that does it for today's "washington journal." thanks for watching. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] . . >> carnap in 30 minutes on c- span, we will be live with the former direct a reformer deputy director of the fbi and the cia. he will talk about the two agency approach. the ceo john hoskkns medicine will talk about the impact of the new health-care law. that will be live on c-span3. the senate meets today at 2:00 p.m. eastern. they will begin debate on judicial nominations. the house resumes business tomorrow with bills later on the week on campaign finance disclosure and possibly additional funds for the disaster. live coverage on the house on c- span. the senate, as always, is on c- span2. sec commissioner talked about reclassifying, media ownership, and the use of public airwaves. that is tonight on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> clarence thomas on the prospect of a new justice. >> it changes the whole family. it is different today than when it was when i first got here. i have to it meant you grow very fond of the court that you spend a lot of time on. >> with confirmation hearings for atlantic taken coming up, learn more about the highest court in c-span's latest book, "the supreme court." it provides unique insight about the court. it is available in hardcover and also as an e-book. >> the keyspan group recently traveled to plaquemines parish in louisiana. -- d. c-span the cruet recently traveled to plaquemines parish in louisiana. >> i am under the weather. how're you doing? >> god bless you. >> i came here to see you. >> you should not have. you need to rest. >> high. how are ya, baby? we probably have not met. >> let's go up and i was sure you what we are doing. i am not so little anymore. i knew i was going to shut down soon. >> i am amazed to have gone this long. i was worried about you having a stroke. >> i have gained 90 pounds since coming into office. >> you are still young. >> you know jackie? and daniel from arne's office? we only pick beautiful pr people. >> were you expecting that many people? it was unbelievable. >> i won against the odds. they knew that i knew. >> good morning. >> we went to high school to get there. she went on to be a movie star and left us. >> are you feeling better? >> yes. i still have a little fever and then dragging. i am not going to stay lot -- stay long. early on we saw right after the accident that we knew we were going have problems. they kept saying, "no, the dispersants will make it sank." dennis is right here. but we knew we needed to stop the oil over here. we asked for jacked up votes. -- jack oup boats. when the president came down, he did not hear a better plan so he said to put our plan into place. we put a boat here, here, and one on the side. they never did approve any more boats. we would ride the coast every morning and every night. the first oil to come ashore came in a storm. the next morning at 6:00 a.m. it was there. it was over in this area. three weeks later it still had not been cleaned up and it killed everything in that march. >> what took so long? his call was that? why did not people mobilize faster? as i was saying in new york, everyone was worrying. that is as important as is what is coming out. >> offshore we have seen some fish, but most of them can swim away. here when it comes in, it blankets and smothers everything. >> industries the wetlands. -- it destroys the wetlands. >> three weeks later they still the not have a plan, said the governor and a lot of local leaders came up. we put something on a barge and we embarrass them into doing that. at 2:00 p.m., i will not be there, but kevin costner, i have been talking to him every night, he called back and think to me. they will finally put his machines to work. his machine takes just the oil. it puts the water back in with less than 1% of the oil. >> how many of boats? >> i think they are going to do 20 of the big units. we are asking for 18 of those. the large units we want out on the barrier islands trying to suck up the big stuff. we're losing the battle if we do not ramp up. today, once again, we embarrassed of them into doing the right thing. >> will kevin be here? >> he is actually going to -- if it -- i think that is where they will deploy the first one. i just got a call and they said they will do that today. >> elliott and catherine. he comes back 25 years later. >> that his hysterical. -- that is hysterical. >> everyone of these little dots is where we have oil onshore. >> that is staggering. >> every time the waves or the wind blows one way or another it will come. our biggest fear now is that if we get a hurricane or a small tropical storm it will go back up into this pocket where it devastated the west side it will come in and devastate the east side. >> as he had 18 machines? >> he has 30 of the big ones. there are doing that more offshore. the ones we have asked for it they just tested the in ground water which is inland. they are supposed to give us 18 of them. i think the pressure on bp yesterday by shutting down the barges for safety inspection, they have so many eggs in their face, they have ramped this up quickly. >> because of life preservers? i mean, come on. all because of life preservers. >> i know. and the coast guard did that? >> my thing is thad allen has shown no leadership in this whole thing. when you see comments like consider, maybe, might. that is not a leader. let's go do it. he will consider bringing in vessels. >> there is no consideration left. you just need to do this. >> to pull out all the stops. anyone in the world you can pick up this oil should already be here. they said they would not order the skimmers because they take two weeks. you think this will all be gone in two weeks? >> get them now. >> he was the only one on the scene when it first happened. you of rape predicted what could have been done and what should have been done immediately. -- you had already predicted what could have been done and what should have been done. i told this to the undersecretary of commerce. i told him again publicly the other night, we told you all to listen to the local parish president's. go get every ship you can get your hands on, circle the wagons, get them around the well and do not let it get past. >> i am north of here thinking, "where are all of the votes"? -- "where are the boats"? >> it does not seem as important. 26 dozen people on the ground from 400 of these, 300 of these. i still do not believe that. i want to start counting but they have coming in. they said they will. >> it is empty. the man from the animal preserve said people should be out on the beaches and no one is there for ago when she called me crying because she saw a brown pelican. [laughter] >> there are trying to crawl. we had a meeting here yesterday because the person that bp hired for the animals refused. i took the chain and said, "get out of the way. we are coming in. >> how are you doing? nice to see you. hi, how are you? >> it is good to see. >> he just said, they want contractors to come in here. the state and federal -- to find out that it is a contractor by bp. they are making of their own rules. i was out there with anderson cooper the other night. they said, "if we knew he was coming, we would not let you in." they're making a paroles like taking theor they do not want tm long hours. they will keep them up for a week, that is on excusable. and that is what they're doing. if that -- you can see the pelicans that have not -- should and covered with goals for -- >> covered with oil for days? who made that decision? that is a bp decision. that is not a wildlife expert. what about the young man on the national show, i cannot remember his name, but he was saying that there were plenty of people waiting. >> there putting the state and federal wildlife over. >> you remember this. we have one of our best experts, they were performing better than most of the state probably put more into their hands when it was mixed at mobilize them. -- miche that mobilized them. >> the problem as. >> bp is controlling it. >> they are not trusting them. and there's nobody on the ground with bp saying, no, that is the wrong way. we're going to do it this way. >> how you actually get someone to finally move bp out of the way. >> yesterday's with the meeting with state wildlife, we got them control.ze that they are not in >> can all of us make that official, that bp no longer has control of your parish? >> is the coast guard supposed to be in control right now. i will love to be sitting around the table working for every issue with them. i would much rather be cleaning up the old been yelling and screaming. and i have done that for a couple of weeks in between, and just like right now, and there are a lot of coast guard people here and local bp people are great, but we have got to get to a point where when something needs to be done, i can grab that person by the arm and say, let's fix it. and it is not to that point right now. >> you got four states being affected directly right now. why is there not a single point person with coast guard, bp, for each of the four states so that when you as a parish their resident -- as a paris president has an issue, there's one single person that can clear all of this. whether a wildlife issue or a boat issue, or clean up the issue, anything that we're dealing with. it doesn't seem to be that difficult the process to create. >> i appreciate -- is sam here today? sam is a great guy. but you sing, sam could pick up the phone and call, let me check with that. sam does not have the card is on that -- sam does not have the authority that thad allen says that he does. it sends up the chain of authority and never gets an answer back. i think a lot of the bp people on the ground do not have the experience or rely on contractors that to me are more interested in putting bodies out there to make money than they are cleaning up the oil. >> from the bp and coast guard standpoint, whoever is local, state wide not only needs to be named but have authority and decision making power so that they can make some calls so that you do not have to go to that person and they have to wait for coast guard and bp. there needs to be more of a controlled decision making process created here to get things moving faster. >> last saturday, we said this is alan is to be done, pull every ship in the war will -- in the world with a separate group, we need vacuum trucks along the edge, skimmers on the outer edge, and a crew on that beach. when the oil comes up, when it comes up, you better get it or it goes back out the city. people stationed on the beach 24/7, and it s covering the territory. the skimmers are not goinggto do it. 500 ft. of boom, you boomlets' slowly and it goes back and forth that cover the whole bay. it can be done with four or five teams in a day's time. you circle it a lot. but you have to do it first light, latein the evening when the water is calm. you skim along the edge, you get the heavy march out, and the last part of that team is going to be -- and it better be doing it now -- one of three things. something to spray 1 marks to give it a chance to come back, secondly, something to get the sticky blackness of, for third to absorb all like peat moss and blowing in there. they need to test all three, but once we get all the oil out, we need to be ready to spray. i am not an expert, i don't know which is the best, but someone should be testing something so that when it is time to do that, we can have the best chance of saving the marsh. all those teams need to be deployed by area. if he is in charge of this area, and we see that there, we call a month, he brings the team there. >> exactly. >> if this team has no oil, they can come over and help this team. we know more is coming. we know the wind and the waves are going to pick where it goes. we best start having attained, like, i start with one team and i took to others out. so that they know what to do. they go out and do it. today, we're not supposed to, but we started looking up the oil boom because it is not getting picked up. we brought 20 garbage cans with bags, put them in and tied them up. we went and got a shot back and pick up 110 gallons in 15 minutes. we've got some word about the electrical components. we got an air compressor run in the vacuum so that it is going out today. tomorrow, if it works, we bring in four teams. >> engineering. >> if bp does not put the votes out to circle all, we will then put three teams together to do that and then go out with these machines. >> those are rrady to go back up. we know we had that delay in jefferson, but they are back and ready to go now? >> are they not out? [inaudible] >> if i am not in my boat and the coast guard pulls up, they want to know if i'd been drinking, if i have my life jacket on, my registration, and many of those, they write me a ticket or they take me in. they do not shut me down that is what i did not understand. i have been on offshore vessels, where they pull up and get on board and they go through whole vessel, and then they get off and leave. why would they shut them down? [inaudible] it is frustrating. it is hard. >> they have a book that they go by. if it deviates from the plan, it is not on the book. they do not know how to do it. >> if they are not flexible, then you need someone out there who is flexible. >> a lot of people are out there watching i was glad the president approve that when he came down the first time. we would like to add additional boats to be more on top of it. we had eight boats on standby. the president thought it was a pretty good idea. and i have done emergency response. >> i think obama should make you in charge of everything. >> no. >> i think you should be running it. >> he knows you much. >> is a lot of simple things that can be put in place. >> i know patricia was saying that in jest, i think, but to take that point, why not if it is not been done, why not have a daily capt. meeting, two or three times a day a cabinet meeting where you and chris roberts and some of the other leaders from all of the affected parishes -- the mayors, all on the hone, at least once or twice a day, directly with washington so that they can make those calls right there in that conference room. >> we were in a conference call with the white house, but it is pretty much, we will take that under consideration and mbeki. >> i'm talking to someone literally right under the president that can make the call. >> wherever the command centers are, the person -- there should be one coast guard, one bp, sitting there and i should be able to go down and get an answer. >> you should be in charge. people elected you. you know your areas. we had a resolution yesterday that said it emulated the regional planning commissiin that said that for every parish, the president is in charge. do was the president needs. if it is a berm, if it is a rock side, if it is a barge, don't question. we got a resolution saying give you all the power. you know your area, you know what is best, and it will be different in the sherry. why they trying to figure it out globally? that is not going to work. >> just like the berms. some of the naysayers have been because they did not want to spend the money to do it. the question was not -- you know if you get something out here, is going to catch the 00. the one and the governor changed from the coastal plan, if you go look at the oil, it is this that that is washed up on the beach. it is kept out of the marshland. just that 15000-foot area. >> and when we brought this resolution of, one of our council members was a word about the scientific criticism of the berms. she weighed in on that but i came right back, we both came right back and made the statement that, that is not true for every area. the berms will work somewhere. that criticism has been because they are doing everything globally. it will work somewhere. >> when the president said we're going to have a roundtable discussion in the next three days, hancock and within 24 hours i will give you my answer. i said, that is fine, mr. president. what we heard was a bunch of naysayers halfway through. i one up and said, this is a dog and pony show. i am one to call the white house. i left the meeting and went outside and had an interview with somebody. i went back and, he called interrission, he said, we're going to give the parish presidents and the governor a chance to speak right after this hearing so that we can hear their side. i said, i am ok with that. we all spoke. at the end of that, the secretary stood up and she is giving her points of view, and i said, let me cut to the chase. are you for or against the berms? she said, well. no, i'm ok with them. i will take that as a yes. now to the rest of the panel, you of all ledger of his -- you have all had your peace. are you for or against them? everybody against it, raise your hand. you're all for it. we need to go back to the president say we're in favor of ending could ago. no one here is against it. and i was on conference call for weeks leading up to this. they all had the water flowing over there 20 years ago, we had an islander. it did not look so bad then. let's put the island back. at the end of the call, and i asked everybody, anybody on their wants to say don't do the berms, because the alternative is oil in march. nobody would say no. but they would say why we should not do it all along, but at the end of the call, to this day, i cannot find one person that will say in a yes or no like selena go live now to hear perspectives on counter terrorism strategy from a former cia and fbi official. he gives his ideas on the revolution of the terrorist threat. this is being hosted by george washington university, homeland security policy institute. this is live on c-span. >> good morning. let me welcome everyone to george washington university on this sunny, hot day. you are in for a 3 today. this is building on a serious we have had on intelligence officers to come to share their inflections upon their career. we had charlie allen last year to come after 50 years in the intelligence community, he certainly has a lot of insight and perspective to share with us. i might note that he is also recently retired and we are fortunate enough to consider him a senior fellow. and in addition to welcoming the c-span audience, i want to welcome chesley and amanda lafferty, phil's nieces. today we will hear perspectives from phil, his role but that the cia and at the fbi. if we look at the threat landscape that we face today and how it has metastasized and how we can continue to see the blurring of both foreign and domestic threats, i could not think of anyone better positioned than phil to share his insights both from what we have seen overseas and some of the implications al qaeda poses and some of our countermeasures and objectives, but also the growing need domestically. obviously we are all aware of a growing on growing threat. at some point, i think we all have hard questions that we are still just beginning to struggle with in terms of what sorts of intelligence capacities we need, how we can get to a true picture on the foreign and domestic threat, and how they come together. i could not think of anyone better than phil to be able to share his perspective on that. for those of you who do not know, phil joined the central intelligence agency in 1985. and he is a wildcat out of nova as well as a cavalier and out of uva. his degree is in english literature. you can tell you are in a treat by someone who can not only address complex issues that can communicate in a wonderful way. phil was at the counter terrorism center at the central intelligence agency worries served as deputy director. he served as the first deputy director of the fbi national security division. he is a former national intelligence officer and join them as an analyst working in southeast asia. he has served in the white house in policy-making positions and has served on the national service -- national intelligence council for southeast asia which, at the time, was a primary focus for counter- terrorism issues. we are delighted to have a dear friend, someone i have spent an awful lot of time with in places much less friendly than washington, d.c., overseas grappling with these issues. bill will speak for about 40 minutes. -- phil will speak for 40 minutes. we will open that up for questions and answers. we believe in dialogue. critical set of issues. without further review, thank you for joining us and i look forward to it. [applause] >> let's be clear here. i resigned from the government's three months ago. it is the first time roughly i have been out of the house before 11:00 a.m. it is the second time i have had a cup of coffee. if this is a bit slow, i will decaffeinated by about 2:00 p.m. and i will be down from a nap at 3:00 p.m. it is interesting reflecting now. we have been at this for a long time. i think, in looking back, things have gone quickly but so much has happened. i want to talk about my perspective on what has happened. want to give you a sense of the ups and downs inside the game, as it were, but also that the adversary looks like. i think we'll have stories to tell at this point, not just professional ones, but this is such a poignant issue. i remember driving home from the cia in winter 2002 and just remembering the faces in "the new york times." i want to tell the story. i am sure that our adversary has a story as well. i respect that story. this is an adversary that is committed, smart, and tough. they have lost people and we have. i hope to reflect as well on what this might look like from our adversary. my story started, when the first and most interesting in my career, was going in november 2001 and to afghanistan with the ambassador who was the head of the u.s. government team that set up the process that led to the karzai government. i worked on the covert action program early in the 1990 proxy for about six months before moving to paris for one year. if anyone wants to ask about that, that would be productive. it was a fun time. i came back and worked on covert action when we were aiding the rebels against the soviet-backed government. i remember sitting at the airfield with the ambassador in november 2001 with windows, no lights, and this is where we need the president of afghanistan who walks in and starched white robes. i will never forget this as long as i live sitting there reflecting on language in the u.s. newspapers about a quagmire. khond heart was still in the question. -- kandahar was still in question. what are we in for? sitting with that president was just a remarkable moment. i thought they would try to believe us dry and i thought they would maybe succeed. the adversary often reflects on us. they believe we were softer than the soviets. they did not know that we would show up. they thought they would get the same response they got in somalia in the early 1990's. they thought they would make as cut and run. they did not have an exit plan. i am not just speculating. i'm talking about with the al qaeda members told us starting in spring 2002 when we started capturing them early on. they told us they did not have an exit plan. they went left, that is into iran, which was shut down in 2003. then they went right into pakistan and made a mistake early on spending too much time in the settled areas or cities. eventually they set up their version of a safe haven in the tribal areas. looking back, there are these fabled stories at the 5:00 p.m. meetings with the director. there is some humor, i guess, in counterterrorism. they were for -- they were referred to as [inaudible] i remember hank crumpton, the later ambassador, a brilliant operator and a brilliant man conducting many of the meetings. the fight was still on than in winter 2002 talking about to rain. -- talking about terrain. we were talking about the threat matrix. you think of how far we have moved since then. we went from paramilitary in late 2001. then we went into al qaeda operations working against them. then we go into 2003, 2004, 2005 which i think are some of the most difficult times of this entire campaign. you see the morphing of a group that was designed to be a revolutionary organization, the morphing of a group whose mission -- whose message is taken up by revolutionaries who develop cell phones, for example. is that my father? [applause] -- [laughter] in operations that focus but then very quickly and are moving to places like southeast asia where you saw, in my view, the most sophisticated of the al qaeda and affiliate's. the arabian peninsula saw the devastating violence of 2003 and beyond. you saw the growth of groups in the horn of africa. moving on, you saw further movement out towards europe, attacks in london in 2005, and the southern philippines. there was a margin of the organization that when i return to the cia in 2005, there were going global to an organization whose revolution was morphing. i use the word "revolution" and i want to stop and transition for a moment to talk about what it looked like to sit there at the table and talk about the adversary. we do not face a terrorist group. i think this is misleading. and in this country, when we see an event like times square or an attack on the london subway, we have had the luxury of moving on to other things like health care or the environment. we only see this adversary episodic late in connected tax. -- episodically in connected attacks. the end is over the course of decades or centuries, a period of time that is hard for us to understand, too formant -- to for meant a revolution. we should not ask -- we should ask the questions that they are asking. are they forming a revolution or not? this is not just in conducting attacks. the power is in persuading others to think and act as they do. and is notable that the attacks of september 11 were focused on not just killing people but focused on the idea of america's par projected overseas. yet a military target, the pentagon, the white house, and a financial target in new york. those people said we have a committed and smart adversary. i suspect people would think they are misguided nuts. they are not at the leadership level. they thought, how do we get america to move out of our turf? had we persuade the americans to do with they did in somalia and get out of saudi arabia, jordan, egypt, algeria, so that these local corrupt regimes are more susceptible to revolution? what better way than to attack the pillars of american power. we look back at a day of mourning, loss, and pictures in "the new york times," but i have to look at this and say this is a strategic attack by an organization that thought we would cut and run. the intervening years after the initial years of paramilitary operations and chasing al qaeda and watching them move to the affiliate's, we saw a lot of ups and downs. we saw the capture of a lot of individuals like khalid sheik. he was an iceberg for the organization. when that iceberg melted, i think many in the organization thought the loss someone they could never replace. person, after person, after person who are involved in plotting against the united states. i think, once again, and i want to return repeatedly to this conversation to the theme of how we perceive the target and how they perceive themselves, i think we make a mistake when we focus on these individual take counts. we are not asking the right questions. what is the status of the revolution? i will return to that, but i think an important question about these takedown is not whether any individual goes down but, what is the pace of operations over time? you should not think of this in western terms. this is like fabric. there are a lot of people in the organization. people involved in finance, documents, facilitation, and training westerners to turn and kill other people. instead of thinking about these major individuals, we need to think about how quickly our threats coming out of the fabric to raise a risk. those threats can be replaced so the question is, over the course of the years, not year but years, are the charts not only coming out quickly enough in terms of operational temple so that the fabric phrase and rips? if the operational tempo slows the fabric can be restored. we had been on this for a few years. three or four years ago, things are tougher. i think again that we make a mistake not only in assessing whether an individual takedown is important. we should assess groups of individuals and the pace of operation. we make the mistake of talking about time frames. the western time is short. i speak from what they say, our adversary thinks in terms of decades and centuries. now that i am not sending government, i can say when i hear them say there are down this year and up next year. i say, look, i want to know where they will be in 10 years and 50 years. we ought to be looking at this through the eyes of the adversary. a success this year, from their optics and the way they look at the world, might be simply vindication that they are being tested and vindication of they are on the right path. if they were not being tested they would be saying that this is too easy and it cannot be right. losses over six months or a year to me are not necessarily indicative of whether the organization is dying. losses over three, five, 10 years are. i will tell you later on i think the wave has crested and i think the organization is dying from within. i should not say organization. i see this as a revolutionary movement. we have to think long-term about what they are up to. i mentioned downsize for the organization. they have had a lot of ups. if you think of this group as one that set back 20 years ago and had a vision that they could spark people who never touched and al qaeda member, went to a camp in pakistan or afghanistan, but believe those people to think and act as they want them to think, think about what has happened since then. we have had difficult campaigns in southeast asia, militants in the philippines who have mixed with al qaeda affiliate's, successes for this organization in saudi arabia in 2003 and beyond. there was the evisceration of the saudi and yemeni organizations. seven or eight years ago, the organization is resurging in yemen. you have the prospect of the, if not affiliated, at least sympathetic people coming into power in the horn of africa. you have a group that raised its flag in algeria in moroccan or tunisian organizations. you have a rest, after a rest, after a rest in western europe. -- you have arrest, after arrest, after arrest. after about -- over the past 18-24 months, we have had arrest after arrest after arrest here. this is a formidable organization, but if you think of it as a revolution in -- revolutionary organization. if i am in their shoes, i am saying we could have done worse. the could have done worse to have revolutionaries who never met us take up the flag, across from the southern philippines to denver, colorado. think about how this revolution has moved as you try to imagine what the future will look like. i would argue it has moved through three threads of people who have observed the revolution. the first is a core group that al qaeda is still formidable. i cannot remember a time where i would sit and watch the threat matrix and doing briefings with the directors, the attorney general's coming year after year, i could not remember a time where there was not some kind of serious allocate a problem that had implications for the united states. -- some kind of serious al qaeda problem that had implications. they were all serious. meanwhile, while the american public when watch the american region watch the occasional peek, a tax in britain, the underlying, when you would not see the piques was constant. that is one reason i am happy to be out. i did not have to sit at 7:00 a.m. and watch a kid who is 17- year-old wanted to blow himself up. there may be immigration fraud, marriage fraud. when i am saying is people who look at these threats by reading the newspaper are misled. you only see the peaks, but the values are not that low. i think the three threads are still prominent. the second which has been more prominent overseas are the affiliated organizations. by those, i mean organizations that as a whole have taken on the call qaeda mantle. the arabian peninsula, the many -- the yemenis. after seeing affiliated operations around the world and knowing it was coming to our shores, the question should not be are we a million? the question should be why did it take so long to get here. we are the head of the snake. and was inevitable. in the internet age, the of the integration means nothing. your currency is it be heading videos, those that show a dead kid in gaza. finally, after having had al qaeda problems, we also have david hedley in chicago. we have had the core of al qaeda, the kid in denver and new york, the like-minded who will carry the revolution forward. it is a global revolution. like-minded people in places like dallas. at their people who want to pick up weapons to attack. new jersey. i mentioned a global because to my mind that are not much different than the like-minded from syria who walked into iraq. i talk to my friends in the middle east and i view the kids in this country, which we view as the bastion as democracy, why would anyone adopt this ideology in this country? there are not any different than the kids i see from remarkably different cultural -- cultures. they were ideologically motivated, very focused people. the kids are seeing today similar to what we have seen kids see overseas. there are talking among themselves. they call these clusters of kids, i have never seen the show "24" the kids who are talking. they start showing videos from an attack in iraq. they show videos from people killed after eight you a the attack in pakistan. -- killed after a uav attack in pakistan. these kids start to talk and they say, "let's do something about this." this is not much different than a kid in yemen, saudi arabia, syria, jordan, lebanon who in 2004, 2005 was saying they did not know the way to get involved but they knew if they showed up in baghdad maybe they could do something about the emotional sense we are being wronged. i use the word emotional. i went to contrast it to the people in the core al qaeda who are so deeply and ideologically motivated. these kids we are seeing believe the ideology, many i have seen do not. they are emotionally driven by conversations, photos, sermons. there is in the vantage there, by the way. and emotionally driven people are easier to turn, not just for sources, but easier to turn away from the movement and revolution because they do not always understand what they are joining up for. hold on just a minute here. hold on. the floor is mine. last i checked, i am not getting paid for this. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 2.5 hours. this could turn into fidel castro. we are here at 9:00 p.m. that is right. i am 20 minutes in and i have given you a picture. i and the world's leading optimist. my nieces are here. we will go hang out and georgetown today. this is going to be ugly. anyone who wants to join me, you are paying. this is a dark picture. it is sunny outside. that is the stifel world -- that is not the full world. we see reminders that this campaign is in the fall. we see arrests in our country, the potential for attacks in europe, but i am not done yet. i do not think you get your money's worth unless we talk about the problems in this revolution. they are substantial and i think the problems are growing. i think the adversary is in trouble. the first responsibility we have and the first reason, i think, we should be assured we are on the right path is the business i came from and that is i think security is better than it was nine years ago. i think we have learned a lot. i think in some ways we have got a lot more professional about how we handle frats from those days we were looking at the threat colors when it was on the newspapers every day and we were dealing with the daily threat briefings around town and still trying to determine lanes in the road and make it as mechanical as we could. people often ask why we have not had another attack in this country. let's go through why. it is nuanced. the answer is not easy, but i think there is one. i want to do this on why you should not walk out of your being repressed -- being depressed, unless you want to. if you want to foot the bill for lunch, you can really be depressed. the affiliate's are struggling. they're struggling in iraq. they're calling -- they made errors in algeria. he killed too many. after all qaeda told him not to, he still killed too many locals. to my mind, maybe because i come from a terrorist plans, but we have seen these same mistakes in the same reasons that the affiliate's are diverting. they killed too many locals. the messages that are not publicized, go after the head of the snake. you go too big and the local said, we are tired of this. you can kill the foreigners, you can -- they killed too many of the locals then they have the coalition. affiliate's are struggling in places like north africa. i do not think of the past couple of years that is a grab has gone anywhere close -- that zagreb has got as close. the have adopted some of the thinking. less tax on locals, more attacks on the head of the snake. as governments leave, the local government is more susceptible to the revolutionary movement. local government in algeria was not susceptible 20 years ago. the message of al qaeda was you were not successful in the overthrowing the government because they had the support of the head of the snake. that is the transition in thinking for terrorists. raise the bar, raise the level of your targeting. raise it from the locals to the foreigners so that when the foreigners leave the locals will go down more easily. i do not think there are doing that well. i think they took a huge hit that really decimated the organization. they have a structure, as i mentioned earlier, was the most remarkably organized and disciplined than any group. once they made the mistake of attacking too many people, security services got serious and they went down. >> we leave this for live coverage of the u.s. house. we will return after this short house session. members are meeting. no legislative business, but members can make speeches. house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication frommthe speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c., i hereby appoint the honorable henry quay ar to act as speaker pro temporerary on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, rev land doug tanner of the faith and politics institute. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, our creator, our redeemer, and our sustainer, on the first official day of summer, we ask your blessing on the lives of the members of this house and on their work as representatives. we remember that in this season temperatures in washington rise in the high 90's and beyond. we remember they can be accompanied by humidity so heavy that it feels like 90%. the days become hazy and we become lazy. we remember also a comparable climate that can descend on this chamber, nevermind the air conditioning. it comes with the haze that diminishes one's ability to see across the aisle and across the country. it brings a laziness that yields to familiar ideological formulas and wornout patterns of politics. this summer we pray, grant us some days of clarity to see new possibilities and send us fresh energy to pursue it. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1rks the journal stands approved -- 1, the journal stands approved. the chair now leads the house in the pledge of allegiance. if you can face the flag and join me. fladge -- i pledge allegiance to the flag of america, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. the house stands adjourned until 12:30 p.m. tomorrow for morning >> i sort of knew about investigations. if you got behind the doors i got behind -- the investigative capabilities are stunning. what we talked about -- when we see a target, the questions are whether they are prosecutable. the questions transition from the starfish to the spider web. we do not want to cut off one part of the plot. we want to understand the spider web so that we destroy the entire network. we could be prosecuting someone. i sat there for 1000 briefings. starched white shirt. get a blue shirt. killing me. that will get a phone call. what we said was, we understand who we are looking at. the questions we have are not starfish questions. where is he sending money to? who is in the movement? how did he travel? who did he see overseas? how is he spreading the ideology? we sat on plotzed time after time where we have plenty to go down on someone -- we sat on plots time after time. do we know this plot in this network and this web well enough so that we are not learning anymore? that is almost the definition of a great takedown. it makes the investigation tougher. we are saying that we're not learning anything else and so it is time to move on. we had an adversary who helped. this may be the most significant thing i will say before i close. this ideology was developed in the 1990's. an organization argued that moving outside of places of algeria and iraq, and they built a whole basis for this. this basis was thin ice, and the ice got thinner as more and more local people died. again, i am a trained analyst. tell me what you know, tell me what you do not know and tell me what you think. i know this. uslim look at the mos surveys. countries suffered an attack. the support for al qaeda and osama bin laden as revolutionaries and four suicide operations is quite high. 2003, too many locals died. 2005, jordan, hotel attacks. support for zawahiri dissipates. in going back, without -- watching so many people, 100,000 people die in algeria, but still people are saying we don't want that anymore. al qaeda it was considering whether there will be sullied by affiliating with people who were who are going to raise more questions about the appropriateness of this ideology we have developed that is -- that killing overseas is ok. pew research in countries that have had attacks do not show remarkable declines in support for the united states. that is not the message here. the recruiting pool is still huge. they showed marketable declines. these guys are eating themselves. i love washington d.c. there are questions about how we participate in this war of ideas. my answer would be to save some money and let these guys eat themselves up because they are. clerics have come out against al qaeda's ideology. the organization has shown it will be crippled. individuals involved talked about this on things like blogs. i noted the difference in statements. read them before and after fort hood. different statements. the guy is trying to figure out -- he does not have a problem in justifying fort hood. he actually says something like it would have been better if it was a military target. no kidding, chief. this ideology is killing itself. a most recent example is an organization that slowly established some version of safe haven in pakistan that is taken the step of doing the same thing again, killing some many pakistanis that the parliament which believes the government acts at the behest of the government, said we better go after these guys. countries still believe some of the motivaaions for al qaeda are solid. be heading's overseas, -- be , this is not a winning proposition. i can tell you going back to when we first sat at the stables, the threat tables in january of 2002, the world seemed turbulent because you could not see where we were going. you had no sense that we work on solid ground. did they have anthrax? do they have a cell that will attack next month? the number of friday night's that george tenet would say that that is an interesting point, go right it up. we were trying to capture an insurgency. i think we are in a steadier world now. i am out of government now. i think a lot of my colleagues are coming to believe this. i think the movement is dying. i think one of the challenges we have is to understand that even as it dies, the tale of the comet is lethal. we will lose lives in this countryy we will. i do not make a paycheck. paycheckt rob lloyd's that we will lose people in this country because we have continued al qaeda plotting, we have the presence of affiliate's in this country and we have like minded who are intent on coming after us. they are not just in tents on attacking but carrying out this ideology -- they're not just intent on attacking but carry out this ideology. is an idea, not an attack. is a manifestation that someone has absorbed the idea. if ideas have a long half life, maybe we have another 10 or 20 years to go. as this adversary eats its young, these bits of the tale of the comet will hit us, and the question we will have as we grieve for people who were murdered by people who are not they are murderers. we have to ask ourselves, how are we going to react against an organization that is already declining? they want a victory. they should never get one. gang members murder many people in this country every year. we go after them and take them down. they are filthy murders. khalid sheikh mohammed is not a terrorist. he is a filthy murderer. i would love to decorate his cell. i would silkscreen his walls with the faces of the fallen. the newspaper would have birthdays of the people he murdered. the question is whether we deal with this with the same forbearance of the same challenges this country has. i worry about drugs and gangs. they are all murderers and we should not overreact to any of them. it is how we stand up, face up, chin up, move forward. let's throw them in jail and let them rot. this feels like coming out party. i love talking to audiences. it is a real honor to roll out of bed and have people who have other stuff to do and who come and listen. it makes me feel good. i spent 24 years learning about this stuff. a room full of people here are willing to listen. i think as you talk about this, the american people would be surprised about what i saw over the years and how much is out there. they have the luxury to think about things like childhood obesity, education, now we have to think about an oil spill because we succeeded in slowly stemming the tide of a revolution. we have a long way to go on this road. keep your chin up. this adversary is human. they are human be hiding behind the facade of tejada and have decided that the murder of an innocent soul is example. this ideology can never win unless we let it. this is not a threat to this country. is a threat to the lives of the innocents who will die in future years. but it is a threat we can handle. they are not terrorists. they are murderers whose movement is dying. i would love to take your questions as long as they are not tough. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you, phil, for a very provocative and broad in terms of depth and the landscape you have covered. i will take the prerogative of asking the first question. part of that is obviously the number 3 in al qaeda it is a dangerous job. per your comments, spot on visa the personalities and processed the individuals and i am concerned- these of tvis v about the people and others who are propagating the narrative on the internet and facilitating this adding ever quicker pace. perhaps the war of ideas is not the right way to go. there is a role to help facilitate the narrative falling under its own wayeight. it is the narrative, stupid. we will have tactics masquerading as strategy until we address that. i would be curious what your thoughts are on the growth of these bridge figures and what role the united states government and others ought to play in pushing back on the narrative and specifically on the internet what sort of -- what the appropriate role of the united states is. >> i think this is critically important because these are people who have spread the ideology beyond -- behind the core of the organization. that is the definition of what a cut might have wanted to become 20 years ago. -- that is the definition of what al qaeda might have wanted to become. you don't want to be in the business of training a camp in pakistan. you want people in yemen to do it for you. i should have mentioned this before. one of the measures of success will be whether any of these affiliates get enough safe havens and traction to start independently running end of cut-like organization. the december 25 attempt is significant because it is the first time where an affiliate showed both intent and capability to reach inside the united states. that is not just an operational act. that is an indication the ideology got enough traction in yemen were people are not saying how do we take out the president? they are saying how do we go detroit?e tri i think we should play. people who go beyond the line videos, theyeadinheading are done. i think in a difficult decision- making times, if it is too difficult call probably the question you're asking is too complicated. if you accept the premise that this is a revolutionary organization, the spread of ideology of the internet. take out anything because it helps out. i think our messaging -- i guess i can say this -- i think our messaging should be straightforward. we don't mess around with religion or jihad. never call these guys terrorists. they are pumped murderers -- murders. pumped murderenk look at 2007, 2008. look at the first question out of the box alabama salahi takes. it is almost a rude question -- zawahiri takes. he says, why don't you go after people like jews? this is not a live interview. he takes it on because he knows this is not a paid spot. i think he knows they are losing ground when they kill innocents. we talk about war. we should talk about what they do not want us to talk about. some innocent man, woman, or child is dead. every time that a child dies, the parents don't get to see the child raised. that is not tough and is not jihad. that is murder. >> i do referred to them as jihadistts. s. >> then i'm not coming back. >> you have talked about al qaeda and the talbot but nothing about iran -- and the taliban but nothing about iran. what are the connections among them? are they competing? are the independent of each other? >> boy. that is a good question. at different levels, the messages you get are contradictory. i think at the broadest level, you still have a broad divide manifest itself in tehran. i did not think you would see any activity between the taliban and al qaeda. there is a marriage -- sometimes the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend. these guys are not friends. i don't think there is any cooperation between them. sometimes the iranians might look at afghanistan and they might say that they want the americans out of there. we are on both the western and eastern borders of iran. we would be going nuts if they were in canada. look at the way they think about al qaeda. i did not think they are interested in dealing with them. i think they look at lower level activity and say, they are bleeding our enemy. they did arrest a leadership council in spring of 2003. i think the story is a little bit fuzzy. they are bleeding the enemy. >> please identify yourself. >> suzanne spaulding. thank you. that was outstanding. >> thank you. >> i want to ask about the domestic threat. whether ec these smaller-scale of times as the -- whether you see these smaller-scale attempts as the tail end of the common. you're familiar with the united kingdom's efforts. they have a large scale homegrown threat and a pillar of their prevention efforts that outreach to muslim communities as compared to enhanced electronic surveillance as ways of addressing homegrown concerns.. >> i think that the operational implications of the mist pesticides threat -- of the threat -- if you have three kids in a basement, the prospect of any security service will find every one of those is zero. that is not what we do. sometimes it felt like that was the bar. we cannot limbo that bar. get over it. damage to al qaeda it means the prospect of hijackers on airplanes declines. kids to do something stupid, i think it has probably risen. going back to 2002, i don't remember -- it has been so long. so many vodka tonics. that was a joke, ok? dad, if you're watching, i man's diet coke.t i think is a manifestation of the threat of revolution. it is a step forward. these kids are not going to get 19 hijackers. i think your question about the our reach, do not look to the bridge for anything -- a bunch of losers. i am just kidding. the lessons we learned from dealing with security partners were profound. in many ways, they are better at this then we are. i would argue that their national dialogue is more mature than ours. if you can find these on the web, find the prevent document and look at the outlying action but also the directness with which they direct the problem and talk about the role of government in stemming the tide of language. they're talking about free speech. they are open and direct. i think cultures are so different in terms of the concentration in britain, it would be hard to do that. our country is more diffuse in terms of population. there is a lot to learn in talking about ideology. there is a lot to learn in how we react to events. i have often found these conversations more mature in responding to defense and surprised at how we respond, how we deal with creating new infrastructures after the risk and you then, how every individual is eviscerated. sometimes bad things happen. i am off that riff. >> if i could just piggyback. i would be curious. i am looking at the role of domestic intelligence and whether or not we need such an enterprise in the united states. we have visited together some of the counterterrorism units and intelligence units. i am not suggesting we need something along those lines in the united states. we have to start asking the hard questions and what sort of capacity, whether or not we need heat maps -- or should the united states go in this set of challenges, and is the bureau to the task? >> i think the bureau can get this job done. the evolution i saw was pretty remarkable. i think date lot depended on the director pressing hard to make this happen. if somebody comes in and does not insist on continuing education, there will be slippage. i think the organization question has been answered. there is a bigger question to be haa. the american people expect a lot out of the federal entity. i am not being coy here. they expect bad things will not happen here. they expect security -- nobody ever asked how good the first 9/11 investigation was. the balance as people put 9/11 in the background and start dealing with other things, the balance to make sure nothing happens and then critiques every time you over collect on a national security letter, i think the question is, do have a continued dialogue on what our expectations are. you have to expect people will be saying, where's population x, y, and z. we want to have those communities talk to us. we want them to feel comfortable -- a lot of people expect committees will talk to the bureau about plots. you want people who are comfortable to come talk to you about what they knew about it so you can look at the threads and where they went. i know those bureau guys. you have to be out there in the community. you have to be thinking preemptively. you need help from the hill and the white house and elsewhere when you make a mistake. shoot, you asked us never to make anything bad happen and when we make one mistake, you say that's. >> damned if you do, damned if you do not. i want to put a plug in for state and local. nypd -- there are some mechanisms that can be spread elsewhere. we have a question here. >> hello. i want to follow up on this discussion that suzanne got started on. long term perspective. i have worked with senior officials. it is a huge challenge. you mentioned how our adversaries take decades or centuries. can you talk us through some approachhs that shift that american view to better deal with this adversary? >> no. i am not sure i have an answer. if your read teaming another event, how quickly you get the question of whether you need an inquiry to find out what went wrong and who's head needs to roll. maybe the question should be -- would we have taken this bet years ago? there is an informal network of services that have helped to decimate this adversary. i think you would have set i will take that back in a heartbeat. if you would have given me that wager, i would have wanted to odds in las vegas. keep cool and say, we would have taken this baet nine years ago. creates another acronym. role some warheads. i don't care anymore. i'm not given an answer -- world some more heads. you have to be mature in the face of anniversary. stand-up. realize that sometimes when you're playing defense for nine years, somebody may slip through. man up and move on. and mourn the dead. these are victims of murder. the families that are destroyed by a 17-year-old kid, like a kid from georgia. that kid is a plodder. his life is destroyed now, too. -- that kid is a plotter. >> please identify yourself and please turn on the microphone. oops. there you go. >> i'm from cias. thank you for the fascinating discussion. i want to pick up on the point that suzanne -- >> why is everyone quoting suzanne? >> she got the ball rolling. you talked about increasing the relevance of the narrative within muslim communities. at the same time, it is almost as if the narrative has taken on more salience among a muslim american living in northern virginia. what do we make of this? how can it become less popular in the arab-muslim world and become more popular in some of our own communities? >> i think some of this is a measure of time. the narrative reached these shores a bit late. i view this as a 30-year proposition. it took a while to get here. there are a threat to 20 million americans or something. i have wondered about going to the university of maryland and asking a statistician, if you saw going from three to a dozen plots in a country of three under 20 million, how statistically significant is that? i do not see this as an epidemic threat in the united states. they said not more threats in europe. easily 10 to one. i think we still should consider ourselves lucky, given that we are the head of the snake and that this country is so large and diverse. you are looking at cities at once. places like los angeles to new york -- you are looking at 50 cities at once. i did not necessarily view the plots as any indication of a radical infusion of ideology here. i think we will continue to see the ups and downs in the coming years. whether some of these affiliate's like the arabian peninsula get comfortable enough so they can organize some pretty heavy-duty plotting against this country. if you combine safe haven and combine that with intent, eventually we will get hit. i do agree there's been an increase in plotting that we have seen. but i do not think it has reached the level where i would say, we are sitting on a hotbed of revolution. i'm kind of surprised it came this late. i thought we would have seen this in 2004, 2005. not over act because one of them will get through. what's his name in new york, shahzad, he is an amateur until he gets the fuses right, and then he is a pro. >> let me underscore that these are people who americans see glimmers of in themselves and that is why they are resonating. look at the interactive forums and chat rooms that we should be focusing on. >> one quick comment i should have made before. p think there is recruiting to be had in this country. . two -- attwlook at two numbers. many people are converts. look at the pugh research study on attitudes and you will find from non-foreign born muslims in the united states, a remarkable degree of dissatisfaction. the numbers are right there. they are quite striking. you do see an undercurrent of people who believe they are disenfranchised from pew research. people in this country who may be susceptible to make recruiting pitch. they want to do something because american society did not treat them right. >> please identify yourself. >> i am with the international center for terrorism studies. looking back on my deployments at guantanamo bay, i'm often asking myself if the benefits of guantanamo bay in gathering intelligence are worth the trade-offs in international perception and of thh sensitive moderates you were talking about earlier. if you could please comments on that. >> i guess the challenge i have -- i will put it in my contacts. let's talk about detainees. my experience relates to the cia. i don't think you cannot underestimate the value of intelligence we gained from those detainees. i know there are questions about that and people dispute we receive from al qaeda members who were talked to by cia, but i can tell you the value -- the core of any intelligence operation is humans and wires. there is a third pillar that started to emerge in 2002, detainees. indictable information. that is only half your question. was it worth it? i think we did not have a lot of time back in 2002 and 2003 and 2004. the level of threat was high. people made good choices. we cannot learn from the past. we have to attack the past. we have learned a lot from detainees but now we have the luxury of no attacks, and so let's look forward and say that let's take whatever path they want spirit i am not here to judge on whether we did years ago was right or wrong. it did raise questions among a lot of questions. let's take this questions and look forward. as long as you're willing to take the hit, i understand that people who represent the will of the people and american values want us to go in a different direction. i think that is ok. we serve the people. we do not -- i did not represent the will of the people at the cia. i am comfortable going in that direction. i am uncomfortable with the amount of judging that goes on with whether we made a perfect choice is eight years ago. i am an american citizen. i think about it every day. people think maybe we should try something else. that is ok. >> how d.c. a large-scale wmd attack? -- how do you see a large scale attack? >> i think it would be absolutely devastating. i think the likelihood is extremely low because the ability to acquire these things depends on safe haven expertise, all of the kinds of things al qaeda has lost. maybe they cannot attack a plane or a bus or a train. putting together an anthrax program or exploding a nuclear device. i think the likelihood of that is declining. it takes time, expertise, money, safe haven. this organization is having problems in all these areas. if you take this organization tries to continue to try to make them afraid and to convince others who might be on the fence to come to our side, i think that panic attacks, which we think less about, that panic attacks are fairly likely and i think meet the goal of the organization, not as much as a nuclear weapon. radio isotopes. we see them try to turn to these things in the past. i go back to my original vision and think they are easier to do. you need less training. less access to materials. you still have the benefit of people saying, whoa, brave new world, radio isotopes in new york. i think there is a decent chance of that. just looking at this empirically, it was all conventional. weapons, grenades, backpack explosives. we saw that in denver. >> mark. .hank you for a great talke i agree mostly with your views. in vocabulary, you could use some guidance with cluster. i want to reflect on your 25 years in the intelligence community. what is the most surprising thing that you experienced in 25 years? >> did i do something wrong? are you all right? can you take the question? [laughter] you could think mark for not siding suzanne. -- you could citing ark for not sidin suzanne. i guess my answer is personal. i will give you the answer that has nothing to do with the business. i sent out about 37 letters to high school after i got a master's degree in english. wish they did not answer letters. i got 37 responses, all of which said no. 0 for 37. my father called me and said that the cia is hiring. i drove to the front gate of the cia. there was no internet in those days. i expected to stay two years. i am interested in teaching. i like english literature. because of friday, trouble -- i met kings and presidents, met to the oval office. they sent into the oval office. i had a great honor. i got to deal with directors, secretary powell, tony blair, tom ridge. i got to brief the congress. too cool. i remember the first party we had, a big party -- a bagel party. gs-9. i kept my jacket on all day and went to the party. i was embarrassed to stand up. i got to meet presidents and prime ministers and hang around the oval office. that was surprising. i look back and i do not know how it happened. i do not know how and i feel blessed. >> do we have any other questions here? phil, on behalf of gw, thank you or a very thoughtful set of remarks. thank you for your service and thank you for joining us today. >> thank you for coming to my nieces. we're going out to georgetown harbor. if you want to pick up the bill, come along. [applause] >> as a token of appreciation, thank you. >> the c.e.o. of johns hopkins, dr. edward miller will talk about the impact of the new health care law. you can see that live on c- span3. the u.s. senate meets today. senators will begin debate on judicial nominations. the house resumes business for the week to mark with bills on campaign finance disclosure rules and possible additional funds for wars and disaster. robert mcdowell talks about reclassifying some broadband services for emergency services, tonight on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> clarence thomas on a new justice. >> it changes the whole family. it is different today than what it was when i first got here. you grow very fond of the court that you spent a long time on. >> with the confirmation hearings starting june 28, learn more about the nation's highest court "in the supreme court," providing unique insight into the court. available in hardcover and as an e-book. >> a look now at louisiana where cleanup efforts continue. we spoke with a commander about communicating with the public. >> what are you doing here with this event? " we want to inform the public on how we are fighting the oil spill and providing some of the services. i realized there was a gap. we were not getting the information out to the public and we were not able to enter some of the questions about claims and what are we actually doing, what is our relationship with bp. so this whole town hall approach is to better inform the public about the oil spill and what we're doing in louisiana to fight the oil spill. >> how many have you had? >> we have had between five and seven. i attend about half of them. i think they're going quite well. they are -- we're able to answer questions and concerns. we have pp claims folks -- we have bp claim folks here. if they get stuck in the program, which tried to get it on stock for them. we tried to demystify some of the things -- which tried to -- we tried to unstuck it for them. >> walk us through your day. >> i get pretty early in the morning and report at 6:00 a.m. and get a briefing about the activities that happened overnight. we get a good handle on what the oil looks like. we set up tactics on how we will fight the oil for the day. we start moving resources to where the thickest part of the oil is. at 7:00 a.m., we brief the unified area command, upper and roberts, about our activities. between 7:38 a.m., i am involved in a call with the governor. then it is all about fighting the oil spill and making sure we have the right resources in the right places. most of my time is involved in making sure we are in the fight and doing the right thing. i do get out and fly around and make sure the resources are positioned in the right place and andle any concerns that we need to address out in the field. >> how does a person learn to do all thii? >> my first oil spill was the exxon valdez. i participated in the exxon bobbies in 1989. i deal with -- i participated in the exxon valdez spill in 1989. >> what you say when people say how it will come to an end/ -- to an end? >> i will do this until every last drop of oil is off the beach. we'll get them back to fishing again. that is my promise. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i have something to share with you today. this is paper from the top command. i was onn of the lucky ones that got a hotel room in baton rouge. as i was checking in, a man came in to the hotel with his wife. his wife was holding that man and he was carrying into the hotel and he was barely able to stand because he was working so hard. i said, you can have my room. he gave me this note and it said thank you for everything you did. if i can ever beeof help, please call . i keep this with me. is about a way of life. i'm doing everything i can and hope you learn what we are trying to do to take care of this response. i was brought in here to be in charge of the response and i'm here to bring you back to your way of life. please come talk to me. did you have any words? ok, so please walk around and find out what you need. thank you very much. [applause] >> this morning "was the journal""-- washington journal" talked about the environment. host: you said big oil cannot get behind petroleum? . why? guest: they have structured themselves around oil. they hope will be there would be options and that big oil would bring options to the market. that has not been the case. there is a doubt with oil, the old oil will not be witnessed by bp. big oil would rather go for the deep oil than think about other energy alternatives. host: why is that? guest: it is what they do quite well. they have over one trillion dollars invested in the oil industry. they -- there are big projects. they will be more dispersed around the country, which is a good thing. it is a good thing for bp to be all over the country. they are work will is. -- they are where oil is. host: bp, british petroleum changed its name or was doing eight beyond petroleum marketing campaign. how much did they spend on that? guest: 99% goes into oil and gas. that is really what they do. they are falling market pricing, which we can talk about. the price of oil has been relatively low over the past 20 years. opec has determined that. they are determining the price of oil. it does not make that much sense to invest in alternatives that are higher. we are at a crossroads. this oil leaking into the gulf is expensive. if we're paying more for oil, we need to think about alternative fuels as well. i don't think people want to hear that the price of oil will go up over time because the cost to produce oil that is two miles below the ocean floor and another well is 35,000 feet below the surface of the ocean floor. we are talking 9 miles down. the conditions there are inhospitable. the conditions are much harder than bemoan host:. but they make so much money off of these deep-water wells. talk about the infrastructure talk about the infrastructure and how