Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20130921

We should not forget. This is when everything started to exchange for treasury, changed for this country but in particular everything changed in the department. Financing its import and its iconic shift in how many of our government looked at the tool checks we had amassed in order to confront al qaeda and what would change and what is chronicled in this book and the tectonics shifts that happened that the Treasury Department. I would love to start back, rewind the clock 12 years, we were at treasury at the time of the september 11th attacks. I wonder if you could start by giving us a sense of those early days and when it became apparent to people sitting in the building that there was going to be didnt have a role to play, that there was going to be financial warfare that was launched in response to these attacks. Before i ask the question, thank you for doing this. Even before you took your role on sunday edition you have been phenomenal on National Security issues which is admirable, i want to thank john hamre, tom sanders and and others for all their support. Would not have been able to do this polk or crafted without help. This is a little bit of a reunion and part of the Community Working on these issues before and after 9 11 conlan honor and a privilege you attended today so thank you for that. It was a dramatic day not only for obvious reasons, the tragedy we all experience, it was a shift in how the government thought about the use of power and president bush not only articulator we were going to be at work but brought that war to new york this and pennsylvania and washington but had to think creatively and differently for all elements of National Power. It is significant the first real step the president took, the u. S. Government took was a signing this executive order, announced on september 24th, 2001, gave the secretary of the treasury enormous powers, powers that are new and amplified. And the new age of financial warfare and what it did, secretary of the treasury and tools in the Treasury Department, regulatory function and sanctioned gift abilities at the time guns and badges for Law Enforcement, and the isolation of al qaeda, both formal and informal opening the door to a new way of thinking out these treasury powers. And we just arrived at the Treasury Department before the department of justice, and that current inspector who is with us, and others, i didnt know what treasury did. It is implementing of the government red large, and the directive from the white house is bring powers to bear, a figure out how to go after al qaedas money, isolated internationally as build an international coalition, deepened the standards on moneylaundering to go after terrorists financing and do Everything Possible to not only stop the next attack but the terror future funding of terrorist groups and that was the paradigm for the first part of the book, foundation for a new approach to the use of treasury. Operating under something of the he 20 rule. And how it shaped what you were doing. The mandate at the time was to be aggressive as possible under law as we could in terms of use of these powers so the secretary of the treasury instituted what is in essence a management rule for purposes of using treasury powers, we are not going to have paralysis by analysis or do anything beyond the law and abide by the law but it will be aggressive in what we can do and that meant freezing assets aggressively which created some controversy because use of assets freezing are powerful and in essence you throw a net around a network regardless of whether or not people are criminally liable. And going in the wrong hands. To the 80 sure. Under the law the secretary of the treasury under this power only has to have reasonable basis to believe someone is a terrorist or fallen to the category of the executive order and the executive order, general counsel this time, seminole in crafting it, and not only to go after terrorists but only associated with financially supported. It opens up the potential for the use of power in the directive, use it aggressively. And screaming right now, went through a battery of lawyers and checks and areas of the process, it was rigorous but the mandate was use it aggressively, touched some nerves, do what we can and layout sensitivities in terms of looking at the sources of funding and how some of the charities built up over time not only do good work but support the afghan. A hedin was a problem and that led to the shutdown of the largest charity in existence at the time. People were swept up in this who were thought to be culpable or susceptible respective being culpable, financial misdeeds, and not involved, and business at that time . The price of the nature of this authority and the fact that we were being prevented with the tool, we were a resting assets, not people. We were trying to stop bad money from going to nefarious groups, that meant you had to stop the money and if it was in possession of people who were not necessarily culpable though we had proof of intent, that was ok because that was not the standard, that creates all sorts of friction and debate internationally, particularly with european hours about what those standards are. It is important to know we use it judiciously, how important our was, important to preserve it. The Dirksen Senate Office Building 0 rule grew to be the 100 rule, diplomats and costs of doing this wrong, legal consequences if we didnt get it right. We are going to be prevented it and try to disrupt and dismantle financing. Another pivotal event through the creation of the department of a land security which stripped treasury of some pretty key authorities. And it is and to see you describe the effect on that department. Can you talk a little bit about this, and your sense of what the role was supposed to be in the post 9 11 world. One reason i wanted to tell the story was the history of that transition, the transition to public Homeland Security is not well understood from treasury perspective. At least not out underside the whole of the Treasury Department is one of the dramatic things that happened was stripping of what the treasury enforcement office, keep in mind treasuries at the time had 40 lawenforcement under its offices, the secret Service Bureau of alcohol and tobacco and firearms was responsible for all federal Law Enforcement training. Have to say some who might not rolled this worlds, those authorities rendered treasurys together. A lot grew up over excise tax, secret service was born out of a directive from Abraham Lincoln to go after the counterfeit rings doubling the country after the civil war and so these were authorities that were naturally treasury but looked like guns and badges creating friction with the fbi, department of justice and other agencies but what happened when these bodies were stripped, these functions were stripped in the treasury was a fundamental question to what is the Treasury Department, if 90 of its budget in this round was gone, most significant agencies like the secret service are stripped out, what is the treasury and does it have a seat at the table. I recounted the book times when i had to go represent the treasury and my colleagues in interagency meetings where literally the questions come up, people raising their hand saying why is treasury year, and the remarkable thing, that question is not asked any more, why arent they hear, and that is the Great Success of the bureaucratic transaction, frankly the magic of that period was weaver so demoralized kicked in the gut but we reconsidered what treasury should be. And a key National Security issues for each and every one of them. Without blinking an eye. When that person looked at you at the table, did you have an answer . We strategizing, this was a small, all. The original title for the book was guerrillas in gray suits and part of the reason i love that title, the publisher didnt. Part of the reason i love that title was we were not only engaged in financial insurgency against the enemies, and engage in insurgency bureaucratically in the government. Danny glazer, jeff flock, a core group of people. On his left with six people to help oversee the elements of the treasurys that were left behind, and others, financial crimes enforcement network, criminal investigators and the irs still left behind. We strategizing. We had come to jesus moment. What are we . Should exist and why . And treasury has unique powers, authorities and relationships that impact our enemies in ways that no other agency in government can. The fbi cant do what we can and the cia and department of Homeland Security cant. We are the only ones that can touch the markets and Financial System in the way that forces the financial activity, treasury and do that with power and authority and we set out to do that. Lets get into that. I will quote from the book. The twentyfirst century financial and commercial environment had its own ecosystem that could be leveraged uniquely to american advantage in a system where banks of the prime movers. This was a strategic revelation which was revolutionary. Where was the revolution and how did that happen . The revolution was in two ways. The first was recognizing this was ecosystem. The ability to isolate rogue actors from the financial perspective was really about pending to the financial environment and harnessing the fact that financial actors, their financial reputation at risk and that motivation was the corps element of this ecosystem. If we could impact it, we could impact how banks, nonbank Financial Institutions decided to do business with suspect actors, iranian companies, north korean actors so understand there was an ecosystem. The second revolution was the fact that recognized what mattered most was what those financial and commercial institutions decided in their board rooms and compliance offices. It became more important to us how the ceos of banks reacted than how foreign ministries react. At an end of the day the financial lectors at the gate were determining whether or not they were going to open accounts paula wire money, usually means, of financial activity to go forward and if they werent people were blocked from the Financial System and it didnt matter what the un said, with the finances said, one of the things we came up against especially in later years driving much of this was great consternation that European Countries had or the fact the we are meeting with Financial Institutions and Financial Institutions were taking steps further sdi and what governments were mandating and wanted. Those banks were more concerned about their bottom line and Financial Risks and reputation < anything else. It was a simple proposition. What we did was there is a strategy to impact this and impact it centrally and that is what we did. That is why you have seen financial pressure campaigns work in ways people hadnt imagined a few years ago. Walk through this a little bit. We are not talking sanctions, you are talking something different, isolating and convincing ceos in the board room that is not only immoral but about business to do business with these rogue countries. Sanctions are a core part of it. I dont want to dismiss sanctions because the way the u. S. Treasury innovated and use target sanctions the way europeans do, part of what i call financial persuasion. How do you impact the ecosystem in a way that organically rejects financial activity . How can you prompt that system to reject it in a way where you line National Security interests with the financial interests. So it is not just sanctions, it is the use of sanctions, enforcement mechanisms, regulation, international standards, u. N. Resolutions, find everything in your cool kids to actually set the ecosystem and prompt it and that was the trek. And treasury today, just masterful at it. They do this very well, one of the great tools the u. S. Government brings to bear, and a tool we have got to preserve. Not all perfect as you read about in the book. There are several case studies most notably north korea which is a page turner, a good beach read but you write about shortcomings, how treasuries bowls, this isolation, didnt always measure up with paula line up with the bowls of other departments in the government. Can you talk about those shortcomings and how you navigate them . There is an inherent tension with these kinds of campaigns. Keep in mind this is about not just telling banks what to do but focusing on illicit conduct, conduct Bank Sanctions or activities that we are focused on and the point is it often is difficult to move the agenda from looking at those illicit activities and diplomatic goals and the north korean example is a great example of why this is different. Sanctions free 9 11 were typically trade based sanctions and commercial base sanctions driven by diplomacy, what was happening to the u. N. The way we applied against north korea, was to focus on north coreys illicit financial activity, the soprano state which deals in drugtrafficking, moneylaundering, counterfeiting 100 bills engage in illicit activities, bad for business so we focused very much on that element of the north korea portfolio. The problem, between the interests of the diplomats to make a deal and to have chips on the table to trade, this kind of pressure which is basically about cleansing and protecting the international Financial System and what you had in the north korean example was the ability to isolate North Koreans in a way they hadnt felt before. They told senior white house negotiator in private you finally found a way of hurting because we isolated them in the Banking System with one domestic regulatory act. It worked too well and got in the way of Six Party Talks and unwind its hands that grew difficult because what we tried to do was inoculate the system from doing business, in unwinding had to tell the Financial System, became a very tense interagency process, also became a very difficult episode in our diplomacy because we tried to give away leverage too early in north korea. Does that undercut the effectiveness of these tools . In section 311 does that make it most effective to politics, geopolitical interests, National Security concerns, and other interests of other u. S. Companies . I think so. The danger is the overuse of these powers and the potential to be divergence of interests in the treasury and state department or even between the treasury and other parts of the government for example the cia or the Intelligence Community in terms of wanting to take action to isolate accuracy, the Intelligence Committee wanting to sit back and watch and wait. Absolutely, that is something that is yet to be resolved in the iranian context, because we have talk about negotiations and the question he will raise and has begun to raise is how can the economy be improved, how the sanctions and pressure be lifted . The pressure on our end is how do you unwind it . The baseline of the fresher, the baseline of suspect and the illicit activities they are engaged in not because they are necessarily engage in the Nuclear Program but because their activities are potentially detrimental, how you and wind that becomes a tricky venture, and political tools to be tossed around chips and it stars to lose its resonance and its effectiveness globally. I want to get to questions but before we do i want to ask about syria and you read about a syrian taste steady with financial warfare to a bank. I wonder as you look at this situation now where we are in this moment, do you look and see an obvious opportunity for some kind of financial pressures that would make a difference in a moment like this . Is difficult and one of the points i make in the book is these hours and campaigns have been very successful in dennis sense they have been sort of thought of as the alternative to diplomacy and military power and often seen as silver bullet, it tools and strategies and build leverage. And an Aggressive Campaign would stop with what Bashar Alassad is doing. And it hasnt risen to the area of tension in north korea and al qaeda, has garnered attention. You see the Treasury Department isolating another syrian bank just about a year ago along with the countries which were significant sort of move in terms of coordination with gulf related countries trying to isolate actors and financial actors that are engaged in corruption and tied to iranian support and that is powerful because the Financial Community does not deal with iranians or syrians. There is a moment for application and this is it. We just have the political will to say we are willing to take risks in terms of our diplomacy and otherwise to go after syria more aggressively. I will give you two examples. And the hunt for Bashar Alassads regime. That is to say traditionally the way we of the nasa tons and Saddam Hussein asset hunt or even the gaddafi freezing of assets, those are sort of after the fact. Why dont we do that now . We declared the regime and a legitimate, declared them corrupt, they are engaged in all sorts of atrocities that include chemical weapons use so lets go after their assets now, leverage the International Actors in this space that hunt and look for those kinds of assets and go find them and make a concerted effort and may be split elements of the Assad Russian banks are assisting with providing financing for weapons and other things that are going in and perhaps the lifeline for assad. Maybe we do more than send a shot across the ball. Maybe we had a russian bank that serves as the nexus and send a clear message to the russians, the russian Banking System, the Banking System writ large and assad that we are playing with keeps with respect to financial warfare and those are couple examples where we want to ratchets up the data we probably could. There are people in the audience who are perhaps in the book, call out juan zarate on what he did wrong. We have a couple of microphones wandering around. Does anyone have a question . If not we will keep blathering on up here. If you dont mind waiting for the microphone. And introduce yourself. I am a private investor. Effectively the tail wagging my dog. I would like to tell you a little bit of the story. I was in markets very heavily and the plea for 25 years before the crisis began. I went through those markets and felt in directly the third and fourth layer affected many of the things you are talking about. Most of us could not figure out what was going on but we knew something was going on. Usually when we reach that stage in the Financial Community we look at government being the cause so we suspect you can break through it so now comes the question. At the core of all this is the protection of the u. S. Dollar and farrah reserve currency. We lose that it is game over. There are a lot of counter plays going on against you right now which you did on wheat and sugar in syria and what you just talked about as you tip your hand. There is some discussion going on between the new direct tradings for e. U. On oil, and other alternatives that are weakening the dollar. I would ask you this. What is the Treasury Departments natural check mate if in fact you begin the damage to the dollar as a reserve currency . You raise a great point. I talk about this in the latter part of the book. The challenge is to the power and the dollar is essentials. All the things that you mentioned, also the use of bartering and exchanges more and more often. To answer your question the check is the private sector. In order for the power to work privatesector has to be on the outside. The question is how you build a legitimate system where the private sector is on its own taking the right steps are prompted to take the right steps . If the steps we are taking, is forcing good actors in the system to retreat from the dollar and Banking Services and Financial Services and at risk business lines are at risk jurisdictions than our policy of exclusion from the Financial System have done damage because were losing the inclusion that allows us to function so theres a very healthy a delicate balance between inclusion and exclusion in the Financial System and the bright minds at the treasury understand that. Is a matter of calibrating how hard to go and use these powers but the natural check in the private sector itself, that is why these interactions between the private sector and the treasury are so important. One of the things that makes treasury unique is it has that dialogue on a regular basis. I am no longer in government. What we hear is historical. That does raise another question in a related theme about the risks of overdesignating. Can you talk about that . It is a balance. If every of the day treasury historians have different designations on a bank that is doing some nefarious business, does it lose its power . It potentially does. These powers are best used when they are not only used on issues of National Security import but also in ways that are targeted and focused. You do run the risk because these powers are so practice, these are powers between diplomacy and war. People see that they are effected of and so congress, administration officials, executives want to use these powers and use them for everything. I will take a little blame for this, some of us should because what happened and oppose 9 11 period was we adopted and adapted terrorist financing paradigm and started to apply it in other areas, one that were critically important like transactional organized crime or looking that hypocrisy. So we have to be careful how far you take it because you do run the risk that it starts to blunt its effectiveness and as i just said, starts to drive the private sector away from even wanting to do business in potentially risky zones. Again is an ecosystem and so it has to be treated very carefully and if you dont have these checks you can run the risk of overusing the authority or affecting your ability to exclude from the market. You also raise the risk of allowing a space where other road actors, other Financial Institutions that are not playing above board can fill the space, the sanctions bank. That is one of the dangers you have seen in a couple ways, in particular when i was at the white house i was worried about this, you started to see countries that were isolated starting to bend together, all little bit like the alliance of financial rogues, trying to help each other evade sanctions and create alternate ways of moving money and the trek is do they have the facilities to do that. Do they have outlets in the Financial System . Venezuela has done that historically for the last few years for iran and so you have seen this as well in certain cases so the question is how can you continue to isolate actors without creating a Shadow Network alliance of financial rogues that serve to circumvent and make sure the dollar is still centrally new york is strong as a Banking Center and we are a Central Place for Capital Investment and the fundamentals of americas economy and strength locally is at the heart of why this powder works, the less powerful we are, the less the economy runs, the less the dollar is central and the harder it is to implement these strategies. Back here. To the mic. Thank you for your service, look forward to reading it. Question. Could you make some comment on the state of cooperation of governments and other major money centers, london, singapore, hong kong, tokyo, how are we doing in bringing them into the approach treasuries put in place. Owen did great work in iraq for the u. S. Government, the u. S. Treasury. Thank you for your service. Was interesting, we did it with counterparts. It became very important factors in the state, including in financial Intelligence Committee. Secondly the banks themselves as we talked about, Banking Centers and certain countries like switzerland or victims fund or luxembourg become more important in those alliances, it is less about nato and more the Banking Centers so one of the successes of this period and it is a constant challenge, having the Banking Center in line with interests in policy and a lot of credit goes to treasury officials, john taylor and others, and the Banking Centers adopting the same standards, applying and starting to isolate iran, north korea and others and that has gone relatively well. We had some friction worth watching in the newspaper, tax treaties, treatment of tax transparency has always been a point of friction between Banking Centers and that is one of the u. S. Is trying to deal with aggressively and will continue to prevent some challenges between traditional Banking Centers. Yes . Humanrights first, i welcome your comments on the russian banks and wanted to draw you out on that more. Specifically on the issue of how to deal with an enemy like russia. Last week we were and what relationship and this we could different place. The two points you raised about preemptive search for assads money and the question how to go after russian banks are all of those strands converge on russias decision to continue to arm the rebels and i wonder if you could talk about how you would pursue that without running the hazards of having the full politicize or taking the major relationship for sending shockwaves through the Financial System. Thank you. You have to do it delicately. Historically what the treasury has done has been to focus on conduct. This isnt a political maneuver. It is one where the race to the sanctity and protection of Financial System, the north korean context for example we picked a bank that was a very bad bank and targeted it because it was facilitating north korean activity. We also targeted because it would not upset the chinese who were banking. And would send a clear signal to u. S. Banks and markets so finding the right example is important. Treasury did this recently couple years ago designated a chinese bank, and iranians. And the import if you can pick the right bank, in the market. And diplomatically without destroying the relationship and theres probably a russian bank or two serving the sacrificial lamb in this effort, really sense and clear messages elsewhere. And to the call to overpoliticize. What you have to players or actors, a source of threat to the security of the United States. And the National Security out of government that are not directly involved in any security threats to the United States, but threats to the security of their people land the security of the United States and are there any measures being considered to address this issue . How do they affect the ecosystem . Great point. The most dangerous thing to the ecosystem are state actors that amplify and enable non state actors to act in the Financial System. You see that in two ways. The first is where you have states like china that serve as outlets for those who are coming under financial pressure. And the book i detail how the chinese and North Koreans through the Trading Companies have either aided sanctions over the last few years and installed protocols for doing so. So you have states that do that and also states that are involved in corruption. We talked about the mafia state. That is a problem where you have states that have direct ties with organized criminal groups and purposely leverage the power of non state networks to access the Financial System, empower themselves and enrich themselves and what is so dangerous about the nation states is they have access to lots of not only protocols but facilities. One of the things the North Koreans have done is use their embassies to korea money back and forth to be able to deposit 100 bills. That is why you see the counterfeit notes show up in places like yemen and peru and tie one. When the nation state is mixed with these non state actors to engage in profitmaking and illicit activities that you have danger not only to the ecosystem but potentially to National Security. Right here. Dan wirth from the National Committee on north korea. In the cases of financial sanctions there are some humanitarian consequences in iran with difficulties in the country. And trade Bank Sanctions earlier this year. The agencies had difficulties getting money to the country to pay the bills. Is it possible for the Treasury Department or the u. S. Government to create channels for humanitarian aid in these cases without disrupting the ecosystem that it wants to shaped influence with National Interests . A great question and certainly a challenge. The maximum piece of the isolation in this campaign can do some damage. This is not just the example you have given but remittance operations, charitable contributions, that is always a balance and a challenge. The city in front of you, former counsel, sean bergman could tell you chapter and verse how the Treasury Department issues regulations and licenses to allow for those kinds of humanitarian exemptions and one of the interesting things you have seen the treasury do, this goes to a more positive agenda in the financial warfare campaign, allout licenses for a category exports or categories of financial dealings that allow for the kinds of goods and services to get into countries that we want. For Example Technology to get to opposition movements in places like iran, that has been done fairly recently. The license has been granted so banks and exporters know they can export perhaps with some danger but given the license the treasury provided there are the vehicles for that and you have seen the Treasury Department use that strategically to affect some key policy goals. In the back. The quickest. Thanks a lot for an excellent book and for your service. I have one question. From the center for national policy, a different question on section 311 which was quite different from now, helpful in quiet dining and the transaction and jurisdictions and Financial Institutions from the Financial System. One of the drags is other jurisdictions do not have a section of 311 system. What can be done or treasury in that regard to make other jurisdictions implement and execute and design Something Like section 311 . Thank you for your Scholarship Fund these issues. One of the interesting things with the president s speech, the debate about the United States is indispensable and power, it is clear, in the financial campaigns, not to say other countries havent done quite a bit, not to say other countries dont have initiatives but it is often left to the u. S. Treasurys, to drive these strategies. Now that the european union, in recent years like iran sanctions and in their legal system flying across difficulties with a number of iranian banks challenging the listing in europe and winning the challenge just recently. The number of al qaeda finance years challenging and winning the european system. There are challenges to the system read large and at the end of the day we are still the indispensable nation and treasury is the indispensable party in driving, that requires clarity of policy and good Strategic Thinking and great execution. The gentleman in the back. Brendan shields, thanks for spending time here. Walking in the street and describe what you think instruments of National Power might be shortlived and military and state, returned to d. C. Two sings, what other things can be brought better to focus to pursue National Interests and as october came up the best shot at the world series . My angels are suffering this year, it is a great point because i think if you listen to some of the great sort of professionals from the u. S. Always been moaning the fact we dont have enough tools in the toolkit. Something Madeleine Albright talked about about. In some ways we added to that tool kit here. I would hope with this book it leaves people where we have actors and actions we can take to give a compliment to what we are more aware of. What is more interesting, this is a lesson of the use of this kind of power in the twentyfirst century in a globalized world and economy it is often the non state actors that have power and influence. We bemoan the fact that the u. S. Is not good at st. Craft as the arabs spring has emerged so what do we learn . We learn what you can try to do is leverage power and influence of non state actors for positive agendas those in line with u. S. Interests and whether it is a human rights agenda or financial integrity agenda or Something Else that are actors in line with our interests. The trick in the twentyfirst century is figuring out how you actually leverage that power and how you create strategic pleasure, to complement financial pleasure and people start to see community is an asset and resource. The fact the we got americans helping to run somalis Transitional Government is an asset. Somali Business People doing business is an asset. The fact that social activists can draw out eleven Million People using the Facebook Campaign against terrorists is an asset. Thinking differently about how we use power, the power of individuals themselves is important because this dichotomy of what washington does, twentyfirst century will be more about what people power can do and not just for nefarious purposes as we have seen with terrorism but on the Positive Side of the ledger and i hope that is one of the lessons for what we have done over the last 12 years. Get you in the back. Tom sanders and tremendously rewarding to work with you at the past few years, thank you and congratulations in the book. And demonstrates that you are able to influence the formal Banking System. Can you talk about the informal Banking System and how difficult it is to impact things . The great question and one of the great challenges, the tools we talked about our most effective when talking about a formal Financial System. It is a little bit of a false paradigm to think of the informal sector, no ties in between, to explain what the network is, and move the money across borders, trusted actors, the interesting thing about these networks is they keep records, brokers want to know where they send money and who owes them and theres record keeping, on computers, there are transfers, settlements between brokers using Bank Accounts and so there are ties between informal system and the formal system and even i was very critical for example when talking about piracy using tools against piracy thinking will be launched in a parachute and attach a land rover . What do we do . The reality is as you have seen in your own research and field work in kenya, that Illicit Trade and finance alternately reaches enough volume to in effect and impact the formal systems of places like easily you have Banking Centers built around the Financial Networks of the entire network so at some point of the ligaments of the Financial System interact and can be impacted. That is not easy and not to say it can be done as effectively but it can be effective. The other thing that is a challenge is new technologies are emerging. And impact started to impact the ability of Law Enforcement to know who is behind transactions and how moneylaundering is operating in the fbi put out a number of warnings about the use of criminal groups and we got to watch the Digital Currency space for these purposes as well. One more question, gentleman in the back. I get to ask my question. Rich davis from artist, congratulations. I am going to put you on the spot policywise. Assuming you have a policy position today and you were considering the issue of non proliferation or proliferation particularly around nuclear or bio recognizing you have stage actors and potentially non state actors interested in pursuit of proliferation, say nuclear, what opportunities are there through the instruments of treasury to be able to actually prevent proliferation in countries that might be reactive to iran whether it be saudi arabia or another . One caveat to the question would be to recognize that often times you have Nuclear Power plants that cost so much for example and often times able to be used for plutonium enrichment, because they cost so much often they are in syndicated loans used to pay for them. Are there any tools that can be used in that fight . A great and complicated question, which. I think one of the huge challenges in this space and not just the financial space but trade is the problem of dualuse items and whether it is nuclear or even bio you have the challenge of goods that are potentially used for normal commercial purposes or for nefarious purposes. One of the things we did which was effective was we transplanted the paradigm on financing on the issue of counterproliferation and now if you talk to the anti moneylaundering community, whether compliance officers in belfort Financial Action task force you look at the task force there Counter Terrorist financing and proliferation financing, hard to say, and so you have the tools, you have standards internationally. The trick is in this space politically what you decide to do because there are sensitivities around these programs, mixed agenda ofs in terms of where they fall on the arena of priority. Given the situation with syria the whole question of can weapons precursor proliferation is not going to fall to the top of the scale with people saying in the New York Times reporting the other day why werent we worried about this before . Clearly we were but things like nuclear proliferation, terrorism and other things fall to the head of the line. I dont have an easy answer but the system is set so you can use sanctions, use the financial pressure techniques we have used all along to go more aggressively at the network that matters and frankly i think this is hard to say, but i think that is the kind of system you would have needed to go after for example the network that relied on finance years in switzerland, suppliers in malaysia and the ability to shift places like libya and elsewhere and so i think we have created enough awareness and systemic tension that you just need the political will to go after these targets but that takes political guidance and strategy. Thank you. One more question as to moderator as a way of giving you a way to make some Closing Remarks but you talk about an ecosystem of bad banks and rogue actors, terrorist networks. In the beginning right after 9 11 there was a moral imperative. It wasnt a tough sell to get cooperation. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the evolution of that, 12 years on, is that cooperation which really is essential to what you describe as an organic kind of process that has a sense of fragility to it, is that cooperation coming, how do you assure that it is coming forward . That is a great question. Let me answer it this way. The intensity of cooperation, the sense of the daytoday importance of counterterrorism work written large saves overtime, that is human nature, that is what matters. The interesting thing about these tools, financial campaigns and focusing on illicit finance is these are enduring issues that matter to the integrity of the Financial System and Money Laundering matters before 9 11, it matters more so after 9 11. Financial climbed matted before, matters even more so now. The real question is how far you expand these powers and whether or not you reach a Tipping Point where they are less effective over time either because the u. S. Lost its predominance as the central economy in the world or the dollar lost its primacy in terms of currency or we overuse it and people stopped paying attention and these alliance of rogues i dont think the attention has waned, i think the pressure is still there, people understand it but it comes from different motivations and that is in part what makes these tools also unique. With that, the book is called treasurys war the unleashing of a new era of financial warfare. I think you can buy some copies. Thank you for coming and thank you to dr. John hamre and thank you to juan 11. Appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you are watching cspan2 with politics, public affairs, weekdays featuring live coverage of the u. S. Senate. Weeknights watch key Public Policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. You can see bast programs and get our schedules and our web site and join in the conversation on social media sites. We wanted america to be better. We want america to live up to the declaration of independence, live up to our creed, make real our democracy, make it real. When i got arrested the first time i felt free. I felt liberated. Congressman john lewis will be our next guest on in depth, sunday october 6th, he would take your calls and comments live for three hours. Also scheduled for indepth biographer kitty kelley, december 1st, feminist critic christina hot summers and radio talkshow host marc levin said booktvs book club continues with this town. Read the book and read comments on our face book page and on twitter. First lady laura a bush, is this day what you expected . Yes, i am thrilled to be here and i think cspan for covering this National Book festival. We have a beautiful sunny day and i hope the camera shows behind me how huge crowds are. I am so excited about that. We talked a lot over the last several days. This idea came from the texas book festival but where did the idea for the texas book festival come from . From the kentucky book festival. And el paso writer came to me after my husband was elected and said he had been to a book festival in kentucky and he knew texans were so proud of our stories that he thought texans could put on a great festival. Weve researched a lot of festivals, a lot of people who worked on the texas book festival went to the tennessee festival for instance and we saw what they were like and we started hours. Texas, this year is the third weekend in november. Will you be back for that . I will be back and looking forward to it. One thing i like about this festival and the National Book festival and the texas book festival is there are right here in the capital. We are on the steps of the library of congress with the United States capitol behind us. I love the whole idea and symbolism of books and the ideas in my books with our National Government and our democracy because the ideas in books are what is so important to our democracy. You quoted why . I love the quote about her mother took her to the library and told the library introduce her to the library and instead, shes 9 years old. She has my permission to check out a book on these shelves and she wrote this in her biography, she went to the library as often as she could. Hero on her bicycle with books in her bicycle basket and she ran and said she knew that was less. Was a similar see your experience . Absolutely. I love to read and i went to the library in midland, texas, in the basement of the Midland County courthouse. Had a library in the center of town and the courthouse that is the Center Square of my town shows me how important reading and libraries were to everyone in the town