Happened and im elected president he will do with multiple threats that iran brings. It up to spring the threat of being a nuclear country. Bute are serious problems, they are also the largest sponsor in every way of terrorism. Not just in the region but latin america. They support hezbollah. We have to deal with that threat. We have to push them back in that regard. Made harder because it will have at least 100 billion in fresh capital to carry out their agenda. We have to deal with the capability they will get when conventional weapons sections are relieved which is in of time. Y short period to have Ballistic Missile capabilities they are developing and have conventional weapons capabilities second to none in the region is something were going to have to deal with. The strategy needs to be to engage with the region. With the countries that field is strictly threatened by this. We have to leave this. We cannot be part of the community of length of nations. We have to lead and develop a strategy to push iran back into its own country in terms of its efforts to destabilize the regime and to make sure they never have the capability of a nuclear weapon. [applause] my last question. You mentioned something mistakes of secretary clinton with respect to iraq. Good to talk to us about what you think of her tenure and some of the differences you have an foreignpolicy vision . Bu is would say the obamaclinton foreignpolicy will be rememberedh as a foreignpolicy based on grandiose talk and little action. It will be based on wonderful then grandiose thing like red lines. Power. They regional invade crimea is the Junior Varsity and the the create caliphate and announce their intention of the black flag of isis on top of the white house. This is the linkage of this ministration and their inability to back it up has created real dangers in the world. They believe in soft power. I dont have a problem with soft power as long as theres hard power behind it. [applause] bush when there is no hard power you cannot skip over that part. You cannot just talk about things. We are not part of the community of nations. We have to lead. The when you create a more Peaceful World there is enough evidence in history starting with ronald reagan. Himre in this place honor because he understood that having certainty, having a word that everybody understood created peace. Lessens the chance of american combat troops be necessary. We need to restore that policy and make a more bipartisan. I have not heard Hillary Clintons he was on this. If anybody sees her when i do ask . It would be interesting. The president says for those who oppose the iranian deal, and there are solid reasons. I assume many in this room oppose the deal. [applause] bush the president had the gall to say that those who oppose withdeal were in cahoots the death to america crowd in a run. That crowd in a run is the group you negotiated the deal with. [laughter] bush this is the problem. We need to restore bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. You cannot keep pushing down people themisagree with calling, them warmongers every time they have a principal view and make your view this illustrious, so intelligent view that no one in the right mind would not embrace it. Youre never going to get the kind of consensus we need to create a more Peaceful World unless you start with the premise that maybe people disagree with you based on principle for crying out loud. And maybe you should engage with people for better consensus to get a better place. And this is wrong. [applause] bush across the spectrum of foreignpolicy we see this. Mrs. Clinton was the implement your of this foreignpolicy. I think the experience she had israel. Is real. Libya, failed record. Benghazi, the fight against terror. Its based on not backing up your word for america no longer has credibility in the world. I conclude by saying never country where our relationship is better than it was the daylight the day that barack obama was inaugurated and Hillary Clinton was one of the secretary of state. Cuba and iran. Name nations where our relationship are worse. It starts with canada and it is a long list. Thank you. [applause] guys. Thank you i saw a cute little baby. Governor, thank you for this inspiring remarks. I think by the response of the people of the audience, you can tell you have got every single one of them on your side. [applause] bush will you guys come to iowa . On behalf of everyone at the reagan foundation, i that everyone in this room, we have a little gift for you. This is an american flight that flew over the library today. We would like to give it to you. Bush thank you. Thank you all. [applause] president ial candidates appeared on the sunday morning talk shows. Donald trump was on he wasmeet the press. Asked about his reluctance to say he would run as a thirdparty candidate. Carly fiorina question the Party Trouble belongs to. You could win as an independent which would be more comfortable . I get what you dont want to run as an independent. Trump somebody was asking me that question the other day times 50. Im hearing it all the time. I am running as a republican. I lead by double digits. I am not prepared to close a door yet. I would not be surprised if someday in the future it happens. They treated me very well. I just wanted to be treated fairly. Heit is not clear to me that is a republican first of all based on his willingness to run a thirdparty bid and some of the positions he has taken. I think it is important as i got there and talk. What i see and hear our women men and women were sick of the professional political class. Problems in washington dc. They agree it is ridiculous that in the smartest and richest country in the world that we cannot get racing things done like served our veterans, secure our borders, and hold government accountable for being competent. Thearly fiorina speaks at iowa state fair tomorrow. We have that live at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. Scott walker live at 11 in the morning and in the afternoon at 4 00 eastern South Carolina senator lindsey graham. That is part of her live coverage of the iowa state fair continuing all week here on cspan. Our focus on president of politics continues at the iowa state fair with gop candidate and neurosurgeon ben carson. Is live on cspan at 5 00 eastern. After that at 5 30 p. M. Eastern former governor George Pataki talks at the Des Moines Register soapbox stage. Our live coverage on cspan. Odiernoef of staff rate is passing his duties on. He held a final News Conference where he said he disagrees with republican president ial candidate Donald Trumps idea that the United States should go into iraq and sees oil being used to fund the Islamic State militant group. He says are limits on what military power can do. Gen. Odierno i would send my prayer sergeant of Staff Sergeant mckenna who was killed in iraq this week. A member of the special forces group. That reminds us that we have our soldiers around the world doing dangerous and important things every single day. That is a reminder of the sacrifice that they make my. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. First, i want to thank the press for what i believe to be a positive relationship over the last 15 years for me as i have worked around the world and here in the pentagon, i really do appreciate the work you do. I appreciate the candor and dedication that you have, especially how you recover the how you have covered the army in many different parts of the world. I always found it important that the press raises issues, keeps us honest, helps us to work through tough issues that we have, and i truly appreciate the relationship we have had. I have always enjoyed the time i had with the press. So thank you very much for that. As i get ready to go out the door, couple of points i would like to make. I believe this nation is in an important flexion point, specifically regarding national security. Our security environment remains uncertain and dynamic. And we all know that based on what is going on in Eastern Europe with russian aggression Chinese Military increased , investment in the military, increased aggression by china in the pacific. We continue to have a middle east that shrouded increasing instability. With the rise of isil, the underlying conflict in the middle east. I believe these are longterm problems we will have to deal with for the foreseeable future. We continue to have to work our mission in afghanistan to ensure that that government is able to survive and maintain itself for many years ahead. It is important that we stay engaged in afghanistan. We have to be concerned with the growing movement of global terrorism, whether it be in north africa, central africa, and other parts of the world. As always, we have an unstable, unpredictable, provocative north korea that we have to be concerned with. As i quickly summarized, there are a lot of issues out there, i didnt name them all. Those are the major ones. The problem we have today is we have a dynamic environment where we have increasing requirements on our military while we continue to have decreasing resources. This is of great concern to me personally as we continue to move forward. What i worry about is we are sacrificing a longterm viability of our military to meet current environmental requirements. I mean by that i worry about decreasing readiness over time, i worry about reduced modernization in our force and the impact that might have two to five years from now. Because many of the problems i listed are going to be persistent problems. They are not ones that will be solved overnight. There are a couple of things that we are doing in the army, and i would say in the last 18 months, we have an aggressive several publishing several documents that are helping us move to the future. We published an army vision which is trying to give us a strategic advantage in the complex world of we live in. To identify what are the unique roles the army will play, there are key characteristics that i see in the army in the future. It must be an army that is incredibly agile, we must be expert. What i mean is leaders of great character, competence, and commitment. We must be innovative, we must be interoperable with our allies as well as other services and joint force. We must be expeditionary, we must be scalable in order to meet probably simultaneous requirements around the world across several different continents. We have published an Army Operating concept the really looks to the future of what we need to look at in 2025 and beyond. We have identified challenges we will continue to look at. This will help us to synchronize and integrate our efforts as we decide what we want to do in modernization, what we need to do in developing future leaders, and what we think is going to be required of them. We have to also look in new areas. We significantly increase our investment in cyber, both in the force and are modernization technologies, we are developing new readiness models. That will help us to deploy forces when needed on time, and we must increase our efficiency and the ability to deploy quickly. We increased and develop a new total force policy that uses the entire force in a way that we can sustain over the long time. These are just a few of the things that are working now, and with that, i will open it up for questions. General, first of all thank you for doing this and i think we all appreciate the amount of time you have spent both here at the podium and that smaller gatherings. Roundtables and all. We hope you encourage your successor to do the same. I wanted to ask you there are two women that appear they may be completing the ranger course. We have been told they have gone through the hardest part. Im wondering if you can take a step back and look at that as you view your career and how things are changed . And whether or not you think this should inform the armys decision on whether or not to open the infantry to women, and what your personal views are on this as you leave, because your name may not be on the recommendations to the secretary. Gen. Odierno i would say as we continue to move forward as a military, the most important thing i was talking about Talent Management in order to best. You have to pick the best people that will conform to the establishment of the standards we have established in army. If the women can meet the standard, they should be able to go. They should be able to earn the ranger tab. I think thats how we want operators move forward. If you can meet the standards weve established, you should be able to perform in that mos. I think that is where we are headed. Again, we have not made any final decisions on infantry or army and, by think those are coming very shortly. We have really collected some significant analysis, we done incredible studies over the last two years. Weve integrated women in tall and to all formations and again, it is about can they meet the standard or not. And if they can, we lean towards the fact that it would be good if we allowed them to serve. I dont know how it is going to come out, you never know. There are several days left yet in ranger school. But the feedback ive gotten with these women is how incredibly prepared they are. The effort they put forward has been significant. They have impressed all that they have come in contact with. They are clearly motivated and frankly, thats what we want out of our soldiers. I think this has been a great effort. We will probably run in other course in november that will be integrated. That is where we are headed right now. And then we will make a decision after that on whether we make it permanently open to women. Given the fact that you have done as many tours in iraq as anybody, can you reflect a little bit on your perspective of what has happened in iraq and how it came to this point. And your solutions that you see out there. Do you think a nofly zone would make any sense . And do you think it is time to put u. S. Troops, soldiers on the ground with iraqi forces even potentially with syrian rebel forces, put u. S. Troops on the ground to embed with them and help them further train on the ground is it even feasible . Gen. Odierno as i look at iraq and ive said this before it is frustrating to look at what has happened inside of iraq. I believe that a couple of years in 2010 or two dozen 11, 2011, we had it in a place it was heading in the right direction. Violence was down, the economy was growing, the politics were ok. We turned it over to them it. The by the agreement that weve made back in 2008, that they would take full control of this in 2011 we would leave. As it is turned out, they were not prepared to handle that. I think it is more politically than it was anything else. The political factions just simply werent able to Work Together. And based on that, people became frustrated, and when people become frustrated, they tend to turn to violence because there is no other way to get their point across. That allowed a group like isil to exploit the fissures that were occurring inside iraq. The same thing happened in syria. When you have now are two countries are annexed which other the have the same kind of problems. And you gave them a fairly significant piece of ground that enable them to build their capabilities. First off, i absolutely believe that the region has to solve this problem. The u. S. Cannot solve this problem for the region. Theyve got to get involved and be a part of the solution. I truly believe that. I have said before, we could probably go in there with a certain amount of American Forces and defeat isil. The problem is we will be right back where we are today six months later. For me, its about changing the dynamics, the political dynamics, the economic dynamics. It has to be done by those in the region. It is important for us to support that by training and trying to develop capabilities and capacities. I believe that if we find it in the next several months that we are not making the progress that we have, we should absolutely consider embedding soldiers and see if that would make a difference. It doesnt mean that would be fighting, but we would be embedding them in moving with them as an option we should , present to the president when the time is right. When you say that the you mean both in iraq and syria . Gen. Odierno originally i was in iraq. I know generals dont normally comment on politics. But you are about to go. Whatever into duty of . Due to you . So when you hear donald trump say we should just moved in with our troops and take their oil, and bomb the iraqi oil fields, does anything like that even remotely have military utility . Gen. Odierno heres the issue i learned over the past 10 years. There are limits to military power. We can have an outcome, but the problem weve had is do we achieve sustainable outcomes . It is about sustainable outcome. The problem we have had is we have had outcomes, but theyve only been shortterm outcomes because we havent looked at the political and economic side of this. It has to be all three the come together. If you dont do that, its not going to solve the problem. That is what i continue to look at. For me, if you asked me, if you said to me if we didnt right now, isil is the direct threat, and theyre getting ready to have an attack on the United States that could be devastating, thats a different issue. That is a different issue. Then maybe we have to look at putting troops in the ground. But thats not where we are today. What we want to do is try and stop a longterm group that is potentially attempting to be a longterm influence in the middle east, that is clearly promoting extremism, and frankly, suppressing the populations in the middle east. In order to resolve act, you need countries in the middle east and those surrounding the middle east to be involved in the solution. Do you disagree with donald trump . Gen. Odierno right now i do. You know it was debated on who last iraq, kind of who lost china in the late 40s. The narrative goes Something Like the brilliant surge succeeded, obama abandon iraq, setting the stage for sectarianism to return. Iraq he forces collapse. Allowing the growth of isil. Do you agree with that narrative . Gen. Odierno i dont get is black and white. I believe it is great. Gray. The military operations we conducted provided as an opportunity to be successful. Us leaving at the end of 2011 was negotiated in 2008 by the bush administration. That was always the plan. We promised them we would respect the sovereignty. I think based on that, that was always the plan. You can argue whether we could have adjusted a little bit and could we had a better outcome. I am not going to get involved in an argument. Its not black and white. Why would say is having military on the ground allowed us to be honest brokers between some of these groups. I think maybe, as we all look back, leaving some soldiers on the ground might it helped a little bit, might have prevented where we are now. Judged against that was the iraq invasion a mistake . Gen. Odierno tony, like going i dont like going back there. Its monday morning quarterbacking. All i know is that Saddam Hussein was an incredibly ruthless person who was suppressing his population. I know there has always been this argument that we went in there and there were no Nuclear Weapons, heres what i will tell you. I talked to all of the iraqi generals. They will tell you there were Nuclear Weapons. They believe there were. The bottom line is they absolutely believe there were Nuclear Weapons on the ground. To say we shouldnt have gone in there now because we know there wasnt any reason find any, i think thats a little bit of hindsight. By the way we dont know where we would be right now if Saddam Hussein was still in the power. He was moving towards terrorism, i believe if we can you do have continues to have problems you dont know what he might , have done in terms of being part of the problem of terrorism. I think its very difficult to say was it worthwhile. The decision was made, we did it, deal with it. We have to try to make it come out the best way we can. Given your experience in iraq can you talk earlier about the growing conflict between shia and sunni and the increased influence now of iran. Inside iraq, even militarily. Do you see any possibility of reconciliation between the sunni and shia . Gen. Odierno it is becoming more difficult by the day. I think there might be some alternative solutions that might have to come sometime in the future. Where iraq may not look like he like it did in the past. We have to deal with isil first. And then we have to decide what it will look like afterwards. You talk about the possibilityof of partitioning . Gen. Odierno i think that is for the region and politicians to kind of figure out, diplomats to figure out how we want to work this. That is having that could happen. It might reveal the solution. But im not ready to say that you have. For the second time now, they claim to have hacked into the u. S. Military Computer Systems and retrieved vital personal and even classified information. What do you know about that . You mentioned cyber defenses earlier. Are we inadequately protected against an attack, even by somebody like isis . Gen. Odierno i dont want to downplay the incident. But this is the second or third time have claimed that. The first two times i will tell you whatever lists they got were not taken by any cyber attack. They were lists off to the side. I have not seen the list myself. What i believe is this is no different than those other two times. But i take it seriously because it is clear what they are trying to do. Its important for us to make sure that our force understands what theyre trying to do, even though i believe theyve not been successful in what they are claiming. Sir, do you think isis is winning right now and do you think the u. S. Betrayed the sunni tribes that rose up in mr and bar province. Gen. Odierno so i think isil has been blunted somewhat. They have not made any progress since we started airstrikes. In fact i think we have gained back some territory, mostly by the great work of the kurds and the some work by the Iraqi Security forces. I think right now we are kind of a stalemate. The kurds continue to make some progress. I think is important we continue to support them. The reason is that way is that we are continuing to retrain the Iraqi Security forces to build up the capabilities so they can conduct operations. We are probably getting ready to see one here in a few days. I think that is why, although it hasnt gone as well as we would like to two, its important to continue to train Syrian Forces and Syrian Rebels. Because as a military strategy, you want to have your enemy have to respond to several different fronts. In my opinion, want to try and develop capabilities so that they have Iraqi Security forces from the south, kurds from the north, and Syrian Rebels helping in syria, i still think doesnt that is something we have to work out. We have a lot of work to do, without we are working with Syrian Rebels, but i think we still have to really stay focused on that. Thank you, general. Twopart question. What is the future of afghanistan now because taliban and al qaeda still in afghanistan and pakistan are waiting and warning u. S. That when the International Community leaves afghanistan, the future may not be bright or darker than 15 years ago. Second part. How much are you worried about china and pakistan . Pakistan is doing what china is telling them. China is expanding in the region and recruiting and afghanistan. Gen. Odierno i would say with the taliban, they claim a lot of things, first off. I think that there is violence inside of afghanistan, is less than what it was. The afghan Security Forces in my mind are doing a pretty good job of going after that. I think the pakistanis have done some good work against the taliban lately. I think with the death of one of their leaders, we have to watch the very carefully. I think we are still things are still on a path where i think it can be successful. I think we have to continue to support the afghan Security Forces. We have to continue to support dialogue between afghanistan and pakistan. Pakistan has the right to do lots of things. We have a close religion with pakistan. They deal with us too. I have a Good Relationship with the general. We talk regularly. He talks regularly to general afghanistan. In do they talk china . Probably. All we have to work with them to solve this difficult problem. I think afghanistan, pakistan, the United States, and other countries have to Work Together to solve this problem. It is on our interest to do that. You might ask india in the future that it might be helpful gen. Odierno we have to judge the environment. If we think its the right thing to do, we have that. You mentioned at the beginning that there was an a decreasing resources. What can other areas of government do to support the mission of the military . Gen. Odierno the whole four years i was chief of staff, we were deadlocked. We are worried about the debt, which we should be. In my opinion, we fill the we have held the military hostage because of the argument we are having over the rest of the government, how we solve the problem of spending in the government. The point im trying to make is it is coming to a point now where i think we should be careful. Because we are at the point of potentially degrading ourselves, where its going to be really difficult for us to meet our requirements. Whether we like it or not, were a world leader. We have to lead in many different places around the world. We have to have the capabilities to do that. I worry that in the years ahead that if we dont solve this problem, we wont have that capability to do that. A couple of questions. Can you confirm or deny that the u. S. And turkey have agreed on a safe zone in northwest syria . Gen. Odierno i have not been involved with that, so i cannot discuss that. How many iraqis including kurds and sunnis have been trained by the u. S. Forces on the ground . Gen. Odierno as of this morning when i was briefed, about 16,000 have been trained since the beginning of the year. According to focus and is came too close to the military troops have been trained. Gen. Lose were these . Gen. Odierno i dont know how close we are, but weve had conversations about this to make sure it doesnt happen. There are casualty reports from the campaign that a result of Coalition Air force strikes. Can you update me on that . Casualty reports in syria as a result of Coalition Air force strikes. Gen. Odierno im not aware of that. I cant answer your question. Thanks, general. What is the top military threat to the u. S. . Some have said russia appeared wanted to know if you agree with that. Also if the iran deal goes through, do you think that it will spend more money on supporting terrorism in the region and other malign activities . Gen. Odierno i would say the i believe russia is the most dangerous because of a couple of things. They are more mature than some other of our potential adversaries. And i think they have some stated intents that concern me in terms of how the cold war ended. So for me, i am concerned. Theyve shown some significant capability in ukraine to do operations that are fairly sophisticated. For me, i think should pay a lot of attention to that. What was the second question . On iran. Gen. Odierno first, i support anything that reduces the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. That supports the nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Me. Se i support the part of it. But as i said before, we can be cannot be naive. We must understand that iran is conducting operations in several different countries, with or be, syria, iraq, and we must beware of that and assume that some of the money they get if the stations are lifted will be used to continue some of this activity. I think we have to be very aware of that and watch it very, very closely. Major acquisition programs during your tenure have not been terribly successful. Use have said youve been in budget deadlock almost the whole time. What are you saying to your successor, had you feel passing the modernization position of the army forward, and what are any priorities . Gen. Odierno for the first time, i would tell you because of the new Army Operating concept of war fighting, for the first time we have a good understanding of what we need. For us its about protection and situational awareness. We are at developing local mobile protective firepower for medium, heavy units. And continuing to increase our ability to situational awareness. We have programs in place to do that, we have to continue to push those programs. I think those the ones for me that are the most important. We also have to consider to work command and unmanned capability, autonomous capability. All of those things are going to be very important to us as we moved to the future. What went wrong with the syria train and equip program . Moving forward should the u. S. Continue to fund the program or focus on other partners . Gen. Odierno i think the training went fine. Its how you then deploy those forces. I think we will learn some lessons from that of figure out how we best can employee to ensure their survivability and viability in the region. I think thats the kind of thing we have to work on. They are working very hard to make sure we do that much better than we did this first time. What are some of the Lessons Learned . Gen. Odierno its about how you use them and where you use them, and can we provide some protection . I think those are the kind of things it to take a look at as we go forward. Back back to the withdrawal from iraq, can he talk about why leaving troops in iraq could have made a difference . What could they have done to change the situation . Gen. Odierno one of the things that i believed happened is the Iraqi Security forces became politicized. And what happened is leaders were taken out, leaders had to do not who was loyal to iraq, but not loyal to the leaders. That caused problems because you no longer had an army that had representation from many different parts of iraq, you had it mainly from certain parts of iraq. I think if we were there, we could have prevented things like that. I think we could have reassured some of the other groups that they would continue to be able to participate, not only in the military, but in the government as well. Is a lesson that can be applied to afghanistan . Gen. Odierno i believe it is. I dont mean to everyone says why cant we do what we did in germany, korea, japan . Because we kept people there for long. Long periods of time. We are still there 70 years after. Its much smaller, and a different relationship. Thats how you helped to establish longstanding institutions. Im not trying to compare germany and japan or korea to the middle east. Its a different environment. I am not saying its exactly the same. Dont get me wrong. But what i would say is having as there helps to establish an institution that is capable of being a more sustainable and lasting for much longer. Was there a way around the issue over whether or not there were Legal Protections . Gen. Odierno you would have had to have the Iraqi Parliament approve that. And that was the problem. I dont know if we could have convinced them to do that or not. I will say we have the same problem initially when we initially hammered out the agreement and 2008. I dont know the answer that question. And thats it. Could we convince them it was in their own best interest, and our best interest to have a stay longer . I cant tell you if we could do that or not. When you have stayed without was it the right decision . Gen. Odierno no. Because what would happen if is you put your soldiers and marines at risk for being arrested. Theres also to the international friendly, we frankly we were in violation of international law. We were there under a u. N. Mandate that ended at the end of 2008 and then we have agreement with iraq that ended at the end of 2011. We would have been there illegally if we didnt have that agreement. The way you frame that you make it sound as if there was never any serious robust effort to convince the Iraqi Parliament. Gen. Odierno i hesitate to say that because i was not there during that time. I am told there was an effort to do that. I cant tell you if it was a robust effort, i dont want to comment because i sibley wasnt simply was not there at the time. If i was there, i would give you an honest answer, but i was not there at that time. On syria, how you see the future of syria . Do you believe a political solution could find place without having the syrian president part of it . Gen. Odierno i dont know. My assessment would be i think it would be different to have a serious look like syria and we did before. I think it is probably forever changed in some way. One of the things we have to work through is with our partners in the region, what will it look like . I think we have to think about that. I dont think any of us have a solution right now for that. And whether that includes the current leadership to still be in place are not i dont know. , i think that is some thing we have to think about as we go forward. When you say partner in the region, do mean iran as part of those partners . Gen. Odierno i dont know, we have to see. The best solution would be if we get everyone to agree. I think you want anybody to be involved with that. Whether that comes up with a resolution or not, thats probably a good question. When you call the war against isis a stalemate and u. S. Intelligence agencies estimate that isis is the same strength, 20,000 to 30,000 fighters it was the beginning. Dont you get time to change the strategy . Gen. Odierno heres what i would say. They may be at the same strength, but i will tell you based on what ive seen, we have significantly reduce the leaders that were in there. That is what we have done before. That makes a difference. Now you have second, third, fourth stringers coming in. The problem is they are still able to recruit and stay at 20,000 to 30,000, thats whats concerning to me. They are not as capable as they were a year ago, they are not as capable as they were 18 months ago. But they are still able to recruit and get people to come in and fight. Thats whats concerning. This is why this is not a solely military solution. There has to be a solutions. Theres an Information Campaign here that they are very successful, continuing to recruit people to come in there. Thats part of what we have to try and do with our partners is have a more moderate voice that doesnt make this look like it is a great cause. Thats part of a we have to work with. Reporter you mentioned ukraine from Russian Forces as you leave and talk about whether the strategy is working in iraq, do you have any evidence as far as deterring russia is working there and am curious as you talk about russia as the primary threat, how concerned are you that russia will try the same strategy in estonia and latvia . Gen. Odierno russia is assessing the action of 80 through any of their actions and based on what i worry about is his calculation, that they perceive that nato might not be as concerned and make a mistake and miscalculate and do something that would violate article five. That is something that greatly concerns me. Is we have too do continue to refocus nato and our interoperability with our nato partners to build capability. We are on her way to do that and we have a long way to go. We have to continue to increase our ability to move quickly there and i think we can do that equipment, bying helping to increase interoperability between nato forces and understand what capabilities are available. I think we have to keep working at that because a true deterrent is one where people worry if , there will be some level of response. We have to look at that so we can deter any further actions. That deterrent is not there at this point. Gen. Odierno i think we have deterrent there but i think what we have to do is to continue to increase that so the risk goes up for anybody who might consider conduct operations this year. Reporter you talked about russia and the threat that it poses, yet the army has not been preparing for international. Arfare is this army prepared for intentional confrontation with russia given the time of preparation . Gen. Odierno in the last 18 months, we have really started to train for what we call hybrid warfare ihich is the consider russias conduct. 10 at our Training Center this year almost exclusively focused on this. We are in the process of increasing our capability to do this, and your point is a good one. We came out of 10 years doing counterinsurgency operations and what we have had to do is very different. Tot we need is we need dollars in order for us to build capability. We have been doing that for a year and half. If all of a sudden the sequestration comes in, that will have an impact and thats one of the concerns. Ourave about 33 of brigades who can operate at that level. My goal is we should have about 60 and that is what we are working toward. We are hoping by the next couple of years i dont want to give a date. Have the nato actors what have the nato exercises shown as far as [inaudible] last time we were doing this in europe, our job was to protect western europe. One thing we want is the logistical challenges. Eastern europe has a differing gauge railroad then western europe does, so moving supplies is more difficult. So we are learning lessons like ability to sustain ourselves over time and our interoperability and capabilities nato has and how to integrate those is another question. We are using a center that we have to do that and we have a large exercise going on with our partners to continue to work this problem. Do you have any details about the Helicopter Crash that occurred in okinawa . Gen. Odierno we are still waiting to find out what happened. I dont know yet exactly what happened. I was briefed on it this morning but the briefing was we had a Helicopter Crash and we are not quite sure what happened. We have investigators there taking a look at it. Reporter do you know what type of training was taking place . Gen. Odierno training of special Operations Forces with several different nations. Reporter there were two Japanese Selfdefense personnel on that . Gen. Odierno i do not want to comment on that because i dont have the facts. There have been conflicting reports. Reporter i want to ask if there was a concern that it would have an impact on the greater strategy or the security of the relationship between the u. S. And japan, especially given opposition to gen. Odierno im nogo