economics and energy. the eurasian economic union was mentioned briefly, but that's not where they focused their discussions. while the russian team said theymentioned. that is not where they focused the discussions. the russian team said they would turn to china and they would rather maintain the european market they now enjoy. >> >> you reference for policy going forward and that was probably the greatest challenge frankly that was at peace and this was the good, fast, and cheap discussion. do we want a europe that is at

peace? i think that we want a democratic ukraine and we want respect for international borders. the challenge is, how do you clearly articulate it and what is the strategy link to the policy? what are the methods and mechanisms used to advance that. that gets to your point and how you encourage the democratic ukraine. that is probably where the answer is and, when the linkage is correct, you will have a clearly articulated policy towards the areas. >> yeah, it our second

consideration came from western europe and eastern european countries. they need to know where the u.s. stands on a lot of things. the baltic state, it does not matter which path is chosen and they were concerned and everybody understands, if you -- if russia takes a next step, they need the content and the clarity. we have a couple of international fellows saying russia is part of europe, whether we like it or not. it is. so, yeah. >> good morning. i am a college grad.

as a strategist, there are a couple of things and i want to ask you a couple of questions. if we take at face value about the relationship with the russians that is unavoidable and taking ukraine is problematic for the united states because of the escalation dominance the russians seem to have, and third, how the u.s. reacts playing prevent defense. how do you see the initiative? if you have it strategically competitive, what are the places where it the advantages force the russians to react to what you are doing, rather than you reacting to them? is it the arctic? where are the places where the advantages play out in the

competitive environment and cause the russians to rethink being aggressive in places where they have escalation and dominance. one of the reasons you are not acting is that you reached into a toolbox and it is not in there. what are the tools you need to develop? >> good questions. in the back of the room? >> i am an international student and i have two questions that relates to russia and the peninsula. what do you think of annexation? was this a long-term plan or just a tangible opportunity? the first item in the slide, you say, compete with russia to maintain international order.

is it possible to compete with a country that brutally breaks international rules? thank you. >> i am a consultant here. i am curious how, in preparing for this, you looked at the evolution of russian policy preceding the war game. the way i look at this, i see a lot of russian propaganda and it was intended with efforts to destabilize it. at the end of the day, nothing

happened nothing happened and the police were able to deal with the separatists and the separatists were thrown out. they ended up with a piece of that and would have been in jail, if not for the direct intervention of russia. in the context, it looks like a russian failure, because they were not able to what is your perspective? how does the failure to ignite a mass uprising with the russian

speaking population figure in to the calculus? >> >> back to the panel. >> i will start in the reverse order and the example you gave of russian policy towards eastern ukraine. i'm going to combine it with a question on crimea, whether it was an opportunity or a plan. and i think that going into it we saw that the crimea was -- was an opportunity on the back end of the sochi olympics. you have forces available.

and i think eastern ukraine, frankly, was another opportunity. the difference was the geography of crimea was fairly well set, and that was -- that's where that opportunity probably had a little more solidity, it was a little more solid than in eastern ukraine. we saw the eastern ukraine movement, going back to what we said before, it's all about maintaining the regime. and those were opportunities to create instable. that's why you didn't see the tractions in many areas, frankly. there wasn't a clearly identified geographically limited goal that was the aim of what we saw in eastern ukraine as opposed to what we saw with crimea. >> and on the second part of your question, on the -- can you compete with somebody who is so that? sorry for that. it's not a question whether you can. i think you must. if you don't react, it's a signal of weakness. it's not a question of whether you can compete in that environment.

we believe you have to compete in that environment. because that's the game he's playing. >> from the national war college, appreciate your question about capabilityies gap. let me take a stab at that. note one thing that the u.s. team wished they 01:31:33 hey hey hey no four deployed in europe itself. there was a sense that we needed to put a floor under what's there now and perhaps move some forces back into europe. simply because it's a long way kansas, to get to somewhere in the nato area. and so that's a capability. we base those draw-down decisions on certain assumptions about the international security environment that were made

several yours ago. we have to be able and willing to go back and re-examine the assumptions as far as fore structure in europe. there's another capability. there's of course a great deal of destruction about what to do and how to provide support to the the government in kiev. it doesn't always have to do with weapons. and communications systems. this is just on the military side. economic and political support. and of course, we have partners, osce and eu and the imf. and you have a joint effort from a lot of different governments and different international organizations and regional organizations trying to help kiev. it's not just about how many tank weapons we can provide them. and one that the team worried about a lot was the lack of ability to communication with the russian people and the russian ethnic kmirnts in other parts of europe. it is true that there has been no mass uprising in other parts of eastern europe. even a year ago the terrible tragedy in odessa.

somehow they've been able to keep the russian speaking population in odessa from rising up and staging, you know overthrowing the ukrainian government or the regional government there. that's a good thing. i chalk that up as a success story. in the long-term, they need to reassess and communicate the open free press, probably the best way to do it. through social media and websites, through television in particular, for the russian speaking minorities throughout europe. so that at least they have an alternative source of information to the h highly politicized information pouring out of moscow, that's very, very well funded. and it's not just u.s.

instruments. it's not just the radio for europe. it could be the bbc. there's any number of avenues that the west can reach. and communicate the truth to russian speaking populations. >> and very quickly on this initiative. that was one of the larger challenges throughout the exercises. ironically if you look at the shocks that she designed, they were all targeting the 01:34:49 russian systems. there were no shocks to the u.s. system. yet at each turn when we came back in the preliminary session, the russian team was very proactive in each of their moves. we concur with your assessment that we don't think there will be any type of hybrid type

attack if you will on any nato member. yeah, exactly. yeah, granted. that's a fair knock on wood. but that was really the assessment, that line was so well known and pronounced there would not be a provocation. and in the baltic states, the thing they have going for them is they have the eu membership. life is frankly much better in the baltic states than across the border, even if you're a russian speaking nationalist. we see that on the diplomatic fronts, frankly, on other contested spaces or what could be contested spaces. and part of that is how we deal with our own allies and how we have areas of disagreements. we have to show this despite the fact we may not agree on different issues, whether they're house we use forces or we we build forces. >> let me make a comment on the successor failure question. it's a very interesting one.

it was a brilliant success. and it was a great head fake too. you put 40,000 or 50,000 troops on the border, and you come in through the back door into crimea. and what we should be expected at this. i don't plan to be nostrodomus or anything, but over the weekend of february 21, 22, 23 jeff manchov and i were writing a piece for csis, and of course

it was about the implications of the february 21st accord, which then of course the accord fell apart so we had to rewrite it over the weekend. and one of the things inserted will is you have to think about a possible asymmetrical reaction. and the most likely place for such a reaction would be crimea. it's the least ukrainian part of ukraine. but yet, we do still seem to -- i mean, seem quite surprised. quite surprised by it. and also the fact that the ukrainian military forces in crimea completely backed down. my concern at that point was that created an impression for putin that the environment was way too permissive. there's no reaction from the west. probably will not be much reaction from the military forces if there were further incursions into ukraine, which is what i was immediately afraid about on february 28th. that was when my hair was on fair and saying we need to mobilize the strongest reaction possible, including sending military assistance to ukraine.

trying to alter it at that moment. the next step don't do it. don't do it. it's almost impossible for our political system to command a strong response and more difficult for our european allies at that time. now, was it a success? well, i think you miscalculated the degree to which the russian supported insurgents would be welcomed in eastern ukraine. putin came out on april 17th with the line -- and with that policy, got a very tough defeat in odessa a few weeks later. and the aspirations modulated. to what extent, how broad were the aspirations in the beginning? it's impossible for me to say. there's a phrase the appetite grows with eating. but so we'll leave it.

will this be judged as success or failure? i think it's too early to tell, frankly. if we get back to steve's point, which i agree with, in the that foreign and domestic policy are so intertwined, how long is mr. putin going to continue enjoying a 25% increase in his popular support? mainly because of activities in ukraine. there are differing views about that. we had a very good presentation here at csis on april 28th that's up on our website. one of the things he argued is if you look in the past at when economic downturns have occurred, there's usually a time lag between the the impact of economic downturn on the support for the president. so it will be interesting to see how, to what extent the political opinion polls up hold

at the level where they are and for how long. ok. we have time for one more round. i saw the gentleman in the gray shirt shirt. yes. >> thank you. u.s. european command. question to you about the information, the russian propaganda. it's clearly an effort we're not winning, and a lot of this is due to one, the unified nature of the russian information warfare, state run media. but also the fact that their propaganda isn't so much convincing, but making them doubt everything. even doubting the truth. besides pure capables. capabilities, do you think our approach of countering their propaganda is working when frankly the pop lus isulous is trying to influence the truth, or do you think we need a new approach? >> ok, i want to exercise two options. first, the russian invasion, for

example. and second, russian massive cyber attack. for example, against 01:41:28 estonia, where a government is strongly relying on internet and israeli government. in fact, all for example, very important financial in eastern europe. is this the case for article five? >> back to the panel. and you can conclude as well. >> yeah, i'll take the last question about the cyber attack. yeah, i wasn't -- we don't have one -- we don't have consensus

about everything. when we said that he will never go into the the baltic states, i'm not quite sure about that. he won't do that with tanks, i'm pretty sure about that. actually in our war game, we -- one of the the injects was 2 conflict, and there was a combination with smaller attacks, cyber attacks in the other places. so yeah, we considered that. >> and that brought us to the idea that putin is not sor much, that's our belief, looking for a gain of terrain, and he's looking for a great russia, but 01:42:56 needs some sort of conflict going onto keep the momentum that we can have if 2018. so as long as the conflict

stays, that will be the main interest, and as soon as that dies out, he might try and cyber will be one of the ways he could try that in other places as well. yeahious i think taurking about article five, and there's a big red line everybody says in article five. i agree to that. but i think it's a very thick line as well. so whether he crosses it, i think he's too smart for that. but he will stay just into the line. and with cyber, that's really hard to tell. and it's really hard to make one clear stand on this is article five and this is not. >> yeah, that was the debate that happened inside the u.s. team was what is going to institute an article five

attack? was the cyber attack in estonia an article five situation? was about other smaller violations of sovereignty? what are we going to consider article five? there was some talk of does it need to be rewritten. and frankly i think the consensus going out was no. because it's written -- it's written -- the way it's currently written is fine. what might need to happen is a discussion about what does it mean in a new environment? it was clearly written in the washington treaty in a different environment, where some of these other challenges simply didn't have a way to materialize. but now that's the next step. we've got to determine what does that mean, and as he said, it's probably a thick line, and then that's up for the council to decide. when is the line going to be thick, and when is it going to be very thin? >> the broad interpretation of

article five for the red team allowed them to hedge their bets, to use their tool kit, to push up to the line and then stop, and create that tension with nato. that's what we saw as a goal of the red team quite often. >> if i might also add to karen's remarks. and the question is really what can we see as the initiative. the russian team was very concerned over the economic dependence and inner dependence of europe. i think if if u.s. were to go forward that might be some avenues of an initiative that certainly the west can concede upon, precluding that ability of russia in the near abroad to control the economic dependency, if you might. often times the russian team, as karen made mention of, would go right up to that red line, that very thick red line. they acknowledged the fact that

they can spin a narrative far faster than the west could. and so i think you mentioned the question about is there a way to change our info ops? i think certainly being faster would probably -- would probably -- certainly help the united states in the future. while, obviously i'm an air force guy, and we prefer our safety reports and our after accident reports to be clear and concise, certainly getting a message out quickly after airliner is shot down may have actually improved u.s. flexibility, rather than waiting until all of the truth is done. that's my small insight. >> and just as a concluding comment, i agree with chris. sometimes getting, you know, your best information out quickly better then waiting for

weeks and having a thorough, complete report. that's an aspect of the competition. we have to understand it's competition. though it doesn't have to be u.s. government sources of information. and i think it -- we, in the west, should not be hung up on just responding to distortions and lies and pointing them out. i think we have to provide a the russian-speaking population about what is happening in the west. how do the people live, how do their governments treat them? and that's a long-term strategy. but that's i think the one that we have to approach. and then finally, i want to draw your attention again to the point four up there. there is a concern that we have two election cycles rolling up in the next two or three years that have the potential to have some negative interference with each other. we're -- we hope that the u.s./russia -- policy towards russia does not become highly politicized during the 2016

campaign which has already begun and you hear, you know foreshadowing of that in some politicians making statements or asking rude questions. but the new administration and the new president whoever he or she may be coming in to office in january of 2017 will be coming smack into a period of priority need on the part of russia to do something to make an impact for their own election cycle a year or so later. we have to be aware of the potential for a dangerous situation in 2017. >> well, i think it's time to wrap up and i'd like to make a concluding comment. first of all, thank you. coming here to csis today and sharing the fruits of their labors so to speak from the work of the net assessment of russia and then the subsequent war game

that was carried out last month. and one thought occurred to me that -- it was in response to the question about the importance of secretary kerry's trip to sochi and other state department and other u.s. government engagement with russia. and the issue with mutual communication is so important right now. never in the -- i started traveling to the soviet union in 1979 and never have i seen in 36 years a wider disparity between the narratives that are being told in our two capitals. and, you know, certainly not everything about our narrative is right and not everything about the russian narrative is wrong. there are different perceptions of the same events. and the fact that we're not talking to each other about them

as much as we should be doing, in some ways we're talking less than during soviet times i think is a real detriment and increases the bad policy frankly. so maybe one small effort that i would suggest is that i think it would be interesting to exercise exercise, to do a scenario like this that included russians, europeans and americans, but on mixed teams. and i think we would learn a lot from each other about how we see different phenomena through a different lens, but how that different lens may not necessarily be right or wrong, but we need to understand really to i think make better policy towards each other. so thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us today and thank you all for coming.

>> the cia deputy director discusses u.s. intelligence surveillance programs, and isis. hillary clinton campaigns in iowa. later, a conversation with lindsey graham. who serves on the transportation committee. then a discussion about jerrold nadler and whether congress should renew surveillance

programs. later, the look at the effect the drought on the west could have on the economy. washington journal is live each morning at 7:00 on c-span. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. former cia deputy director spoke at the national press club about counterterrorism efforts and the threat of isis and al qaeda. he responded to a recent article about the killing of an lawton in pakistan in 2011. -- of bin laden in pakistan in 2011. this is an hour. >> good morning. omberg. i will be monitoring today's newsmaker with our guest former

ca jeopardy director -- cia deputy director mike morell. before i start, as i said before please set your phones to vibrate. second the format will be that i ask questions for about 30 minutes and then i will open the floor to questions. i will give priority to reporters because they are here for a job. once the reporters have asked their questions, i will open it up to others. third, i request that you ask the question, give us your name and your affiliation. we all remember may 2, 2011, the day osama bin laden was killed in pakistan.

what are some of the other cia's counterterrorism successes and failures over the last 20 my guest today mike morell is a good person to answer the question because he was probably involved with most if not all of them. mike morell is one of the country's most renown security professionals. he served as cia deputy director and twice as an acting director. mr. morell played a central role in this country's fight against terrorism and has over 30 years with the agency. he participated in the read and killing of bin laden in 2011. since november 2013, he has been the senior counselor at beacon global strategies llc. welcome. mike: it is great to be here. thank you. >> as i mentioned before, the question as to some of the other successes and failures of the cia and counterterrorism area.

could you give us and example of a failure the cia encountered during that time? mike: there is an entire chapter in my book on pre-war iraq intelligence. the whole chapter in the book on pre-qwar iraq intelligence or i talk about -- where i talk about the intelligence community's failure, the failure of every intelligence service in the world that saddam had weapons of mass destruction when we subsequently learned he did not. he got rid of the programs. it was the most significant intelligence failure i have ever been involved in. i think one of the most significant intelligence

failures in the history of the organization. >> talking about bin laden -- were you on the team tasked with finding him? mike: there are two aspects to it. an extensive discussion in the book about it. a chapter calls it no mickey mouse operation. that was the codename for this operation. there are two aspects to it. one is the intelligence piece of it which was finding him. it literally took us nine years to find him. the particular thread that led us to that compound took nine years and there are various aspects to it and we talk about

all of them in the book. there is the finding him which is an intelligent story and then there is a operation itself which is obviously an intelligence and military story. i was heavily involved in the first and significantly involved in the second. there was an expose published saying the pakistani military and intelligence knew about the raid beforehand. any comments on that? mike: he alleges a lot of things in this london review of books. he alleges the pakistanis were keeping them prisoner at the compound. he alleges we learned about bin laden's presents from a senior pakistani walking into the embassy in islamabad and telling us that in return for $25 million. he alleges the pakistanis were

aware we were going to do the raid and allowed us to do the raid. it is all rubbish. almost every sentence in the article is wrong. i was in the room for every discussion about this at the cia and i was in the room for every discussion about this at the white house. i was there when our guys stayed on and followed someone we believe to be bin laden's courier to his home. i was there when our guys watched the compound for months and when they said we have come to the conclusion he is there and there is no information provided us by the pakistanis or others, by the way. in the media this morning, some confidential german sources are claiming the germans provided this information. not true. i was there when the president of the u.s. decided we were not

going to tell the pakistanis in advance. not because we didn't want to. there would have been nothing better for the relationship between the u.s. and pakistan than to have worked together on this. we simply could not trust the pakistani system. not the pakistani government but their system to not have leaked the information and get back to bin laden and have him leave the compound before the raid happened. i was there when the pakistanis learned about this and were deeply angry with us. i was sent by the president to pakistan to put the relationship back together. everything seymour hersh says is wrong. he said he got this information from a former senior intelligence official who was very close to the operation. whoever that source was was not in the room, not in any room i was in.

>> not only was he a single source, he was an unnamed source. speaking about the pakistani isi. on a scale of one to 10, how would you rate the cia's relationship with the pakistani intelligence agency? the week. -- mike: it depends on the day of the week. of all the places i traveled when i was deputy director, i traveled to pakistan more than anywhere else. it was an extremely important relationship for the u.s. two, the pakistanis have taken more al qaeda guys off the

streets than any other country in the world combined. in some ways, they are our closest counterterrorism partner. they played a very significant role. we talk about this in the great war of our time. they played a significant role in dismantling al qaeda after 9/11. when al qaeda was forced out of afghanistan, they went to prearranged safehouses in pakistan. once the pakistani president made a decision to work with us, they were in large part responsible for taking the senior leadership of al qaeda off the streets by capturing them after 9/11. the third point is the pakistani government does support other international terrorist groups providing safe havens to the

taliban and anti-indian extremist groups. at the same time they are a great counterterrorism partner they are a counterterrorism problem. it is a schizophrenic relationship. host: would it have been helpful to have publicized their help in combating al qaeda? or would that have led to a shakeup in the government at some point? mike: this is a conversation that i used to have with them. i had it with the pakistani military but the broader pakistani government. i think it would have been opportunistic for them to take more credit than they took for the work that we did against al qaeda.

because at the end of the day, al qaeda is as much a threat to them, if not a greater threat to them than us. host: why do you think they did not want their role publicized? mike: it is hard to say. one of the things you learn is there is a lot of insight into what it is like to be an intelligence analyst and officer. one of the things you learn very quickly as an intelligence analyst is it is very dangerous to speculate about people's motivations. very difficult to say here is what this person was thinking when they did x, y, or z. you learn to not speculate because you're almost always wrong.

i will not answer the question because i would just be guessing. host: i would guess that the u.s. does not play a lone wolf hand in intelligence operations or analysis worldwide. what relationship do we have or what are some of the best relationships with other intelligence agencies around the world? mike: i will not get specific for obvious reasons, but i will say this. what you said is absolutely true. we cannot do our jobs without the cooperation and partnership with other intelligence services and we are not talking about a handful. we are talking about many relationships. a big part of my job and my travel overseas and when i was here with visitors was to maintain and enhance those relationships.

very, very important for us to do our job to protect our country and help them protect their country. there are three levels to an intelligence relationship or partnership. one is the sharing of analysis. here is what we think, what do you think? what is most valuable is not where you agree, but what is more valuable is where you disagree. then you dive into why do we disagree and that conversation leads to and i talk in a book about how i was cia's representative to the british analytics community. those conservations about why you disagree, you lead to better

understanding. the first thing is sharing of analysis. the second is sharing of raw intelligence. we collect intelligence, they collect intelligence. the second level is the exchanging of the raw information. that requires a little more trust than the first level. the third level of partnership is working together to collect information. cooperation on operations takes the most trust. these relationships are built on trust. these relationships are not only a tool for intelligence and a tool for security, but they are a strategic foreign-policy tool for the president of the united states. i tell some really interesting stories in the book about my interactions with the former

head of the egyptian intelligence service and the former head of the libyan intelligence service where the president specifically tasked to achieve a goal. he uses the relationships a lot to further the foreign interest of u.s. host: speaking of libya, a two-part question. is our intelligence good, fair bad in libya? if it is bad, is that because of the lack of intelligence assets in libya? mr. morell: i don't know what it is today. i have been gone for a year and a half so i don't know. after the fall of the libyan government, the libyan military

intelligence service fell apart. libya no longer had the capability to deal with extremists inside the border. extremism started to flourish. as bad as qaddafi was with human rights, the one thing he did effectively was keep al qaeda out of libya. he worked closely with us on that. i had been to libya prior to the fall of the government. one of the big jobs the cia had was to monitor inside libya with regard to extremism. one of the stories i talk about in the book is we were monitoring very effectively the rise of extremists in eastern

libya in general and in benghazi and in particular reporting that to the administration and congress. i think this is a success story in terms of us watching very closely what these extremists, some of them with connections to al qaeda, were doing in eastern libya. host: you mentioned benghazi. embassy happen? -- why did the attack on the embassy happen? did we know about it beforehand? was there a way we could have prevented that attack? mr. morell: no, we did not know about it beforehand. there was absolutely no intelligence to suggest that folks are going to attack that night. and attack the way they did.

the only way it could have been prevented i think would have been to have battlefield kind of intelligence. what i mean is to saturate the region with intelligence collection in a force protection kind of way. wherever there are u.s. troops in the world, there is a huge intelligence footprint around them in order to protect them. you are picking up everything from a signals perspective and human perspective. i think the only way to have avoided benghazi would to have that kind of footprint on top of them. we have to think that about going forward because the real lesson about benghazi is how do we protect american diplomats?

how do we protect american servicemen and women overseas moving forward in what is a very very dangerous world? host: abu saif who was supposedly isis's oil minister was killed recently. based on what you know, if anything, do you think he was a very significant target for us to take out? mr. morell: a couple of thoughts. a very significant target. a guy who played a significant role in advancing the interests of isis. a guy who was very close to al baghdadi, one of his senior advisers. a very important person to

remove from the battlefield. there are some real positives here. one is taking him away from the fight. two is all of the intelligence that was gained here. turns out not only he was working for isis, but his wife was also working for isis. it would have been better to capture him than to kill him so that we could have debriefed him and got additional intelligence. he died in the firefight, but she did not. she is being debriefed in iraq. the significant take of computers and documents are all going to give the u.s. intelligence community and our allies insight into the organization. insight into how it is structured. insight into how it is run. insight into how it is managed.

it will better enable us to attack it. the third, and perhaps the most important, is the u.s. flying into syria, putting troops on the ground, and killing one senior isis person and grabbing another and grabbing a bunch of intelligence sends a message. there are a handful of what i consider to be important messages in the great war of our time. one of the most important messages is that you have to put pressure on the senior leadership of the groups. when you put pressure, you get them worrying more about their own security than about doing their job attacking us and taking territory and setting up the caliphate.

the more pressure you put on them, the more you put them on the back heels, the more you make it difficult for them to plan and do their business. the psychological effect on them, particularly if we follow this up by taking additional senior guys off the battlefield is very positive. host: you mentioned isis. there are other terrorist groups in the middle east. al-shabaab in somalia. other groups in yemen. there are groups out there that we should be aware of and we should combat or we could have another 9/11 type of situation. could you mention some of the ones, and i would like to focus on two particular geographic areas. one is the middle east and two is east and southern asia. mr. morell: great question.

let me start with a big picture here. in this war that i write about we have had a couple of significant victories, but so have they. our significant victories have been the protection of the home for them. despite significant effort on the part of al qaeda, no successful attack -- we had some lone-wolf attacks, but no directed attack by an outside group since 9/11. remarkable success despite effort after effort on their part. the second is the degradation, near decimation, near defeat, of the al qaeda senior leadership in the border areas of afghanistan and pakistan. the senior leadership that brought that tragedy to the u.s. on 9/11.

those are our two great successes. their great success has been the spread of ideology across a huge geographic area from northern nigeria in west africa to other parts of africa into yemen syria, iraq, south asia, afghanistan, pakistan, india bangladesh. a huge geographic spread. that is one of the reasons we call this the great war of our time. specifically, this is a very important question because the focus on isis, there is a couple of significant threats from isis. probably the most important right now is to the stability of the entire middle east. isis threatens the territorial

integrity of syria, iraq, and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region. that is the most important threat from isis right now. the second threat is the radicalization of young men and women in western europe, canada, australia responsible for the attacks recently. if they are allowed to have safe havens in iraq and syria and they will eventually reach out and attack us, they have told us that. they have told us they will do that just like bin laden said prior to 9/11. coming back to your question

despite the significance or from isis, it is not the most significant threat to the homeland today. the most significant threat still comes from al qaeda and three al qaeda groups in particular. top of the list is al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in yemen. the last three attempted attacks against the u.s. were by al qaeda in yemen. christmas day bomber in 2009 kerry the printer cartridge that almost brought down in airliner on christmas day. the printer cartridge plot which was designed to bring down multiple cargo planes like putting a very sophisticated explosive device into a cartridge and into a printer. that was foiled at the last moment. then, the attempt to bring down an airliner with a suicide

bomber. they have that capability. they have the capability to bring down an airliner in the united states of america tomorrow. i would not be surprised by that. al qaeda in yemen. the core is on group. which is part of the group in syria. it is associated with the al qaeda senior leadership in pakistan. it is a group of operatives that someone here he -- zawahiri. they have the external operations arm. they are attempting to attack western europe and the united states. they are a greater threat, a direct threat than isis.

third, the al qaeda senior leadership, although significantly graded in afghanistan -- significantly degraded in afghanistan and pakistan still represent a significant threat. mr. hill: two more questions. in the group that you mentioned, you did not mention al qaeda in bogra. mr. morrell: they are a local threat. they are not yet a threat outside of the region. they could easily become a threat outside of the region. a couple of years ago, the french became so concerned that they were becoming a threat to france that the french military went into molly -- mali and took back a significant portion of territory. thereby weakening them considerably. could they become a threat someday?

absolutely. are they right now outside of the region? no. mr. hill: why has isis in so successful in getting foreigners to calm and fight for them? did we ever hear this with al qaeda at al qaeda had 40,000 foreigners come to fight for them? why has isis enabled to be so successful? could we have a future group that could be even more successful? mr. morrell: great question. there is a history. a history for foreigners going to fight for al qaeda. for example, a rock. -- iraq. after the 2003 invasion, al qaeda stands up to fight the u.s. occupation. a lot of foreigners flow into iraq to fight for al qaeda.

there is a history there. we have never seen it in the kind of numbers that we are seeing now. the flow remains significant. we may have slowed it a little bit but the flow of foreigners into iraq and syria to fight for isis is still significant. they have the most sophisticated narrative, social media propaganda than i have already seen -- that i have ever seen. i talk about it being madison avenue style quality. their narrative is powerful. their narrative is that the west, the united states, the modern world is a significant threat to their religion. that they have an answer to that threat to their religion, which is the establishment of this caliphate, and that they are being attacked as they try to

establish this caliphate. they are being attacked by the united states other western nations. and by these apostate regimes in the region. and because they are being attacked as they try to set up this caliphate to protect their religion, they need support. and they need support in two ways. people coming to fight with them and people to stand up and attack. it's a pretty powerful narrative. we don't really have a great counter narrative. not because we are not doing our job, but because it's really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility. we really need the leaders of muslim countries, we need leading muslim clerics, we need muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries

themselves. that is where it has to take place. one of the things i think the president has done well is to raise this issue in his society. and start to have a conversation with his own people about this. that's where it has to take place. host: his book is "the great war of our time, the cia's fight against terrorism from al qaeda to isis." i would like to open the floor to questions. >> there is a growing skepticism about whether the united states is serious about fighting terrorism -- isis, or isil, or al qaeda.

from time to time, there are selective attacks like in syria. but how is al qaeda able to move freely in the large areas with all the surveillance and not detected and attack while it is moving? when other aspects of this skepticism is you mentioned al qaeda in yemen and in the peninsula. the united states is assisting saudi arabia in attacking the people who are fighting al qaeda in yemen. this group and the yemeni army were fighting al qaeda. that would allow al qaeda to expand and take more.

how can you say this is an effective way or a serious way of attacking? one last thing about the cia. this is a military campaign or a cia campaign? which is more effective to conduct operations against terrorists? mr. morell: thank you for the question. here's what i would say. number one, there's a chapter in the book on the arab spring. that the title of the chapter is -- al qaeda spring. the arab spring was a boon to al qaeda. a boon to al qaeda. why? two reasons. one is it left some countries unable to deal with extremism inside their own borders. this is what i was talking about

earlier with regard to libya. gadhafi was able to deal with al qaeda inside his borders. the new libyan government was not capable. they wanted to. i had many conversations with them. they didn't have the capability. when you don't have -- second. it left the arab spring -- it also left some countries unwilling to deal with al qaeda inside their borders. the best example is egypt under president morsi. the guys i worked with in egypt still had the capability to deal with al qaeda, but they no longer believed they had the political cover to do their job. as a result, the pressure was taken off of al qaeda. in egypt and guess what? al qaeda came back to egypt for the first time in 25 years.

and they are still there. in both of these, your inability to deal with extremism inside your borders, or your unwillingness to deal with extremism inside your borders gives terrorist groups safe haven. and they thrive on safe haven. and when you have safe haven it's really tough to get at them. one of the things you absolutely need to be able to deal with these groups and keep pressure on them is intelligence. this is an intelligence war. i don't mean from the aspect of fighting it, i mean from the intelligence perspective. you can't understand these guys' capabilities, you can't understand their plans and intentions, you can't understand

their vulnerabilities, you can't understand where they are without first-rate intelligence. and we are good at this, but it takes time. you can't just have isis all of a sudden do a blitzkrieg across iraq and then tomorrow say where is the intelligence on where these guys are? it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to put together the intelligence you need. the other thing i will say is that the middle east is a complicated place. it's incredibly complicated. anyone who tells you they know what the middle east is going to look like a year from now or five years from now is lying or don't know what they talk about. there's a bunch of different dynamics going on in the middle east.

one of the dynamics is this cold war, i think about it as a cold war, this cold war/proxy war going on between iran on one hand and the gulf arab states, on the other. and that war gets in the way sometimes of fighting the war against these terrorists. syria is an incredibly good example of that. because if you look at syria from one perspective, if you look at syria from one perspective, it's a war between a secular leader, assad, and al qaeda and isis. so who should we be supporting in that war? assad. from another perspective, it's a proxy war between iran and saudi arabia. who should we be supporting in that war? i think saudi arabia.

you have two different perspectives pointing you in different directions on what we think they should do. yemen is a bit like that. there's a proxy war going on in yemen between saudi arabia and iran. iranians are supporting the one side. the saudis are supporting the president, who was a very effective partner of the united states against al qaeda. al qaeda is benefiting from the chaos in yemen. it's not benefiting from the fact that the president was in charge of the place. he was very effective against al qaeda. they are benefiting from the chaos that is there. and that goes back to the original point, these groups always benefit from political instabilities and chaos. it's very difficult to get your arms around. i don't know if that answers your question, but it's a start. >> can i follow-up about the

issue of syria, you didn't address that, whether that criticism of the united states being selective and being serious, and also about the issue of the cia versus the military. this is an operation you mentioned. mr. morell: i'm going to purposely not answer the second question, but i will answer the syria question. i'm pretty confident, despite the loss of ramadi, i'm pretty confident that in enough time, iraq and the coalition will push back isis in iraq. there will be ups and downs in this fight. and ramadi is a great example of 's a down.

but the fact is the coalition has taken back 25% of the territory that isis first took. so the coalition is actually not doing bad. i'm pretty confident that given time, given a mixture of airstrikes and kurds, shia militia, and retraining of iraqi security forces, i'm pretty confident that the strategy, the president strategy in iraq is going to work. i will be honest with you, i am less confidence about our strategy in syria. the strategy in syria is to train and equip moderate opposition guys in syria to take on isis in syria. to be the ground force, to go with the airpower and be the ground force that takes back that territory from isis in syria. there is not too many moderate opposition guys left, because many of them have joined al nusra because they were taking the fight to assad more effectively than a moderate opposition was. a lot of them have abandoned ship on to fights for either al nusra or isis. i don't think our plans -- our plans are not robust enough.

you would have to train i think tens of thousands of moderate opposition guys a year in order to effectively take on isis in syria. i'm not sure we've got syria right yet. and i'm not sitting here like i have the answer to this question. it is really hard. i have some confidence in iraq and i lack the confidence in syria. >> sam with ita. give us a baseline here. mr. morell: i was president bush's first intelligence

briefer. >> you are not acknowledging the bush administration falsified him and information on -- mr. morell: i'm not acknowledging it because it's not true. it's a great miss that the bush white house or hard-liners in the bush of administration pushed the central intelligence agency the u.s. intelligence community and every other communions -- intelligence source of this issue to believe that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. all they have to do is tell you this. the cia believed that saddam had weapons of mass destruction programmed long before george bush ever came to office. we were telling bill clinton that. >> one would not be following iraq to say the clinton administration never falsified information on iraq as well. in september 2002, when he was at a news conference -- this is just one example. there was a report saying that iraq was six month away from

developing a weapon, i don't know how much more evidence we need. and then they said there is no such report, that was just an honest mistake. mr. morell: you would have to ask him. the only thing i can tell you is what we were telling them at the time. that's the only thing i can tell you. >> you, among other things, at your time of the cia had a role in zero dark 30, which glorifies the use of torture to gain quote unquote intelligence. i want to ask you about this case, who politics indicate was tortured by the egyptian authorities at our behest. mr. morell: your premise is wrong. >> and you can say that if you like. who was tortured in order to say that iraq and al qaeda were related.

this is the latest in a report on torture. among other places. contrary to the mythology that torture breeds good intelligence or that it's immoral, and actually breeds intentionally useful but false information. mr. morell: i'm going to go back to your first comment about cia's enhanced interrogation techniques. you call it torture. i want to challenge that premise right off the bat. when the central intelligence agency used enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from al qaeda detainees, the justice department of united states of america on multiple occasions said it was legal, that it wasn't torture. so for you to call it torture is you calling my officers torturers. and the justice department of united states of america said they were not. so i'm going to defend my officers to my last breath, and people calling them torturers.

i'm going to challenge your premise that the egyptians tortured libya our behest. not true. we never asked the egyptians to torture. what is your evidence for that? host: let him give you that evidence off-line. we have other people who want to ask questions. >> andrew craig, editor of the justice integrity project and also an author. my question goes into the past because we can't really know what happened last week, but we can look at the past. there are pictures, widely circulated of senator mccain meeting some people about two years ago, some alleged that one is al-baghdadi.

senator mccain has denied that saying essentially that he didn't meet with isis. who did he meet with? mr. morell: i have no idea. >> two more. two of the greatest crimes in the last 55 years are widely considered 9/11 and the jfk assassination. the cia has thwarted release of documents on both of those including the 28 pages of who funded 9/11 as well as the remaining documents that were supposed to be released under the jfk act. why is the cia fighting release of these critical documents? mr. morell: i don't know the specifics, but i will tell you a personal view. my personal view is that there is more room for the central intelligence agency and it senior leadership to talk to the

public about what the cia does there is more room for us to release documents, is resource intensive. it's not zero cost. we have other things to do. so you have to balance these things. i think there is more room for us to put more out there because i do think it's very important, very important in a democracy, particularly for secret intelligence organizations to have as much conversations with the public as a can possibly have. just we don't get these misperceptions we're talking about here. host: gentleman in the back and then the woman the front. could you come to the middle? >> i am from the italian media. my question is about the syrian al nusra. is this affecting your action against al nusra? israelis signed with the sunni

against the shia. mr. morell: i'm not aware of anything that the israelis are doing that has made our life more difficult vis-a-vis al nusra and isis. i'm just not aware of anything. >> i'm with bloomberg news, i've read your book really closely. how significant a setback is it for ramadi? mr. morell: good question. going back to what i said earlier, there are going to be ups and downs in this war. they're going to be battles one -- won and battles lost. this is a battle lost come a significant battle lost. going back to what i said earlier, i do think that when you look at the bigger context taken back to 5% of the territory that they took in their blitzkrieg, it looks pretty good. i do have confidence that the strategy that we have in place is eventually going to win back

iraq. >> one of the things you criticize were the decision taken by the cpa -- we don't know. but the whole sunni-shia tensions that have an going on there for decades, is ramadi somewhat of a product of this issue? all be it 13 years later. and the inability to transcend shia and sunni divides. mr. morell: absolutely. here's the story of the rise of isis. very quickly. when we left the country at the end of 2011, al qaeda and iraq was really at its nadir. when we left, two things happened. the first thing that happened was the military pressure was reduced significantly on aqi.

the military was assisting the iraqis and keeping pressure on them. they benefited from that. the other thing they benefited from were the policies of the former prime minister. the moves against sunnis, the significant disenfranchisement of sunnis, driving moderate sunnis into the arms of aqi. and also benefited aqi. then they go across the border into syria and change their name. isis is aqi by different name. they go across the border they benefit from recruits, weapons assad's stockpiles. they benefit from the money. they become a significant organization. part of the story is the

politics of iraq. no doubt about it. >> so you are saying the invasion of iraq where you said there was no imminent threat was in retrospect setting the stage for the rise of al qaeda and isil? mr. morell: there's no doubt that the u.s. occupation of iraq created al qaeda in iraq. and had al qaeda the organization kind of throw all of its resources into iraq to take on another u.s. occupation in the region. no doubt about that. but we also beat them back. and one of the things i try to do in this book is not judge previous decisions as right or wrong. so i don't say president bush's decision to invade iraq was the right thing with the wrong thing. i don't. i don't say that enhanced

a interrogation was the right thing or the wrong thing. what i try to do in both those cases is, and a lot of detail in the great war of our time is to paint the context of the times. to paint the context in which president bush made the decision on iraq, to paint the context in which george tenant, condi rice and the president made the decision on it has to interrogation techniques. to really important for people to understand the context. it's very easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight is of a good thing or bad thing. this is the information base that we have, some of its right, for some of its wrong in retrospect. you have to make a call.

that's what i tried to do in the book, try to put people into the shoes of these guys as they make these extreme a tough decisions. >> a few reports have come out a big one from poland on the polish governments having to pay detainees about a quarter million dollars in reparations for being held at cia transferring interrogation sites. there also been reparations demanded of the macedonian government's, the former president of romania came out and said that he regretted allowing the cia to use territory this country to interrogate detainees. what is your response to this? will there be any recourse by the cia, by the united states government? as these other countries, under pressure to pay reparations, come under pressure from europeans and human rights courts.

mr. morell: i'm not going to talk about any specific cases for obvious reasons. countries where we may have or may have not held detainees. but it will say this -- the countries that supported this program -- the leadership of those countries was aware. it wasn't some rogue operation inside the borders of these countries. they did so, they did so because they thought the mission of protecting united states and the west and their own countries was an important one. and because they thought that we'll be able to keep all of the secret, they wanted our discretion, they wanted our thanks. and we were not able to deliver. on the discretion part. >> two questions. the first one --

host: give us your name? >> stephen nelson. i wonder if you could clarify how many e-mails and records should be collected in the mission of antiterrorism. and could you speak in general terms what surveillance you think is currently being done -- julian assange and edward snowden. mr. morell: second question, i have no idea. the first question, i obviously believe that security is very important, i wouldn't have spent 33 years of the central intelligence agency i didn't. i also believe that privacy and civil liberties of americans is extremely important. i am a supporter of the telephone metadata program.

it fills important gaps that were there before 9/11. i believe -- i can't prove this. i can't put a lot of evidence on the table to show this. but i believe that if the program been in place prior to 9/11, we might have seen some of the communication between the 9/11 hijackers. and maybe that would have allowed us to disrupt it, maybe not. we just don't know. but it was put in place specifically to fill a gap. i think it should remain. let's start with a telephone metadata program first. i think it should remain, and in some ways i think it should be strengthened because it doesn't include all phone calls made in the united states. it doesn't include metadata from e-mails. if there is an al qaeda cell in the united states, communicating with each other via e-mail, we wouldn't see it.

we would not see it. if there was another 9/11, and they were communicating via e-mail, the american people would say why were you not monitoring? i think it should be strengthened. i also think that -- i was on the review group on snowden. the whole chapter in the great war of our time on this. we recommended that the program be kept would be reformed. the reforms that we recommended -- that the government not hold the data. and we recommended that the government be required to get a court or every time they wanted to query the data. not just be able to query the data anytime they wanted under one broad portal. so those of the reforms we recommended. those reforms were accepted by president obama.

that is what the obama administration is pushing on the hill. it's essentially the bill that was passed through the house. i'm a supporter of the bill. and i think that the reform i'm talking about still allow us to query the data and we need to, for the purposes we need to, to see whether terrorists are talking to each other. begins is that capability, and also protects privacy and civil liberties at the same time. because i agree that kind of data in the hands of the government creates the potential for abuse. there was no abuse, we found no abusive nsa in this program. but it does create the potential for abuse and that's why we recommended what we did. i stand behind my recommendation the report. host: i'm going to take the moderators prerogative and asked the last questions. first, are there any terrorist groups in east/south asia that the cia should be looking at closely?

mr. morell: i define south asia broadly. al qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al qaeda in afghanistan, al qaeda increasingly getting foothold in bangladesh and india. that's a not well understood phenomenon. the intelligence committee is watching it closely. but it's not well understood outside the government. host: the defense department originally reese down to silicon valley to help it -- reached out to silicon valley to help them with their military systems. is there lessons the cia could take from that? mr. morell: we actually way ahead of the defense department. when george tenant was the director of cia, he created a not-for-profit private entity

whose job is -- this is all public information. the job is to invest seed money in startups in which he could tell believes there is a technology that will be of use to the intelligence community and will be commercially viable so that the company will survive and continue to enhance the technology and service it. they have been incredibly successful over the years, 70% of its investments have resulted in products coming back to the intelligence community. it's one of the largest hedge funds now in silicon valley. it has been incredibly successful in bringing technology into cia and the intelligence committee. host with that, i would like to : thank mr.

morell for his insightful discussion. with that, this proceeding is closed. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the head of the faa and the president of the air controllers -- the air traffic controllers association will talk about -- that is a part of their reauthorization hearing. watch live coverage tomorrow beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. later on c-span3, civil rights and law enforcement officials will testify about the use of a-day cameras. that is life -- that is live at

2:30 eastern. >> here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering. we will close out may at book expo america. they showcase their upcoming books. the first week in june, we are live for the chicago tribune fast. including our program, with lawrence wright. that is this spring on c-span2. >> hillary clinton spoke to supporters in mason city, iowa. she talked about jobs and the economy. from c-span, this is 30 minutes. [applause] >> thank you.

thank you, everyone. you can be seated. we are so thrilled to have each and every one of you here but even more excited to have what i consider to be the person that is most ready for leading our nation because she has been tried, she's been tested. i've been telling people earlier this morning there's no other human being on the planet that has the resume that hillary rodham clinton has. [ applause ] before i introduce our hillary campaign staffer who's now living with us here in mason city, i want to welcome a few of the very important folks that do the day-to-day democratic business here in the greater north iowa area.

and we have with us a list of people. as i call your name, would you kind of hold up your hand and step forward? so madam secretary can see you. and then hold your applause to the end of the list, if you would. and we'll let you acknowledge those folks. so if you're sitting, maybe stand. i'd like to introduce john columbo, chair of the franklin county democrats. he's below the light over there. [applause] hold your applause. state senator amanda reagan, our state senator from mason city district. d.o. kohning, former state representative from st. ansgor. and jay erdahl, is he in the house? he had something come up i know and couldn't be here. phil doherty, our county supervisor. phil's right over here in the blue shirt. alex kund, councilman at large for the mason city council.

pat wright, our saragota county treasurer. and colleen pierce, our democratic saragota county reporter. we have another representative todd pritchard from the state of iowa. we also have with us two folks that have welcomed sarah to the community. and they're good friends of mine. and we were going to be gone for ten days when sarah landed and i says joanne, can you help me out, we've got a young lady coming working for hillary clinton and we need a place for her to stay and those two people who stepped up were jo ann hardy right here behind me and her husband russ hardy. there in the blue jacket. so thank you very much. so i was just reminded that a month ago -- oh, yes. a round of applause. [ applause ] about a month ago a young lady gave me a call and she goes hi my name's sarah, can i custom -- can i come talk to you?

and i said sure, we talk to everybody. we're a welcoming household. come ahead. we sat on this white sofa that usually sits in a circular fashion here in the living room, and she told me about somebody she really was excited about and that she was coming here to live and start work. so it gives me great pleasure to turn the microphone over to our very own sarah marino. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you all so much for being here today. for those of you i haven't yet met, as gene said, i'm sarah marino. and i am the organizer here in saragota county. i also cover frankly lynn, floyd, wikashee, howard, and mitchell counties. i think i got them all. i'll take a couple more if you want. as many of you know i'm new to iowa. i'm originally from bedford, new york. just a few miles away from chappaqua where our special guest here today lives. but i'm living right here in

mason city, where everyone has been so welcoming and helpful. so thank you so much to awful -- and so thank you so much to all of you who have made it very easy to call north iowa my new home. so i'm involved with this campaign because i know that secretary clinton has been a fighter for american families and for women like my mom, my friends, my cousins, my aunts, my sister. my little sister maggie is 18. she's about to graduate from high school in a month, and she's heading off to college to study business and marketing. and i've always been so impressed by her dedication and her drive to the subject that she loves. and i'm really excited to see the glass ceiling i know my sister is going to break not too long from now in her field. so i'm here to fight for her because she deserves, as she starts her career, to be paid the same as her male colleagues. [applause]

and item so proud to be working for a champion for young women like maggie. for that and many, many other reasons i am so thrilled and proud to be here. but to build up this campaign we need the support and the input of each and every one of you in this room. we need your friends, your family, your neighbors, your co-workers to get involved to make this caucus a success. we've been starting to have community events like house parties, coffee chats, book clubs, potlucks all across the state just to start the conversation and opiate dialogue about this campaign. and if you haven't already please fill out one of these commit to caucus cards saying you'll commit to caucus on february 1st for hillary. and if you have already filled one out please take one home have a friend fill it out because we're working to identify supporters all across iowa and we need your help. and those of you in this room are the most equipped to help us identify support all across the state.

you an also join us online. we have our hillary for iowa facebook page and we also have local facebook groups. so you can join northeast central iowa for hillary and northwest central iowa for hillary. and you can follow me on twitter. it's @smarino92. to stay updated. but of course you all aren't here to hear from me. so with that i am so honored to introduce our candidate, former senator, first lady, secretary of state hillary clinton. [applause] ms. clinton: thank you. wow. thank you. i am thrilled to be here with all of you. and sarah, that was excellent. i thank you so much. and i hope you'll get to know sarah and spend time with her and help her as she works so hard between now and february 1st. and dean and gary, thank you for

welcoming us to your beautiful home. what a delight it is to be here with you. somebody asked me the other day, well, you know, you're going to these events where you're taking time to actually talk and listen to people, is that really what you're going to do? and i said, yes, it is. because not only do i learn a lot but i also feel like it's the best way to make those connections that will not only give me a firm foundation in the caucus here in iowa or in a primary in new hampshire because it really is about people to people connections if we're really talking about what we want to do, but it will also give me the information i need to be an even better president. and i just had another example

of that. you may know that gary's a radiologist, and right before we came in. his work. he's an expert in breast cancer. and i asked him about the mammography recommendation that's at least the women in the room i'm sure have seen over the last several years, and he was giving me some really important insight into the commission that made those recommendations and his expert opinion about them. i'm so grateful to you about that because it's the kind of discussion you can't have unless you have an opportunity to talk and listen with people. i want to thank all of you for coming. i'm delighted to have this chance to talk with you. i think what we're going to do is i'll say a few words about the campaign and what i want to achieve and then we'll have a chance to talk individually and i'll be able to hear from each and every one of you.

i have been incredibly impressed over the last several years at how hard the american people have worked to pull ourselves out of the great recession. people have made sacrifices. people have lost jobs. they've lost houses. they lost the chance to finish or go on with their education. and they did everything they could think of to do to get back on their feet. and i'm so relieved that as i travel around the country and talk with people there is a sense that we are on our feet. we're not running yet but we are on our feet. and we can see the changes that are happening in people's lives and put them in a context as to where we go from here now as a country. i'm very grateful to president obama for the hard decisions he made when he inherited the mess he inherited when he became

president in 2009. [applause] and i know that he and i and everyone who was in his administration realizes that unless the american family and the american worker is strong everything we want to see happen for our country is going to be much more difficult. and so i come to this campaign committed to being a champion for americans and american families. that's what my work has been throughout my entire adult life. starting with my first job out of law school when i went to work for the children's defense fund. all the way through to the work that i did as secretary of state promoting women's rights promoting the rights of people who would otherwise be marge -- otherwise be marginalized or

left on the sidelines. and i know that although we have to -- it's still hard to imagine exactly how we're going to get to the point where people are not just getting by but getting ahead and staying ahead. because look, the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. we know that. and so we have to be especially focused on how we're going to bring about the changes that will ignite opportunity for everybody willing to work hard for it again. so when i look at where we are as a nation and where we need to be, i see four big challenges that we have to take on together. and there are going to be fights. because if they were easy they would already be done. so i will posit that right now. number one, we have to build the economy of tomorrow, not yesterday. it needs to be innovative. it needs to be sustainable. it needs to be producing good

jobs with rising wages. we need to get back into the habit of actually rewarding workers with increases in their paychecks for the increases in productivity and profitability that they have helped to bring about. [applause] warren buffett has said it but so have a lot of other people. there's something wrong when the average american ceo makes 300 times more than the typical american worker. or when hedge fund managers themselves make more and pay less in taxes than nurses and truck drivers. in fact, i heard a statistic the other day that really made a big impact on me, that the top 25 hedge fund managers together made more money than all the kindergarten teachers in america.

and when you think about value what it is that's going to get us moving again, i think kindergarten teachers are really important. [applause] and we've got to make a claim on becoming the 21st century clean energy superpower. iowa has really helped us. the rfs, the renewable fuel standard, and a lot of the investments that have been made here has been one of the reasons why we have made some real progress but not near enough. and other countries are going to seize that title unless we do what we have to. it's also imperative that we give people the tools through education and job training and skills not just in rhetoric but in reality. so they can make the most of their own lives. and for me that starts at the very beginning. i've been a child advocate, a

child development proponent for my entire adult life because it's what i really care about what i believe in. and i think we have to start before kindergarten. we have to have universal pre-k , but we also have to do more to reach out to families so they know the tools they should use to be their children's first teachers. we've got this new granddaughter who is unbelievable. we were with her this weekend. you know, we go and just stare at her. i mean, that's what -- it's wonderful and silly at the same time. but we also read to her. here she is 7 1/2 months old we're reading and reading and reading. and i imagine among her first words will be "enough with the reading" because between her mom and her dad and bill and i we're constantly doing that. but we're doing it not only because we love to do it and we love to see her begin to reach her hands out and grab onto the

books, we're doing it because we know that it aids her brain development. that has been one of the great discoveries with brain research in the last couple of decades. we increasingly can see what happens when you are literally feeding the brain as well as the body of these infants and then the babies and the toddlers. that will help them be better prepared when they actually end up in kindergarten, and it will begin to close the achievement gap. because you know, we're going to do everything we can for our granddaughter. charlotte will get every opportunity we can possibly imagine. but what kind of country will she grow up in? and what kind of world will she enter? and what will happen to all of the other infants, babies, toddlers and children in our country today? so we have to look at education from the very beginning. then we have to make sure we are doing all we can to empower our teachers, to make sure that they have the support of parents so that they can do the job they

have been trained to do to help prepare our kids. and then we've got to make sure that college is affordable. and that cannot happen at the rate we're going unless we change the way we fund college education for young people who wish to have that experience. many of us in this room i bet, as i did, borrowed money to go to college. but then we were able to pay it back because it wasn't such an overwhelming burden as it has become now. the average student in iowa graduates with $30,000 in debt and that then makes it very difficult for them to start a business or buy a new home or even get married, as one young man told me not so long ago. so we have to deal with the indebtedness to try to move toward making college as debt-free as possible. i'm 100% behind president obama's proposal for free community college. we've got to try to get that through, and then we've got to try to do everything we can to make college available and

affordable to all of our young people. [applause] you know, when you think about our economy today, it is absolutely linked to education. it is also linked to strong families and strong communities. and that's our second challenge. because a lot of families and communities have been under tremendous strain. one of the biggest stresses in anybody's life is health care. i will fight to protect the affordable care act, and i will work to make the changes that are required. [applause] we are really now in a different world. 16 million people who didn't have health insurance who now do. we have to do everything we can to make sure that medicare is as available and protected and affordable as possible.

and we have to be sure that where there are changes that can be made we try to find ways to work across the aisle to make them. i don't hear my friends on the other side of the aisle talking as much as they used to about getting rid of the affordable care act. i think the reason is because there are a lot of people that they may actually be encountering from time to time who have been helped. and we need to make sure to make the argument over and over again that, what will you do if you say to people we're going to take away the health care we finally have been able to provide for you? that is just unacceptable. but there are some problems. one of the problems, and i heard about this in iowa, is what happens when a 26-year-old becomes a 27-year-old and is no longer eligible to be on his or her parents' policy? that was one of the best changes in the affordable care act. and the fact is that a lot of young people aren't making the income they need yet to be able

to afford their own health care. so we have to look out to see what we'll be able to do to help them. there are two issues that fall into this category that are huge strains on families. and i heard about them first. i heard first in davenport, and i heard about it all across the state until i got to council bluffs. one is the drug epidemic. meth pills in iowa. and then i got to new hampshire. and at my very first coffee shop meeting i heard about the heroin epidemic in new hampshire. in the past year i've been told reliably we've had more people die of drug overdoses in america than automobile accidents for the first time in our history. this is tearing families apart but it is below the surface. people aren't talking about it because it's something that is hard to deal with.

i also heard a lot about untreated mental health problems. and so many communities, so many states turning their backs on people with mental health problems. facilities are being closed. even though we now require there to be treatment in the affordable care act, there's not enough available treatment. not enough resources. the other day i was in california at an event, and i just said what i said. i said, you know, mental health is not being treated. we claim we're now going to be able to help people with their health care problems but if we don't help with mental health we're leaving out a huge number of people. and a young woman came up to me and asked me a question. she said did you know we're having all these suicides in my high school? i said no, i didn't know. she said we've had four young people kill themselves in the last month.

then i was in new york at an event this past week. said the same thing i said to you. i was visiting with people. and a woman came up to me and she goes, thank you for mentioning mental health. we have gone in the last six months to four funerals of friends of my children who have killed themselves. i have to tell you when i start running, when i started thinking about this campaign, i did not believe i would be standing in your living room talking about the drug abuse problem, the mental health problem, and the suicide problem. but i'm now convinced i have to talk about it. i have to do everything i can in this campaign to raise it, to end the stigma of talking about it. [applause] and we also have a challenge that affects everything we do, and that is to fix our dysfunctional political system. that underlies everything that

we can possibly hope to get done. i'm very committed to meeting with anybody, going to have any conversation, to try to find common ground. but we also have to stand our ground and we have to try to figure out how we're going to get people to work with us for the betterment of our country, the betterment of people who need a good positive support system, whether it be health care or aid for college or anything else. we also have to address the unaccountable dark money in politics. i think the supreme court made a grave error with its citizens united decision. and i will do everything i can do to appoint supreme court justices who will protect the right to vote and not the right of billionaires to buy elections. [applause]

and i've been consulting with a lot of legal experts, and some of them think there may be a way to get legislation through that will enable us to regulate this kind of use of money in our political system, which is so corruptive and corrosive. but others agree with former justice john paul stevens who recently wrote a book in which he said it's going to take a constitutional amendment. i will work for that if that's the only way to fix this problem. because we cannot continue with the kind of assault on our democracy, on voting rights, and on the opportunity for us to know where the money is coming from that influences our political system. now, fourth, we have challenges around the world. as i was coming through the garage there's a tv that dean and gary have, and it was talking about isis in iraq.

we have threats that we know of that we can begin to try to figure out how best to address. it's not just dictators. also disease, climate change which i think global warming is a threat to us. but we have to be confident and strong in understanding that there are many ways to approach the problems that america will be confronting in the world, and we must do so in cooperation with our friends, our allies i am convinced that the 21st century can once again be a century in which the united states leads and helps to set the values and the standards. but we have to have an agreement, first of all, foremost with our own country and our own korns about how to do that. i was outraged and said at the time that when a group of

republican senators sent a letter to the ayatollah of iran essentially criticizing the actions of the president of the united states, i don't care what party you are, we have one president and we should stand behind that president when he's trying to work out very difficult problems. [ applause ] i know there are a lot of hard choices ahead of us. i wrote a book called "hard choices." there it is. there it is. but i think we're more than up to it. i am a confident optimist about where america's future lies. that doesn't mean i'm not aware of how difficult it is with my eyes wide open about how hard it is to be the president of the united states. i have a little experience about that. and i have to tell you i find it very reassuring because i do have that experience to know

what's possible and how best to proceed. but i also know that we are living in an incredibly complicated time in american history. it is not a time for easy answers or glib answers or one-liners or applause lines. those are all great. that's part of campaigning. but at the end of the day we need a president who has both the experience and the understanding to deal with the complexity of the problems that we face. and i appreciate what both dean and sarah said about the experiences that i've been privileged to have during the last decades. i really believe that i can go into that office on the very first day and begin to do what is required. so i look forward to visiting with each and every one of you. i look forward to working with you not only as we move toward the caucuses.