three former centcom commanders have all three suggested that we should learn to live with an iranian bomb much the way we learned to live with a soviet bomb under stalin and a chinese bomb under moo see tongue, and i'm just wondering where you would come out on this. these are three guys that understand the problem, and they say we should learn to live with it obviously in exchange for some geopolitical deal which would include hamas and all sorts of things. >> okay, well, i'll start. i think where you stand depends on where you sit, and i think it's interesting that you sort of identified these generals, very knowledgeable, very worldly generals, but they all come from centcom. i've spent some time working for centcom, as i'm sure you have, and they tend to look at iran as a management problem. when they look at the middle east, the assumption is that the iranian nuclear program is so robust that it's impossible to derail completely, and there are, you have to manage it. and there's obviously ways to make iran more predictable. the way i see it, iran has a little bit of dual charact

is centcom looking at that? is the air force in the central command looking at that? >> the head to head to another meeting. i think general mcchrystal, who is taking over into spoke i think at length about this in his confirmation hearing last week talked about his desire to make sure that we get a better hold of the civilian casualty problem in afghanistan. and i think the secretary has every confidence that general mcchrystal is precisely the guy to put this in a better place. we have taken a number of measures, as you know, to greatly restrict our use of close air support as it is, but i think general mcchrystal is desirous of finding a way to further reduce the number of civilian casualties we encourage. i can only point to the numbers the secretary has, just as a constant reminder of what we are dealing with here, and since the beginning of this year civilian casualties in afghanistan are down 40%, whereby american casualties and coalition-- that of our coalition partners and afghan security forces have shot up 75%. so we are taking extraordinary care, but we ar

i think that there are a number of factors and centcom is planning for this whether they have done enough planning, whether that planning is moving at a pace that's going to accommodate the downsizing and the ramp up we don't know yet. >> but specifically what opportunities are there for abuse or fraud or waste with rapid withdrawal? >> i think as the troops are withdrawing from iraq as an example, we are probably going to have to rely on contractors to remain there to close down the bases or pass them on to the iraqi east. and one difficulty that was brought to our attention for example just shows lack of planning and for thought on this is they pulled out the air conditioning units in buildings that were going to be passed to the iraqi some and then had to go back and reinstall them again because they just didn't think enough about when they took the equipment out it would still be needed because the iraqi is were going to take over. but all the decisions on reset, which equipment gets sent back here for rehab, which is going to go to the reserve components, which will be scrapped, whic

but, i am going to really leave it to centcom and their team there and general thomas to figure out how the old smedley present this final report to you, although i can tell you it's exhausted and it looks as though the guys on the ground were involved in this incident, took great pains to limit civilian casualties, to target those who would attack them but in the process of this bombing run, it looks as though they had to break away from the target at least for a period and there is no way to determine whether or not that had anything to do with the fact that civilian casualties did incur in this incident but they did note that is one of the problems associated with how this all took place. >> what about the early allegations that the taliban had killed some of these the vellis sins initially? what were some of the findings on that? >> this was all prompted by the allegation that some former government of afghanistan officials had been beheaded by the taliban. afghan forces wanted to undertake an operation against the taliban who were responsible for the beheadings, asked for assistanc

which will be turned over to the iraqi, all of those planning decisions are currently being made by centcom. but again, i am not yet comfortable that there are not a lot of holes in the planning process. >> and i might add as an example when we were on one of the bases, the military enlisted person that is going to be involved in some of the support activity pointed over and said it will get all those containers. i haven't opened them, i don't know what is in there and that is the point we accumulate material and now we are going to have to inventory while the military it is dwell time if they are given 90 days they're going to leave and 90 days about the outcome is contractors are going to have to go out and figure out because there could be very sensitive equipment so you can just give it to them and so the important point is as we see it decline in the military there isn't going to be proportional decline in the contract in fact it might go the other way depending on the activity. 600,000 line items have to be tracked. >> we all know we need contractors. we had one contractor for every s

centcom and u.s. interagency counterinsurgency neverts these key nations, as well as further endanger the lives of u.s. soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, civilians, and contractors presently serving there, end quote. general petraeus is correct. we should stand with our troops in the field and prohibit release of these photos. we should not leave it in the hands of aclu lawyers or at the mercy of activist judges. i urge my colleagues to reject this package and insist that it is brought back immediately with senator lieberman's and graham's language to prohibit release of of these photos. finally, the senate-passed troop bill included language prohibiting release or transfer of guantanamo bay detainees to u.s. soil. unfortunately this conference report does not prohibit the transfer or release of detainees after october 1 of this year. this is a huge mistake. i fear we are already beginning to open pandora's box. we have already begun importing terrorists. these guantanamo detainees are trained to fo

thank you to the leaders thankof centcom. this provides me an opportunity to convey his message of continuity and commitment to all of america's friends and partners in the gulf region and the middle east. today i would like to discuss with you the most pressing security challenges faced by the united states and the nations of the gulf and other arab states, and offer some thoughts on how we can deal with those challenges during greater resolve. since my career in government began more than 42 years ago, security and stability of the gulf region have been a central consent -- concern of every u.s. administration. i was on the national security council staff of the white house in the 1970's when the carter doctrine was formulated, based on the tenants that america would do what was necessary to defend our vital interests in the gulf. this policy was adopted by subsequent administrations. during the 1980's, the united states stood with the cooperation council to keep vital sea lanes open and then the coalition that came togethe

when i see her i think of my mother because she is a practical nurturing caring per centcom she reminds me of my sister, her friends, my cousin, of the one who smile is something i always wanted to emulate. again the one who seems to glow, she just embodied so many people for me. she represents the best in me so that is what prompted me to write my letter and thank you for allowing me to express it [applause] >> xdxdas peggy mentioned i live here in been district of columbia on pennsylvania avenue burper i have had a chance to observe the inaugural the last four times and i have had a chance to wade through the president's and first lady's so watching for the planning for this was a challenge. but i must confess, my thoughts about michelle may have been a little different in that after living in d.c. for so long and working for the federal government, i have had a firsthand look at all of the first ladies and all of the other people around. i know when they get into the white house, people expect them to act but there is no job description. that is what i was concerned about that if any

let's start with the profession and you, the per centcom the pollster, the guru of american and international polling. there is two different views of this. users of it think of it as the crack a change -- crack cocaine politics the mother's "milk" but the viewers watching you do your crack think it is black magic. how do you see yourself? >> i actually read, and the book is not in defense of pollsters or consulting, the book is self critical and critical of the profession. i value and respect the leaders i worked for. one of the things i try to underscore in the end about these leaders believe in things are brought them to politics it can be honorable parkway very important part. one of the things barack obama candidacy your presidency is making policy is a reduction of cynicism about politics and whether you try to be hopeful or reduce your level of skepticism a little bit to give political leaders a chance and give them some space to do what they say they will do. going around the world on the book tour i have done britain, israel, south africa, people everywhere there is a little more ope

. >> can you tell us what the typical rotational cycles are of soft personnel particularly in centcom and how that may be affecting what you best feel like you can do with regard to keeping up with such a pace in terms of rotation of personnel. i know that's been an issue that's coming up in the broader context with our military but i want specifically want to be concerned with the special operation forces? >> yes, sir. the service components have sort of evolved into different rotational paces depending on the nature of the force, the type of equipment they used, the nature of the operations that they're conducting so it ranges from about 90 days on the short end for some of our aviators who fly an awful lot of hours at night on night vision goggles who burn up their more allotted hires quickly and come back and need to reset. through about seven months for our special forces operational detachment a teams be the green berets who are at battalion level rotations at that pace and then it extends beyond that to one-year rotations for many of the people assigned at the higher headquarte

the fact that we have got general petraeus at centcom who is so important and influential in the decision to surge in the troops into iraq also gives me comfort. i think he understands what's necessary even though the situations are very different ones but it is a huge challenge and i suspect -- i hope he will continue to see the current administration recognize the importance of going after bad guys inside pakistan. >> thank you. >> thanks. [applause] thank you. >>> how is c-span funded? >> private donations. >> tax payers. >> i don't really know. >> public television. >> donations. >> i don't know where the money comes from. >> federally. >> contributions from donors. >> 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >>> here's a look at the separation of powers between executive and legislative branches of government. you will hear from a panel of authors and journalists who cover the white house and capitol hill. this is one hour and 45 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> i hope you

. >> thank you tell us what the typical rotational cycles are of soft personnel particularly in centcom and how that may be affecting what you feel you can best do with regard to keeping up with the pace in terms of the rotation of personnel? i know that's come up in the broader context of our military. i specifically am concerned with how that's affecting you in special operations forces. >> yes, sir. the service components have sort of evolved into different rotational paces depending on the type of equipment they use, the nature of the operations they are conducting. it ranges from about 90 days on the short end for some of our aviators who fly an awful lot of hours at night on night-vision goggles and who burn up their allotted flying hours more quickly and therefore need to come back and sort of reset. through about seven months for our special forces operational detachment a teams, the green berets who are at battalion level rotations at that pace. then it extends beyond that to one-year rotations for many at the headquarters to provide a campaign continuity at the effort of the m

the fact that we've got general petraeus at centcom who was so important and influential in the decision to surge our troops into iraq also gives me comfort. i think he understands, you know, what's necessary although, obviously, the situations are very, very different ones. but it is a huge challenge. and i suspect that -- i hope -- i hope that you'll continue to see the current administration recognize the importance of going after bad guys inside pakistan. >> thank you. >> thanks. [applause] >> thank you. >> our coverage of the conservative leadership ends with remarks from syndicated columnist rebecca hagelin. this is 30 minutes. >> hello, my i attend amherst college and i i'm a intern with the clare boothe luce policy institute. our next speaker is a political commentator and acclaimed author. she's been married for almost 25 years and is a proud mother of three children. she's served as the heritage foundation vice president of communications and marketing and is currently their senior communications fellow. she's worked in public relations for center of conservative studies for co

general david petraeus, who i met at sent come last week and had -- at sent come last week and -- at centcom last week, he said it was it's going to tie our hands and not allow us to do what the military needs to do to train and assist in this issue. nobody has any qualms or quarrels with the majority side saying this is something that needs to be done. the issue is a jurisdictional problem with troords whether state or d.o.d. has input or actually controls what goes on in this program. look, i've been to pakistan and afghanistan three times in the last year. i understand what's going on there. i know how hard the pakistanis are fighting to control what's going on. we need to do what we can do to help with the counterinsurgency problem. even our own president, it's my understanding the president does not support this particular piece of legislation and it has already been said on the floor today that senator kerry does not support this particular piece of legislation sornings those are the facts. others may not want to necessarily address those facts and say that they are in fact true, but t