simply put, while our war in iraq is over our work in iraq and with iraq, a country that remains at of so many american interestsant cos. with that let me stop talking and start listening and taking questions. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much for your remarks, tony. i think we've got some questions that we'll get right into that. let me ask a few -- take prerogative of the chair and ask a few, then open it up to our audience. i think you're right, getting the regional politics squared away after almost a decade of tension and then the 30-year reign of saddam hussein t 91 war, the iran iraq war, all of these things. so give us your sense of what the go forward strategy is to make sure that this hard fought and security for iraq is protected from external threats. >> rudy, i think the key thing or some of the steps that we've begun to see and that is iraq's integration into its region. the fact of the matter is after a period where iraq was frozen out, we are seeing important signs of a thaw. i alluded to some of them in my remarks, the fact that we had now the saudis final

engagement yet in iraq. with anthony blinken, the deputy assistant to president obama and the national security adviser to vice president joe biden. our colleague brian katulus has done a brief paper, it's on the back paper for all of you who want to make sure you grab a copy. in it he's looking at how the end of the iraq war has strengthened overall u.s. national security. by dedicating more resources to the fight against al qaeda, to restore u.s. military readiness, to expand options to face other middle eastern threats, and to reduce the financial burden on defense spending and rebalance u.s. national security overall. again, that paper is on the back table, it's also online for those that are watching on c-span or the cap video feed. it was last december, speaking at ft. bragg, north carolina that president obama stood before u.s. troops and this was his comment. quote, it's harder to end a war than to begin one. indeed everything that american troops have done has led to this moment of success. iraq is

sort of more than six months in iraq. but truck driver we transported what you call it blowing up equipment things move around on the truck so we have to tie it down so that's when susceptibility of being exposed to all of sleeping in that environment with the trucks because you know some of the missions don't take just one day takes more than one day gerard fell ill several months later the early symptoms seem trivial standard headaches problems with his vision but his state quickly worsened the beginnings of a brain tumor renal problems the list is long i have leakage and i'll show you the extent how much i have leakage. today has to work diapers but there's worse his daughter bit toria after his return from iraq as a deformed right hand this picture is a reminder of flu just before babies. his story has made headlines all over the world. isn't the only one to fall ill eight of his comrades in arms who served in iraq have shown the same symptoms urine tests reveal an abnormal concentration of uranium. i never was told a

while our war in iraq is over, i'll work in iraq and with iraq, a country that remains of the center of so many vital american interests, continues. with that, let me stop talking and start listening and take your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for your remarks, tony. i think we have some questions that will get right into that. let me ask a few and then we will open it up to our audience. i think you are right, getting the regional politics squared away after almost a decade of attention and then the 30-year reign of sadaam hussein, the 1991 war, the run-iraq war, all these things. so give us your sense of what the strategy going forward is to hard-sure that this card fr fought security is protected? >> we have begun to seem iraq's integration into its region in recent months. the fact of the matter is after a period where iraq was frozen out, we are seeing important signs of thaw. we have had now the saudis finally appointing an ambassador to iraq for the first time in years. travel to saudi arabia by the most senior iraqi officials, the progress with kuwai

iraq, out of self interest, knows exactly what sort of back wind will blow on iraq itself if the syrian state was to break down or if there is civil war in syria so really, out of self interest, i think iraq is drawing the line to say, give kofi annan initiative a good support and good chance and i think this has been a point of consensus that at least united the conference. >> but in terms of what disunites, what keeps them apart, this issue is very divided amongst them, isn't it? >> i think, as i said, some minimum has been achieved, which is an endorsement of what's going on. no new initiative has been launched because you cannot undermine the current initiative by starting a new one. so in that respect, i think it is important. >> but syria has said it wouldn't take anything from the arab league seriously anyway because it was thrown out last year. >> as i said, there is currently an initiative on the table, it has the support of the arab summit and i think everybody wants to give it a chance to move on so you cannot call it a failure. you cannot call it really they did not agree on

more cities consider parades for iraq war vets. the st. louis parade welcoming home iraq. war and other post september 11th veterans spurring talks of similar parades in at least 10 other cities. organizers of the st. louis parade that drew an estimated 100,000 observers, 20,000 participants in st. louis january 28th say they have been approached by officials in chicago, denver, san antonio, philadelphia, oklahoma city, seattle, tucson, nashville, greensboro, north carolina, and clinton, iowa. the st. louis parade and rally was the first major event ronering the end of the iraq war. organizers urged participation from other veterans who have served in the fight against terrorism. organizers craig snyder and tom applebaum for media. they needed one month and $40,000 to pull it off. we want your views whether there should be a national celebration, national parade for iraq war vets. we're going to begin with the democrat here in the suburb silver spring, maryland. you're on the washington journal. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i think this is just one of the republi

many years of afghan experience this is not iraq. but in his mind at the end of the day there were many principles and lessons we could make no, it's not transferrable. no, you can't take what we did here and do it there, obviously, but i think he never really gained the rapport that mccrystal had, for example, with karzai and the afghan ministers respected him but it certainly wasn't the same level of respect that he had with the iraqi government. and the third question -- sorry, i should be writing it down. some of his weaknesses. he is such a driven individual. i think that can be a strength, too, obviously he channels that drive and ambition to serve the country. i think his ego is in line with that but it's not egotistical. it's ego-centric if that makes sense. he put duty, honor and country of the nation before his family so i almost consider that a strength and a weaknesses. i mean, as a working mother and wife, my husband works really hard too and it's hard to find balance but it's pretty clear and holly is clear the chief su

the british essentially created iraq. and there's some justification for it. you can argue that iraq is a geographic unit, but what they did was create a country with a great many different peoples as we now know about the shia/sunni split, we know about the kurds, religious differences and different historical traditions. people in the south are influenced by iran and persia and the people in the north are more influenced by turkey, so they created a country which is a tricky country, and the british thought they could run it cheaply. they thought it would pay for itself. they thought they want to have much trouble. they thought they could find a local who would rule it for them or a few locals who would rule it for them and they also felt with their superior technology they'd have no trouble dealing with any resistance or any opposition, and i do think -- i mean, history never repeats itself, but you do sometimes see rather disturbing analogies. and i think we can say, i know in retrospect it's always easy, but i think

and these are iraq and afghanistan female veterans. >> yeah. it's really tough to get good numbers on female veterans. on an average the number is about the same, 12% for women, 12.4 for women. that's averaged over a year. the problem is the sample size is so small when they collect data. think about this. iraq and afghanistan veterans less than 1% of the population. about 11% of those are women. so an even smaller population of an extremely small population. when they take sampling, a difference of two or three or four in a given month can swing it 5, 10 percentage points. this is something actually that we really need to work harder to get. we need an accurate picture of what's happening with our female vets. they a growing and critical sector of the veterans population. they need services that are on par with their male vets, they need not just job placement but health care and benefits. this is something iava has been population, it makes it really it doesn't bear out. the incidences of someone going to extremes with post traumatic stress a

came back and then about six months later my unit was deployed again to iraq. this time i was in the remain behind element so i was kind of able to see the other side of things when we would get the casualty reports. we would get the kia's in and have to notify and take, you know, be on that end of things as well. i decided i was going to get out of the marine corps but i was persuaded by a good friend,

came back and then about six months later my unit was deployed again to iraq. this time i was in the remain behind element so i was kind of able to see the other side of things when we would get the casualty reports. we would get the kia's in and have to notify and take, you know, be on that end of things as well. i decided i was going to get out of the marine corps but i was persuaded by a good friend, sergeant major ellis, to stay in. on that deployment he ended up getting killed. i went to his funeral over in arlington national cemetery. then about two weeks after that a friend also in second battalion 4th marines hung

is your chance, iraq, to be the new beginning. so nobody knows how either of these wars are going to end and i don't confuse naÏve to think the surge of the enough. >> how many questions do we get? >> we have five more minutes. you can have one and three quarters. >> i limited them to the cia situation. how much a president to bomb his interest having him go somewhere was political to get in on it the way? you know what i'm talking about. and the other part is part of a question, partly learned, that you mentioned that petraeus was a great consumer of intelligence. but on the other hand, it appears to a newspaper readers so to speak that very same militarization of the cia going on. that is the core underneath my question and he was selected in part because of the special operations background and disuse about those kinds of devices in order to move this process within the cia further than it has been in the past, we've decided and should be of some concern. so if you could comment on that i depreciated. >> well, he doesn't talk c

temperament their on the threat iraq at the. moment we all stay united in the struggle that more and i'm confident we can prevail. you cannot i work together or if we don't speak out against the federal our lands we will never be able to change the world. article but it was kind of a mature here. and it's about who we have to keep our camp and. that's the only way we can prevail i think was the. biggest stunt and. our path is one of resistance not terrorism but . we're here to provide a safe and secure environment for everybody regardless of what it would they are and to make sure that people have the freedom of movement their kids can go to school that people go to work and people can sleep safely and we would like to see kosovo to bella continue to grow and there will be a point we're ok for is no longer needed and we look for today. the questions any of the girls to get everything you need. i am. i am. i in. the it. all.

we think they're critical to the stability of iraq. so we take it very seriously and we take recommendations from cgar and others very seriously, as well. >> and finally, in my remaining time, i want to add my voices to others that -- about our continued effective and full engagement at the u.n. certainly not a perfect body, but one that certainly there have been some successes there, vital for our security and economic interested and appreciate those continued efforts. >> thank you very much. mr. shabbat, the chairman of the subcommittee on middle east and middle asia is recognized. >> madam second, because of limited time, i'd like to raise three issues and give you the remaining amount of my time to address them. first, iran. on the subjects of the iranian nuclear program, the fiscal year 2013 congressional budget justi justification notes that, quote, the bureau of near eastern affairs will maintain pressure through sanctions to encourage iran to return to the negotiating table. unquote. this policy, however, is essentially the sam

where do you see iraq five years from now? >> iraq is moving, it's progressing in every field. still we have political difficulties, security challenges, our system is not tidy, not perfect, still struggling, in fact, to find itself. but things are moving. on all levels, i think, on democratization, on the economy, the economy will see are major boom with the increase of oil production, according to the plans. and there are prospects, we see this will increase over the next four, five years. >> given that, how concerned are you then that there will be some sort of spillover effect from syria that will jeopardize all these positive strides that you are mentioning? >> that's why we need the syrian crisis to be resolved, the sooner the better. because our main concern is over spillover. of rising fundamentalisms, of rising terrorism, of rising collapse of the whole state. and this will impact us. i mean, we are not an island. >> despite growth and development, baghdad still has a long way to go. the red cross says that 23% of iraqis live under the poverty line. electricity is spor

over the course of the last fiscal year, the number of iraq and afghanistan veterans who were looking for mental health care went up by about 5%. that's about 18,000 veterans every quarter. i wanted to ask you if you believe the increase in mental health funding in the budget request is sufficient to accomplish the goals and keep up with this increasing demand. >> i believe that the budget -- if you look at the 13 budget requests, i think it's adequate for us to meet what we understand our requirements are in 13. are there issues out there that we'll discover between now and execution on budget? i would say, if we do, madame chairman, i'd be the first to tell you. now, you asked us to do a survey. and we did. >> um-hmm. >> it was very hastily done. senator burr referred to some of the output conclusions out of that survey. out of 20,000 of our health care, mental health providers, 319 were surveyed. and the results were as described. my question of v.h.a. was did you go to the places where we thought there would be problems? and the answer is yes. we were asked to go figure this out.

working in iraq is not for sissies. okay. trust me. if somebody works in iraq. but as also i think most of the many thousands of people in the newspaper from the famous american mission would say it's a profitable and enjoyable undertaking because iraq does want as much american involvement as possible. one of the ways that we try to deal with the political issues i've cited earlier and ambassador pickering also listed is to try to encourage this kind of business involvement and engagement. it is tough. on the other hand, there is much money to be made and there are good long-term contracts to be made. our assumption is it's not a complete live certain assumption, it's a pretty good one that iraq will remain a unified relatively stable country. will improve in terms security. and will grow enormously thanks if nothing else to the increased oil exports. come on in. thank you. >> thank you, ambassador, jeffrey. ambassador patterson, could you give us some insight into the presidential election upcoming in egypt that will likely occur in may. will the president pos

while the struggle continues in iraq, today, the top u.s. commander in afghanistan was testifying before congress on the future of the mission there. he told lawmakers that the war is winding down and there is no intention of remaining in the country indefinitely. despite growing political and public pressure for a speedy withdrawal, they wanted to make sure that afghanistan does not become a haven for terror. southwest france is on the highest alert it has ever been on file with the shooting at a jewish school in toulouse. police have mounted one of the biggest manhunts in history after they linked the attack to two other attacks. >> the gunman is a cold letter -- cold-blooded executioner. his seven victims were shot at cold lake range -- at point blank range. in yesterday's shooting at the jewish school, that gunman sees it the daughter of the head teacher by the hair as she tries to escape. -- the gunman seized the daughter of the head teacher by the hair as she tried to escape. >> he does not hesitate to fire on children. >> today, the c

the surge in iraq. which some people think succeeded. it did certainly succeeded to a degree in iraq by reducing the level of violence. and plan b by 2009, with president obama now having succeeded george w. bush, plan b then was applied to afghanistan during the mcchrystal era. the notion that "comprehensive counterinsurgency," that was the phrase that general mcchrystal used, that "comprehensive counterinsurgency" could pacify afghanistan. could replicate in afghanistan the achievements supposedly made by petraeus in iraq. but that didn't work. matter of fact, mcchrystal himself flamed out. petraeus came back for a second effort at applying counterinsurgency, and achieved only limited success. >> why don't-- >> i don't think anybody today thinks that counterinsurgency is going to pacify afghanistan. >> why didn't it work? >> again, one would refer to afghan history here, that this is simply not a place that accommodates foreign invaders who think they know how to run the place better than the local population. but what i would want to

did defeat saddam hussein in iraq. when it turned over control of iraq to the different political parties then as iraq we covered it sovereignty u.s. influence was very limited and i think it is extremely limited today perhaps overshadowed by iranian influence but that's you know the decision of the raw iraq east and i would expect in libya to the. you know as they say in the middle east no good deed goes unpunished so. you know all the libyans and i have a good feeling about being delivered from could be if this revolution becomes factionalized and there is a. struggle for power then i think those good feelings could disappear pretty quickly so there's no you know a permanent store credit i would say in the middle east although you know i think the u.s. is perceived to be your more benign power even by many islamic after libya ok doubt if i got it to you to learn if we are being heard if you heard to begin the program we just heard of the law of unintended consequences ok i posited the if he says that military interve

while the struggle continues in iraq, today, the top u.s. commander in afghanistan was testifying before congress on the future of the troubled mission there. he told lawmakers that the war is winding down and there is no intention of remaining in the country indefinitely. despite growing political and public pressure for a speedy withdrawal, they insisted that they need to make sure that afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists. reports are coming in from mexico of the impact of a major earthquake which struck the country earlier today. the tremor measured 7.4 in magnitude and was centered on the pacific coast. shaking was also felt in the capital of mexico city from where our correspondent joins me now. what do we know about any damage this might have cost? >> people are feeling very gingerly off of the back of this very large earthquake. -- people are feeling very jittery. there is this sense of relief that it has not been worse. this is the worst earthquake since 1985. this is nowhere near that scale. there have been no reports

i want to follow that senator graham's question concerning iraq. i also want to say how much i appreciate both of you being here today testified that in addition your leadership and long-term security interests and our country. it's a thank you. and you're prepared testimony, you state al qaeda in iraq, despite his speaking capabilities chemise capable of high-profile attacks and some shia militant groups will continue targeting u.s. interests including diplomatic personnel. what the intelligence committee's assessment of capabilities of iraqi counterterrorism force us to continue similar operations against al qaeda and iraq and the absence of a u.s. versus? general burgess. >> i retired their assessment is that the ct fours that was left there is a capable force, but also a q. i is a capable and formidable foe. so while the iraqis have some capability, there are certainly some things that we are still looking at doing to help them from an intelligence standpoint. >> man, we put a lot of resources against that as the u.s. and we work with our iraqi

war in iraq. question of torture thanks for that and mutely outrage some of these are internet stations where soldiers can not only check the internet but they also have the capability of. doing webcams that. you can do and. to focus on the war and not work perpetration is just simply shovel after the elephant one has to look at the war preparations that are going on around the world which military bases are central to. if one doesn't pay attention to that then again we can only deal with the symptoms which is which is warfare there's a saying that goes when soldiers come war comes. to feel. feel . feel. feel. feel. in the past when the american soldiers came during this bell to scare them away. when. we would scream yankee go home. the american bases have not only stolen our lands but also our way of life will not culture our history and everything else such a thing cannot be tolerated. and they say the bases are here to guarantee world peace so they've been used in the korean war in vietnam and

a lot of people felt he talked about iraq of the time. and people with many years of experiencing gain this is not iraq but at the end of the day there were many principles we could take. it is not transferable obviously but he never came to the reporter that mcchrystal had with karzai and the afghan ministers respected him and not the same level he had with the iraqi government. the third question weaknesses? >> he is such as a drive-in individual which is a string he channels that drive and ambition but i think his ego is in line with that. not egotistical but egocentric. he puts to the honor country above his family. i almost consider that the strength and weakness as a working mother and wife is hard to find balance but it is pretty clear that she supports him but they have a wonderful marriage and establish children of their weaknesses? of itt's him that i call him mono directional. not multifaceted. that is six dreamy -- he is -- that is a joke. he is well read and now induced by novels. he does not like to do anything besides read,

while our war in iraq is over, i'll work in iraq and with iraq, a country that remains of the centerf so many vital american interests, continues. with that, let me stop talking and start listening and take your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for your remarks, tony. i think we have some questions that will get right into that. let me ask a few and then we will open it up to our audience. i think you are right, getting the regional politics squared away after almost a decade of attention and then the 30-year reign of sadaam hussein, the 1991 war, the run-iraq war, all these things. so give us your sense of what the strategy going forward is to make sure that this hard- fought security is protected? >> we have begun to seem iraq's integration into its region in recent months. the fact of the matter is after a period where iraq was frozen out, we are seeing important signs of thaw. we have had now the saudis finally appointing an ambassador to iraq for the first time in years. travel to saudi arabia by the most senior iraqi officials, the progress with kuwait on

for from iraq and it's ruined buildings lost and. i made contact with ross computing a twenty seven year old former marine who fought it flew you know he looks like a teenager prostitute is already a war veteran traumatized by his experience he decided to testify oh. this is me this is in fallujah and i'm really embarrassed to say that i'm kind of posing for this picture. you know i had the bandana on and i wanted to look tough and you know this is the mentality that we had while we are in there. they're tough war fighters and. you know these are the type of pictures i want to go home and tell my friends about. in fallujah ross was a radio operator it was his job to relay information to the other soldiers he was there for on the front line before the ground siege actually began if this was going to be the biggest battle since way city they were bombing the city really really heavily at this point and they put us on this hill outside the city kind of overlooking it the night before before the ground seizure began and at this point i r

to have optimism then for the future of iraq at this stage. i have a lot of optimism in the iraqi people's resolve to try to build their society and develop a society iraq before the first gulf war in one thousand nine hundred two was on the verge of being a developed country so under the current circumstances i have very little faith in the political authorities of the country mainly because they don't reflect the will of the majority of the iraqi people. and the will of the their the majority the iraqi people but what about the future of democratic development of the country federal elections where we see. a more democratic nance cape pen that you think. i think that the people will determine their own form of democratic participation when they're allowed to do that without outside interference and i think we might be surprised at the way that the iraqis would determine their future direction but we can't do that even if we have so-called elections yet that you know election when part of the population and all the baths for example are exclu

the united states wound up with iraq. staying behind. i believe is actually at the is the ultimate purpose of many of these worse than we used to think of military bases being built in order to wage the worse and i think increasingly we see the wars themselves as convenient opportunities to station the bases and to have a more. the presence in countries such as iraq such as afghanistan such as kosovo. so have some of. what we have in here is video games. and. some of the things that the. un special. is to look to test for spin it first assume the. trolls daily. you can see again by me i want to be on the first quite a long time and make that age as it will give way for college is something i'm going to do for a long time and join students active never never wanted this job so it had to be infantry for me something i could be moving around constantly doing something and if so how do you feel about being deployed to iraq or afghanistan. i'm nervous but i'm ready if i get called to go. thank you be another say the experience

others are not so sure, like iraq. as it happens, iraq was in the middle ground because iraq is not simply arguing for preserving the regime, but also strongly arguing against pushing syria towards breakdown. >> iraq, out of self interest knows exactly what sort of back wind will blow on iraq itself. the syrian state, if it was too breakdown or have a civil war. out of self-interest, iraq is draw the line to say give kofi annan a good support and a good chance. this has been a point of consensus that at least united the conference. >> in terms of what keeps them apart, this issue is very divisive amongst them. >> as they said, some minimum has been achieved which is an endorsement of what is going on. no new initiative has been launched because you cannot undermine the current initiative by starting a new one. in that respect, i think it is important. >> syria has not taken any thing seriously from the arab league anyway. >> there is initiative on the table and it has the support of the arab summit and everyone would l

me to go to iraq if we go back to the whole iraq what we understand about hans blix and the whole alleged mobile weapons lab is i think you're trying to draw a parallel between iraq and iran but the point i was raised she was this is that in recent days israeli intelligence. and the cia both agree that iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon what argument kind of america or nato or the un continue to use to further pressure and isolate iran it is not for me to. define the agenda of my country i am very much an american and i very much believe in the good things of my country and i am just concerned about certain. circles that actually want war the military industrial complex always makes money with war and that is part of the agenda and you have to use the weapons if you want to continue selling and as far as. it war against iraq or war against iran is concerned the area is already ideally destabilized and it would be a monstrous catastrophe if we were going to do that but that is prohibited in article two paragraph four of the u.n. charter and article two paragraph three blige has

i think what's happening in iraq now is. classed as a green place over the. crumbling message of what we've called in the society and the institutions they're not really they're not fit for purpose so holding a conference there is is just a p.r. stunt it's for the cameras for the western media to say look everything's back to normal but we obviously know nothings back to normal in iraq and nothing is back to normal in afghanistan and it'll be here if not decades before things are back to normal not ready for the london based antiwar group the moxy village thank you very much for your time it's here from thank you thank you. russia's envoy to the u.n. says that the u.s. led coalition in afghanistan shouldn't be pulling out of his job isn't even remotely complete college like in point of the fact that the world put the issue of the international assistance mandate and it's up to the un to end it after the mission is accomplished very important as the details now from new york. according to international law it is the security council that house to give approval

soldier to iraq. now to afghanistan, jodie writes on twitter, could the fact the soldier was at war for many tours being the number one answer? pstd affects them after one tour. diana is a democrat in massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. i have to say, you know, i kind of agree with the last caller. i was absolutely sick when i heard that story this morning. it was the first thing i heard when i woke up. you know, not only is this a shock to the people of afghanistan, but i think that our relationship with this country is now just unrepairable. i mean, just completely unrepairable. it is definitely time to leave. and also, i wanted to mention that this is going to be a bigger issue when these veterans come home, because they're going to be suffering, many of them, from this delayed stress syndrome, and they will be ill prepared to face just regular life here at home. are we prepared, you know, as a society to treat them, or are they just going to completely overwhelm the system, you know

will not seek permanent bases or a permanent military presence in iraq. obama secretary of defense robert gates though has stated that even after two thousand and eleven he expects to see several tens of thousands of american troops as part of a residual force in iraq. has many fear that iraq may be used as a launching pad for future wars in the region. over the fact bases created in response to an imminent threat have ended up becoming per minute. general garcia for example born in the context of the cold war is still operational and has played a crucial role in the iraq war to the stage even though. i studied a few see beauty stadia that you know the island is not safe for the people to go if they are to return and they are but the thing is americans are living they are and yet they have to follow they i and i and i even had like out of the island you call it new clyde here lee told you knew all i know america know enjoying their life so they are why should we not have the right to go on now i don't and enjoy the same way they are doing. so by many as t