tv Washington Journal CSPAN June 18, 2014 7:00am-11:01am EDT
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on his piece about changes at the healthcare.gov website. we look at this morning's headlines. join us on facebook, twitter, or by phone. ♪ host: good morning, everyone. the wall street journal says president obama has ruled out air strikes iraq for now, favoring the plonk special forces and seeking a broader strategy to address the political divisions. times says the president is considering limited airstrikes on sunni militants. president obama meets with congressional leaders 3:00 this afternoon. we want to get your thoughts on a potential presidential bid by hillary clinton in 2016.
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she is on a nationwide book tour. americans are sharply divided on whether they would support mrs. clinton for president. republicans, (202) 585-3881. democrats, (202) 585-3880. independents, (202) 585-3882. let me show you from "the wall street journal" on their latest poll from nbc. poll found 55% of all voters think mrs. clinton is knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency. more photos disagree then agreed with the statement that she is honest and straightforward. you can see the numbers there.
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you can see the issue of knowledge and experience. the poll results highlight a problem. she is an experienced public servant, but a tougher time making a personal connection with voters and gaining their trust. run forillary clinton president? if you go to nbc's news website. hillary clinton remains the overwhelming front runner among democrats.
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this is on nbc's website. hillary clinton was in washington yesterday. interviewsem with for cnn in a town hall format and fox news. cnn is what she told the audience. [video clip] >> i am not prepared to say that we go in with iran right now until we have a better idea of what we are getting ourselves into. they want to do what they did
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for a sub. -- assad. to provide the bulwark of protection. they started out as moderate opposition. what they want to do in baghdad is basically to envelop the president in the iranian embrace and use their own troops, as they did in syria. that is a very difficult position for the united states. >> let me go to the floor. hi. i'm wondering what you believe on the issue of syria the administration can and should do to support what remains of the moderate opposition? >> i write a whole chapter about syria in my book.
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i call it a wicked problem. because it is. i obviously read about what is now publicly known. i recommended that we do more at the very beginning to support the moderate opposition. i believed at the time that they would be overwhelmed by the military force and that they would open up the door to extremists coming in. cnn: hillary clinton in her town hall format interview were she was asked about iran, iraq, and syria. we are asking you to weigh in on whether or not she should run. our first phone call is from byron in louisiana. for letting meou on the program. i am very disappointed in c-span and the direction they have taken lately. they have quoted "the wall street journal." i think that senator clinton
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should run. poll that hadme eric cantor 60%-20 8% in his poll last week? host: how do you view nbc? caller: they have been wrongly -- wrong before. host: tell me why you like hillary clinton for president. caller: because she is better than anything the republicans can scrape up. badly she cares for the people. -- at least she cares for the people. host: carol in ohio. caller: i believe that she should run. i would vote for her in a minute. when you said 37% would not vote for her. is including
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republicans, not just democrats. caller: there are a whole lot of republicans saying they don't like her. that means a whole lot of other people could vote for her. host: how do you think the book tour is going for her? caller: i think it is doing pretty good. i really do. host: have you bought the book? caller: i am going to. host: what are you hoping to learn? caller: i know a lot now about her. i know enough that she would be the best one to be president this next time. i say this as a democrat. i don't think we want any republican in their, the way they are acting right now with the tea party mentality. see all of the republicans get voted out, to tell you the truth, the ones that are calling for going into our and taking all of
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military back into iraq. that is just stupidity. host: from the nbc-wall street journal poll, the poll also showed that approval ratings have dipped. richard is an independent in lake placid, florida. caller: good morning. i think she would be a disaster. i think we would go right back into the scandal ridden administration like we had
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during the clinton administration. i haven't seen anything positive or good that she has done when she was secretary of state. what is she going to hang her hat on? benghazi? she hid behind all the responsibility of any blame and then jump out in front any time there was accolades. what we need is new blood up there. host: do you say that on the republican side? do we need new blood? caller: absolutely. we have one party up there. the democrats and republicans have come together and they have formed what i call the yellow party, which is against the american people. host: you are calling on independent one. you are calling -- you have voted for democrats and republicans. caller: oh, yes. i want to be a good american,
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for the country. we have so many problems. our economy really sucks. jobs -- unemployed. the lowest percentage of the workforce is working right now since the great depression. we have border problems with immigrations. we have thousands of illegals trying to come in. i think it was the obama administration had to advertise for them to come over here and they could get in free and they could go to school, they can get free food, free housing. i don't know what they are trying to do. host: on twitter. here is another tweet.
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"the washington times" has the headline about the hillary clinton interviews. marriagepines on gay and syria. we are getting your take this morning on whether or not hillary clinton can run for president in 2016. marvin in inglewood, california. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i listen to the shows often. i don't call in because i think the whole thing is rate. -- rate.
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-- rigged. am tired of democratic strategists telling us that hillary is the best thing since sliced bread. she is damaged goods. i don't know how she escapes benghazi or the iraq crisis. any good democrat or republican strategist can go to the commercial she made about obama years ago. how can you sit here and say that he is not capable of being president when one of the biggest scandals in our history and you said the question still matter? she is going to be made a piñata for the republicans. host: who is the best candidate? caller: i want to see illegal immigration get past. i would love to see former mayor osaonio bill gross -- villagr
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out of los angeles run. host: did you vote for president obama two times? his presidency, all my god, someone needs to rescue obama. he has done so much damage to the democratic party. we need new blood to infuse it. it is going to be very difficult , when you have a sitting president who is a lame-duck president. you cannot have an election for 2.5 years when you have a struggling incumbent in office. they have to figure that out. "the wall street journal" poll shows the erosion in the presidential support. foreign policy by obama. there was a poll on the presidency's numbers coming up
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newsbc with this breaking this morning. they had an interview with the prime minister of iraq. a quote from him. this is from the bbc interview with the prime minister this morning. also, "the daily beast" had this story yesterday. obama's favorite think tank is saying we should prepare to bomb iraq. the center for american progress presents elaborate arguments regarding the justification for potential u.s. military action in iraq. the conditions under which it should be considered and the limits of such a mission. such documents could later be adopted by the obama administration. decision they ultimately make. should be aieg
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wake-up call for the iraqi government and for the region and u.s. policy. that is coming from the center for american progress here in washington dc. "the new york times" editorial. this is what they say. he is considering his options, including military action. iraqi forces would have to follow up on the ground. if mr. obama decides to take military action, he must make your that it would not be done by support -- to support mr. maliki's government, but to disrupt the militants' momentum
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while the iraqi army recruits. we are getting your thoughts on whether or not hillary clinton should run for president. james in lancaster, ohio. republican. caller: good morning. i didn't want hillary clinton as president. she talks in riddles. when she does talk, you need to get a full set of encyclopedias out to noah words she is saying words she is saying. and what are we going to do about bill clinton running around the white house? .ost: bob caller: i don't think she is capable of bringing this country together again. the first two callers are a crime -- prime example of low info voters. host: why do you say that? caller: they just don't seem to
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know what they're talking about. they must listen to and mess nbc -- msnbc all the time. the lowest trusted network on tv. i have quite a few years behind me. i have never seen such chaos in our world. even with the wars going full blast, things were not screwed up as much as they are now. there isn't anything that is calm anymore. host: do you think that what is happening in the obama administration hangs over a potential 2016 bid but --by hillary clinton? caller: i would think so. the president we have now seems like he is an observer. he does not seem to be a leader to me. i think we all had high hopes. i think we were disillusioned. said that you raise the concern that the
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previous caller raised about bill clinton. here is a poll from "the wall street journal." it found them the most admired resident of the past 25 years. larry in washington dc caller: good morning. i am listening to people. does president obama have a magic wand? look how much event's have occurred in a short span of time. obama is following the footsteps of neville chamberlain. shiite terrorists, sunni terrorists, his longest. stop saying militants. he is a socialist ideologue. host: let's focus on hillary clinton. she is complicit with
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president obama to commit treason with the late ambassador and so forth. there's a lot of deception in the media, a lot of smokes and mirrors smokescreens. host: you mentioned the former ambassador christopher stevens. that is the headline on the front pages of the newspapers. the u.s. has captured a benghazi suspect who they say was the mastermind behind the attack in benghazi, libya on september 11, 2012 that killed christopher stevens and three others. this alleged ringleader awaits federal court after a raid in libya. formission had been planned months and was approved by president obama.
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by the way, the secretary of defense will be up on capitol hill today along with general dempsey. they will be appearing before the senate appropriations subcommittee on defense. they will be talking about spending for the pentagon. we will have coverage of that. go to our website, c-span.org, for more details on that. this is what hillary clinton had to say when she was asked yesterday on fox news about the capture of the benghazi suspect. [video clip] >> my own assessment careened from the video had something to do with it, the video had nothing to do with it. have affected some, it may have affected others. we were not just monitoring what was happening in benghazi once it began to unfold. very dangerous assault on our embassy in cairo that same day, which was clearly link to that video. i was trying to make sense of it
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to rid -- make sense of it. the investigations basically conclude that we can't say that everybody was influenced and that everybody was not. what the intelligence community said was spontaneous protest and that is what they thought at the time. >> you would knowledge that on the night of the attacks, you received a bulletin. responsibility has been claimed. how did that report come to you? reportsme to me as the due to the secretary of state. it was orally delivered. it was a monitoring of a facebook account that said that. as you know and as i write in my chapter, that was reversed. >> they did not fully pull it back. they said they did not participate in this popular uprising. >> there is no doubt terrorists were involved. there is no doubt. beginning, into
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my statements as you know and as i write in the chapter said that these were attackers. who was leading them, we think we now have one of the ring leaders in custody. others were motivated because of their extremism and their ideology and others came along for the ride and maybe others were also motivated by the video. the former secretary of state on fox news yesterday asked about the benghazi attack. the headlines this morning showing that the u.s. has captured an alleged suspect of that benghazi attack. here's the criminal complaint that was put out by the white house. case statest in the that the following is true. but within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the united
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states and pursuant to title 18 within the venue of the united states district court for the district of columbia. this person being accused of killing persons in the course of an attack on a federal facility including views of firearms and a dangerous weapon and attempting and conspiring to do the same. providing, -- attempting, and conspiring to to supporterial terrorists resulting in death. that is thicker model complaint against the suspect -- criminal complaint against the suspect. conviction could make him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison. eric holder said the justice department could bring more charges against him. at least a dozen others have been charged.
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that in "the washington post" this morning on the trial or prosecution of this suspected benghazi attacker. "usa today" has a couple of headlines for you. 43 and somet he is terror analysts say he is a man stridently anti-u.s. that in "usa today." it says that lawmakers are over gitmo versus the united states.
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on the republican side, you have ed royce who heads up the foreign affairs committee. you have others saying he should be put in gitmo. that is the debate happening up on capitol hill over this benghazi suspect. also up on capitol hill today, gm's ceo will be returning to testify about the ignition switch recalls. thewill be before subcommittee and we will have live coverage on c-span 3. that is the gm ceo up on capitol hill today. it may go to carl in chicago. democratic caller. what are your thoughts on hillary clinton? caller: how are you? i don't have a problem with hillary running for president.
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that her verses and a republican is a good thing. are doingicans nothing but wallowing in hatred right now. all they're doing is wallowing in hatred. they are totally irrational. callsd a couple of independent and republican on and there is nothing but hate. the last time the republicans have the white house and the congress -- they need to remember what happened to the country. the republicans haven't done nothing for the american people. 90% of the american people, they have done nothing. they sat on their hands for six years and refused to do anything. people need to understand what leadership is. leadership is leading people who have a willingness to follow. they have no willingness to
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follow-period. ed, good morning. caller: good morning. hillary.ote for i think she would be a good president. there are some things the democrats do that a disagree with. there are some things that republicans do that i disagree with. there are some things i like that the republicans do. when it comes to who i think be best for the states would be hillary. i would vote for hillary. i think she would make a good president. thank you very much. host: charles in arkansas. democratic collar. -- caller. i am a republican.
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i told you that. she made a mistake. anyway. not a problem. we all make mistakes. especially people like hillary. she has accomplished absolutely zero. of thel have not heard law papers got in the white house. we still have not heard how she made 2000 into 100,000. you still have not heard what was stolen out of the archives for hillary and her husband. what shehaven't heard is going to basically do for this country. concerned, and this comes from a republican that voted for kennedy, i voted for carter -- the rest of the
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time, i will vote for the person. there is nobody out there right now. she will do anything and say anything for a vote. debt andot our kids in these people that call in are going to vote for her and they want something for nothing. that is the way i feel. you have a good day. host: who do you like on the republican side? met or i have never heard a tea party person say they hated poor people or they wanted to put people in poverty. all the care about is what we have done for the children. we have put them in debt for the rest of their lives and we don't care about getting them out. as far as i'm concerned, the tea party is the only once that are concerned about the children. host: you mentioned hillary clinton's wealth becoming an issue on her book tour.
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she said that she and bill clinton were dead broke after leaving office. here is the headline from "bloomberg" yesterday. bill and hillary clinton have long supported an estate tax. we are getting your thoughts on whether or not hillary clinton should run for president in 2016. we will keep getting your thoughts. we want to show your reaction on capitol hill on twitter to the
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barbara boxer, the senator from california. we will be talking about that coming up here on "washington journal." we will talk with paul bremmer. he was the head of the interim iraqi government there. we will talk with loretta sanchez, who voted against the the bushlution, giving administration authority to go into iraq. first, fred, independent caller in sioux city. yes, good morning. thanks for taking my call. good morning. can you hear me? host: turned on your tv for me. caller: i've got it turned down. i think that hillary will do exactly what this president is doing. she would forget policies and
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demeanor. i couldn't think of a worse choice of a president. i think our commander-in-chief -- should be a male. a man. i don't think our military commander should be a woman. host: why do you say that? caller: i think that is a masculine role. i think that is a god-given role in a position like that. a warlord, a leader, a commander-in-chief. i think that should be a man, not a woman. host: we will go to kelly, republican caller. caller: good morning. i am a republican. i will say that the last caller sounded a little sexist. i do believe hillary clinton should run. however, i am a republican. the reason i think she should run is a think it will be
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laughable. i believe it is very sad for the democrats that they have already anointed her. i think it is said that the -- i feel quite sad for them. they should have an opportunity to choose from a slew of people. they basically anointed her almost after obama was chosen. i don't know is out of sympathy or regret. as a republican, i look forward to it. she has no record. forward, as a republican, to running against her. host: why do you say she has no record? yes, she was a senator. i don't know what legislation she has to run on. just because you are a senator, look up barack obama.
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we have a community organizer trying to run the world. we see what we have. secretary of state, as we remember, when they asked the state department, give us a list of her accomplishments, they had and retell us what her accomplishments were. they could not list them that day. as a republican, i would rather have a wide range of people to look at, other than just one that is shoved down our throat that has been told, this is your nominee, take it. i love seeing history being made. as a republican, i am all for the first african-american and the first woman. i would just prefer to be the right woman. host: who is the right one? me, as a republican,
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right now, i don't really have a particular one in choice. i do like scott walker and my dark horse, i do love rick perry. host: from hillary clinton's new book. "hard choices." in it, she writes about the iraq vote. let me read to you what she has to say here. going toy were never look past my 2002 vote, i should have stated by regret sooner and in the plainest most direct language possible. i had gone most of the way there i sang i regretted the way president bush used his authority and by saying that if we knew then what we later learned, there would not have been a vote. but i held out against using the word mistake. it wasn't because of political expediency. after all, primary voters and the press were clamoring for me to say that word. what i voted to authorize force,
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i said it was probably the hardest decision i ever had to make. i thought i had act is in good faith and made the best decision i could with information i had and i was not alone in getting it wrong. but i still got it wrong. plain and simple. that is what she had to write. page 137. david in flint michigan. caller: good morning. i think hillary would make an excellent president. i don't like are as good as i do obama. i think obama is the greatest president this country has ever had and it has made my life complete just seeing him do the great work he has done. wondering why we have opened up the lines for independents and republicans. they'll hate democrats. of course they hate democrats. host: bill clinton was able to get some conservative democrats to vote for him.
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hearing from all sides of it , especially independents, who both sides want independents ofvote to rid caller: all the so-called independents are all republicans. host: you think so. caller: oh yeah. host: we will go to minneapolis next. good morning. caller: hi. person. am a democratic i mean i vote all over. i mean i vote all over, i am not a democrat. can you turned on your tv? caller: i'm sorry. yes. i'm not a democrat. i vote all over the map. i would like a woman president, just not hillary. it would be great if they had another candidate. the woman who called a couple of calls before and said, look at
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what obama has done as a community organizer. immunity organizers do a lot of great things. if we look at the country now. it is not perfect. under bush, it was not perfect either. the economy is a little better now. i am not all for obama either. i mean when you look at bush versus obama, you cannot just say he was a community organizer and the country is bad. greta, i wanted to ask you a question. --ouple of weeks ago, i got i noticed that money had the marking stuff on it. i know over the years c-span has done programs on when new money comes out, like the new quarters or thinks like that, have you done a program on the new money and the markings? and what the obama administration host: played in
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that? host:i don't believe so. happy to take the suggestion. if any of you have a suggestion for us, you can e-mail us or you can send a tweet? . we like to hear what you like us to be focusing on and talking about on the show. certainly we appreciate the suggestion. let me go to twitter. bill in texas. democratic caller. caller: good morning. i would focal hillary. ithink that she should run -- would vote for hillary. i think that she should run. she has the help of her husband who was the one who cleared
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america of their debt. question about c-span. runsn't know if mr. lamb it or not. your next guest is mr. bremer. i look a c-span all the time. these guys that you are bringing them theire asking opinion about obama when they are the ones who voted to use the army in iraq and they are the ones who caused this trouble. correctwrong, you can me. i haven't seen anyone on c-span in the last two weeks that can counter what they are saying and you are bringing these guys you like. i just don't get why this is happening. take itll, you have to on a whole, first of all. go to our website.
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c-span.org. coming up on "washington journal," we will be talking to paul bremer. ton we will be talking loretta sanchez, democrat, served on the armed services committee, she voted against authorization of the iraq investigation. we will get that voice in. first, dr. oz is up on capitol hill yesterday before the senate commerce subcommittee. testifying about weight loss products. senator claire mccaskill raised concerns about how dr. oz promotes these products on his tv show. take a look. [video clip] >> i do think i have made it more difficult. it is in a tent -- intent to engage viewers with flowery language. it ends up being incendiary and provided fodder for unscrupulous advertisers. that clip that you played, which is over two years old, and i
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have done hundreds of segment since then. we have specifically restricted our use of words. i'm literally not speaking about things that would otherwise talk about. know what will happen. i will say something very -- we , a south american root that had a big study published on it, a high-quality study where they showed that it help people lose weight and help their health. it was done by an academic center and was not funded by industry. we talked about it and i used as careful language as i could and still, there were internet scam ads picking one or two supportive words. >> listen. i am surprised that you are defending -- i have tried to do a lot of research in preparation for this.
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the scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you call miracles. when you call a product america landed do something you can buy and it is something that gives people false hope, i don't understand why you need to go there. you have so much you do on your show that makes a difference and is controversial enough that you got lots of use. i understand you are in the business of getting viewers. i implore you to look at the seven -- i would ask you to look at the seven lists that the ftc put out on the gut check. it is very simple. causes substantial weight loss no matter how much you eat. causes permanent weight loss like you said. looking to bust your body fat for good. if you look at those seven, if you spend time on your show telling people that this is the seven things you should know,
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that there is not magic and a bottle, that there is not a magic pill, that there is not some kind of magic root or highside berry or raspberry key tone that is going to make it not matter that you are not moving and eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrate. do you disagree with any of these seven? >> senator, i know the seven. i say those things on my show all the time. >> then why would you say that something is a miracle in a bottle? a cheerleadero be for the audience. when they don't think they have hope or make it happen, i want to look and i do look everywhere , including alternative healing traditions for any evidence that might be supportive to that. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back with paul emer. he headed up the reconstruction of iraq and setting up its .overnment
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have the wallu street journal saying they have ruled that airstrikes and then he have other papers saying has to prove limited drone strikes. guest: there are two thoughts that need to be addressed. the media problem of terrorists moving into iraq and a broader problem that we will eventually have to get to -- the collapse of the geopolitical structure that has been in place for 100 years. on the first problem, the president identified a week ago in his statement on friday week the unitedterest states as in not allowing the isi s terrorist group to gain a hold in iraq. that is a an assessment of our media interests. my own view is that that will require military action by the united states.
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the president will come down on that or not is a question. papers are somewhat contradictory. i think it will require limited military involvement, which would have two military objectives, to stop and remove baghdad and the holy cities. then to have the iraqi forces recover the territory that has been lost. if you think about it from a military point of view, airstrikes can matter. airstrikes by the french basically change the battle in libya. it can work. not without effective ground forces, but i'm not talking about putting american combat forces by the way, i'm talking about a need for intelligence on the ground. to help plan and execute these
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operations, which is exactly how it worked during the search. ast: president obama has sent little over 200 troops to the area to help secure the situation. is that adequate? aret: if i understand, they basically there to protect the american embassy. they are not there, immediately anyway, to cordoning with the iraqis on a broader problem. see whate will have to the next announcement is from the white house on the subject. i am obviously fully supportive of protecting the embassies. and does not solve address the question of what we will do about keeping isis from establishing a base. host: how do you militarily hold back isis from continuing their momentum, while at the same time not alienating the sunni population in iraq? guest: i think it is important
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-- people subdivide this very quickly into a shia-sunni thing. it is more complicated than that. many, many sunnis do not like al qaeda and these terrorists. as we saw during the program of the awakening, when we were able to mobilize the tribes in the western province in 2007 and 2008 to fight against and defeat al qaeda. have alreadyle shown their colors by executing prisoners, by establishing sharia law. to be popularing with the vast majority of sunnis . the problem is how do we do it in a way that doesn't make look like we are siding warmly with a maliki and the shia-based government? guest: how do you do that?
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--host: how do you do that? guest: it is going to be very different. -- difficult. maliki as we withdrew, started an anti-sunni campaign and anti-kurdish campaign. military of the army officers we have established. we need to get my leaki -- maliki to broaden things. my experience is that only the americans can actually be there and broker a political reconciliation. they cannot do it themselves for a lot of reasons. no other country can do it. think what secretary kerry ought to be in baghdad. he ought to go there and show them that we really mean it, that maliki has got to broaden.
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get onricans and got to the ground to promote a broad and political government. maliki go?d guest: i don't take a position. this is a democratically elected prime minister. public comments such as secretary kerry made yesterday, critical about maliki , strengthen our hand in trying to make him do our thing. i would prefer to see a top u.s. official like the secretary in baghdad talking quietly with liki with everybody in the mix to try to pull together a government. host: did you know maliki during your tenure? guest: he was one of a group of advisers around the first elected prime minister and he was not very prominent.
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i met him, but i had no impression of him. no personal impression. a very he has not been good prime minister, in terms of particularly the last couple of years by this narrowing of the political base. how can there be a cooperative government for the iraq use how do you bring sunnis in?nd a shia population guest: it has to be done through active diplomacy that i think only the americans can do. host: how does it work? guest: it works like any diplomacy. you sit down comedic a lot of tea, you talk to a lot of people. down, you drink a lot of tea, you talk to a lot of people. hussein,rowing saddam effectively we ended 1000 years bydomination of this area the sunnis. they have been in charge for 1000 years.
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one of the arguments that i had to make over and over -- and obviously it seems to have been fading in the last decade -- one of the arguments i had to make to the shia was that representative government is a good thing, one of the key elements is respect for minority rights. that is a hard message to the shia to understand after 1000 years. the loss of power is a very hard message for the sunnis to understand. there is a very long historical problem, effectively a political revolution. you have to find a way to appeal to their interest and try to find a way you can put their interests together so they're willing to work together. it is much more difficult because of the events of the last six months, even then it was into thousand three. we have to try. is that important thing
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we have to have a military strategy. unless we stop isis, all of these other things are details. we have got to stop isis. why should the u.s. go back and with special forces when this could just happen again once the united states leaves? it has been 10 years. guest: it is a fair question. all of the polls are clear. the american people do not want to go back in. i understand that. the only reason is because we have an interest that the president correctly identified. the world's worst terrorist group should not gain control of a big chunk of property, very rich property by the way -- this is not afghanistan with no money and back behind the hills. this is the possibility of an al qaeda type getting its hands on a very rich part of the world. by the way, they have americans among them.
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we saw an american suicide bomber last week in syria. it is a much more difficult group to contain than it was with the taliban. the president is right. that is the only reason. you don't go into this kind of thing out of some kind of fantasy. go because you're clear identification of american interest compels you. it is not a happy thing to have to say. host: before we get to phone calls, there have been critics of the bush administration, of you, who -- point back to your leadership for those 14 months when you were head of the interim government, the role you ofyed in forcing members saddam hussein's party out and dismantling the iraqi military, that that is what led to the insurgencies we have seen over the years and the current situation now. why don't i answer both of those if we have a minute. it is important to deal with some of these myths. identifiedarty was
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by every sector of the iraqi community that the state department talk to -- everybody agreed there should be no place for the baath party in the post-saddam era. this was a recommendation made at the end of 2002 before we went in. the u.s. military outlawed the baath party before i got to iraq. the question was, what are you going to do about the members? what we did was a very narrow decision to say to the top 20,000, the top 1%, that they could no longer be in the government. most of those people had already left by the time that was issued. contrary to the myth, it did not collapse the government. the government kept going. it was the single most popular thing that we did when we were there. aboveays pull the bone --
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95 percent popularity. even sunnis agree with it. i did make a mistake. i turned the implementation of this narrowly defined decree over to iraqi politicians who made a much broader. that was a big mistake. on the army, number one, there was no army. the problem was to choose the word disband, because the army went home. what we really were doing was saying we didn't want to recall the army. why? saddam's army was a conscript army. about 300,000 shia enlisted men who had been drafted under an even larger officer core that was dominated by sunnis, and which brutalized the shia con script. what happened, when the war started to go against them, they all went home. there was no army. we would have to go back into the villages and farms and force shia conscripts back under -- that's point number. instead we decided to build a new army. we gave pensions to every
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single officer of the old army, and we said to them, up to the level of colonel, you're welcome to come into the new army. host: even new sunnis? guest: even new sunnis. by the time i left, 70% were from the old army. they had vetted them, they were in the new army. third point, they defeated al qaeda. by end of 2008, al qaeda had been defeated by the iraqi army. it was a well trained army. you say, well, why is it so screwed up now? it's screwed up now, because as i mentioned earlier, al-maliki, after with we druw our troops, basically started to purge down through the ranks, even down to the battalion level, putting in his partisans who were not ertainly most of them trained. everybody knows the unit leader key. if you don't trust the major, if you think this guy doesn't
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know what he's doing because he used to be selling rugs, you're not going to fight for him. and we saw a very quick collapse along those lines, particularly in mosul. host: let's get to calls. paul in tennessee, republican caller. good morning, paul. caller: good morning. i want to tell you something. i take my 30 days before i call in, and i've got just a quick couple of comments that i'd like to make, and i've got a question for mr. bremmer. host: all right. caller: all right. mr. bremmer, it's an honor for me to get to speak to you right now, but i want to take us back through history just a little bit. during the clinton administration, the towers were tried to -- they tried to blow them up. and then we had all of our bases in south africa that was blew up while president clinton just sit on his hands and absolutely done nothing, and at he fired a few missiles
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afghanistan, virtually nothing. now here comes obama in here, and he's telling the enemy, hey, we're going to leave on thursday, and you guys can do whatever the heck you want to. after we went to war in iraq, we supposedly was going there to find nuclear weapons. they didn't find nuclear weapons, but the man had used chemical weapons on his own people and gassed them, just an evil man, and not long after we was in there, libya turns over nuclear weapons, and they had no way to make nuclear weapons. host: hey, paul, we've got a lot of folks who want to get in, so what's your question then for mr. bremmer? caller: mr. bremmer, can you tell me, do you think -- what's the chances that those nuclear
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weapons that qaddafi turned over, what's the chances that those come right out of iraq and all these condemns are going to say that there was no l qaeda there. zawahiri was killed right there. host: ok, i think we got your point. guest: well, i think qaddafi's nuclear program was his own program t. wasn't anything to do with the iraqis. the intelligence just turns out to have been wrong, and it wasn't just our intelligence about saddam, it was the french, the israelis, british, the germans, the rurks people who even opposed our invasion there. i don't think the qaddafi thing had any relation to the iraqis. host: the caller also brought up clinton and al qaeda. guest: well, look, i chaired the bipartisan national commission on terrorism under president clinton, and we reported in 2000 to president clinton that we saw a new terrorist threat arising, largely because of events in the 1990's.
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we even predicted a mass casualty attack on the american homeland, and by complete chance, had a picture of the world trade center on the cover of our report. so i guess i agree with the caller's thrust that it was important during the 1990's to understand we faced a new threat, and unfortunately, either the clinton nor the bush administration really took account until 9/11. host: ambassador bremer, did iran benefit from the overthrow of hussein? guest: well, it may have. we'll see thousand whole thing plays out. we're in the middle of a major, potential restructuring of the whole political, geopolitical structure, as i mentioned, and it would be unfortunate if that were the case, because iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, has been identified as such by six presidents of both parties,
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including this president. host: we'll go on to james in newark, new jersey, democratic caller. hi, james. caller: how you doing, paul bremer? i agree with everything you said so far as what should be done. you're right on the marks. i have had discussions with president george w. bush way back in january 5, 2002, but the whole situation before, i'm one that says we should invade with him. we kept in touch with each other for several years afterwards, and what happened is i did not know at the time, because i talk about the president.
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host: james, you agree there should be air strikes? caller: no, no, i agree that maliki should integrate his army, his cabinet with the shiites and the kurds. host: all right, james. paul bremmer? guest: well, we agree, and i'm glad to hear you support the idea of a political -- let me be clear. both of these things have to happen. there needs to be a military strategy which is enveloped in a broader political strategy, which in turn eventually will be broadened in a strategy to address the geopolitical unrest in the region. all three of those things have to happen. but unless you do the military part, the other two are just talk. host: just to be clear, drone strikes, do you think that's a good idea? guest: yes. here's the problem. the military strategy would have two objectives, stop the southward flow. to do that, you can attack the lines of communication and the assembly basis, including some
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of them across the border in syria. that can be done with manned aircraft. but retaking the cities is not a job for manned aircraft. you are at too much of a risk of civilian casualties. that's when the drones come in. both of these require better intelligence on the ground. host: why can't the iraqis get the intelligence? guest: the iraqi intelligence system is still relatively new. we set up an intelligence ministry effectively in early 2004. you don't develop a robust intelligence system obviously overnight. you say, well, it's a decade. yeah, it's a decade, but it takes time. they relied during the surge very much on american intelligence, people on the ground who could help a drone strike, for example. so you're trying to take mosul. you need somebody on the ground who says the bad guys are in that building, not that one, because a drone strike is a precision strike and hopefully
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reduces collateral damage and civilian casualties. you can't do that with an f-16. host: we'll go to john next in winston-salem, north carolina, independent caller. hi, john. caller: good morning. good morning, mr. bremer. i have two questions. you actually answered one already. but the first question, and i'll get off the phone as quickly as i can. why are we still supporting the boundaries which have nothing to do with the middle east, but have to do with the english and the french? and my second comment is, thank you for the explanation about the baathist situation, because i never did understand it. i guess i'm going to have to go out and get your book. thank you so much. guest: well, thank you. here's the thing, john. you're right, this was an arrangement made by the brittish and french diplomats toward the end of the first world war that effectively said the turkish empire is going to collapse in this region, we need to organize it. it effectively created lebanon, syria, iraq, and the kingdom of
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jordan out of that collapse. i didn't say i supported it. what i said was, i think in the third part of this event, military, political in iraq, and then the next one, will have to address the question of redrauing borders. withdrawing borders that were drawn, no matter how artificial they were, that were drawn 100 years ago, is not something lightly undertaken, as we saw in yugoslavia, crimea. once you start taking apart borders, even if they're arbitrary, you better be sure you know what the end result is going to be. so i'm not -- i'm not advocating one way or the other on pico. i actually do believe, if possible, america's interests are in a unified iraq, soiled rather not pick apart iraq. but once you start fiddling with borders, you better -- you're handling dynamite. host: let me show you the "new
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york times" op-ed page this morning. don't fight in iraq and ignore syria. she writes this, why is the threat of isis in iraq a sufficiently vital interest, but not the rise of isis in syria? host: well, i agree with her. and i don't often agree with her, but i agree with her on this. i mean, basic what will she is saying is we should have done something about isis before it got to iraq. i agree. for three years, i have been advocating doing something to arm the more moderate rebels in air and to attack assad's force so he doesn't have the capacity for these terrible bombs she mentioned in her article, which have now killed something over 160,000 people in syria. so she's right. what we're seeing with isis moving into iraq is a
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reflection of the fact that we didn't do enough in syria. and by the way, that's a broader lesson in foreign policy in general. problems tend to get worse -- a good starting place to understand foreign policy is procrastination very often makes things worse, and we're paying a price for that. host: front page of the "financial times" this morning, selling terror, how isis charts its brutality in annual reports. this since 2012, the islamic state of iraq and isis has issued night reports outlining in detail its operations, the number of bombings, assassinations, check points, suicide missions, cities taken over, and people that they have converted to their cause -- host: what does this tell you about this group? guest: it tell you that it is essentially al qaeda on steroids. i mean, these are really evil people. we've seen pictures in the last week of them assassinating --
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just killing what we would call prisoners of war. they have started programs of amputation. they have imposed sharia law in mosul, where where they took over. these are taliban-lake actions and al qaeda-like actions. and that's why i think the president is right when he says we can't afford to let these people have a foot hold in iraq. host: jersey girl says this on twitter, if we invaded iraq due to the fear of w.m.d. and quickly found that they were not there, why didn't we simply leave? guest: well, that's a good question. put yourself in the position of the president who took the decision to get rid of saddam. we can debate the whole problem of the intelligence, but he did it. there then are essential two choices, the one you're talking about, which is just pull out, so what is left there then? probably a complete mess.
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or do we take some colonel out of saddam's army and say, ok, newer charge here, the way qaddafi was for 30 years? first of all, our intelligence was so bad on the iraqi leadership of the army that we couldn't possibly have identified a colonel. we didn't even know the names of many of the generals. now, there were in the iraqi army, 12,000 generals. in our army, which was the same size, there were 307 generals, so it was a rather top-heavy operation. so i don't see how we had any choice. on a political basis, for an american president to send a half a million americans halfway around the world, to throw out a dictator and then just wash his hands and go home seems unrealistic. the president's view was, we ought to help the iraqis recover their country in two ways, get their economy going and start them moving towards representative government. and i think that was a correct
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decision. obviously implementation is difficult when did you from tyranny and dictatorship to freedom and representative government. it's notize. but i don't think washing our hands of it was an option. >> and 10 years later, hasn't the u.s. soldiers and the u.s. personnel there done the best they can to provide what you said was the goal? guest: they have the constitution that's the most liberal constitution in the arab world. they've had six elections, including one just a couple of months ago. maliki, for all his faults, is elected in the arab world, essential unique. the economy today per capita income is six times what it was when i arrived in 2003. internet is available, cell phones, goods, cars, it was a booming economy and a successful military operation to the end of about 2009. it has deteriorated dramatically obviously in the last couple of years.
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host: we'll go next to john in glen view, illinois, democratic caller. hey, john, go ahead. guest: hi, good morning, mr. bremer. can you hear me? host: we can, john. caller: i was hoping that you could help put to rest -- you know, you were there near the beginning. the first call mentioned libya, nuclear weapons, and i've never heard that before, but you very frequently hear, well, they have chemical weapons in syria now, they must have come from there. i was hoping you can put this to rest, and i wanted to let the listeners know, there are a lot of military reports that have come out about what they did and what they found, and most people don't realize, we had pretty much taken over the entire country. we had access to everything, all industries, factories, everything. and a chemical weapons program, we're not talking about a closet, like biological weapons. it's huge, a thing that involves manufacturing, purchasing, tracking employees, parts, storage, maintenance,
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raw materials, payments for different companies, hundreds of thousands potentially millions of documents that need to be kept, even if you try to hide them, most of those documents aren't government documents. they're documents to other people, contractors, factories, etc. and our military knows what they were looking for, no matter how much you try to hide that, they know the kinds of things, the materials, who would have control of them, etc., and for people to believe that you can just move these weapons to syria and not able to find the records of a full industrial program like that, those people have to believe our military were incompetent incident to an unheard of degree. host: all right. let's take that point, john. guest: well, we did find evidence -- we did actually find some chemical weapons. they were old and probably not effective, but we did find some. we certainly found a great deal of the kind of information you're talking about, about his
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plans for his nuclear program and documents and people, and we interviewed a number of people in charge of his nuclear program who made an important point, which kind of relates to today. they said as soon as sanctions were loosened at all, which would have happened if we hadn't moved, as soon as they were -- as soon as he had kept in place the personnel programs and plans to restart his nuclear program. while we didn't find actual nuclear operations, we found the stuff you're talking, about the paperwork that you're talking about. there was no doubt he had a nuclear plan, and he had a biological program that the inspectors missed for five years after the first gulf war. we didn't find them until 1995, and only then when some iraqi exiles told us, go look at that farm and that barn and you'll find the weapons, and we did
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find them in 1995. host: we should let our viewers know the former vice president, dick cheney, along with his daughter, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs write today in "the wall street journal," a the collapsing obama doctrine, rarely has a u.s. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. go to michael in imperial beach, california. michael, you are up, independent caller, go ahead. guest: good morning. mr. bremer, i was wondering if you could expand on the stories of the $100 bills that were brought in to iraq that supposedly disappeared f. you're in tharge of that theater at the time, you should have the ultimate knowledge. could you please inform us if those stories are true, and do you recommend sending more pallets of $1 hundred bills? thank you, sir. guest: to your second question, no, i don't recommend sending more pallets. let's be sure we understand what we're talking about. the money that we dispensed,
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these $100 bills in packets and so forth, was iraqi funds that had been in escrow in the u.s. federal reserve back in new york. the money belonged to the iraqi people, it was not american money. it was the only way we could pay the expenses of the iraqi government was in cash. there was no banking system, the banks were all closed. there were no a.t.m. machines. there was no mechanism for electronic transfer of funds in his banking system. i had a monthly payroll for the iraqi government that was working for me of $250 million. so a billion dollars every four months had to be paid out, just to pay payroll. the only way to pay payroll information cash because there was no cashing system. so we had to basically get the money to baghdad and then fly it out on military aircraft or take it out in convoys to various towns all over the
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country so we could pay our payroll. pay our pensions, to pay any expenses we had that had to be paid in cash. we finally got towards a better system after we interviewed a new iraqi currency in the months of october through january 2004, and we could shift to the iraqi dinar. but an important point for americans to remember, this was not american money. this was iraqi money t. belonged to them. and it was essential to keeping the government going. host: and why did we have iraqi money? guest: well, we had iraqi money for two reasons. there had been money that we had from seized assets after the first gulf war. then there was a program to put a certain amount of money effectively in an escrow account under the u.n. resolutions that the iraqis -- it was a way to try to starve saddam of money during the 1990's, so this was iraqi money. and then we confiscated about a billion dollars worth of assets both in the central bank when
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we went into the central bank various kinds of jewels and other kinds of assets that were in saddam's, he had 22 palace,, in his various palaces, they were then part of the iraqi funds. host: when you take a look at iraq by the numbers, one number that sticks out to people is the cost, $1.7 trillion. i mean, you explained when you were there what was happening with the money. what is at the root of waste in iraq when it comes to money? guest: well, the waste in iraq, as in most countries, is corruption. some of it's just plain badly spent as well. but corruption is key. we knew there was going to be a corruption problem, because dictatorships always are corrupt by definition. the dictator controls the resources and doles it out to his cronies, and there's always a kickback. when i got to iraq, there were
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15 different exchange rates for iraqi currency and other currencies. so you've got the good exchange rate if you were a buddy or a crony of somebody in the revolutionary council. you got the bad rate if you were just some guy on the street in a bazaar. typical of corruption. everything becomes corrupt because the system is politically corrupt. we tried to deal with it, and i can say not very successfully in retrospect, by setting up independent inspector generals for the first time in iraqi history and each of their .inistries, ministry of we established based on the swedish system, where you have a national, independent person who -- to whom any iraqi could report suspicion or acts of corruption. we established the independence of the central bank for the first time, so it didn't just take orders from the ministry of finance. we did a variety of things to try to start addressing at least in a structural way the
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problem of corruption. i would not problem that we succeeded. one of the problems is there's a lot of money in iraq, and when you got a lot of money sloshing around, a lot of it's going to go missing. host: right. we'll go to judy next, virginia beach, democratic caller. hi, judy. caller: hi. good morning. host: good morning. you're on the air. caller: ok, i just have a couple of comments and questions. i think that al gore should have been president because he would not have invaded another country. he would have considered what the u.n. was doing and let the people who were there look for the weapons of mass destruction. now, i see you on tv a couple of times, and i'm wondering about your qualifications to speak about what's going on
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currently when you failed terribly on what happened in e past, and we have lost thousands of lives, injured thousands of our military, where we couldn't have been doing something with other countries, and considering what the u.n. suggested. host: all right, judy, we'll take that point. guest: first of all, i don't have a view behalf al gore would have done. my sense is probably he would have done the same thing given the intelligence we had in the wake of 9/11, but it's a counterfactual question. secondly, i don't accept that we failed. in fact, during my time, and effectively up to the end of 2008, 2009, we succeeded. we succeeded economically and politically. we had six elections. the economy is booming, and so
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that's important to remember. you mentioned other countries. it sometimes gets lost, but it's important to go back to the facts here. 42 countries, in addition to the united states, had troops on the ground while i was in iraq, 42, including every one of our nato allies except france and germany. i had on the staff, on the political side of the government, citizens from 25 different countries, and it's important to note that all of these people were volunteers. nobody was assigned to go there. so everybody who came there wanted to be there, wanted to help in the reconstruction. and i believe that the record of the time i was there from 2003 to 2004 will show that we id the basis for a stable, economically viable, representative government. i don't pretend that it has succeeded as of today, because we got a real problem today. but i'll take -- i'll take
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responsibility for the time i was there, and i made mistakes, but on the whole, i think we did pretty well. host: in "usa today," according to the council on foreign relations, isis emerged in the ashes of the u.s.-led invasion to oust hussein, so no invasion, no isis overrunning iraq. minus the invasion, there wouldn't have been maliki's shiite government, leading to an entirely foreseeable sectarian war. guest: i think kirsten, whom i have great respect for, has it wrong. isis emerged in syria, not in iraq, and it emerged in syria in the last three years. i would argue largely because the united states did not take action to deal with the situation in syria in time. isis was not there. al qaeda, there was an al qaeda group in iraq, and it was
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defeated, and it was defeated basically by the iraqi army, with help from the americans, by the end of 2009. so i just think her facts are wrong. host: the caller brought up, she's seen on you tv, did you enter cnn's he ran burnett, things got heated. you wrote a piece in "the wall street journal" that you touched on a little bit here today. why are you out talking about this now? guest: well, i'm not talking mostly because and you your colleagues in the press have asked me to defend myself, which i intend to do. host: but you first wrote this "wall street journal" -- guest: that was the platform. host: why did you decide to write that piece? guest: because i'm very concerned about what's happening there. i think there is a crisis of political authority in iraq, inside of which there is a crisis of the military, and outside of which there is this even more important problem of the regional geopolitical structure, which eventually we're going to have to get to,
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some kind of a new concert of countries agreeing on what's going to happen there. to me it's an important event, and it was something i was involved in, and i felt it was important to give my views. host: well, woodbridge, california, independent caller. hi, john. caller: hi. how are you doing this morning? host: good morning. guest: i always find your program so interesting to listen to the ignorance of people. ive had tremendous respect for mr. bremer during his career in understanding what he had to put up with when he entered view iraq. unbelievable circumstances for a person just to exist, let alone be successful. i wish he were our secretary of state at this time as opposed to what we had to deal with. guest: that makes one of you. caller: well, i'll stand up for that. the question, in regard to the military i often thought that the use
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would be leaving europe. i thought we would move the third infantry division down into iraq and maintain our presence overseas for an extended period of time as opposed to pulling everybody out immediately under the obama administration. the reason for my call is the concern about what the kurds are doing. i understand that they are doing a military resistance to i sis after the took mosul. the kurdsking that would take advantage of the situation. host: what is your thinking on that? it is something we haven't talked about yet. guest: the kurds have really shown that they have the only discipline organized military force at the moment.
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they are probably 100,000 or more. they fought in mosul. contestedred a long occurred-arab town -- kur d-arab town that the kurds has insisted needs to be kurdish. they are not going home. their protests -- they are essentially the precipitating event of tearing iraqi apart. gets worseation and the iranians decide to get involved to protect the holy cities, the kurds are likely to declare independence in the north and secede from iraq. that is something that threatened when i was there. remember thatt to the kurds cannot be comfortable
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with an isis extremist group running a large part of the country. they are not extremists. they have some among them, but they are not extremists. they are not going to become bowl with the iranian revolutionary guard taking over the south. they have to establish an independent kurdistan and that may sound benign, it is not benign. both iran and turkey have large, restive kurdish minorities, particularly in iran. consider the possibility that a kurdish declaration of independence leads to a broader regional war. host: how so? ? guest: people forget that the iranian people are a bare majority in iran, the persians. it is still in effect, the persian empire.
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there was a large minority in , uneasyhwest, a large kurdish population. they have arabs in the south along the gulf. they have others near pakistan. others in the northeast. from a persian point of view, the prospect of iraq breaking apart faces the question of persia breaking apart. you have to ask yourself if you are the national security advisor in iran and he says, what should we do in iraq? that national security adviser might say, if iraq breaks up, we are going to have our own problems. we will have problems with the kurds and others. host: when you take a look at the religious breakdown. 95% shiite.
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5-10% sunni. they're probably mostly down on the gulf coast were most of the arabs are. there are kurds who were shia kurds. that is less important than the national question, though i'm not an expert on iran. if you are an iranian leader and you look at what happened to the soviet union when it collapsed with dagestan and chechnya, you could be getting somewhat nervous. couple ofme get in a other voices. why is the iraqi army so ill prepared to fend off i test after all of the training -- isis after all of the training we gave them? guest: fair question, and two reasons. , in 2011, we basically pulled back almost all
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of our intelligence gathering capability on which the iraqis had come to depend. it is a fact. they did. they do not have the kind of intelligence that they needed. you cannot have an effective military operation without good intelligence. which is why i am glad to see the president is still talking about at least intelligence gathering. thatecond point is maliki did is purge the army from many that we trained. there will be a lot of action reports. my guess is that it is those two things. host: nick, democratic collar. go ahead. caller: i am in disagreement with about everything you have said here so far today. i will start with the first thing when you started off. you said you know the american people are really opposed to this and have been opposed to it before and did not support the first time around. the cost of it, you are not even
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dealing with any of that. thenot dealing with any of issues of conservatives in the country, bringing the debt down and the money spent there and wasted. you are in denial and so much of this. tocourse, you are not going except that you failed over there. why would you? i would bring the whole bush -cheney doctrine down. that would put a lock to everything that bush and cheney said. the people in these countries, they went in because they were coerced, they were lied to, just like the soldiers in this country who paid the price. host: a lot on the table. guest: first of all, let's be careful about what the polls show about american support. if you look at the polls and polls004 and later, the were quite clearly supportive of what president bush did. let's be precise historically. on the cost. i am concerned about the cost.
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whatever it is. people have numbers. $1 trillion. whatever it is. i happen to believe in dollars budgets. one can say was a mistake for the president not to raise taxes to pay for the war. that would have brought it home to everybody sooner what the war was costing. you said one thing that was not true. which is therefore want to point out. allies were not coerced into assisting us. people don't put soldiers on the ground unless they believe it is in their interest. there were 42 nations who decided it was in their interest. they were not coerced. host: thank you sir for talking to our viewers. guest: appreciated for having me over. host: we will continue this conversation with loretta sanchez, who voted against giving the bush administration authority to invade iraq. later, our spotlight on magazine series continues.
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all of that is coming up after this newsbreak from c-span radio. >> congress will be very busy with money matters today. senators are expected to start debate on a $180 billion measure that would fund five cabinet departments for the upcoming budget year. among the money matters before the house, a $570 billion pentagon funding measure. house will be live on c-span, the senate on c-span 2. entrepreneurs, students, and inventors will be showing off their innovations at the white house's first maker fair. over 100 participants from 25 states will join president obama , as he highlights entrepreneurship and promotes new tools to help new businesses create and market their products. today, the commerce department releases the trade deficit for the first quarter. japan will release its monthly trade deficit for may.
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finally, in london, policymakers that the bank of england voted unanimously today to keep their interest rates at record lows. unwilling to tamper with an economy that is returning to normal. the minutes published today for the june meeting showed policymakers were united in voting to keep interest rates steady in the united kingdom. some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. the thesis of the book is that there was a whole group of people in america, a big swath of america, that is being ignored, left behind, not included in the discussion for other party. particularly, i would argue, the republican party. i called him blue-collar conservatives. that are out there working people, most of them do not have college degrees.
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the people who understand the importance and value of work and responsibility and people who understand the importance of family and faith and believe in freedom and limited government. you say, those are conservative republican voters. in many cases, they are not. many of them are not voting at all because they do not see either party talking to them about concerns they have in trying to create an opportunity for them to live the american dream. senatorr pennsylvania and presidential candidate rick santorum argues that working americans have been abandoned by both political parties and offers conservative answers to their problems. saturday night at 10:00 eastern on afterwards. -- after words. this week and come away discuss "the forgotten man." book tv, television for serious readers. for over 35 years, c-span
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brings public affairs event's from washington directly to you, putting you into the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house all at the public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. what justin hd, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. in hd, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. host: we are back with loretta sanchez. thank you for joining us. guest: my pleasure. let: before we get to iraq, me begin with the capturing of this benghazi suspect. front page of the "washington post." what do you know about him? well, probably some things that i can't tell you.
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obviously, a mastermind. we have been following his movements as predicted by people on the ground. people close to him indicating what his limits would be. obviously now hand-in-hand. we are tying to figure out -- he had figured out that we were upon him. he to everything else they had been planning is the issue we would like to get from him. -- do yout: host: have evidence he was there the night of the attack in benghazi? ? guest: today we will definitely classified hearings
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about that. host: should he be read his miranda rights or should they be interrogating him? they're probably interrogating him as we speak, i would assume. we need to know anything about an imminent threat that would be plotted by him and his followers. the obama administration has decided that he will be brought to the united states and he will be moran dies -- marandized at some point. host: should he be sent to gitmo? guest: you are talking to a democrat. i think gitmo plays a purpose.
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i don't like that it was slammed and that it is a problem in our sides. ino think it plays a role some of the situations that we may have in the forefront. the wall street journal saying that the president has rolled out airstrikes, others are saying, the new york times, saying he has -- is considering airstrikes. would you support airstrikes? guest: i begin with the whole purpose of, what is our interest there? protecting our citizens and our piece of land there that we have an embassy on. that is first and foremost. i airstrikes are required, would before that in order to protect their people and our interest there. isis does not have that capability. it can change the dynamic fairly have,y, as long as we
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whether it is kurdish troops or iraqi troops who can finish up that kind of a battle. it is pretty straightforward that in these types of cases, airstrikes alone cannot get the job done. what are your parameters to agreeing to that? guest: the first and foremost thing we need to do is have actionable intelligence. understand what is going on. i think that is one of the first things we are beginning to do with maliki. this thing could've been predicted. i have been predicting for years that we would have a civilian war the minute that we left this area, in particular because i believe we happen to have a pretty bad player in the situation and that would be the current prime minister. driven ton very exclude the kurds and the sunnis
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from the military, from leadership positions, from work .ithin the government structure the good the united states has provided has flowed mostly to the shiites and to his cronies. he has been, and my particular opinion, a bad player. host: can the united states, should the united states say any help from us is going to mean that the president -- prime minister has to step down? guest: i would certainly encourage that. host: can we say that when he was a democratically elected? guest: i believe that what our it is much better for diplomats to try to figure out a solution to this and for congress to figure out a solution. we are working on it. we have seen the president say
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that he has got to address it. he certainly has years and years in which he has sown the seeds to have this kind of strife go on in iraq. president obama --host: president obama meeting with congressional leaders at 3:00 today to weigh his approach. this is what they write. tehran is closer to sending a nuclear weapons deal. our guess is that america possibly to iran for help in iraq will make them more likely to drive a harder nuclear bargain. this smacks mostly of strategic desperation. it is when an administration does when it realizes its policies have failed and the damage is becoming too obvious to hide from the american public. guest: as somebody who has been
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on the forefront because of the types of work and committee work i have with respect to nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation, i will say that it is my hope and i believe that we can strike something with tehran with respect to nuclear desire to arm. i would put it that way. think the desire is there. that would be separate from what we are facing here in iraq. having said that, i don't trust the iranian government one iota. host: why not? guest: they hold control over the people. they have lied to us. because itinto that is classified information and they are probably listening to this. just from a human rights perspective, from the embargo we
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put on them, the sanctions we put on them and their hiding of how they are getting their supplies out, for example. because of their lies over the nuclear armament. host: we will go to calls. frank and orlando florida. democrat line. caller: good morning. how are you. host: we are listening. caller: i am having trouble with all of this -- what is all this worry about iraq and all of that? .hese people are terrorists isis is a terrorist organization. they said they want to hurt us. you have people on c-span saying yes, they want to hurt america. we are having a war on terror. that is what we are told every day here. that is why we are spied on and have the tsa at the airport and everything else. so why can't you go in there and just take them out? let's ask the
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congresswoman. count, this is very good question. that drop back and say yes, we believe isis is not in the best interest of the united states. the problem is that they are about 9000-10,000 of them in iraq. so one of the problems with respect to getting to them is we don't really have troops to do to put ouro we want troops there, nor does the american people want to see that. airstrikes would be the most expedient way to eliminate some .f these people collateral damage. this is why actionable
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intelligence become so important. that is the first row we have to follow. we need to show -- know who we are trying to get, where they are, and how we get them. rouge,e will go to baton louisiana. robert. independent line. caller: good morning. i want to ask representative sanchez. states defeated japan and established a constitutional democracy that worked. that was a very different situation. could you comment in general on how that works and why it works in some situations and fails in others? japan, ith respect to is a pretty closed society. that pretty much follows the rules. those are two things. you have to think about the culture.
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the second thing, it was a time when america projected such dominance, especially after that world war that we were able to, in fact, imposed. we are in a much different time frame. we are in a time frame where people talk instantaneously around the world. you also have a lot of interested countries on the borders of that whole iraq situation. you would go back and look at the transcripts over time of the last 12 years, some of the questions that i would when they military were pretty much in charge, whether it was tommy franks or others, it always came down to -- we hadtution guaranteed in the constitution that the kurds would get a chance for a vote, what type of government or structure. we never did that.
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and every would bring up the question about, we have to get past this shiite-sunni-kurds think and actually try to get people to want to work together, what about article 148? , ourember our leaders three and four stars saying it is the crux of the situation, we just have not gotten to it. it is so difficult or what have you. he actually walked away without -- we actually walked away without the united states having done what it needed to do to pressure more cooperation. host: you were a skeptic from the beginning. floated against the revolution againstution -- voted the resolution. you voted against the surge. why are you open now to this administration possibly doing airstrikes? guest: first of all, i never had weaponst saddam
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of mass distraction. that was the first thing. --ondly, i knew that that 9/11 had nothing to do with iraq, although that was bandied around and told to the american people. not publicly on tv, but around. the americannthuse population to go along with the war. i never believed any of that looking at all of the analysis. that is why i voted against that. i knew that a surge is just a search. you bring in troops, you holdings down, you take them out, if you are not solving the problems that are ongoing -- the military is just one piece of action. it is not the solution. why i was not in great favor of having the surge. this brings me to today's point. aliki has shown he is not
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willing to do what it takes politically to move these people together in a unified manner. airstrikes would be directed at isis, not because they are taking over iraq, but because they might try to set up their own country within that ungoverned area, if you will, of iraq come a which would be detrimental to us. that is different than what is going on with iraq and the iraqi people. host: we do have interests there. and meyer on twitter wants to know, please explain what you consider -- lease ask if she considers oil to be part of our interest in iraq. guest: i'm a californian. that weornians believe are developing and we will continue to develop alternatives to fossil fuel. for me, the long run is 10 years from now, i think we will not be as dependent as most people think we are on fossil fuels.
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to her, no. i don't believe that oil is a strategic interest for us. is ans of interest instability that would reach into turkey, that would reach into israel, that would reach ,ut to egypt, the suez canal the trans shipping that is going on there. an instability of failed countries and people fighting each other for a much longer , sortn a much wider space of what we see in someplace like somalia. across want to see that the greater middle east. all the blood and treasure lost on iraq has bought the u.s. nothing. they are the same as we found them with a different leader. it jim in new york. curious if thet
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question will be asked to this -- i'm afraid our interrogators and people in the administration will not want to hear the true answers. i host: want to hear your take. he is wondering if the capture of the alleged mastermind behind the benghazi attack -- will he be asked about the video and if that played a role? guest: i would hope so. we want to get to the truth. that is what this is about. people should not prejudge what we may find or what we may not find their. that is the importance of having an interrogation and a true handling of the facts and sifting through everything. host: there is no reason to believe that maliki will change. can we force them to change? guest: very doubtful.
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host: mitchell in tennessee. caller: good morning. i got a couple things to say to you. you have been talking more and more like a republican sitting there. guantanamo serves no purpose. i don't understand that. we have a federal prison. we should utilize it. congress declares war on countries. we have the biggest, baddest military there is. when you call us out, don't call us out -- we have the ability to go over there and destroy. why would we want to help one side in a civil war? , if you will take a look at my record, you will see that i was one of the strongest democrats who came out and said to the president, we are not
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putting our sons and daughters and our treasure and a place that is a civil war. i do believe what we're are seeing is a breakdown with respect to iraq into civil war. it from the very beginning. be careful going in because we do not know what we will end up with. when everything is said and done, i believe it is about the civil war going on. . go back to my initial stance what is the interest of the united states protecting its people? this does not bloom out into the entire region. make our interest at stake with respect to that. and others have said that if you had stopped and tried to intervene in the syria, itcivil war in would not have bled over into
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iraq. guest: i would say that i have disagreed with him on numerous occasions. i have called him out on numerous occasions. i listened to him earlier on the program and his desire to rewrite history. it is just wrong. i would totally disagree with him. host: ok, kevin, nashville, tennessee. good morning. i just had a real quick question and comment. what do you think the future of the united states in iraq is going to be for the next 10 years? i have been dealing with hearing of iraqi and the middle east as a problem since i was a kid. since george w. bush the original was in office. this is ridiculous, this country has done the dumbest thing in the world by electing a muslim terrorist as the president. host: the president has said
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that he is a christian. why would you call him -- >> caller: with a name like that, that is alive. --k hussein obama bin laden barack hussein obama bin laden? host: ok. guest: i believe that if maliki is not allowed to figure out that that would happen, the that would work with the support up the influence of let's say some of the arab states, like others with respect to the sunnis, that what we are going to see in iraq is a civil war for a long time. i -- frank palma ohio, oh frank, ohio. ms. sanchez, congresswoman, god bless you. all i can say is that i am a thatr of five children
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served in the armed services. these people don't look at the human factor, these chicken hawks sending our kids over there? fight three and four times? i have to deal with it as a father when my kids come back home. these chicken hawks, cheney and all these people, they didn't go. they are sending our kids over here and i have to deal with it. me and their mother. host: frank? caller: yes. host: all five of your children served? caller: one of our sons was in the air force for a years. during the first bush war was over $1000 per month. you know what? i am going to tell you this one beng right now, there should
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-- the draft should come back. the next time these chicken hawks talk about war, send their kids over there. i work for a fortune 500 company. people waving the flag, they have these pink ribbons and i said -- do you have any kids? they don't want their kids to go. yet my kids were over there. i admire you. you women have more backbone than these chicken hawk men who would not send their kids over there. got your point, frank. guest: i am married to a man who spent nine years in the infantry. i have a stepson who is currently working on his commission for an officer in the u.s. army and was enlisted for two years in the u.s. army. but frank, it was not about my own family, it was about your family.
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i had to ask myself -- and this is the way that i challenge for myself whether we go to war. war, i think, is the last thing that we should use. to the popealking about war. is know, he said that war something that you use when you don't believe there is anything else. of course, as the pope he thought that god would intervene and there were other ways to deal with things. when i look at what we need to do, i would have to say that my --mus test for saying yes is is there nothing else that i have that i can do? can i look in the eyes of a mother or father and say, if their son or daughter has died because of that, can i say to them that i did not have a choice? did i needed them? can i do that? that, then you are
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probably going to get a yes from me. failing that, i am not sending your kid to war. devastating.s very it is not glorified. it is a very devastating situation, one that we see play out every single day in the united states. people, young and old -- in this war it was not like vietnam where there were 18, 19, 20-year-olds. we had reservist who were 34 and 39. i saw some from tennessee who were almost 50 and going over there. they were farmers but they were intovist and they got it active. so, this is going to impact our society for such a long time. not just the physical things that we can see, but the mental anguish of going to war. i just -- to take someone's life for that? i would have to feel that there was no other recourse.
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to this day it is very difficult for me to look into the eyes of parents who have lost a son or daughter. i certainly can't say to them that i needed them. i needed them. for that reason, really, i vote against this war. oklahoma, jim, you are next. congresswoman, first off i respect a lot of what you are saying, even though you are a democrat. because of your circumstances. but our problem in the middle east is like a tree with a lot of hornets nest. we have kicked it around and now it is a heck of a mess. i am a veteran but for the american people to think that we should go in there and fix it again? it will just start more and more. we should seal and defend our borders so that no other force can harm us, you know? if we do the right thing. as the other gentleman hauled obama muslim, well, he is a
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registered muslim and he did apply for foreign student aid. ok, leaving it there. the president says that he is a christian, so we will just leave it there. congresswoman, if you want to respond to the first art of his comments? on theeve me, i sit homeland committee and we are working as deftly as we can to make sure our borders are secure . a lot of people take a position with respect to terrorists and what have you, coming across the southern border of mexico. the reality is that of the known terrorists that we have had, like the millennium bomber that came to seattle to bomb lax, the ones that we have seen have been coming from the north. we need to do a better job. also, we have all of these coastlines. the coastline in the caribbean of miami, the coastline on the east coast and west coast of hawaii, puerto rico, the main islands.
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, theyt into one of those are pretty unprotected. the answer is, to your point, i am working as hard as i possibly can to ensure that we have a better handle on who is coming in and out of our country from a security perspective. i agree with you with respect to that. we also can't let the rest of the world just, you know, keep fighting. because things happen. take a look at syria, for example. we had practically eradicated polio in the world. now we are seeing, because of the war in syria, incredible ranging polio going on there. for whatever reason, if one of these people get on a -- you know, get somewhere and get to us and we have a polio epidemic some other epidemic, it is not like all americans are going to stay in america. that is not happening.
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we crisscross all over the place all the time. from the perspective of what can hurt us? it is much broader than most people understand. on that point, dick cheney wrote today -- "ok that is resurgent and presents a security threat unlike anything since the cold war -- -- al qaeda is a resurgent threat that is unlike anything since the cold war. we have weakened forces." guest: first of all, i would say that he is one to talk. he was one of the proponents that dragged us into this whole mess. out of respect for the vice presidency, that is about what i will say there. i would also say that the obama
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obama is saddled with what came from the bush cheney .rea -- era they are the policies, he is following some of the policies of what cheney. this whole idea that we need more capacity? that we need a better military? excuse me, sir, our military is the greatest military the world has ever seen. educated.nd gals are they are well-equipped. they are well trained. this lack of having tax for these two wars that bush got us financialre having constraints that are hitting the military and our training capabilities. for the first time ever we went into war and not only didn't collect a tax to pay for that gave taxbush cheney
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,uts, three major huge tax cuts which bush's own comptroller, comptroller walker sent, 70% of the deficit that we walked out of the bush years with was due to the fact of these three huge tax breaks. so, yeah. -- i hopeally believe people understand that we are where we are, but this is not because obama has policies that got us here. obama had policies to contain it. obama has had policies to move us forward. obama has to have policies that will make and have the united states look and be strong. those are all important things. maybe this president is getting it right, maybe he is not. as he knows, i have had a lot of issues with him on some of these.
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but you know, the seeds of so much of this came from bush cheney. is next.t republican caller, hello, matt. caller: first of all, i wanted to say to the congresswoman, thank you for your candor. i think that your approach to the topic is one, unlike as previous caller suggested, one of a republican, that of an american as looking at the condition of the globe and with the fragmentation that we are seeing in the infrastructure almost everywhere. especially in the middle east. and that of the taxpayer concern. i want to thank you for your job. just looking into the past, looking into the 20th century, there seemed to be a lot more structure. obviously we had these
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theocratic regimes that were somewhat medieval running the middle east. it certainly was not just in terms of human rights and democracy in things, but there was peace. saddam hussein, horrible human .eing, but not a theocrat he ran a country that was a secular muslim society. they had liquor stores and various things. is that because the central intelligence agency -- and i would like you to please be as close as you can get with this answer -- is that because we had such a grip on these different governments that we were able to play the game correctly in terms ?f foreign policy that it held the balance in check and thus protected are stored -- our soldiers from going abroad and our financial interests and those of our allies? host: are you following? ok. guest: first of all, thank you
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for understanding, as a congresswoman i really take my job seriously. i do homeland security. i do the military. these are the things that i do. this is not a partisan thing. this is about where our interest lie and the different tools that we have to use. again, the military is a bear -- very powerful thing we have but it is also a limited resource. we can't continue to use it over and over and over again. especially when we may not get the results he thought we would get. so, thank you for understanding that it is much more complicated than go to war and drop a bomb. with respect to the whole issue of the cia? that the real issue that has happened is that societies at large have a lot more information about what is going on around in the world.
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it is not as close off as it used to be. 30 years ago i lived in egypt. you could not get the information that you can get today on a handheld, for example. so, people to a large extent were ignorant. i am talking about americans, we were ignorant about what was going on in the world. this whole issue of human rights, you know, it is kind of like -- i grew up in a poor environment, in an economically lower environment, ok? i remember my dad always control the tv, but as we got older he and i remember, for example, when the show "dallas" came on, you saw all of this opulent spending, where people lived in these mansions and i remember thinking to myself -- i was in secondary school or
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whatever -- you know that happens, but when you see it, this opulence of stuff -- i think that part of the problem has been that people see such a in thet of what might be world, and then they see their living conditions and they say -- what is wrong with this picture? and they are not willing to take it as they were before, when they did not know much about what the other side was doing. you know, of course nobody lives like dallas -- "dallas your code even the one percent don't live that way. -- dallas." even the one percent don't live that way. when you see such a disparity, having lived in the middle east i think i will tell you that that gap of disparity has somewhat created the arab spring, which we now know, when we see it in toronto and around
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the globe, it is this ability for people to have information that their life could be better but maybe their governmental structure of their country is really holding them back. is what we areat seeing more so than the cia had a better ability to keep intact and keep dictators in place. i don't think it was that kind of a chess game. i will tell you that our cia is still very strong. we just are working with a wider array of people who now understand that their life could be different. host: we will go to bob, next. he is our last for you. indiana, you're on the air. go ahead. caller: good morning, how are you? host: morning. caller: i would like to make a comment, first of all, about gitmo. you are concerned about gitmo. it has got a purpose, but it is
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not being used properly. the last guy who was on there? mr. brenner? he should have his own private suite at the bush cheney wing of gitmo. i live in a town where they make the hummer. they just got a huge government contract. that tells me we are going back to war. back andnnot see going fighting a war that has been going on for thousands of years and there has never been a solution. never. well, i don't know that we are going back to war. certainly the president has the ability, as you know, to go in and do things and then notify the congress later. it has been a long time we have been in a war with a real declaration of war. even in a racket was a forces
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resolution. it was not a declaration of war. i still know and i believe that by constitutional rights the congress should be the one to declare war, but that has not happened in my lifetime. with respect to this hummer contract, i would have to take a look at the details, but i would imagine several things are going on there. first of all, we are bringing back our troops. we are -- we blew up a lot of the stuff in it was more expensive to bring it back. we either gave it to the government or we decided it was too worn out because of conditions there, etc.. so, we are either leaving it behind or blowing it up, what have you. we are retrofitting. we are re-equipping our standing forces because we need to do that. we spent a lot of money and got a lot of stuff in people's hands for these wars. the reality is that they come wek, we are assessing what
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need and don't need. the things that we need to reequip, we will and we are. that could be part of it. it could also be a strong congress member who makes them there and he got the votes to continue building that line going on there. there are a lot of things that happen here in the congress. i don't think it is a signal that we are building humvees and therefore going to war. sitting on the committee of the armed forces, i will tell you that i don't believe that there is that correlation there. before you go, the president will be meeting with the congressional leaders and the speaker of the house at 3 p.m. eastern time today. you are going to, along with the other members of the armed services committee, get a closed-door briefing on the security situation in iraq. this basic question from a "did we not know that iraqwas on its way to
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before we got there"? guest: remember who the leader of isis is. a man from baghdad. by thatd have, even name, understood that the long ame for him was more of locked. but i think that when we see isis moving out of syria and into this -- into the waste lands, if you will, this kind of no man far off from baghdad the greater serious area, what have you, what it signals to me is that -- why should isis die against the forces of assad when it can go to a territory where the people may -- where it will be easier to take over and maybe a place for them to be? it signals to me that maybe a side is winning the war in syria, isis is moving on,
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it has found its sweet spot, maybe it goes to baghdad, maybe it doesn't, and because of the situation from malik e, what he did, not working with the sunnis i,d the kurds -- malik because of what he did, that was the sweet spot. should we have known? we probably should have seen that coming, but we were so in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with syria and thinking or hoping beyond hope that malik e would be a good player. some of us on the committee always said that he would not be a good player. thank youtta sanchez very much. guest: thank you for having me on. host: chuck hagel will be on capitol hill today, likely to ask about these issues. go to our website, c-span.org, for more details on that.
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coming up, we are going to continue with our spotlight magazine series, switching gears to talk about healthcare.gov. what is next for this website? all of that after this news update from c-span radio. >> another hearing taking place today before the senate aging committee, looking at a new congressional report that blames budget restrictions for the closing of a record number of field offices by the social security administration. of baby boomers approach retirement, seniors seeking information and help from the agency are facing increasingly long-range -- increasingly long waits. they also said that social security had closed 64 field offices since 2010. a stay the course message the federalm reserve. analysts think the fed will approve a fifth cut in its monthly bond purchases because the job market has steadily
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strengthened. no clear signal is expected on when the fed will start raising short-term interest rates from record lows. janet yellen will be holding a news conference this afternoon. you will hear that later today on c-span radio. finally, a blend. a judge has rejected an attempt to force an investigation into facebook's alleged sharing of data from european union users with the u.s. national security agency. hogan,urt justice gerard who has jurisdiction because the european headquarters are based in dublin, upheld an earlier decision by the country's data protection commissioner to refuse to investigate. some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. host: -- [video clip]
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>> instead of trying to tell the history of st. louis as a timeline, we would absolutely miss vitally important things. instead of trying to do that and failing, we decided -- what if we just gave snapshots of st. louis history that would give people a glimpse of all the diverse things that have happened here and they could use their imaginations to fill in the rest. we chose 50 people, 50 places, 50moments, if the images, objects, trying to choose the most diverse selection we could. in the 50nding objects section of the exhibit right now. this is what most people would call the real history. this is where the object is right in front of you. part of the history of st. louis, an amazing story with lots of different breweries , the most famous became anheuser-busch, the largest in the world. of anheuser-busch talking about millions of
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barrels reduced each year, we think that they are producing so much beer, this is from an era when things were a little bit simpler and it is fun to show people this object and kind of gauge their response. cans orays before bottle caps, they put corks in the top of the bottles. someone had to sit on this thing and do it i hand. you can see it has put apples on the bottom where the operator would wish down with his feet to give the cork enough force to go into the bottle. it has three holes for three different sized bottles. weekend, the history and literary life of st. louis, the gateway to the west, on "booktv." >> "washington journal" continues. host: on wednesdays we take a look at a recent magazine article as part of our spotlight on magazine series. wired magazine is joining us in
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new york. the recent magazine article -- why the new obamacare website is going to work this time. let's just remind viewers of the headlines that they saw back in october. ."re is "the washington post "medicare chief apologizes for rollout." "software design effects cripple the health-care website here levy, whatavy -- mr. was wrong with the original version? guest: what was right with it would be a better question. it was normally thought that the key part would be so important, just to make the website work, to implement this plan that everyone knows was extremely .ontroversial and remains so what happened was the focus came on the failure to create a
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website that worked. americans are used to going to websites and doing what they want to do. they buy things from amazon. get connect on facebook, their answers from google. the idea that the government could not do what now seems like a simple thing, get a website to perform a task, it really kind of blue people's minds. in this case it was a system that was broken and it turns out it is not uncommon for government projects, i.t., information technology to fail. this one failed big. there were 55 different contractors that did not communicate with each other well . there was no one single person in charge to make the trains run on time. when it was rolled out on october 1, it crashed and people what not use it. host: happened next? who did the administration call on to fix it? after a couple of weeks
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working with the team that built it, they went outside for outside help. one person was an advisor to the president. they went and, you know, they also worked with the chief technical officer of the u.s. government. they decided that they would go outside the traditional system and call on people who were used to building things in a modern way. building websites in a modern way. some of them came from the obama election effort, which had an website information infrastructure. then they went to silicon valley , pulling people from places like google to work on a team. they asked them to come on a short-term basis. around late october they found themselves working out of hotels for months to try to fix this. host: what did they say about the problem -- problems they came across? what were their biggest
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challenges in fixing and rebuilding at the same time? there were basically two different efforts, but the first team, the ad hoc team, they came in on the job at the last minute. first of all, they had to determine that they could patch up the current site. taking itthought to down and building it from scratch, which was going to be difficult, the open enrollment had already started. the clock was ticking along. the pressure was enormous. of course, republicans were just lacking on the website like a piñata. it's were falling out because it just wasn't working there. they fixed some obvious problems there. it did not example, store information properly tom of the way that virtually every other website does. a website where you type in your name? it puts it in a little piece of
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memory so that if you do something wrong and have to come back it remembers that. with healthcare.gov you could go for several pages and if something went wrong either you made an error or the site went down, you had to start over from scratch all over again. every time the website crashed, you know, thousands and thousands of people working on it had to start over again. examples turned out to be endless of things that were standard practices in silicon valley that just were not followed in this government theite. host: what about regulations that this group came across when they were working? guest: that was one reason why the website was like that. some of these contractors, it was not that they had no skills, it was just that over the years the whole set of well-meaning regulations, probably based on old technology, had built up. contractors were
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doing were step-by-step following these regulations and no one had the bigger picture to say -- wait a minute, this is not going to work his way. when the new people came in, they also had to deal with these regulations. in some cases they got put aside and in other did not get as far as they would have liked because of the existing regulations that held them back. >> you have a picture in your story of a group of younger people sitting around the table with their laptops, working at a facility in maryland on the website. agree to come to washington to do this? did they get paid? hoc teameams, the ad and the second team, which we will talk about in a couple of minutes, they did get paid. they got paid as contractors. they were subcontractors in places that already had contracts. you could not start the process , going throughy
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the whole laborious process as not the pay that drew them. it was the opportunity to do something. people in silicon valley and places like it are not motivated only by money, although obviously there is a chance to make huge riches at some of these startups, but it obviously showed that a huge impetus was making a difference and they felt that if they could get people to work and get health the, some of them, like in obama administration thought that they were helping president obama and that was plenty for them. they worked incredible hours over holidays and during thanksgiving, some of them having a makeshift dinner with the chief technical officer, then they went right back to work through christmas. just because they felt they were doing something and helping people. our viewers are weighing in on the topic on twitter. here are a number of tweets --
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people on the ad hoc team and universally they agree with your callers, this is a project that a much, germanic we smaller team , the teams as opposed the hundreds that built the original site, could have built in less than a year for a fraction of the cost. for a few, maybe single digit dollars there. as it turns out, it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build this website. really is a reflection not just on this site, but the way that government i.t. is run in general there. in general there have been a lot of people saying for many years that we have to reform this. good enough for government is just not good. states, in the united as they use this technology more and more, do more and more of their business, the private sector websites that really work, people expect this of government, too. maybe this is something that is going to lead to the reform of these ways that the government
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does i.t. that does not work. that these people that came in, we are told by some of these that have worked on it for many years and frustrated themselves, healthcare.gov is not unusual in its failure. it is one of many major fails produced by the government. host: we are talking with steven levy, who wrote the piece about what is next for healthcare.gov. we want to get your thoughts on what you're hearing here this morning. thanis a bigger problem what was just outlined. if that is the case, what does marketplace 2.0 mean not only for healthcare.gov, but for government websites going forward? marketplace 2.0 is the name of a team we writing key parts of healthcare.gov for the next open enrollment system
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on november 15. as your listeners might know, there is a. of a few months where people enroll for next year's health care plans. it started last year in october because of the first time, i guess, and it went on, originally, supposedly until the end of the year but then it got extended because of the difficulties. the only people that can go and sign up now are the people whose circumstances have changed. maybe they lost the health care plan from their employer or they are coming in for the first time there. basically, what happened was the surge team, the people that were fixing the health care site, they realized that in the long run they needed to rewrite certain parts of the whole thing , so they brought in an even younger group of people, some of them drawn from startups in silicon valley, some of them very recent graduates from
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,ollege, in their early 20's they said they wanted them to build some parts of the website and get it online before enrollment ended this year. for the vast majority of people going to these simple circumstances, they felt they could speed the process and make a front end, the part that people interacted with, a lot simpler. they did some of that. they did not go as far with it as some people like. they kept going and they built some parts of the website you will see a november. 2.0 is a streamlined front-end that you will be able to interact with, it will be easier to sign up. plan and compare 2.0 was an important part of the website where you can choose your help when. you have to see the ones that are right for you. they will havet is a feature called windowshopping for you can anonymously check and get into putting your social security number in and saying who you are
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and seeing what is out there. that might be good for young people debating whether they need health care at all and they feel maybe it is just worth it to take the penalty for not having health care rather than having health insurance. they can go in there anonymously , see what is out there, see what it would cost without any penalty. the third part is a streamlined login system. there have been a lot of problems with the login system and they felt maybe the patches were not enough to handle the influx coming in november. glenn, you are up first, republican caller. thank you for taking this call. first of all, the government has no legal right to do this. regardless of how the website works, doesn't work, who it works for or how it works, the government does not have the to deal a federal level
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with anything about health care, the bowling shoes that beware, they simply don't. host: that is glenn's opinion. mr. levy? guest: the supreme court weighed in that there was a legal basis for the thing. ,n talking to all these people not once did we get into a discussion about the legality of the affordable health care act or anything like that. these are engineers who just wanted to fix what was broken, helping people who came to the website that wanted health insurance. we have another tweet here -- --st: well, there are obviously there are thousands of people who do i.t. for the government. of course, in a case like this, big projects, they do
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contracting. that makes sense because you don't really need a whole staff sitting by waiting for big projects, but in the past that has not worked well. what happens is you get these contractors who rigged the system, and a sex -- in a sense, making sure the contract is put out to favor their kind of i.t., the way that they build websites. newer brand, the kind that people who build websites that all of us use are not really in the game right now. we need some sort of reform to help those people reform, help the current contractors maybe change their ways. this has been transformative in working with these new people, the people at cms, the sub agency of the center for medicare and medicaid services.
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they have been impressed with this and have learned things. to be honest, the people coming in from outside have learned things to about how to do very big projects in deal with the bureaucracy as you build a project. host: another tweet here -- host: well, you know, you mentioned testing. that is interesting. one of the big problems with the original site was that like a lot of government i.t. projects, the way that they tested things was that people wrote code and then they sent it out to people to test it. it would be a few days of feedback before you would get anything about whether what you did was working well or not. going to field was
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crash. in silicon valley, they test right away. there are things built into the system where a coder and get as they write the code and do the programming and whether it works or not. in terms of testing it as people use it, there is a system that everyone uses called aep testing where you make a change and you may be release it to one percent of the population and see how that works there. if it works well, you release it to a bigger and bigger group. what happened with healthcare.gov, they just released it in one big burst and it did not work and they were stuck. this new system is being dribbled out he's by piece. that is the part of the question -- how much did it cost? i have heard estimates of half of a billion dollars for the original. the new site, probably it seems to me is not as inexpensive as maybe it could be had we done what some of these people coming
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in had suggested that you do, which was budget a few million dollars and have a silicon valley style team build it. we gave a contract for the next version that is going to get into hundreds of millions of dollars. what about the security of peoples personal identity on the website? obviously security is really important. when it comes to health information there is an extra layer of regulations to determine security. some of them, of course, are really important, but there are ways to provide security without maybe going through some of the complicated steps that the regulatory regime has built up now. one thing that this new team wanted to do was switch from tong government data centers
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amazon.com, which has amazon web services, through which you could outsource the data center at amazon. advantage, if there was a big surge in use with people coming in at once, amazon has very vast numbers of servers in their data centers. automatically assigning many more servers. if one million people decide they want to sign up for health could handle the load. they work for netflix, the biggest consumer of bandwidth in the country there. there were incredible regulations they had to go through. someone made a flowchart, about nerdy complicated steps. in time for the previous open enrollment plan, they are going to get it done in time to do it for next year or this year, actually, beginning in november. , i just wantlevy
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to wrap up here, we have a lot of other news to get to this morning before we wrap up, when will marketplace 2.0 be ready? give us some highlights on what people are going to notice. it had better be ready by november 15. literally millions will come back to the website expecting a better experience. i think that they will see it. one thing that the team is doing is redesigning the way that you interact with it. just use the simple design principles that have been honed in silicon valley to make it a more pleasant experience, and easier experience. maybe you won't get the wonderful delight of an apple product, but you will get efficiency. steven levy, author of the piece. thank you for joining us this morning. guest: my pleasure, thank you. host: we are going to open up
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the phone lines for the last 15 minutes today. having you weigh in on a lot of you have a rack, possible discussions with iran, the situation in syria, foreign affairs, you have also got isis that you can weigh in on. and then the headline this morning that the united states has captured a possible benghazi suspect. they are calling him the intermind of the 12 attacks libya. closed-door briefings on capitol hill about that with members of the armed services committee. chuck hagel, testifying on capitol hill on the senate side. we will be covering that. for you to weigh in on this morning. we want to get your thoughts. we are in open phones.
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you can start dialing and now. also on capitol hill today, you have got the testimony of gm in for a second grilling, that is the headline in the money section today. very bara is back for a follow-up on those faulty switches. mary barra returns to capitol hill for a new round of grilling the house subcommittee, "joined this time by the former u.s. attorney who prepared the internal report at gm and why the company took more than one decade to recall these small cars for ignition switches with a fatal flaw." we will be covering that hearing live this morning at 10 a.m. eastern time, 7:00 a.m. on the west coast. you can tune into c-span3 for coverage. sarah, for model there -- fort lauderdale, florida. what is on your mind? issue, a month ago, the big block issue.
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it told the story of how rupert murdoch talked tony blair into going into a rack. while tony blair was having an affair with rupert murdoch's wife with whom he is now divorced. anyway, that is something i never would have dreamed. the point is, there was a lot of stuff going on politically that got us into a rack that had nothing to do with, really, 9/11 as we know. and now the mess that is there? my party, i am getting really tired of this, they stand up and say it is all the fault of the present administration? whom i did not vote for, but at least i want my country to be honest, ok? you will never get reelected again as republicans if you are not honest. but now they are trying to lay the blame on this administration for what bush did? this is so outrageous. the night when i watched the
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bombing, the shock and all, i cried. i knew that people were getting killed that had nothing to do with 9/11. moses is next, democratic caller, california. follow-upwanted to and say -- what is our strategic interest in a rack? what are we doing? host: what do you think it should be? caller: i think that we should let the people that live there decide what they need to do for their own country. that is established, we can interact with them. inare going to get involved a civil war? i don't think that that is important. ted, new hampshire, what is on your mind this morning? caller: we are going rampant in iraq. i want to know what israel plans to do. they are kind of engulfing all around them, they will wind up
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having to do something pretty drastic to protect themselves if they gain strength. host: mike, oklahoma city, we are on open phones. you can weigh in on anything. go ahead. i am tired of the press, everybody else, especially the democratic administration blaming bush for what is happening over there. the bush term of office is over with. obama has had it now for almost six years. he owns this puppy. he's the one who said he was going to get the people out, bring the troops back thomas things of this nature. now, i was glad to see that happen, but i also realized that by doing that what was going to happen has already happened. those people cannot govern themselves. there's too many tribes, too many factions, to many different religions that they don't even agree with. will beesident obama
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meeting with congressional leaders at 3 p.m. eastern time today. senate majority leader harry reid, minority leader mitch boehner,, and a john along with nancy pelosi, will all be attending that meeting at the white house. in other issues on the domestic side, this is the washington post -- "the washington post," democratic lawmakers putting a brake on the fast lane." host: that was in "the
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washington post," this morning. on capitol hill tomorrow there will be a republican leadership race. the whip contest is the critical test for three republican lawmakers. this from the post, "a three-way race for the whip." host: the people running for that post, it seems to be the best position to take the number
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three post, but you also have [indiscernible] in "the here, left washington post," the mild-mannered chief deputy whip, allarlon spitzman, gaining in the three-way race to succeed kevin mccarthy in the whip position. way, the spotlight organization has these numbers put together on the total campaign contributions received by kevin mccarthy, 4 million during this election cycle. you can take a look at the top 10 interest of interest -- of industries funding the campaign coffers, putting in money, and then the companies that are here to the right. these are the top 10 companies putting money toward kevin mccarthy's reelection bid. and then you have the total campaign contributions received by roel labrador, some saying
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that he may be launching a long shot did for the number two post to take over as majority leader. take a look at who is contributing to his campaign funds, interest groups including crop production, computers, livestock, forrester products, banks, and miscellaneous financial groups. you can see those companies to your right. that is happening on capitol hill tomorrow. maryland,ing, democratic caller. you are on open phones. wanted to got ahead and shed a little bit of light on what a gentleman who had revealingly spoken about this, in terms of servers and the marketplace and health insurance? he was talking about doing it on the cloud. i don't think that that is such a good idea. notmately the cloud is necessarily within the borders of the united states. you have issues about identity theft and a lot of other things of that nature, which you know -- i don't want my personal,
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private, sensitive data in india, where people can steal my identity and contribute to problems in this way. i thought that everybody should be aware that the cloud is not in the united states. you cannot protect within our borders because of it. all right, dave, good morning. first of all, we need to pull out of those countries. we should not be over there at all. to theand cheney lied american people. if they lied, they should be brought up on war crime charges for lying because they lied to congress and got us into a war that cost trillions. he,e is a guy named goss you should have him on your program. he is alive, still, and he has a book out that says george bush, if he lied to congress, should be prosecuted. nobody does anything.
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no one holds anyone accountable and then we go into these wars where we should not even be there. host: william, st. paul, your thoughts this morning? to say i am just trying that the guy that called in about the cloud and all that? most customer service agencies for most of these large groups are already overseas. thatld not worry about personal information, they have already got it. that is what america does now. all, about the majority of the american people supporting the invasion in iraq, go back and look at the gallup poll from 2003, before the invasion. only 36% of the people, probably the republican base, most of ,hom are delusional war hawks favored the invasion. 40% favored if we got a u.n. resolution.
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it took about two minutes to research that. i really wish that you could refute the things that these guys say on here. if you are going to parade them out. william, that is why the program is set up the way that we do, you can come in and challenge the guests that we have. talking about paul bremmer, if you missed that you can go to our website and watch the interview and the conversation that we had with viewers. california is next, kathy, good morning. thank you for hearing me. i was a democrat, then i became an independent, now i am a republican again. there have been so many terrible changes going on in this country. the tea party, i just want to know, what do they think about sanchez, a democrat, but she was wonderful today. i was so impressed by her. i want to know what the tea party republicans thought of her
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running for president of the united states. host: all right, referring to our guest here this morning, we had congresswoman loretta sanchez. asheville, north carolina, lou. hello. i wanted to comment on mr. bremmer. come on, people. this guy was a hack. anybody who really believes that this invasion of iraq was justified, everybody out here are nuts. conspiracy theorists. there is a lot more to learn than what is on the networks and on cable news. think, folks. why wasone question, mr. bremmer absent on the floor of his office when the planes hit and everyone else were killed? go to 9/11 conspiracy, you can find the details on youtube. host: all right, teresa has this suggestion --
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i am going to try to squeeze in k, from sentence -- from san francisco. the house is about to come in, so make it quick if you could. speaking on the television all week has ever said one word about the number of iraqi people that we killed and the number displaced from their country and the damage that we did. bush, cheney, condi, they should all be taken to the hague for war crimes. host: got your point. we have to leave it there. the house is about to gavel and for their morning session. live coverage on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., june 18, 2014. i hereby appoint the honorable doug lamalfa to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of
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representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 7, 2014, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip each, to five minutes but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, for five minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, coordinated medical rehabilitation, provided in an in-patient rehabilitation setting is crucial to medicare beneficiaries with injuries, disease, disabilities or chronic conditions. unfortunately, beginning in 2010, the centers for medicare and medicaid services began
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placing limitations on what types of therapy a beneficiary could receive, despite the professional judgment of the treating physician. this ties a physician's hands and it limits recreational therapy, for example, from being prescribed despite it being medically necessary in many cases. now, these services are often prescribed to assist an individual in transitioning from their rehabilitation hospital to the home, helping patients recover their functions and decreasing the chances of costly readmissions. c.m.s., the medicare agency, should not have put in place barriers for physicians and their patients when determining the best course of action for recovery. this is why i introduced the bipartisan access to in-patient rehabilitation therapy act of 2014 with my colleague, mr. butterfield of north carolina. now, i encourage my colleagues to lend their support to this commonsense, bipartisan
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measure. h.r. 4755. it has zero cost. it will empower doctors and patients to gain access to the most appropriate mix of therapeutic rehabilitation services. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. blumenauer, for five minutes. mr. blumenauer: thank you, mr. speaker. america faces many challenges at home and abroad. we're watching deterioration in the middle east. we're watching the problems dealing with climate change and global warming. many of the problems seem beyond our control. they're hard and complex. some are political fodder where the two parties are in a pitched battle and deny fundamental science. this is what concerns our constituents. why can't we get along and get something done?
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well, there are many issues that are not so hard, not so complex, not so controversial. one of these areas that has historically been a subject of people coming together in this chamber and getting something done deals with our infrastructure. america, sadly, is falling apart. our infrastructure used to be the finest in the world, from il passenger transportation, highways, water, sewer. now it's slowly steadily falling. it's been rated 14th in the latest global rankings from the experts that analyze that, and it's falling further. our investment of -- as a percentage of our gross domestic product is less than 2%. 1.7%, the lowest that it's been in 20 years.
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it is costing american families now. estimates that the average car owner loses almost a dollar a day from damage to their cars from inadequate roads. the american society for civil engineers have projected that if we don't undertake the necessary repairs between now and 2020, that cost per family is going to be over $3,000 per year. impacts on each and every one of american families. but at the same time, it is understood that investment in infrastructure pays huge returns. for $1.3 billion in road and sewer and transit, we create almost 30,000 jobs. he s&p latest report indicated
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$1.3 billion investment will produce $2 billion in economic benefit that spreads throughout the economy and it will reduce e american budget deficit $2 billion. it's also an area that actually the public is ahead of us. politicians here on capitol hill have not addressed long-term road funding for 21 years. that was the last time the gas tax was increased. yet, the american public understands and supports, according to a a.a.a. poll from last week, 2/3 of americans support user fees to support our infrastructure. 66% say that a user fee is the right approach and should be utilized.
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52% say they would be willing to pay more. it's time for congress to stop this dancing around on the issue of adequately funding american infrastructure. we have a transportation bill that is expiring september 30. we couldn't do a full-fledged re-authorization last time. we could only extend it for 27 months because it would face the funding challenge. and even that inadequate money is going to run out before september 30. the federal department of transportation is going to have to start withholding payments later this summer which means state and local governments are having to begin to cut back now. so instead of investment that would grow the economy and improve the quality of life in our communities, we're seeing further deterioration.
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luckily there's starting to be some movement here. if congress will move with a small amount of money to keep the system afloat through after the election, avoid the summer shutdown, hopefully we can come together after all the tea party primaries are over, after the elections are done and we're dealing with important cleanup legislation in the lame-duck session, this should be at the top of the list. america wants it. america needs it. it will improve our economy. it will strengthen job opportunities for people from coast to coast and will make our communities more livable, our families safer, healthier and more economically secure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. wolf, for five minutes. mr. wolf: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, congresswoman anna eshoo and i are sending the following letter and we urge members of congress from both
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sides of the aisle to sign this letter to president obama. and i read the letter. dear, mr. president, many americans have been deeply troubled by the unfolding crisis in iraq. the rapid fall of multiple iraqi cities to the terrorist islamic state of iraq and syria, isis, brings the militant groups noticeably closer to establishing a cal fat that expands the northern sector of syria and iraq. a june 12 bbc article described isis as the following -- the group has a reputation for brutality. parts of syria and iraq that have previously fall under its rule have had beheadings and even crucifixion. we write you bearing in mind a recent report from an archbishop of the and while his particular diocese is relatively calm at the moment,
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the picture he painted with the situation in mosul and the implication of iraq's ancient christian community was bleak and sobering. for years he witnessed a precipitous decline of iraq's christian community. thousands have fled in the face of targeted violence. many of those that remain located in mosul, the people of faith, this is a familiar name. told in the biblical book of jonah. it is one of the last remaining havens for the beleaguered community. in fact, the archbishop indicated this past sunday, for the first time -- for the first time in 1,600 years there was no mass set in mosul. for the thousands that have already fled mosul. they are facing not just displacement and imminent danger but a nightmare marked by access to clean water, food, fuel and electricity. as such, mr. president, we urge you and your administration to
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urgently and actively engage with the iraqi central government and the kurdish regional government, the k.r.g., to prioritize additional security support for those particularly vulnerable populations and expand humanitarian assistance and emergency aid delivery to those affected communities. absent immediate action, we will most certainly see the annihilation of an ancient faith community for lands they have inhabited for centuries. we urge members to sign this letter by the end of the day. more biblical activity took place in iraq than any other country of the world other than israel. braham is from iraq which is nasiriyah. ester is from iraq. jonah from niniva, may very well believe is buried in iraq. ezekiel is from iraq.
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and daniel is buried in iraq. this is something we can unite on. this is not a republican or democratic issue. this is an issue of saving this ancient community and urging the administration to urge the courage to protect them as they flee to this area. so, one, i urge all members, please, call my office, call anna eshoo's office, sign this letter by the end of the day in order we can save the christian community and other religious minorities in the middle east and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. schiff, for five minutes. mr. chairman, i rise today in support of the environmental protection agency's clean power plan proposed rule. in the face of a congress that is in denial about climate change, the administration is doing what it can to address a very real and very serious problem that's already
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manifesting its safe in changing weather patterns, more frequent and hazardous wildfires and devastating droughts. this rule is a crucial step towards slowing climate change, developing domestic and affordable clean energy technologies, protecting public health and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. some house republicans have called the proposed regulations reckless and others unconstitutional. some have even suggesting adding a rider to the appropriations bill to block the rule's implementation. as a member of that committee, i can tell you this would be a huge mistake that would threaten to undo the hard one compromises in the bill. it's shocking to me the lengths to which the majority is willing to go to deny the scientific fact that our planet is warming and that human activity is the main cause. here are the facts. first, power plants today account for approximately 1/3 of all greenhouse gas emissions in the united states.
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making them the single largest source of carbon pollution. the e.p.a. plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants by an estimated 30% by -- 30% from 2005 levels. that's 730 million tons of carbon pollution that will not be emitted into the atmosphere, warming the climate and causing sea levels to rise. second, the proposal will reduce smog and particulate pollution, including nitrogen dioxide by 20% by the year 2030. asthma prevalence has increased from 7.3% in 2001 to 8.4% in 2010. the proposed regulations are estimated to prevent up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children and 6,600 premature deaths by 2030.
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third, the vast majority of the american public supports these new rules. in fact, nearly 70% of americans support federal regulations to limit greenhouse gases from existing power plants. these new rules won't be easy to implement, and we will experience some difficulties along the way, but since when does america let a challenge prevent us from rolling up our sleeves and getting to work? this is a global problem, and america must not act alone. but just as we lead the world in many aspects, climate change is a critical issue where we must lead by example. i call my colleagues to do the right thing, stop denying the science and get to work. we can and we must act together to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, clean up our air and waters and once again lead the way into the future. i look forward to the e.p.a. finalizing the proposed rule and i hope it marks just the
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beginnings of our efforts to address climate change before it's too late. i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms. foxx, for five minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, one year ago today this house passed h.r. 1797, the pain capable unborn child protection act with bipartisan support. to this day the senate has not considered this measure to protect the lives of innocent children in the womb from the cruel excruciating pain of an abortion procedure. this is unconscionable. i fear for the conscience of our nation because the termination of unborn children for any reason is tolerated in some parts of our country throughout pregnancy, even though scientific conclusions show infants feel pain by at least 20 weeks' gestation. mr. speaker, it's important that
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the american people understand exactly what happens when they hear the word abortion. it is a heartwrenching painful procedure that tears a baby limb from limb before crushing his or -- head or is a poisonest poisonous chemical injection. that is why i co-sponsored and voted for the bill which would prohibit elected abortions in the united states past 20 weeks. life is the most fundamental of all rights. it is sacred and god given. but millions of babies have been robbed of that right, in this the freest country in the world. that is a tragedy beyond words and a betrayal of what we as a nation stand for. before liberty, equality, free speech, freedom of conscience, the pursuit of happiness, and justice for all, there has to be life. and yet for millions of aborted infants, many pain capable and many discriminated against
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because of gender or disability, life is exactly what they have been denied. and an affront to life for some is an affront to life for every one of us. one day we hope it will be different. we hope life will cease to be valued on a sliding scale. we hope the era of elective abortions ushered in by an un-elected court will be closed and collectively deemed one of the darkest chapters in american history. but until that day it remains a solemn duty to stand up for life. regardless of the length of this journey, we will continue to speak for those who cannot. we will continue to pray to the one who can change the hearts of those in desperation and those in power who equally hold the lives of the innocent in their hands. may we in love defend the unborn. may we in humility confront this national sin. and may we mourn what abortion
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reveals about the conscience of our nation. h.r. 1797 provides commonsense protections for unborn children who feel pain just as you and i do. it is time the senate considers this measure and protects the vulnerable among us. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the chair recognizes the the gentlewoman from california, ms. hahn, for five minutes. ms. hahn: thank you, mr. speaker. i just wanted to come today and add my voice and my constituents' voice to the situation in iraq. and i wanted to voice my strong opposition to any further united states military intervention in iraq. i don't think we should be sending our men and women back to iraq or to engage in air strikes. i don't believe that this is the
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right course of action. our nation's military involvement in iraq i think needs to be over. the united states has already spent trillions of dollars in iraq. while here at home our economy is still suffering. our schools are going without needed funding. families in my district are struggling to find jobs, to put food on the table, and our own infrastructure is crumbling. my colleague earlier on the other side of the aisle talked and her denter --ester great line for such a time as this which is something i actually try to live by, but i don't believe that this is the -- to go go back and back and fight a war that i don't believe is ours, and i believe it is a time for america
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to focus our resources here at home. we can't afford to spend millions of dollars on this military action when our schools are failing. one in five children lives in poverty in the united states. and so many of our veterans are not being taken care of when they come home. i don't sit on the committees of armed services, foreign affairs. i'm not on the intelligence committee. i sit on the small business committee. and the transportation and infrastructure committee. and from that perspective i know that our small businesses want us to help them. our infrastructure is failing and crumbling. we have 70,000 bridges in this country that are struck urelly -- structurally deficient, and i
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believe that we need to focus our resources here at home. u know, we have had nearly 4,500 brave men and women that sacrificed their lives for what i believe was a misguided mission in iraq. and more than 30,000 americans have come home emotionally and physically scarred. let's not do this again. i don't think we have any place trying to solve a modern day civil war. i think enough is enough. and i hope before the president takes action he will come to congress and ask us and the people that we represent what action needs to be taken. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee, mr. duncan, for five minutes. , we ncan: it mr. speaker
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take in approximately $39 billion a year for the highway trust fund to take care of transportation needs all over this country. we have spent $103 billion over the last several years rebuilding afghanistan. now they tell us projects all over this country will have to stop because of a $15 billion shortfall in our highway trust fund. today and tomorrow we will have before us a defense bill that has a $79 billion placeholder for overseas contingency operations over and above the regular defense budget. it has been this amount or much more over the last several years. this account is primarily for iraq and afghanistan where we are still spending megabillions. we should take at least some of this money to cover the shortfall in the highway trust fund to keep these projects and jobs going all over the u.s.
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we have spent far too much blood and treasure in iraq and afghanistan over the last few years, and that needs to stop. mr. speaker, we need to stop spending all these billions in iraq and afghanistan and start taking better care of our own people and our own country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. kildee, for five minutes. mr. kildee: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize the service of chief master sergeant smith who this week will be retiring after an illustrious 28-year career in the united states air force, a career that spanned many decades and took him to many continents across the globe. i am personally honored and grateful that chief smith is here in the house gallery today
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as we celebrate his outstanding career in service and congratulate him on his retirement from the u.s. air force. mr. speaker, chief smith was born and raised in the district that i now have the privilege to represent. in fact, he was raised in my hometown of flint, michigan. graduated from northwestern high school. the school just to the north of northern high school. my high school. shortly after graduation, he entered the air force in 1986 where he completed his basic training at lackland air force base in texas. upon graduation from his technical training as an aircraft maintence in specialist for the b-52 in texas, he was assigned tomorrow stations including new york, new jersey, illinois, maryland, virginia, and hawaii. during operations desert shield and desert storm, he was deployed in saudi arabia.
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afterward also serving two years at anderson air force base in guam. in 1991, chief smith held the rank of staff sergeant. over his 28-year career in the u.s. air force, he was promoted five times. first to technical sergeant. then master sergeant, then senior master sergeant, and lastly in 2010 he was promoted to chief master sergeant, the highest ranking enlisted position in the air force. as the chief enlisted manager of the director of communications of the air force district of washington, chief smith served as senior advisor to the 844th communications group which is made up of more than 900 military person nefment in his highly important and visible position, he helped provide cybersupport to the president of the united states and also other senior officials at the pentagon. during his 28-years of service to our country, chief smith's commitment in excellence as an
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outstanding airman did not go unnoticed. in 1989 he was recognized as the air mobility command student of the year. in 2001 and 2003, chief smith earned the defense threat reduction agency's information management senior noncommissioned officer of the year award. and in 2005, he was named air force senior noncommission officer of the year and air force communications and information professional of the year. john rogers, the deputy director of the 844th communications group summed up chief smith's career by saying, quote, he took care of our airmen and he was phenomenal. he embodied our core value of service before self, unquote. chief master sergeant smith, on behalf of the people of the fifth congressional district, on behalf of the congress of the united states, thank you for your admirable service to our
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country. the motto of the air force is, aim high, fly, fight, win. chief smith, throughout your career you have aimed high and truly represented the best of the u.s. air force, and you have represented the best of our shared hometown of flint, michigan. on behalf of my constituents in the fifth congressional district, on behalf of my colleagues here in congress, congratulations to you on your outstanding career in the air force and your outstanding service to our country. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. bentivolio, for five minutes. mr. bentivolio: thank you very much, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, the crisis un folding in iraq is deeply troubling to the american people. the rapid fall of several cities in iraq to terrorist islamic state of iraq and syria also known as isis has brut the
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militant group dangerously closer to establishing a caliphate that spans the northern sections of syria and iraq. they have a reputation for brutality, including summary executions, beheadings, and in some cases crucifixes. the implications of the rise of isis for iraq's ancient christian community, along with its other religious minorities are troubling. or years we have witnessed a decline of iraq's christian community. thousands have fled in the face of targeted violence. those who remained relocated to mosul and then nineveh plane. these areas were some of the last remaining havens for this beleaguered and brutalized christian community in iraq. in fact, the archbishop indicated this pass sunday that for the first time in 1,600 years there was no mass in mosul. the thousands who fled mosul
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faced displacement, intimate danger, and growing humanitarian nightmare, including access to clean water, food, fuel, and leak terrorist it. i urge the administration -- electricity. i urge the administration to engage with the iraqi central government and kurdistan regional government to prioritize security and support for these vulnerable populations and provide emergency humanitarian assistance to those brutalized communities. if nothing is done, we will most certainly witness the alienation of an ancient -- annihilation of an ancient faith community. i call on our international community to stand together to protect the natural rights of being -- now being persecuted by the isis. thank you. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house
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to fill leadership positions. >> you know, another week and more troubling news about our economy. the american people are paying more for gasoline, more for food and certainly they're paying a lot more for their health insurance. and that's not bad enough, economists came out late last week and made it clear that they expected slower economic growth this year as compared to last year. some recent jobs bill after jobs bill as they continue to lay there and gather dust in the senate. we still have a responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch. the president said there will be full cooperation with the i.r.s. scandal, and yet we find out late last week and then even more troubling news yesterday that all of these emails for several years have been lost and the fact is they've known since february
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that these emails were lost. it's time for the administration to come clean and to be honest and truthful o the american people. >> well, this week is actually the fourth anniversary of the recovery summer, and as i stand before you today, i can't help but think of at least one family i know in spokane where the dad, the husband has been employed for many, many years and lost his job and in recent months had a very difficult time finding a new job. in fact, he hasn't. it's difficult on the entire family and he wants nothing more than a job and be able to bring home a paycheck, provide for his family. and yet, because of this economy, the stagnant economy it is a very difficult task for him. and here in d.c. so often the reason we aren't getting something done is because of the partisan fighting. you know, what we need to do is
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come together. we need to come together and work on jobs. the job is the opportunity. get people back to work. help that single mom that's trying to provide for her children or the recent college grad that is -- needs a job, get a paycheck but also pay off those student loans. we can do this. it takes leadership. it takes coming together, move those solutions forward. there's dozens of jobs bills sitting over in the senate. let's tact. -- let's act. let's get people back to work. >> sometimes stuff just happens is what lois lerner said in reference to her lost emails. ironically sometimes stuff just happens is not a valid excuse for you if you get audited by the i.r.s. in fact, the i.r.s. website, under the section, how long should i keep records, specifies by giving examples. if you don't file a return, you keep records indefinitely.
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all employment tax records should be kept for at least four years. if you claim a bad debt deduction, keep your records for seven years. the list goes on and on. but missing, of course, is if you're sending potentially illegal emails based on targeting specific groups, based on their political beliefs, you delete records immediately. this is another example of hi pack rasi-i within a power -- pipock rasi-i within a powerful government agency that says do as i say, not as i do. whether we're talking about the president's health care law that exempts himself and his cabinet, excessive federal bonuses to folks who bend the rules at the i.r.s. or the v.a. or new mandates and red tape on small businesses. this is what government looks like when it gets too big and out of control. it runs amuck. big government has proven time
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and again it can't be held accountable and it's making life more difficult for folks. the house this week will continue our important work, including oversight, focusing on creating jobs, growing the economy and helping put more money in the hardworking americans' pockets. >> you know, for the last year and a half, the republican-controlled house of representatives has produced a litany of jobs bills. we've been focused on what the american people want us to focus on -- growing this economy, increasing opportunity for rank and file americans, increasing the rate of personal income growth which incidentally has been stagnant over recent years. this has been if not the singular focus of the house, it's certainly been determined effort on part of the house republicans. we produced dozens of jobs bills that we passed on a
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bipartisan basis often and they currently reside in the united states senate. you know, conventional wisdom is that during an election year not a whole lot gets done, but i think the american people expect more of us in coming months. i came here as part of the class of 2010, along with 70-plus other members of congress, and we told our constituents that we were going to put forward and support and do everything we could to present concrete solutions to pressing challenges. we fulfilled that mandate, but the senate, under harry reid's leadership, has done very little. so many of the bills we put forward still reside in his inbox. two examples that i can speak to with the great spess fitity is first the reins act. it would reduce the -- specificity is first the reins act. it passed with bipartisan support last summer out of the house of representatives, haunt even received a hearing over in the u.s. senate.
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that is unacceptable. the other bill is the save american workers act. that bill would redefine full time back to its historical standard of 40 hours. currently under obamacare, the 30-hour standard is causing so many rank and file americans to lose the hours they need during what many consider the worst economy since the great depression. it's these sort of common sensical bills that the senate must take up. i happen to believe that the american people expect the senate to work with the house in a bipartisan fashion to ensure we pass these bills in coming months. i'll continue to do my effort. we must not squander the time between now and the next congress, and the house republican conference doesn't intend to do so. thank you. >> speaker boehner, chairman royce called for drone strikes against isis in iraq. do you support that? >> what i think -- and what i'm hoping to hear from the president today is the broader
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strategy for how we help keep the freedom that we paid dearly for the people of iraq. there's more than one step here. i'm looking for the overall strategy that will help secure the gains that we made. >> u.s. force -- >> i'm looking for an overall strategy from the president. >> mr. speaker, do you believe that the president -- he said last week he's been asleep on this. do you agree with former vice president dick cheney who wrote in "the wall street journal" that it's president obama's fault and should any responsibility be held with maliki? >> listen, the government of iraq clearly is not the most effective government. they've had their challenges in terms of understanding how to run a free society and a government that's open. so having said that, it's nothing new. the president's been watching what we've been watching for
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over a year as the situation in iraq continued to be undermined. and yet nothing, nothing has happened to try to reverse it. i'm hopeful i'll hear something today. -- do you graham agree with him? >> no, i do not. i can't imagine what our friends in the region will be thinking reaching out to iran at a time when they continue to pay for terrorists and foster terrorism not only in syria and lebanon but in israel as well. >> mr. speaker, with respect to iraq. when you hear from the president -- are there certain parameters what you think is acceptable for u.s. 675 ement, whether it be -- >> it will guarantee some
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success in keeping iraq free and propping up the democracy that we fought so hard to get there. thanks, everybody. >> will special forces be considered, boots on the ground between -- >> listen, i just said i don't need to get into the specifics. the president needs to outline an overall strategy for success. i'm hopeful that today in our meeting i'll hear from him. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> house republicans met this morning also to discuss leadership elections happening tomorrow. this afternoon at 3:00, congressional loords will meet with president obama on the situation in iraq and we'll bring you news after that meeting. live now as defense secretary chuck hagel and joint chiefs of staff chair martin dempsey will talk about 2015 defense spending. we join it now. it started at 10:00 this morning. >> nevertheless, after we failed to negotiate agreement,
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status of forces agreement with iraq, there had to be some anticipation that some of this territory would be up for grabs, there would be scenarios where lack of confidence in the leadership or capability of the iraqi military on its own would lead to something like this. was there a plan on the shelf? if so, what is it? if there wasn't, why not? general dempsey, i noted -- and i wrote down the quote. you said we're in the process of developing options. that's different than having options already thought through and strategized. i wonder if each of you could respond to that. >> yes, senator. we don't have a plan on the shelf for the invasion of canada. i want to make sure our canadian allies who may be atching -- [inaudible] what options do we have? we generally for nations where
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we're not in active conflict, we generally describe our options in terms of what resources we can put around the situation and then develop options and present them to our elected leaders. right now we have a great deal of i.s.r. assets committed to iraq. we have a great many maritime assets and aviation assets committed to iraq. and we've placed a few contingency, mostly for force protection of the united states embassy and facilities forces in and around baghdad. now, that said, we have prepared options. we've been discussing them within the interagency. the president of the united states will meet today with members of congress in a classified session and i don't intend to foreshadow his conversation, but i would be happy at some point if you'd like to provide a classified briefing on that subject. >> isn't it a little bit late? i mean, the territory has
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already been lost. the cities have already been taken. the weapons -- u.s. weapons have already been seized. the banks have been robbed. oil maybe or may not be in control of the extremist groups which is a great source of monetary resource. isn't it too late now sitting down and talking to members of congress and say basically let's look at the options? >> it's only late you suggest we could have stopped it in some way. i think it's worth remembering. the real threat in iraq that is common to all of us is isis. which as you know started off as al qaeda in iraq, went to syria and is now back in iraq. so this all started and stops with iraq. and there is very little that could have been done to overcome the degree to which the government of iraq had failed its people. that's what caused this
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problem. that?ator, may i answer one piece of your question was surprise, we did not anticipate this. , nator graham, senator blount the director of our defense eages agency, dr. flynn's testimony before the senate armed services committee in february and in that testimony he said that it is likely that -- specifically, isil may well take territory in iraq or attempt to take territory in iraq. now, that doesn't negate, why weren't you prepared, why didn't you know about it. the other part of that is -- and i think it goes back to what general dempsey was talking about. i think we were surprised that
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-- iraqi divisions is specifically the ones that general dempsey talked about, just threw down their weapons. we had obviously as general dempsey said are always working options and scenarios. and we knew isil for the reasons general dempsey talked about has been a threat in syria and elsewhere. so, again, i go back to we can only do so much. we didn't have a presence in iraq, as you know, for the very reason you mentioned, because the iraqis would not give us the immunity and what we needed to get. i think all those are parts to your question. >> would you agree, mr. secretary, that the current situation in iraq is in our national, economic and security interests? >> oh, i do agree if for no
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other reason than oil. you mentioned energy and oil and it's a regional issue. i believe that. so the ripple effect of what's going on there, everywhere -- >> given that, do you think we therefore should have some response other than no response , at least to this point? >> well, i don't think it's a matter of no response. >> no response is making a difference. >> i'm not sure of that. but i would give you the same response that general dempsey did. the president is meeting with congressional leadership this afternoon. >> do you think it's too late? i mean, we've already lost the territory. they already gained control of the second largest city in iraq. we lost blood and treasure and people lost limbs and died to save. we've already lost it. so it's like crimea. do we say, ok, fine, that's done? >> we didn't lose anything. the iraqi government. >> well, in terms of our
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national interest we lost it. >> you can say that for a lot of things. it's not that the united states lost anything. we turned a pretty significant situation over, as you noted, for the very reasons you noted to the iraqi people when we phased out of our military involvement in iraq. and so we have done everything we could to help them. it's up to the iraqis. they wanted to manage and govern their own country, so i don't think we should assign the blame to the united states for this. i think we go back to who is responsible for this, isil, they invaded, but also this current government in iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to bring a unity government together with the sunnis, the kurds and the shiia. we have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to help them do that. but we can't dictate to them.
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>> well, my time is up. i'll yield back. i simply want to say there have been many situations in the history of this country that have been in our national interest, both economically and strategically. that was he country taking place didn't step up. i think a lot of countries look to american leadership, and i'm not advocating any specific military action, but they're looking to leadership in terms -- i like to know somebody's got their back. i think it would have been easier for the soldiers to shed their uniforms and run because they didn't have nobody at their back. to basically state that just because the country didn't deliver what we wanted them to deliver, it's something that in our national security interests that we take a pass or wait too long until it's too late i
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don't think is the kind of answer we want to give. mr. chairman, over my time. >> when we're not there we're not there. i mean, i don't know what you would expect the united states to do. >> well, i hope we could get somewhere. >> well, we are. that's what we've been doing the last week and the president will talk to leaders of congress. we've been briefing, by the way, in classified briefings the last few days members of congress. >> i think it would be good if president could talk to the congress and to the american people and let us know where we are. thank you. >> senator reed. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ith respect briefly to iraq. state department operation basically because they run the embassy, but in the context of centcom, particularly, have we been communicating to maliki and to his military questions about their capacity and their willingness and their effective
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leadership? d have we made it clear in conjunction, general flynn's testimony there were real threats they faced and they had to make adjustments, is that something that was done? >> senator, absolutely. let me give you something personal. hen the syria issue began to manifest itself, i went to baghdad penally and met with the most senior members of their leadership and government. they were all, of course, worried about syria. what's going to come in from syria to affect us? i said, that's the wrong question. the question is, how will you take this opportunity -- that is to say a perceived threat to your country from outside -- and use it as an opportunity to actually -- bring your government, your people together on the basis of that common threat?
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that was a year ago. and in that year the behavior was for the most part exactly counter to what you would probably try to do if you were trying to bring your people together. changing military leadership, cronyism. sectarianism of that have led us to where we are today. but have you, through others, communicated consistently the operational consequences of these political decisions that they are in danger of -- they're endangering their own security? >> frequently. >> frequently. and the response by both the civilian and military authorities has been indifference? >> i would describe their response is a volume of conspiracy theories. >> turning to the present moment. maliki, we've all had -- many of us, at least, have had
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occasion to meet with him numerous times. at least in one moment in the history he surprised a lot of us by taking very aggressive action in basra in 2008. where he was able to go after elements that everyone thought were untouchable. in fact, he was ahead of our own commanders in terms of taking the offensive. at this moment, is it your sort of impression that he understands that this is an exsention moment for him and his country and he's willing effectively to start doing things that would at least stop the momentum and reverse the tide and -- >> senator, i don't know. our ambassador is in country along with brett mcburke, trying to understand exactly how maliki is thinking about this situation. that question would be better passed to the state department. >> final question.
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just the leverage that we have, given the fact that we were trying to communicate serious concerns about their military capabilities, not so much of the training of the individual soldiers and the equipment they had. that seemed to be quite adequate. it was just at the level of leadership and political direction of the military orces. do we -- do we -- do we think we've done enough in that regard or tried enough or hit the right buttons? >> well, i mean, clearly we will look back on this and do what we always do, be intro spective and use that result the way we build partners. i should mention, by the way, as though the two units in the north collapsed and police units, there's still multiconfessional units of the iraqi armed forces standing and defending in and around baghdad. multiconfessionals. this has not broken down
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entirely on sectarian lines but it could. >> i want to very quickly change subjects and that is to e persistent, ubiquitous and are a.g threat of sipe are you comfortable, mr. secretary, that you are doing enough of the planning and gaming and assuming all of the new technology has come online in response to the question about crimea, one of the things that the russians did was cleverly employ cyberoperations as an adjunct to the battle plan. i understand that will be probably the opening salvo of any engagement going forward. and to the issue of war planning, are you actively engaging the war colleges, educational institutions in this sort of d.o.d. level,
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secretary of defense level sort of what's coming, what's the worst case, are we ready or where are the gaps? >> senator, on your first question, it is one of the areas of our budget that we have requested an increase, cyber. i think it's $5.1 billion to , our capability up quickly move it to around i think 6,000 employees. on ut a high, high priority this in the last two years for obvious reasons. am i confident we're doing enough, i'm confident that we're doing everything we need to be doing but we're constantly reassessing, senator. i don't think anyone can be too confident because there are surprises all the time, but we recognize what's out there. we recognize the technology that is moving so rapidly. the threats that are clear to this country, to the world, we are working interagency with
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all the appropriate assets and tools we have to bring together the coordinated value added to your question about war college and other outside units, interests, enterprises to get their best advice, absolutely. because we don't think we are alone, the repository for all of this. this is as high a priority overall as we have. >> thank you. just one comment. i want to thank secretary hagel for your appearance. -- i want to st thank secretary hale for your aexperience. this is your last one. i think the leverage -- the only leverage we would have would simply to sort of pull support back which might have even made the situation worse. so this is, again, i think
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something that we realize some many years ago there's no good answer there. but it's -- it's a very -- i tell you, gentlemen, it's a very disturbing situation at the moment. thank you. >> senator graham. >> thank you. mr. hale, make sure in your last appearance you get to speak. [laughter] as you depart, would you advise the congress and the administration to deal with the growing personnel cost because without some personnel reforms it would be hard to maintain the budget? >> i appreciate an easy question, senator. and the answer is absolutely yes. as the chairman and secretary said, we need to deal with -- >> about 50% of our costs. >> yes. >> and the future retirement reforms, looking at tricare and trying to be rational in terms of cost sharing, correct? >> yes. all of those are elements, as you know, on the retirement side. we have been working with and
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waiting for the commission. but we think especially in tricare a good proposal that will most of the savings, frankly, don't come out of the pockets of the troops. >> and my colleagues, i hope we will listen to what mr. hale says and try to stabilize the budget. now, to iraq, is it possible, eneral dempsey, to stop isis without u.s. airpower? >> isil -- isis, whatever we call them -- >> the people that al qaeda kicked out. >> or broke contact because they're more radical. >> yeah, these people. >> i suspect -- first, we have a request from the iraqi government for airpower. >> you do? >> we do. >> do you think it's in our national security interest to honor that request? >> it is in our national security interest to counter isil wherever we find them. >> fair statement. because -- and i want the
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american people to understand, there's a lot at stake for us, right, secretary hagel? >> there's a lot at stake for us, the region -- >> and the world at large. if iraq falls and iran dominates the south and this group, isis, owns the sunni territory, kurdistan breaks away, that would create economic chaos in the area which would affect us here at home is that a fair outcome? >> i don't know what the outcome would be if that would occur, senator. all i can tell you is what we're looking at, providing to the -- >> well, the economy of iraq ould collapse. >> well, i think if it's right if they lose their oil. > and if they have assets from there, they're enriched, the country we know as iraq financially collapses, don't you think that would affect the region and
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