understand the problem. russians have been on the ground since the beginning. they have long-term contracts there. watereally need the warm partner. strategic,e a military strategic interest in keeping the footprint in syria, so we should try to eliminate critical quickly some benevolent interest in being the peacemaker in the region. they are concerned about losing a strategic asset. that is the number one primary concern. they have been on the ground providing advisors, intelligence packages, and it is in the first people who might show up, i think the

russians want to be the first one through the door. is writing ine there that might cause them concern. now, itlem with serious can work, but interest have to align. we have to push the interest to align. i believe you need a credible military threat in order to continue to have negotiation success. which is why the russians said they would not allow that to happen in the united nation. take a chapter seven, which would allow a united nations military threat if we could not get a handle on the coming call weapons. got exactly what they wanted on day one, which was time. they needed a thought to have more time. needed president assad to have more time.

it allows them to continue to supply arms, financing, and sends aings, and it pretty dangerous message to the opposition that he will be there for a link of time. i am skeptical. i hope it works. i just do not think it will work if we do not have credible threats to say this negotiation does not go well, we have a whole other set of options and you will not like any of them. i worry that without that it becomes a game of taking four months to decide when to meet and who gets to meet and six to go to decide who gets into syria. i do not think that is helpful to what is happening on the ground. >> do you agree there needs to be a credible threat of military force? >> without a doubt. look at the history when all of this started.

when the opposition was starting to gain the mentum, that is when russia basically wanted us to come to the table. willid russia do this? only do what is good for putin and then russia. they know they are on the wrong side of the issue am especially when it comes to chemical weapons. the whole goal then was to get russia back to the table. when you are in the position where you know where we are, i think the president made the right decision, because the only leverage we have now was the

players that are there. he killed 100,000 of his people. women and children. i have met with him. he is a low -- key ophthalmologists trained in great britain. we have to verify, trust to verify. tactic,is a stalling then we have to continue on with the threat of force or nothing will happen. we have to verify with the people that will go to the country. >> last night, while most of us were sleeping, the guardian published the most recent document from edward snowden. it raises a whole bunch of

issues about leaks. this report alleges that the united states is passing u.s. -- person data to israel. person data to israel. we have seen an ongoing public debate in this country. this will only fuel it. how do we get the american people comfortable and supportive of what the intelligence community really needs to be able to accomplish? >> great question. look at the time. [laughter] the first thing, there is always

i believe a negative into a positive. there is no question that this debate of privacy has to be out there. the things we are dealing with with privacy laws in those types of issues. really difficult to let the public know a lot of what is going on because it is classified. we will move forward not only with the public, but other members of congress. we will have to somehow change laws to be more flexible on the issue of what we are going to do and how we are going to deal with classified information. these are dedicated people who get up every morning and work hard. they are getting hit pretty hard. we have to deal with the issue of perception, even though it is not reality. we have been working with general alexander and other thate to try to find ways

we can get out more information to educate the people. the people are concerned. eventually there could be unintended consequences that might affect the national security. i will say something now that my staff will be very upset with, but i think it is important to raise this issue. this is about the media. i want to make it really clear. i believe the first amendment is one of the most important things . we have to stand behind. we have to support the media ability to write and raise issues. i do not have a problem with this debate and printing the issues that are out there, but , the mediahink itself needs to come together to see how far we go when we're

getting beyond the debate of privacy and more on printing sources and methods that will death toy cause of americans. it is a very sensitive issue. i am just throwing it out there. i will not be there, because i do not think we should. i think when you get to the point of article after article talking about sources and methods and will not be able to find where they are, how they are going to protect us. i just throw that out there. we're not doing anything about --i remember when i was a prosecutor, on the intelligence community, you would never see information of al qaeda giving groups data on what we are trying to do to protect us. what is intelligence all about?

what are the millions of dollars we spend? trying to protect us. we have to have the laws. we have more checks and balances than any other country in the world on what we do. sureve me, mike and i make they follow the law and is constitutional. if something is wrong, we will try to fix it. i better stop there. do not give me a hard time. >> this has been the most frustrating series of week's. candidly, the damage is growing by the day. it has nothing to do with privacy issues, nothing. they are providing adversaries valuable information. by the way, we have artie see one al qaeda affiliate completely change the way it means weness, which

now have a cap and the ability to try to stop something bad from happening. it has been described by senior intelligence officials as significant and irreversible. we think it is fun to put this in the newspaper, and i feel responsible on some of these issues. we have a gap. what is frustrating to us is our job was to find ways to close in ways we knew existed prior to nine/11. programs fill the gap. those gaps are back. if we think for one minute that people did not perceive that when there is a cap they will not take advantage of it, we're absolutely fooling ourselves. all qaeda is on the rise. matter of fact, it has become

the largest single source of financing for the core al qaeda kidnappings,rough ransoms. al qaedall qaeda -- causing us great concern. destabilization efforts underway. new affiliates that are growing in interest in external operations, meaning u.s. targets or western targets along the pakistani/afghan border. new safe havens developing as the troops drawdown happens in the northeast. al qaeda talking about safe havens in. along they are wracked -- along the iraq/syrian border. we are to put in context about what we are disclosing. secondly, the reports that get leaked are recorded as they have found them doing something wrong.

this horrible thing that no one knows about and we are printing it. edward snowden stole or slide decks that described what was wrong and what the mitigation process was, which means we knew about it. these are management tools to fix problems we have found in the system. that means the court has found some. intelligence committee found some. used such specific language in describing the events, every time it came out people set that is a privacy violation. it says it is a violation. absolutely wrong. they were not privacy violations. some of them were technical. i use the word violation and that is even wrong. it is just the technology changes. everyone knows about internet protocol. and something changes, there will be a glitch in the system to catch up.

those are listed in there. the newspaper says let's described this as a privacy violation. those -- you get my love pressure up on this. americans should be mad about this for all the reasons they are mad about it now. most of the violations that were was because there was lawful intercept of bad guys overseas. legitimately identified, reasonable suspicion, all of that found. really doern day you not know where that person is with the particular device at any time. you can be a u.s. person for a temporary amount of time being somewhere else by using u.s. networks. that is a confusing thing for a guy trying to catch a bad guy. he also legal implications.

we put a lot of pressure to make sure they do it right. the only intelligence service in the world that does it the way we do. so here is the thing. they get on the phone. the guy goes from pakistan to , catches a to do by flight to new york city. if we know this is a bad guy doing bad things, trying to figure out what is that person up to. we have to turn it off and try to find another system by

handing it over to the fbi. that is considered a violation. i do not think we ought to turn it off. that is what the law is. that laws to make sure is followed. we are working against ourselves every day. up, the newspaper picks it they are following the violations. doesn't it sound like a horrible thing these people must be doing about violating someone's privacy in the united states? that is what people believe and we are working against ourselves we will have an outcry against the law. the court challenges them frequently. courtou saw was the working on technical corrections. you want that to happen. it shows you that oversight

works. instead, it being for trade as an agency out of control doing horrible things. it is costing us significantly in the ability to collect against our adversaries, and they know it. there is a reason he decided to put an op-ed in the new york times. he knows america is on a feeding frenzy against itself, and he would love to join in on the game. so when you hear it, i will ask you all to be skeptical. the notion the agency is collecting on u.s. persons and giving it to any foreign intelligence agency in the way it was described is completely wrong. happened.t what has i can guarantee you the privacy of americans are protected in the way we operate. part of the problem was we were too aggressive in the oversight, and we documented it and talk about it with leadership in order to fix it. they stole the slide deck and

put it out there and said we caught them doing something horribly wrong and should dismantle the national security agency. i am really worried about where we are rowing in the growing sense of isolationism is concerning. if we do not start getting it right, we're going to be in a lot of trouble when it comes to providing intelligence services the tools that they need to protect this country. all worked up about that. >> just getting the facts right. [applause] for we get criticized giving the facts. we oversee the intelligence community. we make sure they follow the law, but they also have to put the facts on the table. when you get the allegations like the mated data -- metadata program, that is not the case, but we have to deal with the

perception. some of the things we're doing, we are trying to make sure we can declassify more information really get people more information so they know we are always following the law but also trying to protect the american people. the head of all qaeda -- al qaeda will start targeting more in the united states and allies. the leave me, we are more all marble because of the leaks. we will lose lives because of these leaks and where we're going. we have a lot to do. we ask you all to be there with us. we have a lot more to do to communicate with the american public. >> you raised frankly what my next question was. yesterday was the 12th anniversary of the horrific attack on september 11.

commissioner gave a series of interviews, one of which was on cnn, where he said he believed the threat to the homeland from al qaeda is as great, if not greater than previous to 9/11. you can imagine from my perspective i -- that got my attention. what do you perceive as the greatest threat? what is concerning is in the past, they were very eager to -- big eventss and would take a long time to plan the big, impact will events. unfortunately they learned a lot from the boston bombing.

you see a change in attitude. with the changing of the guard and leadership. you can see a change in the kind of things they are doing with targeting. now the definition of what they think might be a successful attack has changed. that is very concerning to us. again, our concern is are we engaged fully in all the counterterrorism program that we know were impact full disruption in the leadership. we have had some changes. public debate. there are over 10,000 members

ascribed to al qaeda operating they'reastern part coming from all over the world, including the united dates of america. you have folks with european paper, american papers that are trained. they have been further radicalized. whatever it looks like, they are going home. al qaeda knows who they are. .hey know they are a new avenue i think when the commissioner is talking about, a dynamic threat change, you do not have to look at the big event of flying a plane into a building, but we have to now worry about the smaller knockoff events.

i am equally concerned and i think that greg is greater -- greater in that regard. lex i agree with mike. concern is al qaeda realized we are very sophisticated in the allies in being able to find major attacks. so they are attempting more out of yemen than any other area, focusing on the united states and having individuals under the radar. not doing things where we can pick things up. that is why it is so important for the intelligence community to work with state and local, team approach -- getting as much information as you can. this is what i am concerned about. we had a couple of those attempts. we were lucky they did not occur. now you cannot this judge how many people are helping al qaeda

and funding them. we have some very smart people that are part of the organization. doctors that are trying to research and putting plastic alms in individuals that they can go through the airport and not be detected. this is very serious. we have been talking about. and terrorism, but do not lose sight of the cyber attacks and how serious this is for our country. it has been alleged or the media iran knocked out the largest oil company for saudi arabia, knocked out 30,000 computers. when russia went to attack georgia, they shut down the communication systems. this is very serious and really concerns me. people say you are members of

the gang of eight -- eight. what keeps you up at night? andy spicy food, i chemical weapons and cyber attacks. we work very hard. we got a bill passed. the president was against the bill but still able to get bipartisan support to get the cyber bill passed. i talk about giving my credit. we had a bill passed the session before that that did not have as many books. votes. i said we have to get the white house behind us in deal with perception of change. new did not like it, but the endgame was getting the bill passed. a lot of people on my side of the aisle were focused on the issue of privacy. we got the bill passed and over in the senate. still not going anywhere but

trying to work on that. let's not lose sight on that issue. we will have this program schedule. taking you live to the intelligence summit. will hear from the director of the defense intelligence agency, lieutenant general michael flynn. live coverage here on c-span. >> i would like to highlight a few things. mike spent three years in iraq and afghanistan. be j2 of centcom, afghanistan for general mcchrystal and now director of cia. pretty tough jobs in service to his country. in his address today, lieutenant general flynn will address the challenges and priorities from perspective. afterwards, he will take questions and answers from the audience.

pass your questions. we will have parts going around. ensco innterns to keep going passing the cards around. looking at the time, we will take the questions. a great honor to introduce the >> great, so close the doors because i know it is late in the day. i will drone on a bit here so i want to make sure nobody leaves. you will have to withstand the pain as i am standing up here withstanding the pain. i know you have had a great day and i have some prepared remarks but i want to go to. i want to say thanks to the ambassador. in joint staff, we were doing a career problem like you do frequently and joe was leading the intelligence community effort, the issue at

, it wasticular time extraordinary leadership and another reflection of how far our intelligence community has come in bringing together a community to really solve some of the tough problems we have and not worrying about if this agency has something or if another agency has something. thewant to keep introductions short because they become obituaries after a while. the gracious invitation, thank you for allowing me to speak here today. also want to congratulate the extraordinary team for consistently bringing together these important events and leading our most important conversations. i know i am closing out the day.

discussion with the involving insider threat and cyber with local and state-level governments all the way to updating be challenging security clearance process. hilleard about the perspective on the state of our national defense and the role of the intelligence community. you had the opportunity to ask about advances we have made in immigration and shared information technology. it has been an eventful and interesting day. will do my best to keep it as theging as possible and as ambassador said, i will take some questions. there has been one major security issue for the last few weeks. syria. the united states and the national security enterprise are

facing a difficult crossroads when it comes to the crisis in syria. down,s we are winding from afghanistan to iraq, libya, we are in a situation where we int contemplate intervention a complicated crisis that has been festering for two years now. a loose but fairly trained federation of 1200 rebel groups have been continuously fighting to take down the assad regime since 2011. a majority are moderate, several radical islamist factions have surfaced like an al qaeda aligned front. to be better lead, armed, and trained than the other groups. these are the separatists that would encourage renewed regional instability.

the assad regime has, in many cases, savagely responded to rebel action as they first began as demonstrations and protests. by recent confirmed accounts, the regime has used chemical weapons on more than one occasion to gas thousands of his for his desire to retain power at any cost. both the united states and the international community have stated that the use of these chemical weapons cannot go unpunished. with confirmed sarin gas attacks, we are at a crossroads. between striking the regime in retribution for their widely condemned use of chemical weapons and upholding our stated commitment to human rights on one hand and keeping our interests and financial

resources disentangled from another extremely complicated middle eastern crisis. if we do, dammed if we don't. deciding between intervention and attachment is an extremely difficult choice made even continue totails pour in and russia enters the conversation with an encouraging but questionable alternative. i do not envy the policymakers. me ofpredicament reminds an old quote. if you come to a fork in the road, take it. if only it were that easy this time. as a national security leader, what is fascinating about this crossroads and other issues just like it that force us to

consider our role and responsibility in the international arena is that they are simply not that rare anymore. these major challenges would pop up once or twice during a presidential administration. today, the u.s. seems to confront a new issue on a frequent and seemingly endless basis. is crisis the new normal? whether it is determining our support in libya, debating our relationship with egypt after continuing shift in power, or deciding our role in afghanistan , we are constantly facing a wide and broad range of major security decisions. of which are constantly shifting and the effects of which will be felt for years. i am not the first or the last to point out the unprecedented range of threats facing the

united states. lessons isrlooked just how quickly an issue can become a front page u.s. national security priority today , moving quickly from the back pages of world events. this crisis perfectly demonstrate how rapidly a challenge can bubble to the surface and completely change our nation's course. with the staggering rate of sayse loudly and clearly to me is that intelligence is a major if not the most critical enabler and guarantor of national security. intelligence is the only weapon in our arsenal that has the responsibility and the capability of anticipating and understanding the precursors of instability.

it is the single most powerful capability to influence the best course of action, or the least damaging way forward. are an extremely valuable asset to the national security enterprise. available resources for the foreseeable future will only be further constrained. i want to underscore the word value very specifically here. fiscal strains and sequestration. be a major priority for the united states government. i speak for my colleagues and we are committed to being vigilant and responsible stewards of the taxpayers dollars. we are strongly concentrating on maintaining the irreplaceable asset of intelligence and making

sure we are managing sequestration so we can maintain the strength and success of the community, and invest for our future. investing with an eye firmly fixed on the future is key. the environment is difficult now, it will not get any easier in the decades ahead. i know earlier today, there was a breakout session. projected demographic, migratory, and economic changes over the next 50 years will undoubtedly tax our national security enterprise. an aging first world population. widening gender gaps and a growing pocket of underemployed ands in the third world

economically struggling regions ofl change the military face many of our allies and enemies. regional disputes that are quickly dwindling in supply. water, energy, rare earth minerals and elements will threaten political and social balances. immediately, the delicate balance comes to mind. advancement for disruptive purposes that will challenge us to not only keep up with the pace of change but stay rely on ahead -- that issue is responding to the tactical use of cyber attacks for strategic purposes. we are all aware of the cyber threat.

we spent time talking about various forms from insider threats to state-sponsored actors. and at pearl harbor, secretary hagel said that the devastatingly destructive become theas national security challenge of our age. we are fully aware of our vulnerabilities. nationrstand the infrastructure remains largely unprotected. companies do not have the resources or the imperative to guard against increasingly sophisticated cyber encroachment. we understand almost everything in our society has a cyber element in it. to pacemakerses and computers we use every day. the targeting software our military uses to guide our missiles to their targets.

we are all aware of the danger as an permission technology marches on. information technology is one of our most important enablers. androvides precision military forces the ability to act across the operational spectrum. ever worried, we are focused on the threats that can degrade military capabilities. we need to understand doctrine and intent of our foes to manage the risk they will pose against us. the all source leader on doctrine and discipline for research and offense of capabilities for more than 50 years. we are working hard to understand the security challenges we face.

what do these many challenges mean? what do these trends mean for our defense? of the shifting dangerous environment where syria can become a top priority and the danger of a cyber attack in the background, getting our fiscal house in order and the trends that will complicate matters, the absolutely critical security, weonal must do the following. adjust our operating model to focus on our mission and unique strengths. emphasize burden sharing, partnerships, and we must instill flexibility and agility to respond to a crisis. this has to be woven into the fabric and culture of who we are

and everything we do. we have laid the groundwork for that future. it networks and integrates talent from across the agency whether it resides in an analyst collection manager, it brings tom together as one team solve the critical problems that we face. a critical personal lesson i learned in the past decade of war. a tight fusion between analysis and collection, which we know based on experiences in iraq and afghanistan is the most successful model. second is flexibility. as team members no longer have to contend with an organizational boundary. and last, integration.

as well as a very tight relationship, this is an important issue. it is one of those things where that is not the model we had coming into the last decade of war. i think he may have talked a little bit about them, but i would be happy to answer any questions on that. in close court nation with joint weff, and the white house, are handling assessments of the serious crisis. faith thatutmost they have the right talent, tools, and resources to get the job done. we have pushed intelligence professionals into the field, ensuring that they have an appreciation and a working

understanding of developments across the globe. makenstant drumbeat is to the edge the center. unique perspective of these officers have often made the crucial difference during and growingemen, unrest in syria. feedback from one of our intelligence officers went directly to the secretary of defense in advance of his talks. it is providing the right knowledge at the right time to influence and support decision- making. finds itself with new crossroads to navigate, they are focused on being at the right place at the right time. we are also leveraging technology.

i know we have already talked a bit about eyesight, so i will try not to be repetitive. but i want to underscore how groundbreaking this is for the intelligence community. technician, get to be that way. this is part of our future. this concept connecting everyone under a common umbrella is -- that down cultural is the most important -- and technological agencies. concept,evolutionary one that we have needed for our uncertain future. eyesight is the single most important project underway. it will be a key pillar that

supports the continued success and relevance to decision makers in the future. together, i am proud to say that milestone that recently achieve that milestone, giving access to thousands of analysts. are already into the first month of it and it is really groundbreaking stuff. the users deciding what the systems are going to be. to be able to engineer our way to the right message. but they are the ones that are really in the design piece of this thing. i would offer up to anybody questions that you may ask. in conclusion, to come to a efforts, our these

main focus has been to ruthlessly prioritize inefficiency while emphasizing sound business practices at all levels. my message to business partners out there because it is important that we work this together. george washington had contractors. we figure out how to work together. the overarching purpose is through better intelligence and we will make operational forces more effective. can make the people having to accomplish their mission far more effective. we are conducting the first ever full audit. i have launched a special task force focused on the reliance on

contracting to make sure we are spending our collective money as wisely as possible. i cut waste very seriously and i want to make sure we are putting money in the right places where our attention will have to be focused. and ultimately, those strategic turns we will have to take in the future. i want to make sure we are prepared for the next syria. i hope i have provided a little bit of value today. >> that was an outstanding presentation, thank you very much. let me open it up. you cited a number of issues, which are daunting, to say the least.

about the question of bringing analysis together. establishment of a defense collective service. well are you doing on these issues? >> a little bit of historical context for people that have been in the community for a while. i am doing a personal study between the time frame of 2011-2016. i am looking at my experiences in war theater, but also watching where the community is going in the future.

in large organizations, anybody a senior level in a large organization, the difficult thing is breaking through the cultural barrier. the first thing to do is understand what you do, your special sauce. i am studying this historic example to make sure that i gauge where this organization is at today and where it will need to be 10 years down the road. at roughly 6000 people in the early 90s. jim broke it into three centers. analysis, collection, and support. are about four times that size and it is what it is. about two thirds more

countries in the world today. certainly, stability and doing the intelligent thing. we have to come to grips with that growth and the operational environment. and if you look back in that era the results of desert shield, this is coming out of a decade more that we are still in. we are a nation made more secure at becoming a fully integrated intelligence community.

the key word is integrated. it is not a natural act. people want to own stock and control things. we have enormous potential of using technology and that is why i am such a fan of eyesight. we have to use our technology to provide global leadership and virtually collaborate because we ownership of everything. that is the evolution of where we are today. think as we talk about integration, this is a journey. future directors are going to look at it. thise every intent to do and i will be hated with effigies out there.

word, buten like this ideat to instantiate this of integration so it is hard to reverse it. that is where i am at. this is about the national security of our country. to make responsibility sure this organization fits that model. >> how is it going? [laughter] it is going fine. everyone tells me it is going fine. [laughter]

you get asked this question when you're a young person. what is more important, the mission or the people? the answer is the mission. that doesn't mean you don't take care of your people. if they love their mission, they will love what they do. you mentioned syria a minute ago. the recent russian proposal and the possibility of a diplomatic settlement with respect to chemical weapons, if those what isare given up, your role in this process? >> our role has been intense. it has been continuous.

it has been from the beginning. the experience that dia employees and intelligence we have over 6000 civilians that have served in a combat environment in the last decade. those that served in iraq and focused on the al qaeda crowd, certainly focused on the middle east military and the kind of capability that they have their, they are worth their weight in gold right now. we are deeply involved, but as a member of the community. we are supporting central command, european command,

africa command. are also supporting military planning that is going on at every level including the joint staff. in terms of the policy side, we are deeply involved. we have provided what i would call the nation's expert on chemical warfare to the state department. today, they are helping the secretary negotiate that issue. are you kidding me? he jumped right into it. internet. -- intimate. it is an intimate relationship with the customers that we have.

they want to believe in what you provide. >> a follow-up on that question. how confident are you that we will be successful getting those -- out?out in e don't have a level of confidence to get through this first iteration. as i stated in my remarks, it is an interesting foray that we are finding our way through. i would say that i am encouraged as a military person, that we did not have to apply military

force. i asked a few of our folks. those that have been out to the dead great proving ground, i have been out there. it took us about seven years. it will take a while. i hope there is clear and coolheaded longview thinking and decision-making done. i am not confident it is going to happen overnight. how does the administration's pivot to the far east affect

intelligence priorities? >> everybody asks that question because you feel the sucking sound in the central region of the world. yet, we want to have this pivot toward the pacific. willll challenge us and i tell you, without getting into if youied information, were to look at what the president has directed the intelligence community to do, and he does that fairly routinely, where are the majority of those resources prioritized? i think you would gain a better usicstanding of what the

has done to achieve the stated objective of the white house. i think we are actually in pretty good shape. it will be some other decisions that will be made about allocation and resources. i am confident we have the right set of resources right now. it is in our national security strategy and military strategy. documents worth reading talking about partnership. so with 29onth or nations in indonesia. they were all my counterparts, directors of military intelligence for 29 nations

around the world. mostly in the asia-pacific theater to focus on that theater. countries from south america showed up for the first time. partly why is the economic reason. secretary carter talks about the pivot not about the military. an economic and diplomatic adjustment. resources arelds projected to be passing through the pacific around the timeframe of 2030. whether or not that is exactly precise, i don't know. >> another question from our colleagues. could you speak to the level of integration between eyesight and

the joint information environment? i think my chief technology officer and chief innovation him, justf you know incredibly talented individuals. talk about giving them the long rope to get out there and move this thing along. orion is not a tool or a database. the defense intelligence agencies and termination strategy -- information strategy to implement eyesight. or theu hear the term acronym orion, it is an implementation strategy. for those that don't know, we

of a platform,e 230,000 users around the world. there weren't that many five years ago. it is very secure, a good system. and why we are doing the milestone test right now, it will be the platform. it will be the desktop that we use. , we aregration piece sort of beyond this good idea discussion. downe deep into breaking cultural barriers, technological

barriers, and certainly agency barriers. i think we will be moving in the right direction. by the end of this calendar year, we will have some very positive results. i am very positive about it. if it were to re-create itself today, we would not create ourselves in the image that we are today. like ld not create things fbinet.t, you try to do a control on some of these names, forget about it. you can't find them. we would have created one system where we can all communicate.

challenge fore guys in our category, the advent of technology. thebook did not get on scene until february of 2005. linkedin was a prison cell. environmention is changing how we do everything. we have to do things really precisely. it is important to understand where we were last century. terry, and i spoke yesterday to talk about what we are doing.

big things, we would drop lots of bombs and kill lots of people. we tried for information, but it was not as important. now, it isight precision and understanding. it is a huge difference. it doesn't mean there is not kinetic behavior. the burden and the opportunity for the intelligence community. is unbelievable.

the consumers that we have, particularly the military commanders. they came off of a battlefield where, for the most part, it was pretty good. their expectations -- >> relating to your outstanding answer, what is the plan to consolidate? crime --a time timeframe? you can't just move this box out and move this box and. the discussions that you had here today, everything can

connect. we are moving toward a standards-based approach. enter the stadium, you have to purchase the ticket. price and comes at a a cost. sharing. you have to invest equally or certainly equally based on the size and scale of the operation. you have to be able to use the that if capabilities have sort of directed. i have made a decision a number of months ago to not move away from going to the club.

cloud. those are important issues. master's in telecommunications, but i am not a technician. today have been diving in -- to technology. are those interns out here somewhere? generation -- i face time with my grandson who is for. he is manipulating an iphone. he knows how to turn it on, switch it around to show me his sister. he is for. i am passionate about that to a degree, but this is about being realistic for those in our system that will continue to fight.

i don't do e-mail. i told that officer that it was irrelevant. that went over ok. [laughter] >> you will not get that answer a bit. .he secretary of defense

personally and as an agency. personally, it is unbelievable. i know the leadership that we have in these positions. i see why people get burned out. you have to put enormous energy resources into it. agency, i made the -- i am beingsion a bit facetious, but to fix our my middle east and africa regional center is the focal point for the mission for what is going on in syria.

sawyer, who some of you may know, an extraordinary officer with a great team. we see ourselves inside of the agency. support for the organization. on at thepiles regional center. case, they are a supporting organization. something from they canse agency, turn to one single point and say, this is what i need. that organization is supported by the remainder of the dia. find, basedg out to

on whatever personal relationship that i might have. that is essentially taking a military application of doctrine an 80%lying it to civilian agency. 6000 of these civilians have gone to war. it. feel relevant, and is energized to respond. that is what i am trying to tap into. name a place around the world and i can tell you a little bit about it. the arab spring. we are winter, fall,

about to go to another winter. the central region of the world, the africa region of the world, not to mention areas you are very familiar with. quiet but delicate. these borderline ready to flare up issues. i will add this to your question because it is our new normal. enemy, whatk at an is their intention and their capability. do they have the capability to that is how you judge

your enemy. days, the shift in the operational environment has done , it has kept the capabilities and all the intentions have changed overnight. the intentions change radically now. syria, strategically, a great example. out there. lot i mentioned pakistan, india, capabilities that exist. -- what itg changes, is that you think they have an intention to do. when i was on the joint staff,

one crisis was an easy day. afghanistan, we ran that there is not. enough space in the pentagon to forces.e crisis task trying to inform the chairman and the secretary. that is the way i feel. i think you probably feel the same way. hearing the general and his comments the afternoon, certainly dia, giving us the ability to protect our homeland. i can't say enough about your presentation and what dia is doing. >> thank you.

[applause] >> this is truly outstanding. let me close the session today with colleagues that have been with us since this morning. it has been a very productive day with distinguished speakers. recognize ouro sponsors for continued support >> and i would one andthank defense central intelligence for sponsoring various aspects of this excellent program. want to thank all our members here, the academic members. certainly our colleagues from the intelligence community.

i wanted to thank our interns that do great work. and certainly to our staff. you are great. >> thank you so much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> this intelligence summit in washington, you can find them

all at our video library. you'll also find today's new york times opinion piece by the russian president vladimir putin on syria which read, in part, i carefully studied the president's address to the nation and i would rather disagree with the case he made on american exceptionalism. stating that the policy is what makes america different. is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. lots of reaction on capitol hill including from john boehner. >> what is your blunt reaction when you read the op-ed today? does america need to respond more forcefully to his comments? what is your blunt reaction?

>> i was insulted. >> the united nations received a letter from syria that is the first step towards joining the chemical weapons treaty. it bans the development, production, stock filing, and use of chemical weapons. kerryary of state john meeting in geneva today. they spoke shortly before the start of their meeting and they spoke for about 15 minutes.

quacks ladies -- >> ladies and massemen, i hope that this ourrest will not affect work with john kerry and our dedication. haveuld like you to unbiased ideas about what we are going to do. hope that you understand well before we start to tell you what we are going to do. we should get to the very serious work that is dedicated till theg once and end the syria problem. and the chemical weapons convention for the prohibition of chemical weapons.

these documents are officially tabled by damascus to corresponding agencies and we will have a look at the corresponding documents with the participation of experts with qualifications to work through postpone compliance with the rules that are established. perceive that this will make unnecessary any strike on the republic. i am convinced our american colleagues and president obama stated that we should follow the peaceful resolution. for this meeting, we have seen the development of these events

to give an additional opportunity for geneva. from --this situation [indiscernible] terrorist threat that is expanding in syria and the region. and in accordance with the geneva communication should agree with the transition bodies . this is our common objective, that today and willrow, all other efforts continue to achieve this objective. thank you for your attention. >> thank you very much,

minister. here with ouro be delegation, and i want to thank you on behalf of all the people that hope that diplomacy can avoid military action. quickly you for coming in order to have this important conversation. a year ago, president obama and president putin directed high-level experts to work together to prepare syria'sncies involving chemical weapons. we have been in regular contact my visits issue since to moscow earlier this year. said tooreign minister me in a phone conversation after , president putin

and president obama thought it would be worthwhile for us to work together to determine if there is life in this concept. this challenge took on grave urgency when the syrian regime in achemical weapons massive and indiscriminate way against its own citizens. president obama and dozens of partners believe that that action is unacceptable. and we have made it clear that we cannot allow that to happen again. the world wonders and watches closely whether or not the live upill lived up -- to its commitment to give up chemical weapons and whether two of the worlds most powerful nations can, together, take a critical step forward in order

to hold the regime to its stated promises. i have seen reports that the regime has suggested as part of the standard process that they ought to have 30 days to submit data on their technical -- on their chemical weapons stockpile. nothingve there is standard about this process at this moment. because of the way the regime the existencend of these weapons, and that they have been used. syrian regime,e in our judgment, is not enough. that is why we are here to work and to worksians with the delegation here in order to make certain that this can be achieved. and russia have had and

continue to have our share of disagreements about the situation in syria, including a the judgment we just offered with respect to who may have done that. but what is important is that there is much that we agree on. agree that on august 21, syrian men, women, and children died due to chemical weapons. one anywhere no should employ chemical weapons. our joining that together with the international community to eliminate stockpiles of these weapons ford be an in-store moment the multilateral nonproliferation efforts. we agree on those things.