Transcripts For CSPAN3 Public Affairs Events 20161119

The committee will come to order. I want to remind our members, our guests and our staff that we are at the unclassified level for todays hearing. Im also obligated to remind the witnesses that providing false information to this committee or concealing Material Information from the committee is a crime punishable by law. Today we welcome director of National Intelligence, james clapper, deputy secretary of defense robert work and the under secretary of defense for intelligence, marcel lettre. Thank you for all three of you for being here today. The United States faces grave security threats today from terrorism threats to aggression by nation states to cyberattacks. The Intelligence Community provides our military with critical information across the full spectrum of conflict. Yet when the ic and dod do not integrate effectively, we risk intelligence failures that put our war fighters lives at risk. Were here today because the dod and ic have failed to adequately respond to the concerns raised by this committee on a range of Critical National security issues, including those raised by the committee during the worldwide threats hearing this past february. The committee is alarmed by the manipulation of intelligence at u. S. Central command, as we documented in our august report. Further, an ongoing Committee Investigation has found the dod and the ic Facilities Planning has been plagued by significant flaws, including disregard for more Cost Effective alternatives. Despite repeatedly raising these concerns, the committee has not seen any meaningful corrective actions by the dod or the ic. I want to thank the department of defense Inspector Generals Office for their ongoing investigations into both of these issues. Once they are complete, i will invite the ig to present their findings in open session. If necessary, we may ask the three of you to return following the conclusion of those investigations. I also commend the work of the Government Accountability office which recently released a report finding that the department of defense did not follow best practices when conducting its joint intelligence analysis complex consolidation analysis of alternatives process. Thank you for being here, and with that, i would like to recognize the Ranking Member for any opening comments he would like to make. Mr. Schiff . Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im trying to get used to this new committee and the lap of luxury here in the ways and means. First, i want to thank you all for your many years of service to the country. Indeed decades of service to the country. Director clapper, in particular, i want to thank you for honorably serving us since the 1960s, first as an air force officer, later as director of dia, nga and as under secretary of defense for intelligence and, of course, for the last six years of dni. You took a position that was still very much in the process of formation and gave it very substantive and effective content, and were very grateful for all you have done. Youve always exhibited sober judgment and put the fate of the nation first. I hope that as you look back on your career, you are you dont lament your many appearances before us. We certainly dont. And, you know, there was a rumor out there that you might be asked to stay on a little longer during the transition. Im hoping you will stay on a little longer. Maybe four years longer. But thats probably the last thing you want to hear. Deputy secretary work and under secretary lettre, i also want to thank you for your Extraordinary Service for the country. Were very grateful to both of you, and i look forward to our continuing to Work Together in whatever plans come to you both down the road. As we near the end of the congress, now is an appropriate time to reflect on the values that shape our work and how those are manifest in the National Security domain. Our country is best served when we put asize partisanship and conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the American People. This requires a commitment to intellectual honesty, respect for the rule of law and willingness to accept accountability for our mistakes and the commitment to avoid repeating them. As weve done on this committee, we must all Work Together to solve problems on a bipartisan, really nonpartisan basis. The Intelligence Community and at times the military operate in the shadows, but that no way diminishes our responsibility to ensure that we act according to the principles. In fact, responsibilities even greater. At home we rely on our military and Intelligence Community to be nonpartisan objective and honest about the challenges we face. And that candor is what allows the most Senior Leaders in this country to make hard choices about how to protect americans. Abroad, even as we engage in espionage and warfare to protect ourselves and our allies, and world civility itself, we again rely on the ic and the military to comport with the rule of law and highest moral standards. Even in the shadows, we must all act as if youre very much in the spotlight because you are. The world often sees whats were doing. The intelligence communities do our best to shine a light in a constructive way. The people expect and deserve an Intelligence Community and military that are responsive and as transparent as possible and open to the oversight committees. The intelligence oversight committees in congress act as a critical check on the most secret activities of the ic and dod and also provide oversight, we hope sound judgment and ultimately either authorization or disapproval. Each of us must continually seek to strike the right balance between protecting privacy and civil libertyez and ensure our security. That balance not always clear, it is never a bright line. And nor have we always achieved it to perfection, but it must always be our goal in the ic and department of defense and here in congress. Today i look forward to farreaching discussion about how the ic can and does support the department of defense as we pursue meaningful comprehensive and bipartisan oversight of the critical work you do now and into the future. Thank the gentleman for yielding back. We have your Opening Statements for the record. I want to keep your Opening Statements to no more than five minutes because we have a lot of questions. I think well have a series of votes. I want to get through as many of those as possible. Who is going to start off . Director clapper . Will you start off. Youre recognized for five minutes. Chairman and Ranking Member, members of the committee and thanks to the Ranking Member for your very gracious comments. I submitted my letter of resignation last night which felt really good and i have 64 days left. Thanks for having us here to discuss the intelligence committees work. Im joined by my friend and colleague, bob work and my partner, under secretary of defense for intelligence, marcel lettre, two men whom i greatly ads meyer. Well dour best to discuss as much of the ic support to the department in this unclassified environment. Obviously, noting in some details may require follow up in a classified setting. My written statement i included a brief update on some of the National Security intelligents this committee knows well. So in the interest of time, i think ill skip by those. Youre well familiar with them. Just as a stage setter for constant challenges that we face. As i said before this Committee Many times, our nation is facing a most diverse array of threats thats ive seen in my 53plus years in the intelligence business. Thats what makes the topic of this hearing so important. Never before have the Intelligence Community and the department of defense needed to work so closely. We have a shared responsibility to keep our nation safe and secure. I have a long history of serving in the department of intelligence roles to include as the director of intelligence for three of the combatant commands as director of both dia and nga for almost nine years. As under secretary of defense for intelligence for over three years. And as commander of scientific Technical Intelligence center and i served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict. So i have experienced firsthand the department, and i see its collaboration. Since odni, the relationship between the department and the community has grown steadily closer. When i 50 took over as usdi in 2007, i establisheds dual hat relationship for the usdi within odni. Its called the director of Defense Intelligence. This serves as a bridge to enhance integration and information sharing between the Intelligence Community and dod. And marcel has taken this arrangement to the next level. Odni does the hard work of integrating behind the scenes so its never a thought or shouldnt be on the front lines. My written statement walks through several examples from Operational Support to acquisition oversight to in innovations by iarpa that show the support that ioc renders to dod. In the interest of time, let me give you one real tangible example of how this works every day. And that is joint duty. A program championed and managed by odni. Dod knows well how jointness brings great value to the war fighter and we in the ic adopted the same approach. We learned the hard way how stove piping and insular approaches to intelligence are not the way to operate. To penetrate those stove pipes, one of the most valuable tools is joint duty where they serve rotations outside of their home agencies. This is intelligence integration at the most basic level, person to person. The ics policy not only fosters joint duty, it mandates it for anyone who seeks to become a senior officer. Literally thousands of ic officers completed joint duty assignments. This is in stark contrast to my work in Southeast Asia where you rarely saw civilian employees in the war zone. Today, civilians and Service Members are serving shoulder to shoulder focussing on the same mission, sharing the same risks and enduring the same challenging circumstances. Yet more recent graphic example of that in my visit to kuwait last week. Its one of the many ways we build strong bridges between the ic and dod. Finally, i want to take note of the fact that secretary carter recently presented me with the department of Defense Distinguished Public Service award, the highest such award he can give. The award was not for me. I accepted it on behalf of the men and women of the Intelligence Community who work tirelessly to support our missions, many of them directly supporting the war fighters. The war is a symbol of that commitment to mission and i want to publicly thank the secretary for so honoring us, the Intelligence Community. So, mr. Chairman, if i may, i did want to comment specifically on the issue of analytic integrity at centcom. Some very recent information i thought would be useful to share with you. Since we have now 2016 results of our analytic survey, which reflected a 22 of centcom, j2 and jaoc analysts respond to objectivity issues, this represents a decrease from 41 in 2015 and is comparable to 16 to reported issues in 2014. Centcoms j2 objectivity nump bers are on par with the command average and slightly higher than 2016 ic wide average of 17 . They also indicate that sectcom, j2 and jaoc were more likely to seek assistance to resolve incidents. 60 of centcom, j2 respondents experiencing objectivity issues sought assistance up from 42 in 2015. Of those seeking assistance in resolving objectivity issues in 2016, 67 rated senior centcom intelligence management as satisfactory at protecting analytic products from deliberate distortion. So i mention this only to make this is, you know, oneyear period, but it does show a positive trend. And i would also comment that, of course, theres been a change in both the commander and the j2 and centcom and i think just that ought to im not cast aspersions, i just think a change has been a very positive development. So with that, ill stop and turn to secretary work. Thank you, director. Deputy secretary work, youre recognized for five minutes. Can you get the mike, please. Chairman nunez, Ranking Member schiff, its an honor to appear before you today to discuss the support of the department of defense has received from the Intelligence Community. As chairman nunez said, this is the unclassified hearing. So i it precludes me from getting into any specific details. Let me just state that the support that we receive from the ic community has been absolutely superb. Its great to be here with the director of National Intelligence jim clapper. Theres nobody more qualified. Jim, id like to state for the record that marcel has been tasked by me to find your letter of resignation and lose it because we would certainly like to see you state as long as possible. But as jim gets ready to hang up his spurs, i want to say that secretary carter and i are exceedingly grateful to his tremendous contributions to the Intelligence Community and intelligence support to dod. He knows better than anyone the value of the dods eight members, the ic bring to the intelligence areina. Marcel lettre who is also my battle buddy in intelligence and the department of defense, hes the primary intelligence adviser to the secretary and me. Hes also responsible to jim in the role of the director for Defense Intelligence. This dual hat role was established and institutionalized when jim was the under secretary of defense for intelligence. And it has been a smashing success in our opinion. So i cant overstate the importance of having a us team that understands the warfighting requirements is plugged in closely with the ic community and appreciates the entire capabilities the ic can bring to bear. We all understand and appreciate the importance of these personal relationships, which is why i comment on them and thanks to jim, marcel, cia director john brynn and the combat support agencies, the relationship and our view between dni, cia, the rest of three of the intelligence communities and dod have never been better. Ive worked in this business now for a little over 2 1 2 years. Ive had an opportunity to work not only closely with jim but with his principal deputy, stephanie osullivan. Shes one of the three members along with the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, paul selva. We chair the advance capability and Deterrence Panel which shows the close relationship between the ic and the department. These relationships and cooperation are absolutely crucial as we seek to allocator intelligence sources to meet the challenges that jim spoke about around the world from fighting isil and other extremist groups monitoring north koreas very active Ballistic Missile and Nuclear Weapons program, ensuring iran does not develop further nuclear capability, keeping a watchful eye on russias actions in the ukraine, Eastern Europe and elsewhere and scrutinizing chinas actions in the east and south china sea. The demands on the Intelligence Community are formidable. And the ic is working as best as they can, and we would consider their job to be outstanding to try to apply the scarce intelligence resources across all of these challenges. Usdi and dni rely upon several joint forms where the joint Service Intelligence chiefs, intelligence combatant support agencies, cia and the dni convene. And these are regular visits include regular visits to all of our regional and functional combatant commands, participation in the afghan and counter isil war fighter integration, which we call the war fighting sig. And all of these are designed to address the war fighters most urgent operational needs. We have ten combatant commands who have ic representatives on them. That is another indication of how close our relationship is, and their robust presence even in afghanistan, iraq, syria and other places worldwide, especially in this zerosum budget environment really speaks highly for the Mission Orientation of the entire ic. So im very grateful to be here today. And im very grateful for the committees interest in this area, and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you, deputy secretary. Mr. Under secretary, do you have an Opening Statement . Mr. Chairman, i do not have a formal Opening Statement. I would just like to briefly make two points. First, is as director clapper and deputy secretary work have indicated, i essentially have two reporting chains reporting to dni clapper on the Intelligence Community side and to the deputy secretary and the secretary on the dod side with really my full time focus and my teams fulltime focus being to manage and focus the relationship between the Intelligence Community and the military and ensure that in both directions, the military is providing support to the Intelligence Community and the Intelligence Community is providing support to the military. I think we have had a very interesting transformative experience since 9 11 in fundamentally integrating those efforts far more than ever before. And i look forward to touching on some of that in the questions and answers today. And the second point, mr. Chairman is to echo the thanks that have been provided around the table this morning. Thanks to the team that ive been able to serve with here on this side, director clapper and the secretary and deputy. But also to this committee. I suspect that this will be my last opportunity to appear before you before the transition in government in january. I, at an early point in my career, had an opportunity, an honor to serve as a staff member on this committee for three years, which was an opportunity to learn about the importance of oversight and the critical driver that oversight can be in ensuring the government functions effectively. I want to thank the committee for that opportunity early in my career to be able to do that as well as to have a productive relationship over many years since. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Under secretary. Thats a good segue into our opening questions. We are here in a rare open session for this committee because we have struggled to get a lot of answers and provide transparency to the public, which is really one of our most importa important constitutional duties we have as a legislative branch of government. I have many questions that i want to get through, so i want to try if we can keep your answers as short and concise as possible. This is for all of you. Are you familiar with wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia . Yes, i am. Mr. Clapper . Generally. Generally, i am. Generally, yes, sir. Does the department of defense or the Intelligence Community edit Wikipedia Pages on behalf of the u. S. Government . I really cant speak authoritatively on that. I personally have never edited a wikipedia page. I dont know off the top of my head. I dont think so, but i dont know. Mr. Work . I have no knowledge whether or not it happens or not, sir. Does the dod or the ic use wikipedia as an official source of information . I just dont know, congressman. I would have to look into that. I dont know off hand if it has ever been. I dont know. I know that the department and the ic Community Uses a lot of open source information. I dont know whether or not wikipedia is one of those open sources. Okay. Well, deputy secretary work, on march 21st, you and director clapper met with chairman thornberry, freelgheisen and myself to discuss the analysis required by the National Defense authorization act for fiscal year 2016 regarding the joint intelligence analysis complex slated to be built at the krauten air base in the uk. Do you recall that meeting . I do, indeed. Director clapper, do you recall that meeting . Yes, i do. Secretary work, you said the department of defense did not intend to fully reevaluate lower cost alternative sites for the Intelligence Center. As justification for your decision, you provided the committee with two documents regarding Communications Infrastructure supporting lodges field in portugals azores island. Im going to ask the clerk to please distribute exhibit one and exhibit two which includes one of the documents provided as justification for the departments decision. Everybody has the documents now. Secretary work, are you aware that significant portions of this document that you passed to three Committee Chairman to meet public law were plagiarized from wikipedia . Well, sir, i can state with certainty that i did not provide exhibit 2. I have never seen exhibit 2. Exhibit 2 are the Wikipedia Pages that were plagiarized for exhibit one that you provided to me, the public law. I see. No, i did not know that the information in that document came from wikipedia. You can see basically all of the graphics in this, what you provided us, everything thats highlighted, that was all taken directly out of what we have in exhibit two to provide to three Committee Chairmen to fulfill the national the requirements in the National Defense authorization act. Well, if i may, sir, i would like to clarify. What i did in that meet, i was required by the National Defense authorization act to make a determination that our movement to krauten was operationally the right call to make. And i made that determination and communicated my intent to do that. The second thing i needed to do was to certify there were no dod missions that could be transferred to logis, and i certified we were not intending to do so. At that meeting, you asked me two questions. You said what about the housing costs on in logis, and you questioned me on the communications information. I provided you a piece of one document that was provided to me, i think it was by disa, and i committed to you to make a deep dive, which i did. Well, im just alarmed, secretary work, that we would rely on wikipedia free online encyc encyclopedia thats famously known for most High School Students plagiarizing their homework. And that you would even that the department of defense would even use wikipedia, a free online service, to provide any information to congress to put in any report. Well, again, mr. Chairman, this had no bearing on my determination or my certification which was required by law. So youre not bothered at all that the department of defense, a hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars agency that anyone in your department would be providing you information to give to the congress that was plagiarized and its not just plagiarized off wikipedia. It was every single graph in the document was taken from wikipedia. Again, sir, the costs for the cables and the cables were not dis secretary work, youre not answering the question here. We need to know whether or not its appropriate is it appropriate to take information off of wikipedia and provide it to the congress . I would say im surprised this comes directly from a wikipedia page. Okay. All right. Let me move on because we are going to have votes. Are you aware the Committee First asked for the bandwidth roarments for this Intelligence Center in early august 2015 . Yes, sir, i am. Are you aware the committee again requested Communications Requirements on may 24th, 2016 . Yes, sir, i am. Are you aware the committee requested requirements october 5th, 2016 . I am not certain of the exact dates but i know that weve been in communication, yes, sir. Are you aware the committee finally received this information on the Intelligence Center requirements earlier this week . I am. On tuesday, the department of defense chief Information Officer testified before this committee that department of defense leadership decided not to brief Committee Staff because of the tone of a letter sent from the committee to the department of defense. Did you direct the department of defense cio not to provide the requested information to the committee because of the tone of the letter . No, i did not. But i would like to explain what in my view happened. You called me in september 2015 as the chief operating officer of the department of defense. I oversee developing a Defense Program for the secretary in accordance with his strategic guidance. As a result, i am responsible for every single aspect of that program. And as you can imagine, certain items do not rise to my level of attention, and certain do. In september 2015, you called me and asked me to personally get involved in reviewing the information that was being provided. And i committed to you that i would. We briefed you and chair the two other chairmen in march. At that point, you brought up new information that was new to me. You said i dont believe that youre being served right and the information on the communications, and i dont think youre being served right by the information on housing. I committed to do a deep dive. Which we did. That was finished in may. Since may weve been trying to get that information to you from the very beginning, mr. Chairman, i thought this was a communication between you and me. You asked me to do this personally for you. All of the interactions i had are with you and the other chairman and we offered to provide this information to you. We were told that you would not want to receive it. We actually had a hearing scheduled in september, which was postponed. I regret that this information was not communicated, but weve had the information since march excuse me, since may, and weve been trying to communicate it to you. So the issue with this is, your chief Information Officer refused to or the department, i shouldnt say you, or the chief Information Officer, said the reason that you would not brief the Committee Staff was because of the tone of the letter. But you did remind me of one thing. I do remember that phone call, and for the record, you do acknowledge that i informed you that the congress had been given false or misleading information. In that september phone call. I understood that was your opinion, yes, sir. So you were informed by this committee that we were provided false or misleading information by the department of i have no indication that that was true. So im going to pass out the email, exhibit three that went from our staff to the department of defense because id like to just ask you what is the problem what is the problem with the tone of this letter that would lead the department of defense not to send us the requirements for an Intelligence Center . Mr. Chairman, i havent seen this particular one. All i can tell you is you asked me in march to do a deep dive n i got the absolute best experts in the department of defense to do that deep dive. It included the chief information but this is were the legislative branch of government. We asked in august of 2015, and your chief Information Officer said that he was told by superiors not to provide the information because the tone of the letter. This is the letter. To me it seems like a very nice letter. It says thank you for the quick reply. It even says thanks for the help. Mr. Chairman is there a problem with the tone of this letter . Mr. Chairman, i dont know what letter mr. Halvorson was talking about. What i can say is that what i ever since our first are meeting, i said it is very important to the three chairman that we provide this information to them. I want to deal directly with the chairman. I want to provide them with the best information that we have. Everything that you ask or any of the other chairmen asks, we take very seriously. I appreciate that, but your department, as testimony from just two days ago, decided not to send information to this committee because of the tone of the level, and this is the le letter. And i dont see anything wrong with the tone of the letter. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned at the early part of the hour, there are two investigations ongoing. One by this committee and one by the dod ig. Made at your request. Normally when an ig investigation occurs, we stop all interactions with the committees. But we have said because this is so important to the chairman, we will continue the interaction with the chairman, and we will be very careful in delivering on the way we come forward. I regret that mr. Halvorson used the term tone. I have instructed everyone that we need to be very deliberate because of the close attention that you have placed to this. And ive emphasized to everyone in the chain of command that our all of our analysis has to be unimpeachable. And so so deputy secretary, i just want to i understand there are two investigations ongoing. But just so you know, this was in august this was august 3rd, 2015. The letter to the dod ig requesting an investigation was not until nine months later. So why for nine months did you not did your department decide not to provide basic, what is really basic information to this committee . Again, sir, when you asked me to get involved in this, i did. Ive ordered the deep dive. I have absolute confidence that the j six on the joint staff, the cio, disa and dia now have come together, worked the information that you requested. So, clearly, deputy secretary, you are not responsible for not providing the information, or you dont recall that, but someone in your department told the cio that is. Do you know who would have instructed the cio not to provide the information because of the tone of the letter . I dont believe anyone did, and i dont believe that mr. Halvorson was trying to make any aspersion. We believe congressional oversight is extraordinarily important. Since the meeting with you in march, weve had six separate letters, i believe. Weve provided over 1,000 pages of documents. Weve provided 11 people to testify before the committee. There are people being testified. We believe weve been extraordinarily responsive. You lsd the gao report id like to talk about the responsiveness. This committees investigation has uncovered multiple instances where the department of defense provided information to other committees, particularly the Senate Armed Services committee, months before providing the same information to this committee. Is it the dods policy to provide information to the senate before providing it to the house . No, sir, it is not. Then why did it happen . Again, sir, we have offered to brief this information to you since may, and device, once when this has nothing to do with that, secretary work. This has information that we asked a year and a half ago that we did not receive. Well go on. On monday, the department of defense finally provided the committee with the Communications Requirements. I understand that logis infrastructure as it is configured today does not have the desired bandwidth. Did the dod ever have Telecommunications Providers if they could upgrade their infrastructure to support the specific requirements . Mr. Chairman, i would defer all questions to the experts in the jsix, the cao, disa and dia. However, ive been briefed its not normal policy for us to go out and say, what is the art of the possible in the future . We do all our analysis on what is available today. So when the dod, cio testified before us two days ago, he did indicate that they did not ask the local provider. So now i have this is the same question i asked the other day which is, when our bases around the world need extra bandwidth, do we just not ask . And we just start laying cables all over the globe, or do we ask the local provider, can we increase our bandwidth. You have to put this within the context of what this question is about. What was better . Krauten or logis . There is no comparison. Krauten is absolutely the best information hub. Thats not the question. The question was, could the Communications Infrastructure meet the requirements or not . I understand that was the that was the question. But the question you posed was whether or not the move to krauten was how do you know the answer if you never asked the provider if the local Communications Infrastructure would work . I know the answer, sir, because cape, who is the best independent cost Analysis Section that we have in the department of defense, took a look at all of the onetime costing factors. They looked at seven. In all of them, there was never an instance where cape was able to close the Business Case for logis. We were briefed on the cape study. Quite entertaining. Let me on september 1st, 2016, you sent a letter to the committee stating that you released funding for phase two of the Intelligence Center construction. When did you release the funding . Soon after that letter, i assume, sir. Soon after the letter dated on september 1st . I cannot tell you the exact dates that money transferred, but that was the date that i notified you that we were going to go forward. There would be no reason to for this notification would have been delayed . I cant imagine one, sir. Now, it might have been delayed simply because of the staffing process of the letter coming up through me. I go through hundreds and hundreds of pages. So perhaps it was delayed slightly. At the time of your decision was there an active gio investigation into this analysis on this location . There was an aoa an analysis of our aoa. Was there an active investigation into doa personnel providing information to congress . Yes, and i believe it is ongoing now. Secretary lettre, i want to understand how dod sets requirements for locations. We asked you this question earlier in closed session. I want to make sure its on the record. Does the department of defense choose location of facilities based on where personnel want to live . We do not. We have a range of factors that go into the decisions about where to base facilities and particularly when it comes to intelligence facilities, the operational Mission Orientation and criteria associated with it are the greatest of the factors. So we choose location based upon Mission Requirements . Thats one of a range of riteria that do factor in. But for me wearing my intelligence hat with my intelligence responsibilities, the Mission Relevance and the ability of that location to service the Intelligence Mission tends to rise to the top of the list, yes. Im going to stop here and well come back later. But im going to yield to the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director clapper, i wanted to ask you about your parting thoughts on russia and the threat posed by russia. You and the secretary of Homeland Security acknowledged about a month ago that russia had been hacking our Political Institutions and interfering with our election. This was coming from the highest levels of the kremlin. What jour assessment of whether that activity is likely to continue into the next administration if president elect trump, if a rapprochement between he and mr. Putin doesnt materialize, would you anticipate that russians will hack and dump documents that might be damaging to a Trump Administration . Would that be consistent with what you know of their playbook . Thanks for the question, sir. I dont anticipate a significant change in russian behavior. We gave considerable thought to diming out russia with that statement. We waited until we felt we had sufficient basis for it and we did both from forensic and other sources of intelligence that led us to that statement. It may have had the desired effect since after that after the issuance of that statement. It took place between our government and russian government. It seem eed to curtail the cyberactivity that the russians were previously engaged in. Russians have a very active and aggressive capability to conduct information operations, socalled hybrid warfare. Thats been a longstanding practice of theirs going back to the soviet era. And i anticipate that it will continue. Director, i want to drill down a little further into your comment that the russian activity curtailed after the issuance of the statement. The dumping of documents didnt end with the issuance of the statement. Are you implying by this that we know whether the documents provided to either cutouts or wikileaks had all been provided prior to the statement that was issued, or is it entirely possible that the dumping of documents continued after the statement and what may have been avoided was a further escalation of the interference in the form of trying to monkey around on election day or thereafter. I was referring to the cyberreconnaissance that we had observed. Many state entities had observed prior to the statement. And that sort of activity seemed to have curtailed. As far as the wikileaks connection, the evidence there is not as strong and we dont have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided. We dont have as good insight into that. And based on what the russians have done in europe and elsewhere, what would you anticipate they would do during the coming administration in terms of their hacking and dump ing and active measures campaign in the United States . Director, i think your microphone is off again. Thats hard to say. Congressman, i cant say what theyll do, and i cant forecast what the impact of our new administration might have on russian behavior. Thats kind of speculative. I just dont know. Let me ask you about what you can tell us about their intentions, visavis the minsk accords and ukraine. Do you see any intensification of russian efforts to disrupt the, cra ukraine or destabilize crane government or do you see efforts in the opposite direction . Are russian incentives alined to tamping down the violence there or dialling it up at this point . I think for now, they will sustain their presence. We continue to see firing incidents exchanged along the line of contact and recently since yet another reaffirmation of the ceasefire, the number of incidents per week has increased. I think both countries will probably engage in actions and counteractions to try to promote instability. Clearly the russians want to sustain influence in a traditional part of greater russia which is the ukraine. And so i suspect that sort of pressure will continue. I dont see much prospect for a resolution or compliance with the minsk accords. I think it will continue this semi stalemate were in. In terms of russian conduct in the war in syria, obviously, putin and the kremlin are aware that the incoming president wants to have a different relationship with russia. How do you see that as influencing their policy in syria . Is the kremlin likely to conclude by that that they have more or less a green light to continue the siege of aleppo or the bombing of civilians . Do you ascribe any timing with that Campaign Following the election of the president elect . I cant speculate on what impacts any discussions with the new administration would have, but i can tell you right now that russians are sustaining their behavior. They are increasingly putting more pressure on oppositionists in aleppo. Indiscriminately bombing women, children, hospitals, this sort of thing. And that will continue. That is having a negative effect on the oppositionists in terms of morale and willingness to continue to fight. Of course, this plays to assads objective, achieving a military victory. And that is the position hes in. I think hes probably less interested in any form of negotiations. Do you foresee any change in the increasing russian rebe lidgeerenc lidgeerance . Do you see any changes in that in light of a potentially different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . Well, no, i dont, at least right now. The russians recently deployed their lone carrier and are conducting some ops off of that. They have sustained the presence of their artillery, and deployment of the very advanced air defense systems. And so at least i think what that indicates, that clearly the russians are there to stay. They want to maintain the presence and the base in syria as their only base outside the former soviet union. Permanent base that they maintain, and i expect will they are planning on expanding their presence at tartus to support Naval Operations in the eastern med. Let me ask you one last question on russia. 30,000foot question. And that is, one doctrine has b to enhance his own stature at home by provoking confrontation with the west, by framing for his people at home the United States as the you know, the russian equivalent to the great satan. How will he square that with his comments or overtures to the president elect . In other words does the kremlin need the american boogie man to maintain popularity at home, and how will they deal with that conflict if theres a different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . Well, all i can say here is that clearly putin has played to this spirit of nationalism, if you want to call it that, in russia by appealing to the citizenry, and i think somewhat as a distraction for or at least offer compensation for the economic privations that the russian population continues to suffer because of the economic straits theyre in and the continued contraction of their economy. And so he does exhort and appeal to the patriotic spirit of the russian people, and to conjure up his standing up to opponents in the west, notably the United States, and as a way of reaffirming in their minds russian greatness. Let me ask one last question, both director clapper and secretary work, about isis and the campaign in syria. There have been a number of statements from the pentagon about the timing of the campaign against raqqa, and ive had concerns about whether we have the forces ready to undertake that, whether it is premature. But, you know, there have been Public Comments about two imperatives of accelerating that campaign. One is an intensive indication of plotting by isis against the United States in raqqa and the need to move quickly to diminish that threat, and the other is the fear of people, isis figures, leaving mosul and reinforcing efforts in raqqa. How much are those two concerns driving the timing of that campaign and how do you ascribe the threat to the United States from isis at the moment in terms of external Operations Planning and the military tradeoff of moving more quickly than maybe the forces are prepared but the necessity of cutting people off that are fleeing mosul . Thanks for the question, sir. First of all, the Campaign Design which was settled on about a year ago today is generally going along the lines of which we expected. It always was to isolate mosul and raqqa and then to reduce them. We are farther ahead on the Mosul Campaign because we have reliable partners on the ground. The iraqui security forces, especially their Counterterrorism Service have been getting after the bad guys. Throughout this time weve been providing a lot of support in going after the external operations leaders both in iraq and syria, thats the president s and the secretarys and everybodys number one concern, going after the external ops guys. We are really having a lot of success in doing so. The campaign to isolate and reduce raqqa was always number two in the queue. The fdf, the Syrian Democratic forces, are the isolation force and theyre in the process of isolating raqqa, and the force that will ultimately reduce raqqa is now being determined among all of the actors in the region. Meanwhile we continue to hit every single external ops external ops guy, either al nousra front or isil and we are having success in doing so. I dont think we can make a direct correlation between as the pressure increases upon the caliphate and it shrinks and we can relate it directly, that were going to have evidence that it with the threat. Thats been a constant with isil anyway, and i dont think theres a direct relation between diminishment of their territory and the magnitude of that threat. It is still a concern of ours. Secretary work indicates weve had a lot of success in taking out both leaders of the external operations and some of their lesser lower level people. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Man connolly is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I appreciate that. I hadnt intended to ask this but since Ranking Member is pursuing this, russia today, the propaganda arm of putin thats wellfunded, rt, the television programs, they have a scheme, a play book that says if we can force the americans to question each other about whats going on in their country, they win. How does the Ranking Members line of questioning relative to trying to create some sort of a sinister link between whatever mr. Trump might or might not have done versus putin, how does that play into the play book rt has been successful at in your opinion . As trained professionals, intelligence professionals, is that in fact exactly what rts trying to get done, trying to get us to do . Well, theyve encouraged some budget cuts, the rt network, and not been all that successful in conveying messages here in the United States. Now, they do certainly broadcast elsewhere, and thats exactly what they try to do particularly in europe. If having traveled there and watched rt, they are focusing much more i think on europe than the United States. Well, but it is their play book though to if you look what they did to ukraine and other places, to get the citizens to turn on themselves, to go after it. It appears to be that that whole line of questioning that youre going to hear all day today will be playing directly into the rts play book, and they are quite successful in europe and theyre coming here as well. Turning from that though, the fight in afghanistan and iraq for a long, long time, can you assure were better at coordinating intelligence, providing intelligence to do d . Can you give us two or three examples where we are better today, where we started Lessons Learned kind of thing that are part of the norm versus what happened in you means in terms of sharing intelligence with dod . Gathering and sharing it, just are you guys better today than you were in 2003 when this thing started . Oh, i think so. All right. Can you give us two or three examples of where thats the case . Well, i dont think i can go into specifics in this setting. I do know, i can i visited kuwait and the Task Force Command there last week and was briefed on some very graphic examples of the contributions that the National Agencies make, specifically nsa, nga and dia, to the war fighting effort there. And general townsend, very high in his praise of what the Intelligence Community is doing on his behalf. Of course, this is i think emblem attic of the relationship because of the fact that these are combat support agencies in dod as well, as well as parts of the Intelligence Community. Happy to give you specific examples, that would be classified that would illustrate that. That would be fine. You mentioned joint duty and the successes thats gone. Early on i had some questions as to the impact it would have on the personnels career paths if they left their home agency or home entity, units and went somewhere else. Can you talk to us about the impact its had on Career Development for those folks who participated by going to other agencies as well as our commanders willing to give up their best and brightest to go to, you know has dod given up the best and brightest to go to the intel agencies and vice versa . Is the joint working the way you intended . I will take first crack at this. In my experience the joint duty program for Intelligence Officers really has sought to model a lot of the successes of the joint tours of duty on the military side under goldwaternichols which had been successful in driving that immigration over the last 30 years for the military. The same is starting to play out in the intelligence joint duty program. My observation is that in almost all cases individuals who serve a joint duty gain experiences that make them far more valuable and developed as leaders for the Intelligence Community upon completion of that joint duty tour. That said, one of the things that we need to continue to work on in the years ahead is how to make that in and out, or the return back to the Home Organization even more effective so that in a seamless way theyre able to come back to their Home Organizations, to the right kind of job that fully leverages that joint assignment. Weve had to go to school on this a bit, on managing this arrangement. It is obviously easier, more convenient when you manage a workforce thats selfcontained within a particular agency. I know in my own headquarters where we have maintained 40 of our workforce are detailees from other components shall and you have to Pay Attention to that is correct manage their assignments, insure they get appropriate ratings and bonuses where appropriate. I think though that the enrichment of the force and the professional capability of the force is far better. You know, theres been really a profound sociological change in the entire Intelligence Community. There are thousands of employees who deployed, civilian employees who deployed multiple times since 9 11, and that has had i think a profound change in the professionalism and identification with the mission of our civilian employees. Thank you, director. Mr. Quigley is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your service. Mr. Clapper, word of advice talking about retirement, you mentioned your wife. A friend of mine recently retired and his wife, i said i married you for better or worse but i didnt marry you for lunch. Good luck on that. In the time we have, could you give us a little bit of your thoughts concerning the homeland and security, what are your priorities or chief concerns besides cyber or orlandotype attacks . To me it is a concern that the attacks could be more generated from outside but also less sophisticated and therefore harder to stop or even know about. Well, touched on what is of course a great concern to us. Not so much the massive complex attack we suffered on 9 11, but whether those caused by individuals or small cells of people, that is a tremendous challenge for us. One of the things ive tried to work in my time as dni is promoting not only the horizontal integration across our ic agencies but also vertically with this state lowly tribal private sector. I think weve made a lot of improvement there. I will, for example, be meeting with my Homeland Security and Law Enforcement Advisory Group tonight, which is an Outstanding Group of chiefs of police and Law Enforcement and intelligence representatives who do great work. I think, you know, the creation and operation of Fusion Center Network Across the country, which are increasingly becoming interneted, is a great bulwark against foreign attacks. But i do, i will leave this job concerned about the impact of socalled lone wolves or homegrown violent extremism. That is a very complex problem and requires, i think, first and foremost community involvement. I think intelligence Law Enforcement can only do so much to help clarify the picture on what that threat is. Congressman, may i add that in addition to the counterterrorism and cyber types of threats that the director mentioned, on the military side we also think about threats to the homeland from more traditional military capabilities, Ballistic Missile missiles, cruise missiles and so forth. One of the main projects we have under way is to look at how to improve our intelligence indications and warning to be able to better respond to those types of contingencies as well. I think it is important to think about the full spectrum of threats to the homeland that we face. Ive heard several talk about the effects of sequestration on our protection of the homeland. What concerns me, if you have a thought, and i know it doesnt come out of this committee necessarily, but Homeland Security grants to local governments, cut by 50 roughly in the last five years, transportation, security grants, 75 , the infrastructure aspects like setbacks and ballards were z zeroed out. Your thoughts, if you may . Sequestration is a speck tour of sequestration which of course runs through 2021 continues, and it has impact across it has impact across the board. Thats something that we you know, we struggle with every program year, and of course the uncertainty that creates and the painful trades we have to make, you know, it is a fact of life. It has gotten to programattically its gotten to be the new normal now. Weve been living with it for about five years. Thank you. Thank you all. Mr. Poppell is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. A question for dr. Or clapper and deputy secretary work. I sit on a joint task force that was looking into the manipulation of intelligence Central Command. Have both of you have a chance to read the interim report that the task force filed . You mean the Committee Report . Yes, sir. Yes, sir, i have read it. Mr. Work . I have not read it in detail. In that there are pretty clear cases of intelligence manipulation. My question is what accountability for any Person Associated with that has been held to date . Mr. Work . Sir, what we have been waiting on is the completion of the ig investigation. For the record, it is two years. We have soldiers in the field. We had intelligence that wasnt getting to the right place to keep these young men and women safe, so we could make good policy decisions. Its been two years. To tell a soldier youre waiting on an ig report is not acceptable. Tell me who has been held accountable. I would have to ask under secretary defense fletcher if any people have been held accountable. What the secretary and i have said over and over again, we expect the highest standards in the intelligence committee. Could we get that, mr. Work . Do soldiers get that . The ig report will tell us, but as director clapper spoke to the overall assessment is that we are improving. Congressman, i will just add we are not able to take authoritative personnel related actions on these instances and allegations until the ig investigation is done. It has taken quite a while. I think were as we are as eager as this committee is to get the results of that ig investigation and be able to take action on those. In the interim, there are some systemic and management actions that we have taken on the dod side working closely with director clapper and his team. First and foremost, as director clapper mentioned, in the natural changeover of duties at Central Command with the commander and the j2, we both have along with general stuart, the director of dia, strongly emphasized the need for the j2 to look at its Business Practices and ensure that all analysts have the ability to call it like they see it and speak truth to power. In addition, more broadly across the enterprise we have taken a number of initiatives to reinforce the importance of analytic integrity. We are in the process of ensuring every organization has an analytic ombudsman in place, someone analysts can come to anonymously and report concerns they may have and have an advocate and a number of other im glad youre doing those things. They all sound great to me. I have toll you that the American People, our soldiers, airmen and marines deserve not two years to hold account people who put bad reports in the field. There was information with held from a president ial daily briefly until after general austin testified. Are you aware of the reports, and if so are those reports accurate . Im aware of the reports, and the examination done by our analytic integrity officer didnt find any substantiation of that. There are also press reports, director clapper, that you had and our task force also looked into this, that you had direct conversations with general groves with great frequency, circumventing the chain of command there, and yet you testified that, quote, intelligence this was before the Senate Armed Services committee. Intelligence assessments come to the National Level only through the dia. How do you square conversations you are having with j2 at one command with that testimony . The conversations i had with the j2 by vtc were only for tactical updates, not to discuss broad assessments. Ive also comment that in every one of these it was a split screen and the jcs j2 was always represented this these dialogues. So the reference to assessments finding their way into, say, National Intelligence estimates or ped articles is done through the Defense Intelligence agency, not direct from cent com or any other combatant command. Thank you, director clapper. Director clapper, president obama removed iran airs designation as a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as part of the jcpoa. Did irans terrorist activities change in any way to prompt this removal . I believe, if im correct, iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism. I dont think weve reclassified iran. No, thats my question. The president removed irans designation as a pro live rater of weapons of mass direction as part of the jcpoa or simultaneously with the jcpoa more properly. Can you tell me if irans terrorist behavior change in any way to justify such a removal . I cant say that irans behavior has changed. It has continued aggressive Missile Development and missile fielding. I think in terms of its proliferating to other countries, i dont think i cant id have to research that and provide on a classified basis if we have information on that. Thank you, director clapper. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Hooins is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I want to devote my five minutes to the topic of Cyber Security. In particular, let me start with you, director clapper. Thank you for your service. We really appreciate all that you have done over the length of a long career. I would like to start with you. Let me give you the bulk of the time here. What im really interested in is not achievements and the progress we have made because clearly we have with the Integration Center and Everything Else. But as you think about withdrawing from the field, what would you identify as the top most specific weaknesses, unaddressed vulnerabilities, areas of focus for both the i. C. And this committee in terms of our defense against Cyber Threats . Well, we need to we i think make a very healthy investment in the National Intelligence program on intelligence to support Cyber Threats. Obviously it would always be good to have more money, but i think it is a proportion of Everything Else that we have to look at. I think were in reasonably good shape. I think the challenge for us is always going to be the fundamental fact that the internet is insecure. Any time you have a dependency on internet, were going to have were going to be playing catch up in reaction to defending our networks. The other issue i would mention is the creation of both the substance and the psychology, i guess, of deterence in the cyber realm. Thats been a challenge. The issue there is whether you react on a binary basis or symmetrical basis, via if you have a cyber asult do you react in a cyber context or retaliate some other way. I think that is going to be a challenge for the country. It is our can i stop you there and ask a question . Is the challenge there as you identify it one of the development of doctrine or is it a technical issue . I think it is more a development of doctrine and policy, and developing a body of law through experience. You know, it took hundreds of years to develop the law of the sea, which is maybe a rough analog to where we are with cyber, and we havent had enough time yet i think to develop that body of law. Until such time as theres some norms developed and we have a firm definition of what deterrence means, and if it is recognized by both state and nonstate actors, we have a problem with cyber defense. The committee spent a great deal of time in the creation of the cyber information sharing act. How are we doing with respect to the private sector working with security agencies to address the cyber threat . Is there enough communication there . Is there more that can be done . I think there is. We and this is a shared responsibility across the i. C. The fbi is involved, and of course, very importantly, the department of Homeland Security. This too i mean when you say engagement with the private sector, thats as big as all outdoors, and finding the right and keeping active the right conduits so that we can share and, by the way, the sharing needs to be two ways, both from them to us and from us to them. I think theres a lot of improvement that has been made. I think the department of Homeland Security has made huge strides here. Thats not to say theres not more to do. Thank you. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Worth. A couple of things. In terms of Cyber Security the number one thing were trying to do is secure our networks. We have made a lot of progress on this. We are also building up our cyber workforce. We should have all of the Cyber Mission teams in fy 17 and making sure we have the right people. The other thing were really worried about now and were looking at hard are the internet of dod things, all of our weapon systems that we generally operate today were designed in an era where Cyber Security threats were not all that stressing. But going through all of the different systems that we have, identifying the cyber vulnerabilities and priortizing those has been a big focus on the department. We have a cyber sword card that is briefed to the secretary and i every month to six weeks, and we are looking at all of these different factors on trying to improve our Cyber Security. We have a long way to go, but weve made a lot of progress. Thank you. I yield back. Yields back. Mr. Cal vert is recognized. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Clapper, for your service. Weve known each other a number of years. I would like to get into the cent com discussion and the reason we discussed it in first place. If you remember general jim maddox left abruptly in 2013. The director of intelligence pretty much remained in place for the first part of 2014 under general austin, and around june that changed. There was a turnover of people over at cent com and intelligence started coming out regarding mosul, which is again in the news today, which was inaccurate. I think everybody can look back at that now and mosul did fall, it didnt it didnt have the capabilities that some people thought. But the intelligence since then has been in dispute. As you know, 40 of the workforce, twice the number of typical combatant commands, felt that their analysts their analysts their final product has been somewhat distorted. Through our review, many of those employees to this day believe that the culture at cent com has been somewhat toxic, use the word that came up time and time again. Right now we are back in mosul again. We have people there. How do we know that the intelligence thats coming out of cent com today is any more reliable than the intelligence coming out two years ago . Well, we dont depend only on cent com for intelligence reporting. In fact, one of the reasons i do consult with them is to ensure we are on the same page. We have other assets, National Assets that tell us whether what were seeing operationally or what were hearing reported operationally com por operationally comports with what were seeing through intelligence. At least my observations through the current Mosul Campaign are that they do. Well, as you know, we have the largest number of folks working in intelligence at cent com than any of the combatant commands. We spend quite a bit of money, appropriate quite a bit of money to make sure that these folks are wellequipped and wellmanned to make sure they provide the best intelligence to the war fighter and to the Combatant Commander as possible. Are you confident thats occurring today, that the intelligence thats coming out of cent com has improved . I think it is beyond dispute we had a problem two years ago. Has that problem been cleared up and is it continuing to get cleared up right now . Im somewhat removed from the command, but from what i have observed thats the case. I dont know if youre you were here earlier, sir, when i quoted the latest statistic from our analytic survey which reflect a positive trend. And so the people the number of respondents reflecting analytic integrity issues has declined. And, importantly, their comments on management response when they did have issues has increased. So the behavior the reflexes of this at cent com are impinge to level out and comport with all of the other combatant commands. I do think there is by virtue of the change in commanders and the change in the j2, that that has been a change in the atmosphere there. And so i have been encouraged by the trends particularly this year. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im going to tell the members real quick, we have three votes and then a motion to recommit with ten minutes debate. Im going to try to keep it open through the three votes where members can try to go and come back, if possible. At the end of the motion to recommit, we have to end the hearing. Mr. Murphy is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your time. Back to cyber real quick. Director clapper, how important do you think it is that we have some sort of rules of engagement with cyber, that adversaries know whether theyre state sponsored or not, that though know that there will be a response, that we move out of this gray area . How important is that . Well, again, this gets to the point about developing a body of law, and conveying those messages is much easier with nation states because everyone recognizes that there are mutual vulnerabilities. The greater challenge, at least for my part, is a nonnation state entities which over time are going to develop more capabilities in the cyber realm to render attacks. So i think the notion of building a sense of dedeterrence among these nonstate entities will be difficult. I think theres certainly progress with the chinese as a result of the agreement that was struck in september of 15, and well have to see whether that is continued. But i think the greater challenge is nonnation state entities. With things moving as quickly as they do with technology, cyber, how has your experience been and do you feel as director for recruiting the best talent in the world to make sure we are a step ahead . I think we have sustained our level of recruitment and we continue to be able to bring great young people into the community. The greater challenge though is retention. Theyll come to us either as young civilians or military, and then they become very, very attractive and very appealing to commercial sector. So then we have a challenge there with retaining people in the face of some pretty appealing compensation packages that a lot of our people have had experience in the Intelligence Community get, and that makes them very attractive. I think we would be remiss if we didnt pick your brain just briefly in what you think, and based on your experience, over the next five to ten years the greatest threats we face as a nation, what we are doing to address that and what we should be doing, especially with a new administration coming in . What is your advice big picture to them. Are you speaking only cyber or in general . In general. Thats a hard question to answer because from an intelligence perspective we have to be alert to all of these threa threats. I wish i could rank them and pick and choose, but unfortunately theyre all a problem for us. Whether it is the nation state challenges paused by the likes of russia, china, iran, korea, or Trans National concerns like counterterrorism, like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which is personally a growing concern for me, the challenges posed in the cyber dimension. We have to our approach has been to maintain a balance to address the full range of threat. Im hesitant to try to pick one and say this is the one thats going to confront us that will be the worst over the next five to ten years. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Thank you. Dr. Winstrop. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am pleased to hear that things are better at cent com. I served on that investigation, and clearly we have concerns about what went on in 2015. I know it has been addressed to some degree. Secretary work, what are the root causes in your opinion of the unacceptable command climate that was existing at cent com during that time . Well, this is something that secretary carter and i have discussed. You know, we want to know what happened and why it happened. We have been looking to director clapper and under secretary defense fletcher to say, look, this was this is what we think the problems were. We have really tried to get after it. The thing that the secretary and i trying to stay above the ig investigation is simply to say we expect, we expect all of our intel analysts to have full freedom the say what they need to say, to speak truth to power. We expect the chain of command to pass that information up the chain. Every decision we make on the campaign is based on the assumption of good intelligence. So it is very important to us and were awaiting the judgments of the intelligence professionals on how we can improve. When do you expect that we will get that . I mean this has been quite a while. We have gotten a lot of information just on our committee and our investigation. Open source news has provided much information. When do you expect we are going to get Something Back . Because it is hard to right a wrong if you just keep playing around with it, and how do we avoid it from happening again if were taking way too much time in figuring out why it happened and where it happened . And we have pretty much honed it down to the section in the chain where things seemed to change. What are we waiting for . Why is this taking so long when we have gathered so much information, and this isnt even our fulltime job to investigate it. One of the hardest jobs there is as the Senior Leader in the department is to be patient when the when these type of investigations are ongoing. I cant tell you exactly when it will be finished. Well, i dont know that you should be patient actually. I think that it is time that we come forward, let the American People know what was taking place, at least let this committee understand what has been take had been taking place. Hopefully it is corrected. Frankly, im surprised that youre content with 25 in the survey as being an acceptable number. I would be shooting for a lot less than that. But and youre free to comment, director clapper, if you would like to. Well, just i think the thing to bear in mind here that were having this is a debate about subjective subjects, where there can be room for honest analytic disagreement. Because were always operating from incomplete or less than perfect facts. And so people who are experts in this can have, and do have honest disagreements. So i dont find the figure again, given the subjective of the subject matter, i dont find that alarming, and that is pretty much on a par with the behavior. I would be more concerned if it were zero, if there were no disagreement, no dissent anywhere, any time, that would be that would be disturbing to me. I would want to know why thats so. I can understand that argument for the 25 , but i sure cant for the 40 , sir. That just doesnt fly in the face of whats going on at the other commands, and it is certainly unacceptable. The fact weve had so many whistle blowers come forward certainly speaks volumes. You know, we have an obligation here to have oversight. Lives depend on this, as you well know. Lives depend on the type of reporting thats going up. So weve had plenty of testimony on our side. There certainly should be something that the ig should come forward with this, and very soon, not just try to run out the clock. I would think that before you go, sir, that this is something that you would want to have resolved and taken care of. Yes, it is, sir, because your report took me and the rest of the committee to task for seemingly sitting on our hands and not doing anything, not taking any corrective action about this when we were enjoined not to because of the dod ig. So, yes, i would like it very much to get resolved. I think in the interest of general grove, who has since moved on to another assignment, exactly what the ig finds would be very important and would be great if it happened before i leave. If i may, i just need to clarify about my statement about resignation. It is not effective until joon on january 2017. Not immediate as reported in the media. I appreciate your time and service to the country. I hope this is wrapped up and rectified so we can move forward in a positive way before you leave, sir. Thank you and i yield back. Mr. Castro is recognized. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for your testimony this morning. Director clapper, thank you for your service to the nation in this role and so many others before it. We appreciate it very much. We have just come off of unprecedented intrusion by Foreign Government in our democratic process after an election that finished just last week, and also unprecedented intrusion by a director within our own Intelligence Community in our democratic process. So based on those two things i have a question. The first is, do we know whether the russian government or those responsible for the hacking of the Democratic National committee and other democratic groups shared any information with any american or americans during the last year, year and a half . I would rather not respond right off the top of my head. In any event, this would probably be best left to a classified session. Okay. Thank you. I will be sure to follow up with you on that. The second question is as head of the u. S. Intelligence community, do you believe that director comey breached any protocol in his actions during the last month . I have no reason to question director comey. I think extremely highly of him, and so whatever actions he took, he did so with what he felt was best. I have no basis for questioning that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, chairman. I pass. Thank you, mr. Castro. I dont know if mr. Schiff is coming back, but ill get back to the remaining questions i have. I will try to get through them quickly. Secretary work, are you familiar with the decision by ucomm in 2011 where the requirement for the new Intelligence Center was to be an hour outside of london . I do know that an aoa conducted by the european command suggested we should consolidate a jiac at raf crowder, yes, sir. But the requirement was specifically to be an hour outside of london. Are you aware of this requirement . Im not aware of a specific requirement. I know of the aoa and the analysis that was done to support the move. Director clapper, are you aware of the requirement to be an hour outside of london . No, im not. So this committee learned through investigation that the decision was made before an aoa was ever completed. And as the gao found, theres no the gao claims that despite dods claims that they looked at 16 locations, 15 of the 16 alternatives, theres no documentation on 15 of the 16 other alternatives other than crauten. Do you know what happened to this documentation . No, sir. I do know that the gao investigation occurred approximately six years after that was done. So one of the things they did say that we were lacking documentation, but the most important conclusion that they made was that our actions were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of describing dods rational for choosing r raf crauten for the location of jiac consolidation. That to me is a prete much slam dunk. Except for the fact this committee cannot find any documentation of work being done on 15 of the 16 sites you supposedly looked at. Sir, all i can say is three different secretaries of defense, five four star Combatant Commanders, one navy, one air force, two army, one marine, two under secretaries of defense for intelligence, the current pdni, weve had three successive aoas. These aoas were looked at in an audit by the gao and said our conclusions were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of making our decision. So in my view weve looked at this three different times. Congress itself has agreed with our finding by funding phase one of the project, and they also approved phase two subject to my determination and certification that we spoke to earlier. So it is okay you think it is okay that there is no evidence that shows that you ever looked at 15 of the 16 sites . Well, ill have to go back and look at all it was described by gao, mr. Chairman, as the dod body of evidence. Another finding straight out of the gao report is dod has provided the required information in response to committee direction and statutory provision. Well, we have evidence that commanders decision brief was done in 2011 where the requirement was an hour outside of london, and weve had people testify to that fact. After the fact it just appears like theres no information. So despite you can do all of the studies you want, but if you have people come to this committee and say, well, were not going to give congress the answers because we dont like the tone of a letter, you delay those answers, im sorry. I mean theres just no evidence here that shows that essentially someone just wanted to go to crauten back in 2011 and thats the decision that was made then and everything since then, theres no documentation to document why that decision was made. Let me go to director, back to director clapper. On july 27th, 2015 i visited you in your office and informed you a whistle blower had approached the committee indicating that false information had been provided to the Committee Regarding the Intelligence Center. Do you remember that meeting . Yes. In the same meeting, and again on march 21st this year, you told chairman thornberry, chairman freeman, eissen and myself, if we move the Intelligence Center outside the london suburbs that ic civilians and contractors would not move to the new location. Can you explain why thats the case . No, i dont think i said that, sir. I think what i said was that based on briefings i had received of jack mosworth that the civilians there probably would not move to lodges. That was the specific reference. But a general statement that they wouldnt go anywhere else, i dont believe i ever said that. Oh, so only so they would go to other places but not lodges . I dont know. The specific issue i was briefed on was the reaction to the possibility of a move to lodges air base in the azores. And this was a briefing by dod civilians or contractor . No, it was a briefing from the commander when i visited there sometime, im not sure zble of when. The commander of the Intelligence Center. Of the jag. Of the jag. Said that the civil jans would not move to loges . Yes. You know, these are older people, you know, that have children in schools, particularly high school age, and i dont think that the general reaction to that, to move to an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was not very positive. Of course, thats been compounded by the section 414 of the intelligence authorization act, taking away their housing allowance, which is a very discriminatory and very negative impact not only on dia civilians but on ic employees in general. It sounds like we are making decisions based on where people want to live. No, i had you know, this bhol issue of moving or not was kind of a watch to me. I didnt get involved in it until there was some potential for expense to the National Intelligence program. Of course, as i got into this and discovered the potential morale impacts and the fact that people would probably not take their families to loges air base, in light of facilities they knew werent there. Are you aware that the azore islands are a popular vacation spot for people from the u. S. And europe and have daily flights . No, im not. Do we have trouble getting people to move to hawaii . Actually, we do, because there are issues there with compensation for the very high cost of living. So thats problemattic as well. The cost of living in the azores is low, so it doesnt seem to have that problem. Both are vacation spots. Well, i think youre talking about hawaii . Yeah. Last i checked, hawaii was a popular vacation spot. It is a very popular vacation spot. So you spend a lot of money for a week or two, but living there permanently, supporting a family, that sort of thing, ive spent two tours in hawaii and it is quite expensive. The azores is also a vacation spot and has the cheapest cost of living in western europe. Why would it not be a place people would go to. In hawaii there are high schools and medical facilities and pxs and comis areas. Thats kind of lacking at loges. Last i checked i dont think theres anything lacking there through the work we have done at this committee. I dont know if mr. Schiff is going to be back or not. Have we heard . Is he on his way back . Gentlemen, i want to thank you for appearing here today. The committee remains deeply concerned about these issues. We look forward to the ig cent com report and the igs report on false information and misleading information provided to congress. Hopefully the ig can get to the bottom of these problems and help the committee uncover what exactly has happened here. Our robust oversight will continue the remainder of this year and into the next congress, but i want to thank all of you for your service and for your attendance here today. Meeting is hearing is adjourned. Programa. This weekend cspans cities tour along with our Comcast Cable partners will explore the literary life and history of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. On book tv cspan 2 here about industrialist karn gi on how his innovative spirit transformed pittsburgh. Carnegie talked about the burning sun of chemical knowledge. So he started to understand things from a scientific point of view, an engineering point of view, whereas other people were still going on the seat of the pants operation. And go behind the scene at the Carnegie Library at pittsburgh. I think by looking at some of the materials we selected here that carnegie had a love for learning, and through this wonderful institution felt that this would be a way for the public to escape into another world. Then author joe trotter explains the lives and contributions of pittsburgh africanamericans since world war ii, including the significance of the second great migration, civil rights and black power movement. And that in a real way, the long haul of that story is that black people in pittsburgh, in this ohio river valley, became part of a new industrial environment that really took off in the period after the civil war. On American History tv on cspan3 we will tour the Andy Warhol Museum to see the personal art facts that once belonged to the famous pop artist. Aaron burn talks about his early life in pittsburgh and shows the artists collection of wigs and coresets. These are great insight into just how selfconscious andy warhol actually was. I think a lot of people have a vicious of him being really cool and aloof, and he was definitely cool and aloof but it came with a lot of work. Watch cspans cities tour of pennsylvania saturday at 6 00 p. M. And sunday o 3 working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. The Palestine Center hosted its annual conference earlier this month. Among the topics discussed t likelihood of creating a palestinian state. And the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to economically isolate israel. This is two hours. Good morning again. That was a delightful session with excellent questions and answers. We have two panels today, one before lunch and one in the afternoon after lunch. There is a lot of we have a lot of time actually again for q a, and im going to invite everybody hopefully to find their way here. I dont see all of the panelists. They are here . All right. Well, we would like them oh, i see. We want to see the audio visual. They want to see oh, okay. Thats good. This next session, the panel one, is about the legacies of the british mandate and the changing u. S. Role god knows it is changing in the conflicts of the middle east. This will be moderated by the doctor who is from the ju ruse lem fund and chairman of our diabetes project. The panelists are in the brochure that you have here, so i will turn it to dr. Mustaffa. Everyone has to be careful around here. Thank you all for being here. I would like to welcome you all to this assistant for with lebanon. His publications include by National State in palestine. And our second. And she directs a new International Project ips working as writer, activist and middle east and new initials. Shes also a fellow of the trance National Institute in amsterdam. 2001 she helped found and remains active with the u. S. Campaign to end israeli occupation. Thank you, fill liss and has served as an informal adviser to several top u. N. Issues. She is the author and editor of many books, some of which are available up front and including understanding isis and new global were on terror. Conflict as well as before and after u. S. Foreign policy and challenging empire how people, governments and the u. N. Defy u. S. Power. Shell be speaking about u. S. Policies towards palestine and israel. They their work includes providing legal advice to activists, engaging in add voca to protect their writes to speak out and educating activists and the public about oppression of palestinian advocates. As a cooperating attorney on the campaign. Drafting a petition to unit the nations officials to act against and ancient Muslim Cemetery in jerusalem. As volunteer and intern at ccr she has worked on numerous cases that sought to hold officials and corporations to account for israeli for. As well as on ccr Guantanamo Bay doctora doctora doctora doctorate. She has advocated in media forums such as New York Times, the jewish press. The subject will be bbs. Our fourth speaker an International Political columnist and big author. Professor of journal lichl. He was the first director and now senior fellow institute of Public Policy and international affairs. Niche. It has been nonresident senior fellow at the school of is the former editor of the beirut daily star and newspaper and New York Times newspaper. And has published in 2006 he was awarded the International Peace prize. Including the aub, harvard, princeton, syracuse. The school and Tuft University and many others, including stanford. Has been a member of Brooking Institute task force and u. S. Relations with islamic world the subject will be. The first speaker will be the doctor, please help me give a warm welcome to our speakers. Im sitting here in isolation, just in case people start to throw tomatoes or eggs. I doubt that will happen. Can you hear me. No. Okay. Get closer. Im going to be speaking about ill be speaking about mandates, what are mandates, people use the word frequently ill be speaking about the mandate over palestine so so far there seems to be little news, so i hope i will find some angles that are interesting about these issues. Finally. I would ask the question thats been raised recently in view of whats happened in iraq and syria as to responsible towards the state of affairs. These states seem to be falling apart and do they put the lines in the wrong places, do they put the wrong people together. So that may be the most interesting part, but let me start with well get to the map soon. Were starting with this line that you see extending north to just north. And this is essentially the line that that he drew when he was he was invited to ten downing street to address the cab bet meeting who at the time and and he had been invited to address the top people as to where britain and france were to divide it up. As you know this use to be part of the ultimate empire. Britain, at the time was concerned with and they wanted secure passage through the there are several considerations that play here, one was ultimate empire falling apart, who is going to pick up the pieces, but what did that mean, are they going to what sort of pieces are they going to pick up. Wood row wilson who helped find legal nations and he was concerned with things of that sort. Compromise was necessary between consideration of colonial ambitions, but this was a point in time when it had to change. It had to so as we shall see, the power, the right to Self Determination was not acknowledging University Rights and it seemed to have been tied to the idea of civilizations so that civilized countries, if you werent really in that category, it was questionable whether you had that right or not. So the mandates were designed so that the mandatory power, granted themselves the right to be mandatory powers. First their patrol over the territories was temporary. Second they were suppose to prepare the people to be able to govern themselves, assumption they werent yet able too but britain and france had the responsibility of bringing this year in, iraqis and palestinians to the point where they could take on these responsibilities. Although mandates that were mentioned by the league of nations in the charter the territory that use to be part of the ultimate empire were considered the most advance and the most ready to assume the right to Self Determination. So these werent granted as colonies, although although they had their own interest and they didnt satisfy those interests so we have a compromise between interest and responsibilities of the people france was fighting in europe. Britain controlled these areas by the time the war ended, france did not have any troops here britain did, so britain had physical control. France had nothing. But france was fighting on the western front in a way that britain was not. Britain excursions not very successful. So france can threaten that they would not be as eager to carry on the fight in europe if they felt they were being shortchanged. To advise the cabinet where the line of demarcation should be. And he drew a line from the e in acre to the last k. The colors are wrong, by the way, the initial colors. And. Official in cairo which was. And the idea was that something. And the agreement which represents the of the colonial powers and we have and the senior started in 1914 and with 1915 and broke out in 1916 promising the palestine. How to reconcile and that was signed if you notice from the map and palestine. Dependent on the bounce of power between the different negotiators and for a long time brita britain. Now concerning this greemt was finalized in may 1960. The british still wanted palestinians, so what happens is her bert samuel was a cabinet minister who later becomes the first high commissioner in palestine. As you know was already in egypt, its control of palestine would help protect this position in egypt. Another consideration was that. That should sort of legitimate control of palestine. And and the supporting and particularly in palestine, so the french Prime Minister saw into giving palestine. And also in giving muslim. The reason for giving up muslim is that british the but if it could control some oil of its own that would the the inclusion of the values lebanon in the cost because and concept for a new form of colonials at and and was signed in july and formerly. And and homeland for the so just before the mandate was officially signed in july 22, cologne yal, which was under church hill came out and including george, who seemed to argue obtaining and public saying to the arabs, no, were not and so im running get the establishment of these states somehow of what were having today. Because theres no definn tiff answer to that this one did they lump the wrong ethnic groups together. And there have to be there has to be strong correlation between ethnic identity and the group interests, when these differences and greater participation, more members of shiites in parliament. Manipulated by other powers putting it simple, the other thing is that for a long time in the middle east say from the mid 40s, at least. And but it was not through the use of arms or military power. There was a regime in place, Arab Nationalism has its own rules that could not be violated and it was after the fall, after demise, after the fading away of Arab Nationalism that actual military conflicts evolved among arab states, with minor qualifications. The other consideration is, okay, if you dont have a regime like this that maintains the peace, how can you substitute for that. And that means turn to realists series and in realism, one powerful tool is balance of power, so you can create balance of power. For example, in the gulf. There was a bounce far between powers, when was iraq that iran and saudi arabia. America two wars with iraq, particularly the 2003 war so thats mechanism and escaped. Future conflicts. And because although the arabs could no longer go to war, israel has happened in 1982 and lebanon, so the question. [ applause ] i think its hard to anticipate what u. S. Policy is going to look like for the next four years not only because the person elected president , who may be elected president by the electoral college, has not told us, really, what his policies are, he has said a number of things that contradict each other, so which ones we should rely on, theres really no way to tell. The one thing that i think is very important for all of us who work on palestinian writes in the United States, our work for the next four years, in certain ways, may end up being easier, which ill get to. We have to keep in mind that that work does not exist in isolati isolation for palestinian writes must be grounded to defend and support those parts of our moments who are going to be at great risk, muslim communities, communities of color, africanamericans, the disabled, lgbt, communities across the board, our friends, our allies in this movement are going to be under attack. And we have to take up our work understanding that we have an obligation to defend those communities. Certain things havent changed, certain things will maybe not change, the fact that the u. S. Is going to be giving 38 billion of our tax money directly to the Israeli Military over the next ten years, if that changes, it will be higher, not lower. Or it may stay the same. Weve heard him say that settlements are not an obstacle and that he may appoint jason his green black as his top adviser on israel, thats a possibility. He said he would dismantle the iran nuclear deal, something he cant do because its not simply a u. S. Deal, it involves a whole host of countries. He could make it harder than it currently is, and its already hard to implement that deal because of u. S. Sanctions. And he said theres no two state solution as jewish state. We have no idea. He has also said that the u. S. Should be neutral between israel and the palestinians. Who knows. What has not changed is the social movements. President s by themselves dont make history, movements make history and i think that has not changed, so what we have to think about is what kind of movements we need, where they get their power, how they engage with those currently in power. In fact, in many ways i think the danger of the Trump Presidency is less about trumps own policy ideas, whatever they may be, as much as it is the movement that has risen around his candidacy. It is a movement with a core, a movement that is based on islam phobia, its a very dangerous. The pentagon looks at israel and says, wow, we can do business with these guys, theyre good. They defeated six arab armies. They defeated two that were viable and functional. They accomplished a great deal militarily, and the pentagon, of course, is not particularly issues of International Law. They said we could do business with these guys and business became a key component of this relationship. It was what set the stage for strategic ties and empowered the political ties that had been around for many years and had not had that much power to that, suddenly emerged with much more power because it was now pushing in the same direction as the strategic analysts in the pent gone and white house and state department all wanted to move. And so that israeli officials knew they did not want to ever having to be held accountable for their violations of International Law and their war crimes. That was huge. That was huge. And one time we heard president obama say, perhaps we would think about maybe some time in the future considering the possibility of maybe a reconsideration of how we deal with israel in the United Nations and all of us said, wow, thats huge. But that was the last we heard of it. So we did not see that kind of if we look over the last ten years its been a dramatic change, no longer is criticism of israeli policy, political suicide. Now, a lot of people around the country its no longer an obvious thing that israel can do no wrong as it was for so many decades. The president carters book, palestine, peace, problematic book in a number of ways. The book on the israel lobby, problematic book from my Vantage Point i disagree with aspects of it, very important books. That was huge. It was a very important symbol of that, the normalization, and i use the term deliberately because normalization and palestine mean something very different. The normalization of the issue of palestine in the United States, the normalization of palestine in the United States Antiwar Movement, which began in the period right after 9 11 and moved through the period of 2002, 2003, 2204, culminating at the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the 67 territories when the largest Antiwar Movement of the time, the united for peace and Justice Coalition that had over 1,500 member groups, labor groups, womens organizations, Environmental Justice groups, all kind of organizations, cosponsored that was huge. That was huge. Its not only the movement for black lives matter movement. They spoke at the Democratic National convention. Amazing. You never heard that before from a black minister speaking at a Democratic Party convention. This was huge. Their president said something a couple of years ago about the legitimacy of the cause of palestinian rights. In the context of that you see a huge shift, when im growing up, theres no choice of where you are in terms of jewish community, you grow up, thats where that was. There was no challenge to that. Thats what we joined, thats what this was. Suddenly you have in the jewish community, like every other community, you have the right wing with apac and their friends. And you have a this is unheard of and its transforming but theyre having to push a whole lot harder now, they can no longer make claims they bring votes with them. They can claim they have money, and they do, they use their money wisely and pressure members of congress. They dont any longer have the ability to claim. Im not sure it was ever true, but they use to claim it. Now they cant even claim that they represent jewish votes. Its a whole different world out there. And thats just in the public level. You get to the media, the media shift has not been so dramatic. But there has been a very important significant shift in the media. The 60th anniversary in 2007, you had. You had the word. That had never happened before. That was huge. And it didnt just happen by itself. It happened because do the director here for many years in the pages of the New York Times over and over again. Hes now the director of u. S. Campaign for palestinian writes just was in the New York Times again not very long ago. You dont have much of a shift on tv, but the main stream press is not anything like it use to be, and i think its very important that we recognize that, theres a lot of stuff out there. Theres a new film out there, which im quoted in a lot, im sort of sorry about it, i think it under minds the work that has gone on in these recent years. It isnt any longer like it use to be where there were no, where support from israel was absolute. We have to recognize what has changed, what has not changed the media shift has been significant. The political shift, the latest incoming, again, its not anything like the Public Discourse, for the first time we have a real shift in the political debate in this country. In 2012, some of you will remember that the Democratic Party platform debates at one point there was this issue that had come up, the old platform from before had had this language about recognizing jerusalem as the capitol of israel, the undivided capitol of israel. It was left out of the platform in 2012, there was a big campaign about it. They tried to get the people to vote for it and the votes, they took three votes, all of them were saying, no, no, no, finally the chair of the committee said, i vote i say that it was yes. It was an oral vote im saying it was yes. That was sanctioning israel. They didnt use the term bds, but that was part of bds and it was because of bds but the political shifts both reflect and push forward the work of those movements that have made these broader shifts possible. So why now. One, because the israeli violations are more violent. The political situation of the world is different. Young people in general are simply not accepting the socalled conventional wisdom that led to singleminded approaches that said israel is our friend and thats all you need to know. Made the issue of palestine his only major palestine issue. That was huge. Now, in my view it wasnt necessarily the right decision. It was an isolating decision. I think if he had made ending u. S. Wars in the middle east his main Foreign Policy decision, it might have gotten more support than it ultimately did. From the Vantage Point of changing the political discourse on palestine. This was unprecedented and amazing. And it led to what we saw at the platform committee, where you had jim, you had exactly, you had all these people for the first time debating in a serious way the question of palestine. When you have cornell west on the democratic platform committee, you know that there has been a change here. The film maker josh fox said about that debate. He said, all of our real gains are movement gains. These are not gains that democratic establishment politicians came into office with. So i just want to end with this sense about where our movement is right now. Thats whats really fundamental here. We are at a moment where this normalization main streaming of palestine gives us incredible new opportunities. The u. S. Campaigned for palestinian writes now has Something Like 350 member organizations when we started, we had seven. Maybe it was eight. We had 12 people in a room. We were scared. We didnt know what we were doing. Three months 9 11, we were really scared. It was the right time. And now were seeing that kind of growth. It has the the u. S. Peace movement, as many of you know, is not in good shape. Were hoping now there will be resurgents, it has not been able to fully take on the challenge thats needed for u. S. Involvement in the wars in syria and in iraq in yemen in support for the saw dee war in yemen, all of that. We see the creativity, the young people, the people of color are centered in the movement for palestinian writes. Its where theyre the most creative tactics and strategies. Its not only bds, its huge. Its about direct challenges to the u. S. Military aid to israel, its direct challenge to the legitimacy of the lobby. Its challenging the insistence of the u. S. In supporting israeli violations in the u. N. So that israeli officials are never held accountable, all of this is now up for grabs in a way that it has never been before. And its the movements that have made that possible, the goal is not just to change discourse, obviously, the goal is to change policy, and our democracy, as we know, is seriously flawed. It is very very broken, as our elections have shown. But nonetheless, one of the things that has to happen before there can be policy change, there has to be a change in discourse. Its not enough. But its the first step and boy have we gotten well on our way, thank you. What she said i think its true that the gains that have been made here in the u. S. On the palestine issue are largely, you know, due to popular movements, to a growing u. S. Movement growing u. S. Movement. I think its important for us to understand what were dealing with right now dealing with the strength. Of course right now theres been a shift now that trump is president elect, it just doesnt feel right to say that. Certainly when it comes to israel, palestine, we dont know, we dont know what is going to happen, but i you know, and it will be potentially worse than clinton, i think, if only because he seems entirely willing to torpedo whatever u. S. Policy was there before him. He doesnt care about the u. N. He doesnt care about, you know, appearing to stick with u. S. Of decades Foreign Policy. I think thats whats threatening about him, that he will go his own route, entirely without any respect for whats come. The mobilization of tens of thousands of people protesting with the war on gaza. I think the point i want to make, one of them is how Center Movement is on campuses. How critical students have been in bringing this issue to their peers on their campuses, how creative what kind of Creative Strategies they have come up with, as fiphillis mentioned. Mock eviction notices posted on dorm room doors to show what its like to be forcibly removed from your home and, of course, die vestment campaigns and all kind of interesting tactics to raise awareness about this issue. The other point, i think is howdy verse the movement has become and i think phyliss also alluded to this. The movement that is happening is critical and, again, her point about how important it is going to be moving forward, i want to really hold that up because, you know, palestine, in my view, will continue to be a central issue, but were going to see so many communities under direct attack and what has happened with the real the Real Movement work, the real organizing between communities will demand this kind of this kind of support, this kind of standing up for the most vulnerable among us. And then finally, you know, bds is a tactic that has really shifted the way that folks here are active on the issue of palestine. So ill talk a little bit more about bds, specifically, in the u. S. Of course its global and theres a lot going on all over the world. Palestinians have used them before during the british mandates the movement that dates from 2005 and the call over the organizations to the International Community has created new level of engagement on this. I think the demands of the bds movement are also important to recognize and how instrumental those demands have been in widening the focus of the movement for palestinian rights. It is about ending the occupation and taking down the wall. But its also about guaranteeing equal rights for palestinian citizens of israel and recognizing the bridging that currently exists. And also respecting the right of return for refugees. I think the fact that it encompasses all of these demands is really important in the way that it has shaped activism and the kind of political conversation that has happened. And, you know, since 2005. This call this call for boycott divesment sanctions have been significant. And weve seen just in the u. S. Academic. You have academic associations going through, you know, years of organizing organizing to res end to accept resolutions that call for an academic boycott of israeli academic institutions. You have the American Studies Association, the Asian American studies association, the National Association of chicano and chicano studies, native and indigenous studies. There are many of them, and this has been a significant development, i think, just in the last three years, really. Churches divestment resolutions have been passed in several churches the presbyterians, the methodists, the United Church of christ. The lutherans recently called for an end to military aid to israel. And universities. There are over 30 student governments at universities that have passed resolutions calling on their universities to divest from companies that profit from israeli human rights violations. So, these are huge victories. They have caught the attention of israel and its allies, you know, the cultural boycott as well. We have artists and musicians and actors that are speaking out on this issue. So, lets talk about the response to this movement. And i think what is most important to realize here is that, you know, this is a testament to how successful the movement has become, how much it has changed Public Discourse to the point where, you know, a president ial candidate can say what he said. And, you know, the backlash were seeing originates with israel itself, which has pledged, you know, millions of dollars to combating bds specifically, and it is supported by dozens of groups in the United States that specifically support israel and the zionist agenda. And so, we have Sheldon Adelson raising over 20 million to combat palestine activism on campuses, and we have millions and millions of dollars dedicated by a number of organizations to undermining this growing movement. Now, you know, i think the thing that when were thinking about the u. S. Role in this, what is dictating how the u. S. In the form of government officials, in the form of Public Institutions like universities, in the form of, you know, government agencies, is responding to this . There are a few things to think about. You know, it seems that the u. S. And its officials are really listening to the israeli alarmism about bds. Thats kind of the boogieman that represents, i think, a larger movement. And, you know, what has resulted is that israel has labeled bds as a strategic threat of the first order, and it has labeled bds as antisemitic, and it has attempted to link it to terrorism or to, you know, imply that its just as bad. And the u. S. , we have seen that it has followed suit. And well discuss some of the ways in which it has done that. My organization, palestine legal, put out a report last year documenting what we have seen around the country to the suppression of speech on palestine, of activities on palestine. We termed it the palestine exception to free speech. It seemed like, you know, you can talk about basically anything in this country, but if you criticize israel, hold on, youre vulnerable to a lot of attacks. And so, you know, it has really presented a challenge to our First Amendment rights and the enforcement of these rights. So you know, what weve seen is, you know, just in the last, since 2014, we have documented nearly 600 incidents of suppression. A lot of these are happening on campuses, but not all of them. And the way that this plays out is in several ways. We see Academic Freedom suspended. How many of you have heard about the case of steve salita, fired, terminated. He hadnt yet started teaching but had a contract and was getting ready to start teaching at the university of illinois champaign urbana. And his contract was terminated because he was tweeting in the summer of 2014 about the horrific attack. How many of you have heard about the recent incident at university of california berkeley . A student proposed a course on palestine through a colonial settler analysis and an administrator arbitrarily suspended it after, of course, significant pressure from Israel Advocacy groups. It was reinstated a week later after a lot of uproar and pressure, and thats significant, but we see that kind of thing all of the time, where any talk or any study of palestine is immediately biased, is immediately onesided, is, you know, propaganda, et cetera. Thats how its being painted. Were seeing this in legal complaints and lawsuits. So we have several organizations filing complaints under title 6 of the civil rights act, claiming that universities are discriminating against jewish students by allowing a hostile, antisemitic environment. And you know, the basis of these claims are that lectures and Film Screenings and protests threaten jewish students and leaves them vulnerable. So you know, just the most basic of activities talking about palestine are, you know, and thats really important. And the same has happened, actually, with these title 6 complaints that ive mentioned. The department of education that investigates them has found over and over that the First Amendment protects these activities, that this is political speech, and thats what the First Amendment is for, thank god. And then, i think its very important that weve seen more recently is smear campaigns against individuals. How many of you have heard about canary mission, for example, a website that profiles hundreds of students and academics, claiming that they are an antisemitic and pro terrorist, and with the aim of preventing them from getting jobs. So we see, you know, hundreds of students very worried about this, you know . This is their careers hang on it. Their future employers will google them and this is what will come up. And you know, and then we have things like the David Horowitz Freedom Center plastering posters all over College Campuses naming individual students and saying, you know, these students are, you know, terrorist supporters. If you support them, you support hamas, right . So, this kind of public blacklisting is going on a lot. And then we have legislation. I think the legislation were seeing around the country is particularly representative of the length that government officials will go to oppose bds in particular. So lets talk a little about that. You know, the alarmism about bds is evident in the kind of legislation were seeing, and its justified by calling bds discriminatory, antisemitic. In the case of new York Governor Andrew Cuomo calling it even worse than terrorism itself, right . So, weve seen a couple waves of this. The first was starting in 2014 in response to the American Studies Association academic boycott resolution, and you had several states proposing legislation that tried to defund universities that support or participate in an academic boycott, meaning any university that subsidizes its faculty to go to a conference, an asa conference, for example. These all failed, partly because of the huge opposition. Even the New York Times editorialized against it. Because its just so blatantly unconstitutional. And more recently, we have a new kind of legislation proposed in many states. We have dozens of pieces of legislation doing a few things. First you have resolutions that are nonbinding that merely condemn boycotts, and they dont really hold any weight. They cant do anything, but theyre an expression of the legislators position about bds, so they are harmful in the Chilling Effect that they have for people who are talking about this or who want to talk about this. And then we have bills that are proposed, and they do one or all of the following they create black lists of companies, nonprofits, institutions. It depends on what bill, but even individuals in some cases that participate or promote bds. They require the state to divest its funds from those companies on the black list, or some dont have a black list, but you know, they create a list. And then some prohibit the state from contracting with companies that engage in bds. So what have we seen . There are 13 states now that have passed these laws, including new york through an executive order of the governor. And it is hard to say what the impact of these laws are. We think its, you know, in practical terms, it may not be so big, but the Chilling Effect is huge. People think, oh, bds has been criminalized, oh, if i do this, i will put myself in danger, and thats their intention, to scare people off from engaging on this issue. And then we have congressional legislation as well, a few bills. And i think were bound to see more. So, trump. Im sorry to show you this picture. I feel like weve seen him a lot and were going to see a lot more, but you know, we expect the assault on palestine activism to continue. And you know, one thing that phyllis didnt mention that he has said or that his adviser has said is that they plan to ask the department of justice to investigate campus activism. So this is a step beyond the department of education. This is going to reinforce the surveillance, the targeting, you know, the smearing of activists. There is hope. So, ill end on this note. You know, there is increasing support for palestinian rights, as i think phyllis talked a lot about. And you know, the opinion polls are showing that. Young people are more and more supportive, and theres a shift. But in order to keep that going, we have to remove this stigma that this legislation is helping to show that all of these concerted attacks on palestinian activism are making possible, and we have to push back against that. And you know, its possible and i think its hopeful because there is such an important history of boycotts used to further social justice. Its a timehonored tactic in the u. S. And globally and has been used in the most important social Justice Movements in the u. S. , certainly. And then theres the law. We have the First Amendment. There is very clear Supreme Court precedent saying boycotts are protected First Amendment activity, boycotts to effect political, economic and social change, which is what bds is. So you know, its our duty, responsibility to make sure that those rights are protected. If we dont, then they will be forsaken. So that is what palestine legals role is. Thats how we see our role. And if we are able to do that, if we are able to keep this space for this movement to grow, for the, you know, the Public Opinion to keep shifting, we can have an effect on u. S. Policy in the long run. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to the Palestine Center and the Jerusalem Fund for organizing this and inviting me. Thank you to the panelists and all of you for attending. My comments are about the issue of palestine, the arab uprisings and the arab political scene, and they follow pretty smoothly from what jeanette talked about, the historical background. So, time is getting tight, so i will try to stick to 10, 15 minutes, give you my main bullet point ideas, and then we can have any discussion you want. My basic points are the following. The struggle for Arab National rights, viable statehood, legitimate statehood, and true sovereignty and Citizenship Rights all across the arab world was manifested most dramatically by the arab uprisings of six years ago. Weve never had such a deep, widespread and ongoing expression of the quest for statehood and citizenship across the arab world as we did six years ago, and its continuing in many forms. And this is the latest manifestation of the struggle that started in the 1920s, as jeanette very accurately pointed out. So, the quest for palestinian rights and the quest for arab, legitimate, credible, lasting statehood, sovereignty and citizenship are part of the same historical quest, and they reflect a common sentiment and common rights that permeate every arab country, without exception. The fact that neither of them have been able to be fully attained with the possible exception of tunisia now, which is the first and only selfdeterminant arab citizenry the fact that these rights have not been attained reflects a combination of factors, organizational, institutional, international, counterrevolutionary forces, counterdemocratic forces from the arab world, from the Zionist Movement in israel, from the western world. Theres many reasons we know why we havent achieved either palestinian nationwood and citizenship or arab true sovereignty and Citizenship Rights across the arab world. But the important thing to recognize is that these are two dimensions of the same struggle. And the reason that the palestine issue continues to resonate, not just across the arab world but across the entire world and you see this now perhaps the most common symbol of the resistance you see all over the world. You have people struggling in china and belgium and in chile and wherever, and theyve got the cafi on, and they dont do this because it is a fashion statement. They do this because it is a symbol of a common human struggle for rights that are anchored both in the modern institutions of citizenship, the u. N. Declaration of human rights, call for selfdetermination, any instrument you want to use, but also anchored in the ancient morality of the abrahamic faiths, if youd like to go that way, too, the quest for justice and only justice, as god told moses to tell the hebrews to tell the world. And that quest for justice is manifested most dramatically across the entire world by the symbolism of the palestine issue, and this is one reason why it continues to grow. It hasnt yet come to fruition and had the results that we want, but the fact that its growing, and you heard from the previous speakers all the fascinating and important trends within the United States among students, the media, some politicians, the churches, the mainstream churches, labor unions, professional associations, academic groups, but most importantly, the demographic trends among American People and the Jewish American community is that the younger people under the age of 40 are clearly more evenhanded, roughly 50 50, saying that palestinians and israelis should have equal rights to statehood, to citizenship, to security and to the integrity of their national consciousness. And this is something that is now widespread and anchored in this political sentiments and the value systems of americans under the age of 45. Among older americans, its still problematically tilted to a blind proisraeli position without giving the palestinians equal rights. But the trend, the trend over time, even among Jewish Americans and we shouldnt be surprised because young Jewish Americans are manifesting their identity as americans and as jews, and both of those characterizations are anchored in peace, justice and equality for all people, whether its dictated by the american constitution or dictated by the memory of moses, the Young Americans and the Young American jews are the Critical Community that we should reach out to, understand, talk to, and form alliances with for the wellbeing of all americans, particularly Jewish Americans. Because if people are worried about islamophobia and antiimmigrant feeling and other problems now that have reared their head in the United States, they should remember that antisemitism is the oldest one of these criminal deeds, and it is already rearing its head a little bit, and there needs to be a very Strong Alliance between American Jews and arab americans and all americans of good conscience and integrity. And one of the things, by the way, that i would recommend is that i think we in the palestinian American Community with others, we should Start Holding conferences to understand antisemitism. Antisemitism is a crime and a cancer, and we are its ultimate victims as well as the jewish people, and we need to raise that issue with our jewish brothers and sisters and really understand it and try to cut it before it grows. But the links between the arab state system and the arab political world today and the issue of palestine and the uprisings i think is very clear, and we have a lot of evidence now which we didnt have 20 years ago, but we have it now because of polling, which is now more common across the arab world. We have a lot of evidence repeatedly confirmed year after year that the palestine issue and justice for palestinians resonates deeply across the arab world with ordinary people. It resonates deeply and continuously, and almost without exception, when people in arab countries are polled and asked what do you see as the major threats to your society, your country, whether its algeria or morocco or saudi arabia or wherever, the top two issues that people see as threats to their arab countries are usually israel and american Foreign Policy. The exception recently has been among some people in the gulf especially who see iran as the biggest threat, and that is a legitimate perception from their perspective. I personally think its widely exaggerated, but we have to treat people with dignity and understand them as they understand themselves, and there are arabs who now see iran as a bigger threat than anything else, but the overwhelming majority of arabs for the last 20 years of polling clearly see israel and zionist colonialism and American Foreign policies as the biggest threat to their wellbeing. So, i think one of the first things we should understand is that in the perception and why is it that people are so strongly in solidarity with palestinians . Why should somebody in morocco or somebody in yemen care about palestine . Well, i think the reason is that palestine is the only living link between 19thcentury european colonialism and the current lack of National Rights and citizenship, dignity, statehood, composure and a normal life among people all over the arab world. There are other problems as well, but the continued colonial expansionist policy of the current Israeli Government and all recent Israeli Governments is that only living continuous link from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. And people feel that in their bones. You dont have to go and explain it to them, they feel it in their bones the same way that young girls in birmingham, alabama, in 1955 took their toothbrushes and went out to march knowing they were going to go to jail and they had to bring their toothbrushes with them because they knew it. Nobody had to tell them this was wrong. They felt it it was biology, and people around the arab world feel exactly the same thing. When their government in some cases has to get permission from the Israeli Government to buy some arms or some Computer Components from some american company, that is pretty degrading for people. And therefore, the real issue in the arab world as in palestine is the unattained state of National Integrity and legitimate national sovereignty. And i believe that this is the common problem and Common Threat and Common Source of humiliation, not just anger but deep humiliation for people all across the arab world. Now, historically, there are other ways in which the palestine issue links with the political condition of the arab world and the arab uprisings. Ill mention one or two. Just tell me when im out of time in a few minutes. The biggest single problem in the modern arab world, i believe and i was born in 1948, so my adult life has kind of lived through this. The biggest single problem has been the capture of state power by military people in the arab countries. This started, when did this start . 46, 48, 52. Its fully congruent with the arab israeli conflict coming to its first phase of full fruition, which was the 194748 conflict and the creation of israel and the disenfranchisement, dispersal and exile and refugeement of the palestinians. Ever since the late 40s, which started first in iraq and syria and also in egypt, despite many good things that nassib did and people remembered him for, the regime created two of the most catastrophic dynamics that still haunt and shatter the arab world today, which is rule by military men who are totally incompetent in running a government, and the creation of ministries for information, which are designed to close the minds of people, forbid them to use their full human faculties of discussion, debate, learning, reading, speaking and becoming enlightened, full human beings, the creation of military rule, and the Information Ministry phenomenon which started in egypt in 1952 and continues in egypt today as well as in many other arab countries. I think those two have been the most catastrophic things that explain many of the problems of the arab world. And why did these things happen and then military people take over, and later in the 60s and 70s, especially in the late 60s and early 70s, after the 67 defeat, saddam hussein, ahmed bashirie. You can go across the region and name them one by one. These military men took over control of their countries. And why did they start doing this in the late 60s and even the late 40s and 50s, but a big way in the late 60s and 70s . Because they claim it was the only way they could protect their countries from israel, protect palestinian rights and fight for arab rights and development. And of course, they were frauds. They couldnt do this, they didnt do it. They werent able to martial their Natural Resources for truly sustainable development. They did some great things in the arab world, some of these leadership the development of doctors, the development of education for women, the Building Infrastructure was very impressive all across the arab world in the 60s, 70s and 80s, so the arab governments were not totally incompetent, but they have now shown to be completely and without any exception unable to govern in a manner that achieves both Sustainable Socioeconomic Development or True National sovereignty that allows their countries to achieve their full potential based on the rights and resources of their own people. Not a single arab country has been able to do this. And the pressures were feeling today are really significant. About 45 of young arabs in primary and secondary school, about 45 are not learning anything in school. They cant read or write. They cant do basic numeracy. We have a dysfunctional Public Education system, and most of these people are going to drop out. And therefore, you have situations where, for instance, in egypt, about 60 to 65 of new entrants to the labor market are people that go into the informal sector. That means they cant do anything other than clean a car window or carry a sack of sugar in the marketplace or sweep somebodys doorstep, or they have no protection, they have no contracts, they have no minimum wage, no health insurance, no life insurance, no pension funds. They have no rights as workers or as human beings. Theyre like donkeys. They work, they get 3, 4 a day and they go home. And this is not just kids who leave high school, this is fathers and mothers of families. And this is why in 20102011 you had this mass uprising, because the state of despair was reached by millions and millions of people across the arab world who were not able to achieve their basic rights, and we can trace this back, i think unequivocally to the indirect consequence of the lack of palestinian rights being achieved in 47 and 48, the advent of military regimes and the continuation of that process. And things are getting worse. Theyre not getting better. In the last 5 1 2 years or so since the arab uprisings, almost 6 years now, 54 million arabs have been born. 54 million new arab babies have been born over the last six years. The arab world couldnt feed and educate and give health care to its people in 20102011. How are they going to deal with the 54 million . Every year in egypt about 1. 8, 1. 9 Million People are born, every year. Theres been almost 10 million new egyptians since the upris g uprising. So the trend is frightening. And the reason its frightening is because the arab governments, despite some of the good things they do, are totally incompetent at managing their countries. And i think the fact that they continue to demand to exercise military rule under the guise of fake parliaments and constitutions that are not respected, et cetera, is clearly traceable to issues related to palestine. And i believe part of the uprisings were due to the sense among large numbers of citizens that their governments neither had efficacy nor legitimacy, that their governments were not able to provide them with their basic needs and their sense of hope and rights as political men and women and citizens, and their governments were not able to address the challenge of israel and zionism, either through war or through peace, they couldnt. And therefore, the degrading of the legitimacy of arab governments and regimes i believe was significantly influenced by their incompetent response to the challenge of zionism and israel over the years. And the fact that the arab public cares deeply about palestine should remind us that this issue is not going to go away. When the palestine issue started in in 47 and 48, when israel was created, there was about 750,000 Palestinian Refugees who had forcibly left palestine. There was about 1. 5 million palestinians then. Theres about 9 million palestinians today. The activism for palestine at the local level, at the regional level, at the National Level and at the interNational Level is far greater today than it ever was in the past 50 years. So i just will end on a note that we need to keep in mind that the palestine issue, unlike what israeli and american officials and many people here will tell you and i hear it all the time unlike what they say that, well, the palestine issue, really the arabs dont care about it and its a secondary issue. Theyre busy with the uprisings. It works the other way around. The uprisings happened because of incompetent and brutal arab regimes who were put in place in part because they used the palestine issue as an excuse to take power. And i think we need to keep these points, these relationships very clear. Therefore, resolving the arab israeli conflict, which is the oldest and most destabilizing and radicalizing force in the arab world still today, the rise of the muslim brothers, the rise of groups is heavily linked to grievances about their governments being unable to deal with the palestine threat. Today in jordan theyre demonstrating because they dont want their government to buy gas from israel. Theres something in there, in our society, and its not in our water. Its in our blood. Theres something that tells people that there is a problem with palestine, justice has to be achieved, and we are on the record as saying we want justice and equal rights and statehood and security for israelis and palestinians simultaneously. That has been very clear. And therefore, we need to keep in mind these relationships between our friends in the arab world, the palestine issue, the uprisings that happened and were suppressed, and what is going to come when 54 million new people are born every six years. Thank you very much. I think this has been a very thoughtful discussion about the issues of the hour, issues of the day. This is for questions and answers. I would like to remind the audience of a few rules, please. First, anybody who wants to ask a question, please use their mike, identify yourself and any so, you might have and direct the question to one of the panelists. More importantly, we cant really have lectures from the audience and editorials. We all have feelings we would like to express, but this is the time to ask specific questions and address them to a specific panelist. We will try to be inclusive, genderneutral and Everything Else, and there will come a point when i say enough because im terribly hungry, and im sure a few of you are. And i apologize for the heat in the room. We are trying to fix that. So, having said that, i would like to start on the right side and have the first one who lifted his hand ask the question, the very far right. [ inaudible ] you mentioned, of course, the declaration, but other things like the Kings Commission and theres also the talk of the zionist to the league of nations. And the Kings Commission concluded, the National Homeland for the jewish people is not equivalent to making palestine into a jewish state. In other words, the United States rejected the jewish state very early, and the zionist before the link of nations showed a map which went up to the river 20 miles south of behind rutte and over to amman, which is only ten miles west, which they wanted the water rights. So, my question is why are not these two very prophetic, invaluable documents not talked about today, because they seem to apply very well to the situation and really clarify the situation . Unfortunately, the report of the King Crane Commission was shelved, and nobody even looked at it at the time. I mean, it did some good work. It did sound out Public Opinion. And i think the people gathering in versailles were not receptive to these ideas. They had their own agendas. They had their own axes to grind. And people like you and maybe other people today might look back at this as what could have been an important document. Unfortunately, it had almost zero consequences, in fact. So, there were efforts to get some justice, some fairness for the arabs, but this was, on the part of britain, for instance, to satisfy so and this took t form of making Abdullah King of jordan and faisal king of iraq. So again, this was connected with the issue of cushing french influence. The french were totally furious when faisal was made king of iraq. They thought that the british had stabbed them in the back by doing this. So what we have is people in power who are concerned with interes interests, and sometimes the opposed interest creates room for achievement of some goals that are helpful to the arabs. But other than that i mean, in the case of palestine, palestine is the case of the mandate in which the function of the mandatory power was totally frustrated. It wasnt carried out. They should have arranged for the palestinians to reach the stage of selfdetermination, to reach the stage of governing themselves, and eventually to attain sovereignty at the same time as creating a homeland for the jews and palestine, homeland meaning a place where jews could get together and establish their institutions in a land to which they felt historic ties. So, in iraq, in syria, in lebanon, the mandatory power did much more than the british did in palestine. Palestine was shortchanged, totally. Thank you very much. Benjamin, retired diplomat. If anyone would like to comment, that be fine. A lot of Different Countries and continents have been mentioned, but theres been hardly a word about russia. Maybe i missed it. Russia is playing a greater r e role, has good relations with israel, has good relations with the palestinians, has a significant presence in the west bank, including the net Board Company which is russian owned, and it may be having better relations with the United States. Prime minister medvedev i believe is now in the middle east visiting israel and palestine. Please comment on the evolving role and influence of russia in the palestinian israeli conflict. Well, during the cold war you had people in the arab world who are with russia or supported by russia and others with the u. S. , so they were involved, but it was really as proxiies for a global contest. Today, the situation i think is very different. You know, russia has essentially supported autocrats and dictators to the same extent that the u. S. Has. And unlike the u. S. , doesnt even pretend to talk about democracy and rights and dignity. They just go in there and sell arms and do their thing and achieve what they think is in their national interest. Today theyre acting much more forcefully and with a lot more clarity, and clarity of aims in the middle east than the americans are. The russians are reestablishing stronger ties with a whole series of people in the region turkey, iran, egypt. Theyre even playing footsies with saudi arabia. Theyre acting with statesmanship that is very impressive at the practical level, while at the substantive level, i dont particularly want to live in a country like russia. They have a lot of problems in terms of how they deal with their country and with other people, so theyre not an attractive model or anything like that, but theyre certainly outplaying the United States and the western powers in much of the region, but people deal with the russians on a very mercantile basis. They get something from them, they give them something. These are not lovydovy longterm relationships based on any kind of shared values other than auto krcrats rule and rule forever. That basis and what were seeing in syria, theyre much more decisive than before, and therefore, they are in a stronger position. But i dont think they have a lo longterm future, other than through mercantile relationships. [ inaudible question ] yeah, but theyll make deals if it serves them. They dont care about arab people, i dont think, really. They care about russian people. They care about russia. And the incumbency of their regime and the strength of their country and protecting their interests. They will sell out Bashar Al Assad if they can get something really significant in return. And weve seen how they, you know, they flip and flop and they change policies. [ inaudible question ] yeah, theyre a big power acting like a normal big power. Very good. Can you get the mike . Im norah bauer from jbp. Im going to ask you about another part of your scholarship about a biNational State. Id like you to talk about your thinking on a biNational State and how it could avoid being an apartheid state. Yeah. Well, i wrote a note back in 1997 on this topic. And im afraid nothing has changed to sway opinion away from this. I think a twostate solution is that. Youre not going to get a twostate solution. So what youre going to get is one state in which the palestinians, their rights really are the rights that conquered people as under the geneva convention. They dont have political rights. They dont have civil rights. They have zilch political rights. Israel has allowed them selfdetermination to some extent, but the question of sovereigntys totally out of the picture. The question then is if you have a onestate solution, the battle has to change. The battle has to become for the palestinians to acquire political rights, to acquire civil rights, and they have to do it themselves. And this is something that israel cannot deny in the long run. You cant make a few Million People disappear. So, either youre going to have an entrenched apartheid regime, which is not possible, really, in this day in age, or the israelis have to expel the palestinians. Failing those, the only way it for palestinians to acquire these rights by binationalist state. What i mean is a state that goes beyond citizens being equal. It means that palestinian arabs and jews both have certain political cultural rights as a group, that they are allowed to have their own culture, their own language, to be able to practice their traditions freely and to have this guaranteed. So, this idea is a quality not just for individuals, its also a quality for the two communities and rights that cannot be encroached on. And just very quickly, two quick points. One, i think that many of us actually believe that what exists now is a onestate reality. Its an apartheid state. Its one government that controls two peoples with two separate sets of laws, actually three, but its the definition of apartheid, according to International Covenant against the crime of apartheid. So, i think the question then becomes do you want to divide this one state or do you want to have a Civil Rights Movement for equality, an Antiapartheid Movement now . So, thats one point. The second point is that i think one of the things that weve learned in the last 15 or 20 years of building movements around palestinian rights is that some questions, including the question of political arrangements, essentially, is something that does belong to the people who live there and not to the solidarity movements who fight for rights. So, its been in an earlier iteration of the movements back when i was first getting involved in palestinian work in the 70s and into the 80s, there was a lot of talk. A lot of us were onestaters then and a lot of us were twostaters and whatever. Ive come to see and i think many of us have come to see that thats wrong. Its not our call. Im a jewish girl from california. What right do i have to say how many states there should be, you know . One state, two states, red state, blue state. Its not my call. So, i think in terms of what we do here for palestinians it is one of the fundamental questions, but for us here, i think that whats key is the struggle for rights, equality, whether its in the form of one state or the form of two states. Our goal is to change u. S. Policy to refuse to support apartheid as theyre doing now, and instead to demand equality for all, International Law and human rights as the basis, whether its in 1, 2 or 15 states. May i Say Something about that . So you think okay. Last question from this side, please. [ inaudible question ] i just wanted to ask a question about why some academy, Palestinian Academy and journalists still support assads regime, and even the Syrian People had always been involved with the palestinian cause and so on, but still they support assad. And even to this moment, you know, if somebody like in the state department, some journalist, palestinian journalist, every day attack the Syrian Opposition and so on. I want to understand why. I dont think any of us are prepared to talk about that today. That is, well, yeah. There are two things im going to remind the audience. We have some panelists who have travel that they have to meet. There is lunch waiting. And im being told that we should shut this off, so ill take the last question from the gentleman right there and well move on. Never get a chance for you to ask questions during lunch. Im ron wilson. As i said before, i work with the United Nations refugees. Do you think that the palestinian issue that is currently burning and has been burning for a while, a long time, is really a subset or a tool used by Foreign Policy to maintain its position of power, economically, politically and militarily in the middle east just as it has pivoted towards asia to maintain this hegemon there also . Who do you want the question addressed to . Any volunteers . I dont think so. I think the United States if that is the United States aim, its been a big failure, because the u. S. Is really in a very difficult situation in the middle east. Its been fighting wars directly or indirectly since 1981, since they first started helping the mujahadin against the soviets in afghanistan. The u. S. Has been fighting nonstop for 35 years across the middle east and south asia, and that warfare has become more vicious and more extensive with drones and special forces and this and that and proxy militias, and theyre still getting massive pushback from Public Opinion all across the region, and the regimes that are close to the u. S. Are in deep trouble with a lot of their own people. Therefore, the u. S. Is not in a happy position in the middle east, and obama i think understood this and allowed us to get the hell out of there because it was only trouble for him, but he couldnt get out. So, if that is their aim, to use the palestine issue to keep their hegemon under control, theyre not doing a very good idea. Theyre using the war on terror as a means to support their position, to get allies to sell arms and all the Different Things they want to, but they are not doing that very well either, because the war on terror since 9 11 has coincided with the biggest expansion in International Terrorism in modern history, and with no success except for preventing an attack on the american mainland since 2001. Other than that, the whole war on terror aims have not been achieved, and the terror problems much greater today than it was before. I would like to sorry. There is some truth to what youre talking about. During the cold war, israel was considered a Strategic Asset for the United States, that israel managed to put down clients of the soviet union. And in the cold war perspective, this was an asset for the United States. There was a change of thinking in the case of the 73 war. Before that war, sadat was trying to get interest in a deal for withdrawal from the sinai. The israelis thought the status quo was fine. They didnt see any need for change. Kissinger thought the situation was fine. Then it clicked that theres a way he could turn egypt around, change it from the russian camp to the american camp. He got involved, and he rescued egypts third army and he concluded sinai one, sinai two. The purpose was to get egypt on americas side. And as a result of all this, he did. So, i dont think israel really served the United States interests in the sense that the arab switchover to the soviet union did so because israel was a land of the United States, they could turn to the United States, so israel was helping the United States solve a problem that it had created. I believe we have to conclude this. Thank you for being a good audience. All right. My books are available outside. Palestine and isis. There is a fabulous lunch outside. President obamas in peru this weekend for the last stop on his final overseas trip before leaving office. On saturday hell speak to students at a town hall meeting in lima, peru. Thats live at 2 20 p. M. Eastern on cspan. And on sunday, the president holds a closing News Conference at the apec economic summit before heading back to the u. S. Thats live at 6 30 p. M. Eastern also on cspan. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3 saturday night at 8 00 eastern on lectures in history the only essential difference between a nazi mob hunting down jews in Central Europe and an american mob burning black men at the stake in mississippi is that one is actually encouraged by its National Government and one is just tolerated by its National Government. Gettysburg College Professor Jill Ogline Titus on world war ii and its impact on civil rights. Then at 10 00 on reel america, a 1968 film on the black panthers, founded 50 years ago by hewie newton and bobby seal so, its very apparent that the only Police Security not only our security but the security of the Business Owners and our community and also to see that the status quo is kept in tact. Sunday afternoon, archaeologist dean snow on his findings while excavating the battlefield saratoga in new york and its inspiration to his book 1777 Tipping Point at saratoga. What on earth was a little old lady doing out there . She was at the time she died about 5 feet tall, at least 60 years old, and she was a battle casualty at saratoga. What is going on here . And at 6 00 eastern on american artifacts the french method was they put you in a little barrio with the wings cut down. Your second training flight, they give you more wing and a little bit bigger engine on the thing and you would literally hop up and down the field. Then when youre ready for the big day, you talked to your instructor who had been talking to you on the ground the whole time, hed pat you on the shoulder and youd get in an airplane and make your first real solo flight all by yourself. Pilot robert boom powell takes us on a tour of the aviation museum, home to world war i and learn about Aviation Technology during those wars. For the complete American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Org. Now, a look at the fight against isis. Middle east experts discuss how the terrorist group is responding to recent attacks in mosul and the challenges facing other parts of iraq that were once under isis control. From the atlantic council, this is an hour and 20 minutes. To first introduce our panelists before i begin to give a lay of the land and sign post our conversation today. Sitting to my immediate left, your right, is hassan hassan, resident of the Career Institute and coauthor of isis inside the army of terror. And next to hassan on the left is Jessica Lewis mcfate, who is the director of tradecraft innovation at the institute for the study of war. And also on the far left, far end of the panel is howard shatz, senior economist at the Rand Corporation whose latest isisrelated publication is called foundations of the Islamic State. And were going to, rather than have sort of set speeches today, were going to have more of a discussion format about current related events related to the Islamic State but also building upon that, a lot of the history, its foundations, where it came from, and then what we can learn from that for perhaps future policy options for the next American Administration as we come on after the election. So, i think its actually best to start with both hassan and jessica as we look forward, as we start here. Obviously, in the news we have the battle for mosul going on. It began i believe about two weeks ago. And for me personally, its going faster than i thought. It seems to be going pretty well, but i am not an expert on sort of these type of topics, so id like to start with you. How would you judge the current battle and what you think it portends about the current war against the Islamic State. Well, i think iraqis recognize this is the most important offensive against, not only against the Islamic State but an offensive conducted by iraqis. President brizana told iraqi officials in baghdad that this is the first time iraqis and the Kurdish Peshmerga are fighting on the same side for probably six years. So, its a very important offensive, and i think so far its been going very impressively very well. Its gone certainly on schedule. This is the second day iraqi forces are inside mosul, the outskirts of mosul. I think so far its going very well. The composition of the forces that are supposed to go inside mosul are the right forces. They are professional i recal e iraqi forces, the Counterterrorism Force and iraqi police with tribal forces and sunni fighters. So i think so far there is reason for optimism. There are problems we can discuss when we, you know, in the conversation later on. There are fault lines. There are problems that are starting to appear and emerge in the first few weeks. This is the third week of the campaign. Certainly. Well, id just like to echo first that the coalition that is attacking isis in mosul is impressive. Isis is expert at trying to exploit things among enemy coalitions and this coalition is going to outlast isiss efforts. I do think theyre going to take the city center. I think one of the challenges were going to face is that there are neighborhoods in mosul to which al qaeda in iraq, isiss predecessor was likely never cleared, so the clearing operation for the full extent of the city is a measure of success beyond taking the government buildings and the base back. Isis defensives have been formed in rings. When forces began to approach mosul on the south, the east and the north of the city, they ran into some defenses. On some axes. So, one of the measures of success in defeating isiss defenses is to interdict lets say 95 of those. But one of the challenges is that that still means that ten vivads get through. Those are very elaborate car bombs inflicting a lot of damage, killing a number of those on advance. So, the casualties for Coalition Forces on the advance are still very high because the volume of isis defensive measures are intense. Isis blocks roads, tunnels. The momentum of the offensive is impressive, despite these obstacles. I suspect isis is also expert in urban warfare and that they have also prepared the city to be a very long and protracted fight, but i also agree that while their defenses are excellent, the offensive is better, and mosul will be cleared, but there will, of course, be challenges, not only around nenua, where spoilers such as ironibacked militias are trying to take key terrain, such as the west side of mosul, which can induce a number of sectarian and ethnic challenges not only at a local level but at a regional one, but also isiss counteroffensive measures occurring elsewhere in iraq. They led a counteroffensive in kirkuk, in sinjar. Isis is still executing its standard explosives campaign inside of baghdad. There have been anomalous attacks not only in the vicinity of tikrit but in diyalah over the course of the preceding month. So, there are places throughout isiss depth within iraq where we will see isis try to divert attention and try to achieve some gains that not only interact the technical and operational advances towards mosul but the message that the coalition is going to achieve durable gains. Howard, i think this is a good place for you to jump into the conversation here because jessica brought up isiss predecessor organization, and i think for most people in this room, its not a secret that weve seen this movie before, building a fence against mosul against pro evacuated insurgency towards the city and efforts to clear it. Can you talk about the origins of this particular threat, the Islamic State, its bureaucratic structures in this area and why, you know, why nanoa in particular is an interesting case study about the group itself and its predecessors . Sure. The Islamic State grew out originally of a group, jema founded by al zarqawi from jordan. Zarqawi moved into iraq before the United States led an International Coalition invading iraq, and then he formed a group that in 2004 swore allegiance to al qaeda, and they became known in english as al qaeda in iraq. Now, if we go back to the 20042006 period, the center of their power was really Anbar Province. And even there they had already organized into an effective bureaucracy. The bureaucracy was built on the model of al qaeda, but then it was changed a bit to really be designed to take and hold territory. So, what we saw in anbar in 2004 to 2006 was the province was divided into six al qaeda in iraq sectors. Each of those sectors had a leader, had a welldefined bureaucra bureaucracy, an administrative amir, a military amir, other positions like that, and there was coordination between the center and the different sectors. So, the sectors would raise money and send money up to the center, the headquarters of Anbar Province. Anbar province would reallocate that money and send it down. Each of the sectors was fundraising on its own and had operational autonomy. Now, even at that period, the Anbar Province was sending money up to the iraq level. So, 2016, zarqawi was killed and two new leaders took over, abu al masri and omar al baghdadi. And just to give you a sense, were going to be talking about iraq after isis and syria after isis. Were looking forward, so theres great uncertainty. Just to give you a sense, in 2006, 2007, 2008 what was the uncertainty . The big uncertainty was we didnt even know. Omar al baghdadi existed and who was in charge. It was assumed abu al masri was in charge. But we have the surge. The surge started late 06. Actually, the actual surge started 07, but the uprising, the pushback by the sunni forces in anbar started in 2006. And we then see the violence migrating through iraq. Anbar, the peak violence was around october 2006. It goes to diyalah and the peak of violence there is sometime in june 2007. And it migrates finally up to mosul, which is a key node for bringing foreign fighters in. An estimated 100,000 people gathered at Arlington Cemetery in virginia for a ceremony honoring the unknown soldier of world war i. The u. S. Army signal corps documented a silent film documenting the procession to arlington through the streets of washington d. C. Up next well show you the entire 23minute silent film with nareation provided by two world war i historians. Welcome to reel america on American History tv. Its the centennial of americas involvement in