so we're all clear centcom is not a policymaking entity. certainly the command participates in policy formulation when were invited by the policy community, but centcom's role is primarily the operationalization of policy and it is here where perhaps on the ground in the arab middle east, where part of the answer can be found to where arab u.s. relations are headed. while there are many and constant challenges, frankly i'm personally optimistic. without hesitation i can tell you that centcom's previous commander, general david petraeus and its current commander, general james mattis are dedicated to forging a close as possible relations with our arab friends and partners in the region. in many years of service as men have given to the region have led them to the same conclusion. centcom remains committed to the security of our arab partners in the region can do our military to military relations with the two deep in an improved arab u.s. relations with virtually every arab state in the middle east. now this isn't a recent phenomenon. relati

centcom is not a policy-making antedate. but the command participate in policy formulation but our role is primarily the opera is a civilization of policy. it is here where perhaps on the ground in the arab middle east where part of the answer can be found to wear arab-u.s. relations are headed. there are many and constant challenges, frankly i am personally optimistic. without hesitation, i can tell previous centcom's commander general petraeus is dedicated to forging the closest possible relations with our arab friends and partners in the region. the many years of service those men have given to the region have led them to the same conclusion --centcom remains committed to the security of our our partners in the area and to military relationships we seek to deepen and improve u.s.-arab relations with virtually every arab state in the middle east. this is not a recent phenomenon. relations have been improving for years under the noted leadership of a succession of centcom commanders. one of them is here with us this morning

. >>> a debate going on in arizona after a school district centcom letters to parents about their childrenverweight. -- sent home letters to parents about children being overweight. >> they did not mail at home. they did not even put it in an envelope. they handed it to her. her and all of her friends could see them. for an 11-year-old girl in junior high? >> they say they're looking up for the student's well-being. the superintendent says weight is a sensitive issue but they did not do any wrongdoing. >>> after night, there will be 3 contestants left on "dancing with the stars. jenniefer gray scored perfect 10's and bristol had her best scores. >> i am blessed to be here and had a fans that keep the voting is in. i am thankful to have made it this far. >> we will see him make it to the final 3 tonight on a "dancing with the stars" at 9:00. we will be live in los angeles. the canally action. after "dancing with the stars," watch "detroit 187. >>> we are live within the head at the news at 6:00. is it working? a new controversial local crackdown on illegal immigrants. how both sides are rea

pat com, pacific command and asia, centcom, u.s. centcom which is central command, the greater middle east and a touch of north africa, northcom which is us. north america, south com and most of of the caribbean and africom, most of africa. these are the areas of responsibility as they're called of six u.s. military commands. in case you hadn't noticed, that takes care of just about every inch of the planet. but i do hasten to add this. not every bit of imaginable space. for that, if you were a clever cartographer you would somehow need to include stratcom, the u.s. strategic command charged with among other things ensuring that we dominate the heavens and geographic commands, cybercom, something you guys may know something about. which is expected to be fully operational later this fall with 1,000 elite military hackers and spies under one four star general and that's not my quote, but from a major newspaper impending to engage in cyberwar in cyberspace. and this was formed in 1983. it was a result -- a direct result of the carter

>> his job was head of centcom at that time. and the rumsfeld years as secretary of defense, his second time around, made it plain that one did not cross the office of the secretary of defense and to that end, compliant people worked for him. >> did you ever work for the government? >> i've consulted for the government many times over the decades. >> there's a footnote here, it says -- what was he doing at the time and why were you talking to him? >> i was a student in paris at that time and i took it upon myself to visit the chinese embassy in paris, not realizing that it was extraordinary for an american student to wander in. vernon walters was the military attache in paris at the time and he, in short order, became deputy director of the cia. and that established a relationship through much of my work in sharing insights with the intelligence community. >> what do you think of the council on foreign relations and how does it fit in all this dialog? >> the council on foreign relations is an esteemed research center think tank.

and they are saying this in the cia and they are saying this in centcom.hey are saying this in the defense college. they're saying this in the state department. but it's not reaching the top-most level of government. one of the ideas that they couldn't get through was the whole concepts of insurgency, counterinsurgency -- what we refer to as the weapons of the week. what it is that will mobilize people to, in fact, fight and die for a cause not necessarily being religious. one of the major things is being occupied. which is exactly what americans would do if a foreign power occupied our cities and occasionally mistakenly obliterated a wedding party. we would go rightly so. we would become outraged. we would mobilize. we would mobilize and give our lives to drive out this person who is occupying us. in the united states -- and this is now clear in the people who are doing counterinsurgency doctrine, and this is a questionable area in itself. they point out the fact that the united states was defeated in vietnam. essentially. and it was defeated by materiall

he previously was the centcom commander in two years ago he read "three cups of tea."alk about a couple of general snyder but they didn't told me that i found a recently as their wives read the book first and said, you ought to check this out. let's give a hand to all the -- for the real reason. [applause] poly- petraeus read "three cups of tea" and then she put it on his desk and said this is their next book you are going to read. he read "three cups of tea" and he asked me to come to fort mcdill and talk to some commanders and general petraeus told me that he had cleaned three important lessons from the book that he wanted to impart with the troops. being a military general he summarized in three bullet points to make it easy for us. number one, listen. and by listening, general petraeus and that we look at a situation from the other person's perspective, not from our own myopic lens. number two, respect. is general petraeus what do you mean by respect? he said it needs humility. we are there to serve the good people of the country and number three, we have to build

he was already in charge of centcom, the day to day operations, but he was not in charge.when he was asked to take charge because of the comments made by the man in charge. host: defense secretary robert gates, who was put forth a plan to put about $100 billion into pentagon spending, although some republicans are saying it is too deep, others have said it should be doubled to $200 billion to reduce the deficit. he is no. 9 on your list. of this 100 has to do with -- maybe one fifth of this 100 has to do with thinking of the global issues. you have politicians and thinkers who are determined to impose a new age of austerity on fiscal systems, whether in the u.s. or europe. that is number one, surprisingly. number two, there are a lot of big ideas and even good ideas that are bubbling up out there that do not necessarily make the front page news every day, but are important in the longer term about how we think of big ideas, about how we think of reinventing energy independence in the urals and -- in the u.s. and elsewhere. a lot of it has to do with how we're going to crac

you talked about the indonesia and the tsunami general john allen who's a centcom commander ran the operation. and he ran it extremely competently flooding today and i miss the department and see all of the things hillary clinton and her team are trying to do but frankly it isn't breaking out and when i look at the amount of resources we are spending and afghanistan about $100 billion a year right now but for a billion dollars or so you could completely change the infrastructure to could create a possibility for of least a partial retro representative roche -- i sampras myself and i know their must be another side to the story that someone like john allen who has done this hasn't been tasked -- it's not his option but hasn't been tasked with dealing with the flooding what he did for incompetently and say the tsunami aftereffect. >> i don't know the inside of that. usaid under bush made an effort to bring in everything on down. the little strike on dependent said a gift to the american people which i support but interestingly enough in the most controversial regions we actually pulled our usai

second, as i think you know, we have taken steps in centcom in september coming out everywhere to direct all cd and dvd right capability off the network, the disabled. we have done some of the things terms of two men policies, where you can move information from a classified system to an unclassified system, to have a two-person policy there. and then we have some longer-term efforts underway in which, first of all, which we can identify anomalies from sort of like credit card companies do in the use of computer. and then finally, efforts to actually taser -- taser access. but let me say, let me address the latter part of your question. this is obviously a massive dump of information. first of all, i was a unlike the pentagon papers, one of the things that is important, i think, in all of these releases, whether it's afghanistan, iraq, or the releases this week, is the lack of any significant difference between what the u.s. government says publicly and what he things shall privately. whereas in the pentagon papers showed that many in the government were not only lying to the american pe