the new attention and focus by dod is only part of the puzzle, though. dod success in helping in response to a disaster will ultimately be determined by civil authorities and their ability to properly plan their initial response and then the means by which dod capabilities are requested and properly employed. we know dod is in support of civil authorities and the real burden to that effective support is going to be sound planning to ensure we're properly directed and we can best benefit or provide benefit to the need of the place where we're supporting. the guidance now being given will drive training and exercises. and recognition of our effectiveness at providing relief for our fellow citizens does require preparation. vice admiral beeman spoke emphatickly of readiness yesterday. readiness is no accident but is a deliberate outcome of focus and hard work. dod is now stepping up to the plate in a very formal and direct way but this will only work as well as our local state and federal civil authorities partner with us to ensure our capabilities are know

we're talking dod and sequestration. caller: my comments are relative to the subject on the air, defense cuts. he was mentioning clear-cutting tricare and military training. i wonder when they are going to cut the [indiscernible] budget. the president and his wife, almost daily see where they are taking flights which cost the taxpayers multimillion dollar. mrs. obama going overseas. they take all their friends, guests, and reporters with them. the biggest percentage of their flights are for political purposes. do you have any comment on this? guest: in the pentagon and dod as well as other federal agencies, they are curtailing travel for employees for state conferences and stuff along those lines. that stuff has already been frozen. sequestration, there are waivers that have been approved. there have been some major military trade shows in the last two weeks down south. it is yet to be seen whether those will continue if the cuts go into effect. host: senator john mccain was on the talk shows over the weekend. here is wh

relationships are about mutual respect which we covet, especially in the dod realm. we do that through training and meeting together. one of our things we're very proud of is on an annual basis we get together and we conduct a 3-day training exercise as well as squadron level training: the first day of the exercise is a telecon exercise to make sure when they pick up the phone they are talking to the commander, whether it's navy or marine corps. we discuss our local letters of agreement, what they can and cannot do, how we stay within the box of dsca and ir and what the culmination is with a fire drop where we're dropping watter. we conduct aircrew briefings simply because cal fire recognizes that you great folks have a primary mission, that's defense of the nation and we respect that and we understand this is an ancillary job and there is a high revel of rotation of people coming back from afghanistan or iraq, whatever the case may be, but we also reach out to squadron level training. it really comes down to meeting with your cooperating agencies and training togeth

it is not a dod-only problem. i do not really have a good answer for you. we are in a tough spot right now. we need to move beyond it. >> the pakistani backed groups have suspended some of that calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer sales to some of the border regions of afghanistan. you may be aware that there fertilizer is responsible for that have killed american troops. this is 11 years in. why has it taken so long for the u.s. government to pressure them to make the slightest change? they have not changed the formula, which they could do, to make you less deadly. they are doing this little piece of stopping sales and some regions. this is a failure of diplomacy? why hasn't the pentagon and the state department done more to stop this? >> i do not have any comments on the specifics. i will have to learn more about this story that you are describing. we are concerned about the movement of materials across the border into afghanistan from pakistan. it is not heavily enforced. steps have been taken to try to clamp down. this is something we have communicated o

. >> so from a perspective of fema, we not only have a defense officer appointed by dod embedded with us during a disaster but we actually practice and have communications interoperatability over our systems to be sure we can communicate with each other on similar platforms and also support state and local platforms, whether it was katrina or other events we've actually been able to bring in national guard platforms to provide 911 systems for cities that have lost those systems. we recently in the joplin tornados and also tuscaloosa tornados we brought in dod equipment to replace what was destroyed. from the fire side i know there's a lot of things you are doing to work around the interoperatability issues with regard to communications between fire and dod and maybe if ray or anybody else wants to speak to that. >> our communications challenges still exist. we have excellent telecom communications, we have a layered effect of our radio systems. we have mobile command posts that we can exercise. so we're prepared for power outages, reduction of telecoms, we have a layered effect for ou

by law, sequester would apply to all of the dod budget. including wartime spending. the only exception is that the president has indicated his intend to -- personnel funding from sequestration. dod leaders support the decision, it does not mean that other budget accounts will be cut by larger amounts to offset the exemption. accounted by account item by item. cuts to the operating portion of the dod budget must be equal in percentage at the let of appropriations accounts. for example, army active operation maintenance, navy reserve operation and maintenance, and air force guard. for the investment the dollars cut must be allocated. that means more than 2500 programs or projects that separately identified need to be reduced by the same percentage. with -- could decide how best to allocate the reduction for the department leaders to be deprived. by protecting high priertdty investment programs in favor of others. the fact we are operating under a continuing resolution is adding to the fiscal difficulties facing this department and the current fiscal year. while the cr

for you so we had 3 different com spans that are cross banded, which is an opportunity that not all dod assets have. they have civilian internet and that is their primary mission, is to cross band between the military and civilians. it worked very well because the command and control element were on an ip common operating picture. some of our challenges were the radio communications. we got cross banded with san francisco but bringing in commercial satellite down to the marine force that would be on the ground was one of the challenges that we had to work through after the event. it was successful but it's something that in planning in an emergency we need to make sure that the correct satellite assets are down to the end users, the people on the ground. >> hello, so we had a lot of success i think we talked about, at least at the ocean beach location we were able to get the ip internet communications with web eoc, we had really good telephone communications, you know, with our blackberries, our smart phones and some satellite phones. i think from at least the city's perspective our big

it is not a dod only problem. so i don't really have a good answer for you. others are more appropriately placed to address the specifics. but we are in a tough spot right now we need to move beyond it. dustin. >> thanks, george. lieutenant general barbero said in a jieddo statement that the fatima group has suspended some of it calcium ammonium nitrate to some of the border regions in afghanistan. do you maybe aware their fertilizer is responsible for about 80% of the ied is that kill and wound u.s. troops in afghanistan. so this is a positive development, but this is like 10 years then, 11 years in. why is it taken so long for the u.s. government to pressure them to make the slightest change? they haven't changed the formula, which they could do to make it less deadly. they are finally doing this little piece. is this a failure of diplomacy? and why hasn't the pentagon and the state department done more to stop this fertilizer group? >> i don't have any comment on specifics here. i need to learn more about this particular story you're describing. we are con

while dod does not have the primary responsibility for the security of u.s. diplomatic facilities around the world, we do work closely with the state department and support them as requested. in the months prior to the benghazi attack, as i said, we had received from the intelligence community, almost 300 reports on upon threats to american facilities around the world. over the course of the day on september 11th, general dempsey and i received a number of reports of possible threats to u.s. facilities. including those in cairo, egypt. but there are no reports of imminent threats to u.s. personnel or facilities in benghazi. by our best estimate, the incident at the temporary mission facility in benghazi began at about 3:42 p.m., eastern daylight time, on september 11th. the embassy in tripoli was notified of the attacks almost immediately, and within 1 -- 17 minutes of the initial report, africom directed an unmanned surveillance aircraft that was nearby to reposition overhead the ben georgia si facility. my understand is that the uav arrived an exphowr 11 mi

each one of my assistant ig's is looking at the dod process. it will be looking at the impact overall to read instruction. is the planning good? i do not know. that is far want to highlight one particular problem that i had. we have not seen them. we have been told they are. we have not demanded them. each one of my assistant ig's is looking at the dod process. it will be looking at the impact overall to read instruction. is the planning good? i do not know. that is far want to highlight one particular problem that i had. i have seen this for years with sam nunn, not surprised. that is, this mad rush to spend money. plans be damned, we will get the money out the door before the clock strikes 12. that is my fear, that we are just pump in the money out the door. you talked about the effectiveness and about our data. i will be honest, some of our data is probably not right. government. now i know, from the government. what can i say? we put out one of the most massive data calls of any u.s. agency every quarter. i have an entire staff that does th

to discuss lessons learned and corrective actions taken over the past decade with years of focus on dod support to civilian authority with relation to wild fires. populations continue to spread into formerly wild areas i want to focus on how our capacity on wild land fire has improved over the past decade. in getting ready for this discussion, i did have the opportunity to participate in the 2003-2007 wild fires, i went back and looked at a lot of lessons learned, the governor's blue panel commission report looked at also a lot of those kind of things and what i did was just put a picture up there to show you the 2007 wild fires. when we get to these major wild fires, we're talking about multiple wild fires and almost what you would call a fire storm. a lot of the lessons learned there are in bullets from just 2007. why this discussion is important and lessons learned up there, the 2007 fires burned a little over 500,000 acres, destroyed over 3200 structures and caused 10 fatalities. so why this is important, as you start to read the fire weather reports that justin talked about as we g

when i say dod, please don't take it the wrong way, i'm encapsulating the entire family. when we throw a party, we go big. we don't do little things very often in san francisco but every hundred years or so, we do it in a big way and you know what, the bay area is overdue. we're going to need every player at the table. that's one of the best things we do with these exercises is getting to know what's available. with that i will ask the medical panel to come up so we can get the next part started here. >> thanks for that introduction, rob. as we started our last panel with, what i'd like to do is have our panelists introduce themselves so you can again understand their perspective and the lens they were looking through when they went through yesterday's medical exchange. >> my name is nadine baba, i am with the san francisco department of public health, unfortunately dr. karen holbrook couldn't be here. i work in the emergency preparedness section and our section is responsible for medical surge events in the city. yesterday's exchange was really helpful in forwarding that

congressional research service recently reported that dod acquisition programs have experience quote poor performance against the backdrop of war in afghanistan spiraling contract costs and the declining size of the defense workforce" meant. in testimonies before this committee last month, a witness from the government accountability's office said that several dod i.t. investments poe experience significant performance problems and were indeed high-risk end of quote. one of the specific examples that the chairman pointed out, in that period with the contracts that the air force canceled last december after having spent $1 billion. the expeditionary combat forces work plagued by delays and cost overruns. representatives speier in a letter to us in december mr. chairman and i agree that it makes sense for the committee to adopt her proposals to investigate this contract further. another example is the $750 billion in overpayments by dod to the contractor that provides food supplies to the united states troops in afghanistan. this is an issue that has been highlighted by the ranking mem

that and look forward to working with you on this to really identify which is appropriately cia and dod. which then takes me to the issue of cyber threat. both secretary panetta, general dempsey, and in the current role at the white house have talked about the cyber threat. you were a big help in trying to help us get this cyber legislation passed. now, tell us what you think is the role of the cia in dealing with the cyber threat but in the area of human intelligence or -- i mean with the cia. you have a unique insight into it. you know what nsa does. you know what homeland security is supposed to do. tell us where you see the cia in this. >> well, first of all, the cyber threat this country faces is one of the most insidious to our national security and one that i think our government as a whole and this body, the congress, really needs to be focused on and do everything possible to prevent a devastating attack against this country because of the vulnerabilities in the cyber front. cia's traditional mission on the collection front is to try to determine the plans and intentions of for

we didn't have an official dod presence in libya. >> two personnel had to charter a plane. i think about that if we had would have had aviation assets there we could have gotten to benghazi soon per. >> sure they would have got therein sooner. >> also, i want to ask you secretary panetta, you said you didn't end deploying based on a response, i think, senator graham asked you why didn't we have people moving? we had them on deployment status. we didn't have theme moving. you thought it was over after the first attack. is . >> well, again, the forces were moving. we had deployed the fast teams. they were moving. we did not any any way stop the movement forward. the problem was taking them then and deploying them to benghazi i. i time we reached that point. the attack was over and we evacuated all the people out of benghazi. >> were planes frying? were troops moving. the minute the attack occurred we had an ambassador missing. were people going to ben benghazi? we alerted all of the these task forces to be in place to move in that destruction and they were moving to get there

while dod does not have the primary responsibility for the security of u.s.iplomatic facilities around the world, we do work closely with the state department and support them as requested. in the months prior to the benghazi attack, as i've said, we had received from the intelligence community almost 300 reports on possible threats to american facilities around the world. over the course of the day on september 11th general dempsey and i received a number of reports of possible threats to u.s. facilities, including those in cairo, egypt, but there were no reports of imminent threats to u.s. personnel or facilities in benghazi. by our best estimate the incident at the temporary mission facility in benghazi began at about 3:42pm eastern daylight time on september 11th. the embassy in tripoli was notified of the attacks almost immediately, and within 17 minutes of the initial reports, about 3:59pm, africom directed an unarmed and unmanned surveillance aircraft that was nearby to reposition overhead the benghazi facility. my understanding is that that uav arrive

and the administration to move money around between accounts and you have a ship building account at dodnd out for the next five years and allow them to take money and put it into maintenance and operation for the -- keep the fitness of our current services, but let's be honest, this was a bad idea, hoisted upon us by the president of the united states, who had 18 months to lead the country in a way to make smart, not stupid, cuts and we cut $600 billion and added $600 billion in tax revenues in january and the president ran last year's tv ad for saying every dollar in revenues we ought to have $2.50 in spending cuts and now where we're'? talking about... $85 billion... >> the president's sequester -- >> all right, no, no. [all talking at once]. >> and they really don't want to talk about the origins of the sequester now. but, the republicans definitely have a role in the, but, i think we are missing -- this is where you have to look at the threes and the mandated cuts, the national institutes of health. 5% cuts. this is one of the crown jewels of american science. what nih has done, and

we need a phased drawdown of dod civilians, not across the board cut. bill: i didn't mean to cut you off. go ahead. >> another big issue is acquisition reform. we have a lot of cost overruns for major programs but the reason we have cost overruns technology involved, some programs are so expensive. i guess the last point i would make on that, health care costs. the military retiree population is like the civilian population. there are a large amount of baby boomers and that costs a lot of money and health care costs health care costs have gone up across the board for the whole country. those are three areas the pentagon could have done a better job managing costs. bill: you think panetta has the right to be frustrated but a the end of that clip he said we've got to solve real problems facing this country. in your opinion did he help solve those problems? >> he did to some extent but i think he is trying to place the blame squarely on congress when really the blame should be focused i think on the obama administration. the obama administration was suppos

dod officials now warn that would cripple military training and readiness. and about 700,000 of the dod's civilian employees face furloughs. >> we feel we don't have any choice but to impose furloughs even though we much prefer not to do it. frankly this is one of the least -- or the most distasteful tasks i have faced in my four years on the job. >> if furloughs are enacted civilians will experience a 20% decrease in their pay between late april and september. >> reporter: so what's the president saying on the record about all of this? we'll have that at 5:30 including what the sequester would do to maryland. back to you. >> delia goncalves with that update from capitol hill. thank you. >>> a local olympic swimming coach is now awaiting his punishment. rick curl of vienna pleaded guilty to a count of child sex abuse dating back to the 1980s. the victim in the case now in her 40s kelly curran came forward when she saw that curl was still coaching other young girls years later. a few yores after the abuse curl paid curran $150,000 to stay quiet. that's not th

wyddr says: "as long as it isnt an option for - some loving commmtted couples 3 the dod i think s doinggmakestose - aad their families the ame benefits s other members of the military." military." 3&the pentaggn says the extension of benefits not pestricted by the defense of -3 marriage act is reasonable and fair.... ....speccally givee tte stress oo all 311th year of war. paryland's... comptroller... is getting a fiist hand ook....at... anne &parundel county schools... in... need of... &prennvations. 3&&ppeter franchot... stopppd elementary school... this morning..../ the.... school... - recently received... 277 thousand dollars ...in... state funding... to replace the roof....// franchot... met with adminstrators ...to talk aboutt.. other upgrades ...for the building.. which waa built in 1962. -3& 3 ""i: most jurisddctions...oq: thh best thee can." can.. 3 the schoollis now 3 working on ffture maintenace projects including plans to expanddthe overcrowded kindergartennclasses. more ammricans are going underr the kkife... to iiprove their faces. faces. the "american society of plastic surgeon

well, diane says she is a former dod employee says absolutely. any time there's a threat to funding, it's the average joe who takes the hit, not anybody in congress. they need to be just as vulnerable so they know what it is like. and then maybe they would not take so long to make those crucial decisions. and ryan goodman argues a better plan might be to pay them a lot less in the first place. i've always thought that congress' pay should be equal to the median household of america. therefore any harm they do to the common citizen is also reflected in their own pay. and their services should not make much. where they get around $177,000 a year. and the median income for america is somewhere around $50,000. they should be there. well from what i can see, we've mostly got two sorts of members. the independently wealthy who don't care about how much money they live and the men and women that live on their salaries to keep two homes, etc. at $50,000 you would lose a lot of those things. so would we be better off without them? send your answers to the

. >> we will furlough as many as 800,000 dod civilians around the country for up to 20 days. >> defense secretary leon panetta says that if sequestration kicks in and billions of defense cuts are allowed to stand, he will throw the -- it will for the defense strategy out the window. if congress does not act to stop this, there will be a $1.20 trillion cut in spending, half in the defense department, and no corresponding rise in taxes. what is your best guess, evan? will it happen? >> yeah, a kid is going to happen. >> mark, if it does happen, the consequences? >> carl levin, i respect as much as any member of congress, thinks the odds are about even. the iceberg is at there and we can see it and we continue to sail in the direction of that. i think republicans, particularly speaker boehner, don't want it. >> colby, how did it come to this? >> they kicked it down the road. they tried to put this up to frighten everybody, but they cannot get together on the questions of tax cuts, cutting spending, entitlement reform. we are not going to have a sequestration. we are going to have castratio

. >> we will furlough as many as 800,000 dod civilians around the country for up to 22 days. >> defense secretary leon panetta says that if sequestration kicks in and billions in defense cuts are allowed to stand, he will have to throw the nation's defense strategy out the window, damaging our ability to respond to crises. if congress does not act to stop this, it will be a $1.20 trillion cut in spending, half from the defense department, no corresponding rise and a texas. what is your best guess, evan? >> i think it is going to happen. i don't think congress is capable of getting it together. to. >> if that happens, mark, the consequences? >> carl levin thinks the odds are probably even. but the iceberg is there, we can see it, and we continue to sail in the direction of it. i think republicans, particularly speaker boehner, don't want eight. >> colby, how did it come to this? >> they kicked it down the road on this problem, they put it off, thought it would never happen. they put it up to frighten everybody, but they cannot get themselves together on the question of tax cuts, cutting

. >> we will furlough as many as 800,000 dod civilians around the country for up to 22 days.y could face a 20% cut in their salary. you don't think that's going to impact on our economy. >> reporter: well, how does that work? one scenario, take one day off every week without pay until the new fiscal year in october. if that is congress doesn't stop that from happening by march first. derek. >> well, congress will soon have some answers about americans overseas killed in strikes. president obama has directed the justice department to hand over classified information complete with the legal rationale for drone strikes against americans linked to al qaeda. that's all according to one official. last year they got a memo saying the government can kill u.s. citizens abroad if they're trying to harm other americans. >>> marylanders sound off. the brown gun legislation started off debates today. our ken molestina is live in rockville where a town hall meeting on the issue just wrapped up. what did you find out? >> reporter: well, it was a packed house here at the town hall meeting. o

so to answer your question, the dod, i think, is looking at that and it may be best. that's a territory they have decided to look at. we're looking at a lot of the support for the ansf, fuel, actually doing something on the weapons. we're looking at literacy issues, looking at some of the training issues, as i said web are also , we are also looking at numbers and where do we get the numbers of ansf troops are actually there and how many been deserted or double counting and all that have. we will be looking at that more detail. it's an important area. over 50 prnltd of i are construction. if you don't have security, the question about governance, the question about reconstruction, pails in comparison if you don't have the security. let me turn to the legitimate sei of the government. that's a big question. it's one of the policy questions is the government legitimate? if the program is supposed to promote or the legitimate those are the stated goals our government has set for the program. whether he take that stated goal and audit against it. in the case of one of the

. >> that's because it's so cuttable, there's so much waste in the dod and other agencies, really, this was not the president's idea. this was his response to the republicans holding the country hostage. >> no, no, no. >> and first said, it was jack lew's idea our treasury secretary. >> and signed off on it immediately. >> jon: next, the new york times self-help guide for republicans. >> the new york times prints a punch list of republican problems, pointing out the party's misstep and mistakes. and did they also throw rush limbaugh under the bus? find out next on news watch. >> stephanie wolf a visiting assistant professor at west liberty university west virginia. instructed her students to keep a journal of news reports about politics, news sources included the economist, the bbc, huffington post, but the top two banned sources onion, which the assignment wrote was not news, is literally a parody and number two, fox news. she wrote the tag line, fox news makes me cringe. please do not subject me to this biased news station. i would almost you rather print off an article from the onion

and finally, even the dod, bill, the fact is, that the dod understands threats.knew that situation was deteriorating. they were much aware of it. the ambassador himself said they couldn't sustain an attack. the do do. d could have -- dod could repositions forces and put forces on alert. call the state department. here's what we got. we understand what our forces can do and can't do, can we help? none of that was done. i don't think it is sufficient to stay the state department never asked. if that kind of accountability was out there, i think the story goes away. bill: kt, what do you make of that? how much does it bother you that we still do not have a full accounting what the president did that night? we know he had a meeting that ended at 5:30. we know that he had a telephone conversation for about an hour with benjamin netanyahu. >> in my experience when the president of the united states decides he is not interested in something or doesn't want to take an action, he goes, he goes silent. that's what happened. when they had the briefing of from the chairman o

one because you realized in 1992 the situation got so grim that the governor of the state then asked dod to take it over. so our chain of command went from my headquarters at the 7th infrapb tridivision headquarters right back to the pentagon. we said that should never happen again. so we looked at command of control relationships in this exercise. so we're going to bring up the next panel and this exercise was conducted in august and we're going to take a few minutes to get the panel up here and we'll have the panel moderator introduce us, john vaughan from harris, but if any of you need to make a head call, behind these screens we have men and women's heads, restrooms for those of you who don't know the term. behind those screens. rich is telling me i'm going back wrong end of the ship, back that way behind the screens, so feel free to go back there. so let's take a few minutes now and bring the panel up and the panel moderator, john vaughan thank my name is john vaughan, i'm from harris corporation. we're delighted a sponsor again this year of san francisco fleet week. our focus, if y

. >> that's because it's so cuttable, there's so much waste in the dod and other agencies, really, thisas not the president's idea. this was his response to the republicans holding the country hostage. >> no, no, no. >> and first said, it was jack lew's idea our treasury secretary. >> and signed off on it immediately. >> jon: next, the new york times self-help guide for republicans. >> the new york times prints a punch list of republican problems, pointing out the party's misstep and mistakes. and did they also throw rush limbaugh under the bus? find out next on news watch. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my citi thankyou card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? and with all the points i've been earning, i was able to get us flight to our favorite climbing spot even on a holiday weekend. ♪ things are definitely looking up. [ male announcer ] with no blackout dates, you can use your citi thankyou points to travel whenever you want. visit citi.com/thankyoucards to apply. >> stephanie wolf a visiting as

so you saw, at least in my opinion from a dod perspective, some scrambling, for lack of a better term, to try to counter that threat and get proactive and be ahead of the enemy. >> i want to get to the issue of technology in a little bit, but, okay, let's talk about the technology for a second. what were some of the technologies that you think are key enablers for the future, and what do you think are some of the technologies that are most terrifying in the hands of an adversary? colonel? >> there are many things that are promising that the army has it not been using as an organic piece of our formation. as we develop this multifunction electronic warfare capability there are many things inside there which are promising. there are airborne electronic attack capabilities that the army has not had, so aim very excited by its inclusion in this greater integrated electronic warfare enterprise that we're working our way through now. i am most concerned, of course, about the enemy's ability to maneuver inside of anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum which we can't defending a gains. so t

we care very deeply about all that is within dod. let me be plain, the threat that virginians and others are talking about now more than ever is the inability of congress to find a way forward on a reasonable budget compromise. that is what is in the newspapers and the headlines. at the direction of the deputy director, dod is planning for future cuts. i am very worried at the macro level about dod's ability to pursue and execute appropriate national security objectives in this time of congressional inability to find a budget compromise. the current cr limits flexibility, for example, of the military to appropriately taylor resources, we have no flexibility to deal with a shortfall. and to me, it seems like funding the military through cr is poor business, poor budgeting, poor governance. i am worried about its effect on the morale of our men and women in service. my first question is a simple one. do you agree that we, congress, must finish a fiscal year 2013 appropriations process as soon as possible to allow dod to move forward wi

but it's not just the military employees who are going to feel the pain. 84,000 children who attend dod run schools will be affected if their teachers are furloughed as a result of sequestration. >>> now the possibility of automatic budget cuts means that children in government funded programs could also be out of the classroom. that's because some head start programs would lose their funding, without head start children from low income families wouldn't get the preschool education. >> my concerns for sequestration would be who to cut, when to cut, how to cut. it would be very difficult for us to determine who doesn't get the service and who does. >> well, the adults who teach these kids would also be out of work as well. >>> well, today government officials, gun controlled a vocals and law enforcement officials will attend a conference on the federal response to gun violence. this is in response to the sandy hook school massacre back in december of 2012. the conference would take place at western connecticut university. vice president joe biden is expected to deliver the keynote addres

capabilities they have and then how to augment those and supplement with strategic use of state and dod resources. and really looking at how can we make the best possible care system stand and deliver after a catastrophic earthquake. and that was extraordinary. it was really, you know, it changed the perspective. if you understand most hospitals deal with short term emergencies, we have things that happen that are usually 4 to 12 hours in length for the most part except for h1n1, which was so prolonged that it actually was a very different type of response for us. but all the other emergencies that we deal with are usually multi casualty incidents that are very short term in the initial sorting out and triage of those patients and getting them to definitive care. this type of situation requires us it think differently, very trat tee jikly, and plan our resource use and the evolving use of those resources, that it might be a big push for trauma care early on bringing in military assets to provide really strong triage, very clearly defined triage, of who needs what resources immediately a