Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20101124

a good wednesday morning to you. i hope if you are getting ready to travel you will spend time with us this morning before and and for those of you think about going through airport security, a question about whateally works as the debate has played out over the past couple of days on line and in the media about the airport's security screening enhanced measures that went into effect november 1. our newspapers are filled with stories, front-page is around the country have lots of related stories. let me show you in "the baltimore sun." bwi airport, one of the biggest in the nation in the service area. the front page has the story. activists plan to urge flyers to opt out of the imaging program, forcing delays. below that, at airports and brace for protests. he writes -- "usa today" has a front-page story about polling and what fliers find most useful. despite the boycott buzz, new scanners are favored. nearly six out of 10 air travelers say they are bothered are angered by sorrow pat downs. -- thorough pat downs. three-quarters of travelers faced with a screening choices for for the full body scanning machines. the story about the money behind a scanning machines is one that our guest has been covering, also with "usa today." on the phone with us this morning. i want to ask you about this program that is many years in the making and involves federal contracts. what can you tell our audience? guest: something the federal government had been considering for a while and that lead to contracts last year to l3 communications and -- systems to give them another tool for detecting explosive devices that traditional x-ray machines cannot detect. l3 communications has sold nearly $40 million worth of machines to the government and has a contract worth up to $165 million and the rapid scan has sold about $41 million worth of machines to the government's, up to $173 million. host: was dollars at stake and more to follow, you write about lobbying efforts. can you tell our audience about that? guest: one of the things that has been striking -- and we take a look at lobbying from time to time as part of our coverage -- is both of these companies have increased their lobbying dramatically, more than doubled over the last five years. l3 communications, which is a pretty sizable contractor, does work for the government beyond aviation security, has spent about $2.1 million in 2005, in all in -- in all of 2005, on lobbying, and $2.3 million in the first nine months of this year. they spent more than $5 million last year and last year they got the contract. rapid scan systems have seen their lobbying go up dramatically. at the same time, they employ people who are well known in washington. we write about the fact that l3's lobbyists include linda daschle, former federal aviation official and wife of former senate majority leader tom-all -- daschle. alfonse d'amato is a lobbyist. one thing that has caused -- caused uproar is a rabbit scan's hiring of michael chertoff, former homeland security secretary. to be clear, he is not a lobbyist. he provided them advice on non- aviation security issues. but it caused quite a stir in washington. host: how many more purchases ahead? where are they and the program? guest: they are going to be an all the passenger airports, 450, by the end of next year. i do not have the precise amount of the number of machines that they have in airports. i have been told by some of the companies they may not hit the level of $173 million in purchases allowed under the contract. just kidding but the government great flexibility to ramp,. host: thank you for details about the money story behind the machines getting so much discussion across the united states today. we appreciate it. a reporter for "usa today" on the money and politics side. the christian science monitor tells us of the program is over budget. it originally estimated at $2.6 billion. life cycle costs for all kinds of scanners is a $4.3 billion, according to the gao. what was originally a seven-year plan is a 13-year plan. we have statistics we will put on the screen. they cost about 130,000 up to $170,000 per machine. full body scanners in 68 airports right now with more to come. our question for you is what really works. pennsylvania. bart is of first this morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am, of course, in favor of screening of passengers. i think it is necessary. host: what kind of screening? scanning? caller: that is what i wanted to discuss. first of all, it annoys me that they allowed government officials to get government officials on their side not to go through screening. number two, the types of equipment being used for the screening, the x-ray, i think could have been done possibly through a magnetic resonance for people are not exposed to radiation. for many people it is a problem for them to be exposed to radiation. i am all -- also the issue that someone like michael chertoff is a consultant for a company that is involved in this does not seem proper to me. host: we are asking what really works. on that, republican from florida. caller: good morning, susan. what really works? look at the people. why in the world are they doing what they did to the little six- year-old boy? on anyasn't an american of the planes on 9/11. but lou is going through all the full body scanners and stuff? they are not the students on visas, immigrants, they are the regular americans and little bitty kids. this is stupid. host: michael bloomberg in the new york tabloids, quit whining, is the headline. mayor bloomberg has a message for air travelers taking about birds is abating and the national hot dog protest -- deal with that -- deal with it. next is tennessee. we are asking what works in airport security. caller: thank you for taking my call. as for mayor bloomberg, i wonder if he is aware that these politicians who write these laws authorities pat downs and screenings are not subject to them themselves. if they are going to write the laws, they should be subject to them. pat downs -- i do not know what their conditions as in washington, but mine says we're safe from unreasonable search and seizure. did that go out of the window whenever somebody in washington yells national security, does the constitution get shocked? -- chucked. host: upper marlboro, maryland. anthony, a democrat. caller: good morning, c-span. it does not matter what kind of security measures are provided because it is all senseless to me. if you are going to try to protect people at the airport you would think he would have security measures outside the airport and not inside the airport. that is as stupid as me, to your house with a bomb and you did not check me until i come into your bathroom or something. more people on an airport that in a plane so why not protect the thousands of the airport as opposed to the 150 or 200 people on the plane. host: anthony from upper marlboro, maryland. a viewer tweets this -- >> is springlike, north carolina it, talking about safety in the air -- next is north carolina. caller: i would like to make a question in the statement. first of all, why are they using the airplane's like a stress test? it is like it is some kind of script -- psychologist trying to find out what kind of mayses these rats will run through. personally, you take your chances of getting one it played anyway. you're going to have to die one day. host: johnson -- tweets this -- "the new york times" business day has in this -- where asking what works in their port security. in atlanta on our independent line. caller: first of all, i think you are the best holst that c- span has ever had, so i wish you were on five days a week and not just one. host: thanks, alan. caller: my thoughts about airport security is it is a fraud on the public. the public are sheep. the constitution needs to be rewritten and replace the word people with a sheetple because the people put up with any lies and nonsense that our elected legislators choose to enact or promulgate. it is basically business -- as you mentioned earlier, chertoff is involved in the purchase of these machines and therefore he is making -- his company is making a great deal of money. the solution is political. these machines will not stop anybody really wants to do harm to our airline system because terrorists could drag a carry on a bagful of c4 into an airport, look themselves up at the checkpoint and kill hundreds of people. it is value less. it is showtime that they are actually doing something. host: what would be useful? caller: there is a political problem in the middle east. the tail is wagging the dog. israel is wagging the u.s. government. i do not know if you reported it recently, but we are paying them $30 million a day to stay at the peace table. it and the arabs -- and the arabs are just outraged by it. it is political. it's called your call from atlanta, georgia. but on his first point about al qaeda and its intentions, don't know if you saw the coverage but last weekend and a number of media outlets they were talking about a new magazine, the third edition of which, has been published. it is an english language magazine done by an affiliate of al qaeda. it the name is called "in speyer." we have a copy from it to show you what they were saying about the latest about the printers on the cargo planes. they brag about the fact that it took them only $4,200.30 people involved and just a couple of months for that and that it worked because of increased security. here is an exact quote from that magazine. to bring down america, we need not strike big -- if we could show this, please. we are asking you about what really works and airport security. next up is michigan. this is joe on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i tell you what would work. floreen naked. -- flying naked. you could wear a raincoat with nothing underneath. it works. i am serious. host: you are serious but that will certainly not happen. the front page of "the philadelphia inquirer or" has a profile of a guy who is one of the grass roots people behind todays opt out protest. here is what they write about the montco man, a liter of air security protest. -- leader of the air security protest. a little more insight about this gentleman. he lives in montgomery county, outside of philadelphia. he is an advertising consultant who works in his home. his company is loudly protesting the enhanced screenings. if you haven't seen this website, we have it right here. it is called wewontfly.com. while we are looking at that we will take the next telephone call. caller: i would like to comment on all of this tsa stuff. george soros had a lot of money and the scanners used at airports and tsa promised us the pictures are not transferable, you can send them anywhere but we are finding all of these pictures on the internet. we have children and women being fondled. all of this is costing the american taxpayer a lot of money, it has taken away their dignity when all we have to do is go to racial profiling, and that is free. and it works. go to israel. israel has advanced intelligence gathering ways of doing this. they are virtually save in their airways. there is no reason why we can't do this here. we've got tsa fondling children, fondling women, half of them don't even want to do it. i am not blaming tsa and i am blaming their leadership and blaming our government because we are from all of our money on these machines that are taking naked pictures of our bodies, posting them on the internet and getting george soros rich when all you have to do is racially profile and is free. host: joe, and regular on twitter does not like the question. we are talking about airport security. wichita of oz, texas. george is a democrat. caller: when i was a kid in the early 1950's there was a shoe store in my home town and they had a device where you would go in and put on a new pair of shoes and you could step on this thing -- called a fluoroscope, and you could see your bones and the outline of the shoe. over a period of time we found this was exposing people to a tremendous amount of radiation, that it leaks radiation. it is made by the adrian x-ray co. in milwaukee and it was designed by the same guy who designed the oscar meyer wiener mobile, brooks stevens. they found this was really harmful to people and they quit using them. now they popped up again and they are just big fluoroscopes. i think it is dangerous to expose people to this much exarate. they can certainly find better technology than this because this is out of the 1940's and 1950's. host: harold kurtz who writes for "the daily beast" says the media is pat down a frenzy. he writes that he might get the impression by the coverage that millions of airline passengers are being groped and humiliated by having had the security guards. of network newscasts a local tv to miss the from pages to a blur of headlines, it is brought untold numbers of women are having their breasts touched an end having the interest of hands and your packages. it is not true. despite some outrageous incidents involving in the attic -- exotic conduct, when a 99% are not affected. very few people get a pat down at all. a john pistole told me -- i do not know what the impression is that it is a very small number. the only people objected had doubts are those who opt out of the new full body scanners or set off an alarm that can be triggered by having anything in your pocket. seconds, the scanners are used in only 70 airport although more are being rolled out. but after a full week of journalist things slogging it blew led the three network morning shows and newscasts, dragging itself on one program to the next for the rich will hazing. of the front page of "the new york times" and it got "saturday night live" treatment with clearing tsa guards promising a sex experience. how did this leak into the media stratosphere? back to your phone calls about airport security. the atlantic beach, new york. good morning to joe, independent. caller: so much to say on this subject, and believable. i would like to know, number one, if the same people who are telling us these machines are say are the same people who told us it is safe to breathe the air and ground zero? they were lying, too. we have to rethink this whole thing. what happens if a bomb goes off any restaurant or a movie theater? does anybody get frisked before they go into a movie theater or restaurant? is that where we are going? do we start to look at cause and effect? do we keep going around the world dropping cluster bombs on people and the drones and killing people and think this is going to bring us good will and this is going to bring good things to us? we have to rethink our entire policy. we can't live like this. i am so proud of people that are -- that won't allow the government idiots to take away their civil rights, they're guaranteed civil liberties, and their dignity. i am so proud of those people. keep going. keep fighting. host: ellen is in pennsylvania. republican. caller: thank you so much for your program. my opinion is, why are they own -- all winding -- whining? i thoroughly believe in being x- rayed. doctors and x-ray, and it is for your benefit. why they keep whining, whining -- we are a bunch of sissies and this country. host: beverly in vermont. democrat. caller: i among the same wavelength as the lady before may. during world war ii, people gave up -- i mean, people gave up everything to keep this country going, with the people working overseas and a poor man losing their lives. we were giving up -- we had coupons for everything -- sugar and butter and gas and rubber. and people were saving and did everything possible. and here they are whining because they can't take their fans a trips around the world or wherever they are going to go, and they don't want to have somebody pat them down to make sure that the plane is going to be safe. what they rather be blown up or what? i just don't understand what the heck is going on in this country. people act like they are all from some higher class. don't touch me because i am better than anybody else. host: beverly from vermont. a political rights and alternative -- "politico" writes about an alternative. airport security, what really works? next is a call from sarasota. this is cj on the independent line. caller: good morning. i am calling about the pat down at the airport. i spent 60 years as a sales engineer selling solutions to problems for our company. we have a very simple solution to the problem. sarasota florida, right now, we fly one airplane and day between our airport and newark airport. if you want to go at the convenient time, that one time, you get on that plane. what i am suggesting is each of the airlines have one flight a day that is a non-pat down flight between each of the cities. and all you have to do is allow these people to buy a special ticket that allows them to get on that flight, and they will simply get on their flight and take their chances. host: does your asks -- this viewer asks -- in this piece about why we need security measures in -- next is harrisburg. suzanne, republican. caller: good morning, how are you? i don't know where to start. first of all, for those who are saying stop whining, i wonder if that was the attitude we have the big public bruhaha 1 warrantless wiretapping was exposed by "the new york times?" did they stay -- say to stop whining? i don't recall. what you read out of the "inspire" magazine, we are giving and it is exactly what they want. if we really want to stop them jumping, or asking how high when they say jump, it is definitely not going to deter them. they are the master and we are the puppets and they are pulling our strength. finally, i don't think anybody really has an answer as to what works. i think every american citizen has to ask themselves, is suspending the fourth amendment, is that going to work? when we give up our liberties to government, it just gives them more power to take more of my freedoms, and i don't want to see that happen. host: tom tweets -- we have also gotten some e-mails on this topic. here is one of them. next is a phone call. it, from maryland. caller: can you hear me ok? i understand how people feel about getting patted down an x- ray and everything, but as soon as the airplane is blown up in the air because of something we didn't do, people are going to be looking at the government and they will be saying why didn't you do something. i think what we have here is a continuation of the protests by republicans and conservatives against what ever the government proposes, they are going to object. i understand that people have reservations about being exarate -- x-rays and being patted down but until we have a viable alternative, what else can we do? we have to try to protect the american people. i know flights that originate from other countries don't have the security that we have, but they don't have as many flights coming from those countries as we do leaving this country and flying domestically. so, we have a different situation. thank you very much. host: he mentioned politics. the two editorials pick up of the theme. "usa today" says partisans picked up -- seize on tsa award to promote discredited ideas. on the editorial page of "the new york times," politicizing airport security. at to your phone calls. cambridge, minnesota. independent. caller: good morning. hello? host: we are listening. caller: to ask the american people to really take a look at what is going on. we sat there and have given up so many of our civil liberties already. the people are saying that you will be saved if you go through this scanner or get a pat down, but you are not really save when you get on the airplane anyway because there is cargo that never gets investigated. when the airplane blows up even though you went through the scanner and stuff, that will be a problem, too. as far as giving up civil liberties, we already let them tap our phone calls, we already let him take our materials and throw them in the garbage and now we will allow them to take our bodies and expose them to x- rays and pat downs. from 10 years from 9/11, things are getting worse as far as civil liberties being given up and down -- not to getting benefits and been for you americans to think about. thank you. host: a few more races have been decided in the house of representatives. reporting in "the new york times." republicans racked up two more victories in house races with concessions of democratic incumbents in texas and new york. former radio show host with no experience in politics will take over the 27th district. here is his photograph, if we can show that. it was held by solomon ortiz since 1982. in new york, and marie bravo, assistant attorney general and endorsed by sarah palin will be the new representative of the 26 the district, from syracuse to rochester. here is the current tally with two undecided races. 242 republicans to 191 democrats. new york, good morning. this is richard. caller: good morning. i was in the south pacific so i know about radiation. the tsa workers -- these machines give out five to 50 times more than a regular x-ray. the word is, who benefits from these machines? michael chertoff order these before the underwear bomber. i watched on a show about husband and wife at the airport would be under bomber, commanded not have any identification, no passport, a well-dressed indian man said the man has the board the plane and got him on the plane. it is all an illusion. now this thing about germany -- they were drills. the president say they found a bomb in germany. it was an illusion. just like always is. just like 9/11. host: richard from new york. tsa has created an application for those of you have -- who have smartphones and ipad. my tsa. let me turn this around, so you can see what it looks like. what it tells you about reagan national airport. answers to questions about what you can bring. one other feature is down here, the wait times. they are asking travelers to postpone the wait times they have had going through security in particular -- to post the wait times. you pick a, for example, the north pier at reagan national and you can post it how much time you spend going through security. my tsa, an application for smartphones. new mexico. john, democrat. caller: many great calls this morning. first of all, thank god for c- span. host: thank you for watching. caller: you are awesome. where is your red jacket? host: can't do that every day. it gets boring. caller: the greatest free forum in the world is c-span but nothing -- there's nothing like it. for years, americans have been in charge of their own security. what keeps us from getting murdered driving down the freeway? every other person owns a gun. there are plenty of people who have been through federal background checks, hunters, shooters, law enforcement all their lives. i am not saying you can carry your gun in your airplane but you check your gun and a luggage and they give you a taser. the reason terrorist do not jumped out on a freeway and start killing people is other hand gold honors will kill them. why do we have to relegate our security to this creature of government, michael chertoff? look at the job the guy did and katrina and we still have him around in any capacity? he should not be a dog catcher. i do not agree with these screening technologies. these experts and radiation saying we are getting five times an x-ray. i do not agree with being touched. and i don't think we have any constitutional rights anymore. host: thanks. albuquerque, new mexico. jim agrees with some of his sentence -- sentiments -- ken, independent. caller: i am divided over this issue. but a lot of people taking it the wrong way because they keep saying the government and the first words in the constitution are we the people. i believe if we got back to the times, like the previous caller said, we should take care of security. we should have our own way of taking care of ourselves without having somebody making money from doing that same thing. and not to be too off the wall, and if we all walked around naked we would not have anything to worry about. host: a little chilly in the wintertime. from the new york pages of "the new york times." charlie rangel at a thanksgiving ritual. turkey ritual gives charlie rangel a brief respite. he delivered turkeys at the martin luther king democratic club in harlem. on monday he apologized for the embarrassment he brought upon you. next week the old united states house of representatives will decide whether to censure him, the toughest punishment short of expulsion. republican. go ahead, john. caller: could not agree more with the caller from new mexico. i don't think all of this is really about security. if it was, why not use bomb sniffing dogs or the types of machines they are using in the netherlands, that uses radio frequency that just shows an outline of the body but does not have an effect of radiation? it is about getting people used to this personal intrusion. where will we see this next? trains, bus stations, the malls? i think this is wrong. why did they wait a year to come out with this after that happens? i think the stability of the people who go along with this is just amazing. host: john from florida. also from new york, there has been a furor among some about the choice of mayor bloomberg as the new schools chancellor. cathleen black, publisher of "usa today" and now hearst magazine. she had to go through a process where the state panel would certify her. as you can see from the tabloids, but the state panel nixes his school. a black day for kathy. panel nixes giving her a waiver. here is the story -- that's a from new york. also from "the washington times ." the next telephone call is from shelton, washington. talking about airport security this morning. you are on the air. caller: i was here with you the first morning. host: when was that, barbara? caller: watching you. host: when was the first morning? caller: that you were on the air. host: 19-what? how about that? my goodness. caller: my mind keep going back to 9/11 and hearing what osama bin laden had to say about it. he said he was going to ruin us. he was going to change the way we lived in everything people do. and i am here to say, he won the war. look at us. host: barbara, we will let you go. thank you for watching all those years, 1979. this is from the associated press, in this morning's "philadelphia inquirer." britain's tightly limit non- european workers. back to airport security. and speaking of immigration, lynette tweets -- >> is a call from seattle. reid is a republican. caller: it is ironic that the few people will call before me made the point i would like to make. the gentleman who called about our freedoms is so right. benjamin franklin said that those who give up security for freedom deserve neither security nor freedom. the government talked about you carry a firearm to keep you say. i carry a firearm and i don't need to. i live in a safe area. and the gentle lady that called said that osama bin laden has already won. i would like to say, no, he hasn't. but what we need to solve this is to understand in our world that there are men and women and that is how god created the world and all the men -- if you are in a public place, something happens, and a woman says, no, don't fight, just ignore them. that is a natural women's reaction -- with all respect to women. men know that at a certain point, you have to fight. just like an animal kingdom, male animals know that when a fight exist, it will be a fight to the death -- the debt. not just a fluke -- few blows and you run. what i am trying to say is i think that the day this will stop is the day that an american president's stand up to the microphone and says we are pulling our troops out, and if you think of some of bin laden has won, he has not won. we will retain freedoms. but here's the deal, you attack us one more time we will strike countries with nuclear weapons, we will take out medina and any of your religious sites and you will watch a revolution have been in their own countries because these extremists are a small minority. they need to go through a revolution through their own religious culture and get out of the stone age like we did. we separated government from religion, and that is what needs to happen. they need this renaissance. if you pull american troops out -- host: you made your point. thank you from seattle. just a couple of minutes left. here is an e-mail. for those advocate racial profiling, explain how it will work. israel has won international airport and the u.s. has over 400 and logistics are mind- boggling. connecticut is on next. margaret is a democrat. a good morning. caller: i used to live in the u.k. for a long time -- check and staff at an international airport. we were having issues with northern ireland issues. so, we were told by security that everybody was treated the same because -- children, everybody, men and women, everybody the same. this is a major distraction i think about these airport procedures. i don't like the idea -- after some searching, i do wear a prosthesis and i will be pulled aside. i was flying at last year just days before the underwear bomber, i believe london heathrow, and we were waiting at -- in line at the gate and there was a passenger, middle eastern descent, and he was right there stripped-down to one garment of underwear, that was it, right in front of everybody. he was not take into a cubicle. just pulled out of line. he did it quietly. if passengers here think they are being treated roughly here, we until they get abroad because it is going to be much more different over there. i do remember as a child that there was an incident -- you have to be careful about everybody because it was an israeli flight out of israel and i believe a jordanian had an irish girlfriend and he passed something on her, and he was not flying, she was, so if they had not pulled her aside for, a young irish girl, that plane was blown up as well. i did not know if others remember that. i was just a child and i was born in the 1950's. you do have to be careful about everybody. i do think this is a major distraction for how many people fly out. i can't believe that many people are making that big of a fuss. but thank you for listening. host: "usa today" has a map about airports that have body scanners. we have atlanta to our website, c-span.org. we told you before that this program will continue to roll out, so more to come in the future. pennsylvania. bob, you will be our last caller on this topic. make it a good one, ok? caller: i have a couple of things to say about the airport security. number one, if it is no big deal, how come none of the government officials, nor their families, have to go through this? number two, this full body scan and strangers patting it you down, no one is supposed to see this and it is being shown on national television. so, now, the government has the american people going to like sheep to the slaughter. we have no choice. this is what we have to do. there has to be a better way. and then the people need to understand that even though the terrorists have not won, we, the american people, are being denied our right to private -- privacy, our right to freedom, and we are prisoners of the war that we are having with the terrorists. host: thank you, bob. airport security, what really works. thank you for your comments. we are going to move to our next topic, which is to help us understand more about what is really behind the tensions on the korean peninsula. we will be right back. >> it is wednesday, november 24, here in korea. north korea attack the south korean island night -- island near the disputed western sea border to the afternoon, killing two south korean marines and injuring at least 18 others, including others. the attack, unprecedented and scale since the korean war ended in 1953, caused extensive damage, setting residential areas on fire. soon afterward, south korea returned fire and deployed fighter jets. for the latest on this, let us go to our reporter who joins us on the phone from the defense ministry. what has been happening since the attack? >> south korean defense minister and u.s. defense secretary robert gates held talks on north korean firing of artillery shells and upgraded to coordinate and a response to no. 3 opossum latest provocation. the two defense chiefs agree the north korean artillery assaults were a violation of the armistice agreement that ended the korean war. they said it was intentional. the secretary gave about to fully support south korea and always possible, saying the u.s. will cooperate to deal with the incident. the two officials also agreed to cooperate in an hinting the defense system and discussed ways to prevent further provocation by the communist state. >> what is the national defense stance on the situation? >> currently the entire military is on the highest peacetime alert. fire jets to ireland and the navy and army are on high defense alert. -- fighter jets are at the island. sang the attacks were intentional and inhumane due to harm to civilians. the wood of the best to restrain further provocations and stop the situation from getting worse and protect the west seat. the joint keith of staff chairman held telephone talks tuesday and agreed to consider declaring a joint crisis management. the united nations command also condemned the north attack and said it will investigate the incident as part of its responsibility to maintain the armistice agreement. and will determine any violations. back to you. >> "washington journal" continues. host: let me introduce you to michael greene. he is not the center for strategic and international studies, says the first term of the bush administration in and national security council as senior director for asian affairs. we are talking about the north korean peninsula and the tensions. i just want to ask you, since we have you at the table, depend an opinion piece for "the wall street journal" with the headline -- why we are always fooled by north korea. what is your point in the peace? guest: the main point my colleague and i were making, willl toby, for a good 10 years of intelligence agencies and the u.s. have said with some accuracy this is the escalation ladder they are moving toward. they are moving toward nuclear weapons capability, the missiles to deliver, and not much that we have done have not them off of that and we engaged in negotiations in good faith. i have been with many of them, to halt -- coax them away from nuclear weapons. they will sign agreements. they agreed to a dozen different frameworks and violated everyone. the point we are making is this crisis we should go into eyes wide open. there is not a deal to be had with this regime right now. we need to work at containing of putting pressure on them to create conditions where we have a modest chance of convincing them to move away from nuclear weapons. host: someone with a differe point of view. former president jimmy carter has written a piece that "the washington post" publish. listen to north korea. p'yongyang told the u.s. what it wants. here is a little bit what i have written. they spelled out in detail the desire for a denuclearized peninsula and permanent cease- fire based on the 1994 agreement -- it is true that north korean officials told the former president carter they wanted a deal like this. it is also the case that they said that in 1991 to the south koreans, they said it tonight -- in 1994 to us and in 2002 to the japanese and in 2005 to us -- in other words, we already reached an agreement with the north koreans at least half a dozen times and every single time they have cheated almost immediely. so, the north koreans have found that if they say we won a denuclearized peninsula and we want relations with the u.s., there are people like president carter who will try to make something of that. but i think the obama administration a deeply skeptical even the message given to president carter, because we have been through this so many times with the north koreans. the 1994 agreement president carter had a role in jumpstart and, had the north koreans agreed to freeze the plutonium facilities and we gave them eight and we gave them fuel and we started building new reactors for them. about the time they agreed to that they began working on another nuclear weapons program, a uranium enrichment, the facility that would reveal of this trip and this time by the former head of lost almost who himself knows how to build little weapons and he said it was stunning. it will freeze a piece of it, stop a piece of it, in exchange for eight or other things. but on another level, and another place, they will keep humming along on another aspect. that is the point we are making. it is like lucy in the fall in the peanuts, we just keep going back. not to say we shouldn't be talking to the north koreans. we should. it ia dangerous, isolated state. we need to try to build some level of confidence and communications. but we need to avoid the trap we fall into every time we have a crisis. it's tough at first and now we do not know how to get out of it so we start trying to work for a deal. the north koreans extracts from us the kind of concessions that allowed them to keep humming away on another part of their program. host: we are welcoming your questions or comments as we have been watching this play out all of these thousands of miles away. you probably heard this morning the white house has deployed the uss george washington aircraft carrier which will be arriving soon it to strengthen the u.s. alliance with south korea. what does that decision do for the tensions? guest: when i was in the white house we faced similar crises but i have to say the shelling in march when they sank the ship, a much higher level of violence and aggression. but having been through the crisis with the north koreans i could sympathize with the white house. on one hand, they don't want to feel a sense of crisis and a panic that north korea is trying to create. north korea lives of these crises. it assumes it and go to the brink of threaten war. they don't want to give them leverage. on the other hand, they have to deter north korea, the have to signal that there will be consequences if north korea keeps up the attacks. i suspect the administration will also send bombers to guam, our air force base in guam. . host: how many troops are there? guest: about 30,000 and then we have more in japan. and our obligation or our commitment of the security treaty is to come to the defense of south korea if they're attacked, if there's an act of war. this artillery barrage is being treated as short of an act of war. but it's very close to crossing the line, frankly. the north koreans are pushing this as far as they can without provoking an all-out war. host: the other thing is the anticipated change in leadership in the north korean regime. kim jong il reportedly ill. he has signaled his son will be successor. some papers, including one we showed from yesterday from australia, is showing this is a show of leadership, the show that the son is in command. can you comment a little bit about that analysis? guest: i think that's right. by the way -- the son's name is kim jeong yun. he went to boreding school in switzerland. he's kim jong il's third son. very few people have met him. host: we have a photo in this screen. guest: he's the younger guy in the black mouse suit. it's an interesting picture, by the way, because they have given him a haircut. he looks like kim jong il's father. it looks like a medieval monarchy and they're passing the thrown to the son. yes, these provocations probably are closely related to the succession. north korea is a system that doesn't have an economy that functions, that is right next to an extremely successful south korea. so to mobilize their society and repressed dissent they are constantly creating crisis and tension. so for the core nation, if you will, of the younger son, they are showing his military promise. he was promoted two months ago to a four-star general. not bad for a 27-year-old. he toured the artillery units that attacked the south korean islands. so this is creating a narrative in south korea giving him legitimacy. a 27-year-old kid who basically did nothing before. but it's also a bit dangerous because it's not clear who really is calling the shots. is kim jong il, the current leadering staging this for his son's coming out party? has power started to transition? does the son know how to control the brakes and the gas? it's not clear how these decisions are made internally which makes it quite dangerous, actually, as we try to anticipate their next move. host: we are going to mix in calls, tweets and emails from our audience. here is one from gary dun conwho tweets -- we need to get out of korea. we've been there for 60 years. it's not our problem. we have enough of our own. why does south korea need us? guest: they have a very combrissive military. the u.s. and south cree -- they have a very impressive military. the u.s. and south korea have agreed they will defend each other in event of the war. we have a four-star general if there is a war. we will play a supporting role. we are transitioning and shifting more of the responsibility to south korea. the reason we can't pull out our 30,000 troops is very simple. first, given north korean provocations all that would do would be to invite more. and second with the rise of chinese power the idea that the u.s. is withdrawing from the region will embolden china but also destabilize the region because countries like japan, australia will wonder how they're going to maintain stability with this rising china without the u.s. so, you know, a lot of americans served in korea and died in the korean war. we should be very proud of what we've achieved. south korea is a very successful society. the united states is very popular there. we're transitioning sponsibility to the south, but if we suddenly pull out we'll invite even more violence. by the way, this affects us. over half of our trade in the future is going to be with this region. and the north koreans, if they're embolden, will have a nuclear weapons capability will be a threat to us and our interests worldwide. we need to stay there and help. host: and what do you think about the summit? guest: south korea hosted the g-20. president obama went. it was one more gold star on south korea's chest and one more embarrassment for this decrepted stalinist regime in the north. it reminds the north korean people in the world that south korea may have all this respect, but north korea has nuclear weapons and is ready to fight a war. host: well, that in response to this tweet -- mr. green, how about a little shock and awe to pyongyang, wouldn't that humble the north koreans a bit? guest: the problem we have and it's a huge problem is that north korea's -- the d.m.z., the demiller tiesed zone, is about as close to downtown seoul is dulles airport is to washington, d.c. if war broke out, the north koreans would have well over 10,000 pieces of military and missiles that they would open fire on seoul. they have the south korean population hostage. would they blink, would they back down if we did a military strike on some of these facilities? we don't know. personally, i think there's a good chance of that but it's not raveg you want to run. we have a huge dilemma. the other problem we have and it's similar to iran is this uranium enrichment facility is only one piece of the whole complex. they'll have other things elsewhere that are hidden that are extremely hard for us to find. so military options are on the table and i think the -- everied a mfrlings' ready to come to the defense -- administration is ready to come to the defense of south korea if they attack. there is no shock and awe in this case. host: feet is a republican. you are -- pete is a republican. you're on the air. caller: thanks for talking about north korea. just real quick. i was curious. you talk about the major organizations internally to north korea. i'm speeblinging about the korean -- i'm speaking about the korean's people's army and i call the senior political. how -- i mean, one of those organs has to make a decision that the other one supports that condones an action like this. if you could talk some about that. second, you rarely hear about in western media, could you talk about coup attempts? there have been coup attempts against kim jong il. and i am throwing this in for humor sake. the koreans are -- north korean recently tried to help the failing economy by putting somebody in charge by manipulating the currency. if you want to share with the viewers how they deal with people who mishandle their currency publicly, it might be interesting for americans to know how they deal with it. thanks. host: all right. thank you, pete. guest: interesting. the decisionmaking structure within north korea is not transparent but we do know something about it. typically these communist regimes use the party, the communist party as a kind of check on the army and then the army has a check on the party and that's how kim il seong ran the party. and then when his son took over, the army is the leading institution in the country. and today there's an organization called the national defense commission in north korea which kim jong il chairs and his son is on now as a four-star general and i think there's very little debate about this fact, that that commission, under kim jong il ordered the attack on the south korean frigette in march. almost ordered this attack. is fully cognizant of the nuclear arms program. and has control of the north korean espionage activities. they have a huge black market organization, counterfeit viagra. under kim jong il and now his son. you ask about coup attempts. there is nothing to suggest there was a coup attempt. in the 1990's when there was a huge famine. as many as flee million people may have died of starvation. there was an army unit, an army corps that had elements that apparently rioted and tried to get food, fought with other army units. there was shooting and other violence. it's not clear, as far as i know, whether that was a rebellion to get food by foot soldiers or something more direct aimed at toppling kim jong il. and you asked about the economy. the north koreans, probably for the core nation, changed their currency to try to flood the market with a lot of cash so everybody would have more money in north korea and praise the new leader. what happened, of course, it created hyperinflation and the north korean people became even poorer because their currency was worth even less. there were even reports people burned currency in the streets which in north korea is quite bold. anyway, you're alluding to the architect, the guy who did this, the economic vice minister and they took him and shot him in the head. i'm not sure that's the way to handle currency for other countries but that's the way that north korea handled it. host: derrick, independent. caller: good morning, c-span. thanks for having me. my -- what are we going to do about north korea? i don't understand our country's foreign policy at all. we did a preemptive strike in iraq because we thought they had weapons of mass destruction. north korea already has nuclear weapons. you know, it's bad to our economy. like mr. green pointed out, they are the biggest smuggler of counterfeit bills. they take all our technology and they try to steal everything and duplicate it. they just torpedoed a submarine back in march? guest: yeah. caller: they have done other things as well. you know, they shot a -- you know, they had two nuclear tests, one in 2006 and i think the last one was 2009. this country is dangerous. we let them do whatever they want. you know, whether we -- and then the rest of the world think -- the rest of the world saw us go in iraq. the rest of the world knows that north korea has nuclear weapons. what are we going to do about this country? that's the biggest threat. the north koreans and iran is second. they're the biggest threat to our country that we have ever faced and we just kind of sitting around and reacting to what they do. guest: it's one of the hardest problems the obama administration is facing. the military option -- military strike is problematic for the reasons i mentioned. seoul is so close to north korea. they would open fire with a massive artillery and missile barrage. the south koreans and the u.s. military could take out those missiles and those artillery pieces but not before a lot of damage is done. they have 200 missiles that can hit japan. they have nuclear weapons. they probably don't know how to mount them on a missile and fire them on japan and other countries yet but they have the materiel. and there's always the danger they would give that to al qaeda or another group to retaliate. so the military option, while always on the table, is fraught with danger. on the other hand, former president carter proposed in "the post" that we just need to negotiate with them. we negotiated with the soviet union during the cold war. we reached arms control agreement this is not a normal state. it's not that it's a stalinist dictatorship state. they're counterfeit dollar bills. they're linked up with send cats around the world. they don't act like a normal state. so i think we have to treat them in some ways like a criminal syndicate. you don't negotiate with crime gangs. you try to roll them off, cut off their networks. and i think we have to have a strong element of that in our approach. we should be talking to them in the right way trying to convey to them the consequences of their actions, we might be able to negotiate in seriousness. this is not a state that's negotiating in serious ways. like we would with a criminal gang, containing and rolling back we need to do. the one thing we can't do is attack north korea. at least not at this point because the danger involved is really quite daunting. host: we are talking to michael green. spent 2004 to 2005 as senior director for asian affairs at the united nations security council. the next call is ford valley. milton, you're on. caller: caller: thanks for taking my call. this guy is doing a disservice to everyone when you talk about north korea and not china. it is not the north korea that is doing anything. here in america we talk about socialism and all of these isms but a china is a communist nation, as i recall. and you can't go in your home and i guarantee you will find more items made in china than the u.s. so the economy and everything. we're like -- we're talking out of both ends of our mouth. we're talking against communism but we support china and everything that it does. and with china, north korea without china would not even exist. i did six years in the navy. i was stationed in japan. i've been to korea. it's china that is really the driving force behind all of this. you made the comment about carter and wanting to negotiate with these people, you know, president carter had the right idea. he at least tried talking to him them. and they were working on another nuclear reactor. i don't think it was quite that soon. during the reagan administration they stopped wanting to negotiate. it's through talking and civility that we'll come to a -- yeah, find some kind of agreement. not with this talk of war. host: talking rather than war. guest: first of all, milton, thank you for serving in the navy. we have tens of thousands of u.s. airmen, sailors in asia that are the main reason why we don't have a war in spite of all of this. and the caller is right about china. and probably should have -- we probably should have talked about it earlier. the united states and the world made a bet when president nixon opened up relations or opened up dialogue with china and then president carter normalized relations with china. and by cooperating with china and helping china's economy open to the world we would see china behave in a much more responsible way and become a better partner. it has not completely worked out and one of the areas where i think bush and baublingses have been frustrated is china's support for north korea. north korea and china are somewhat alliesed. they can't stand each other. what china has not been willing to do is push significant pressure on the north to get them to crease these kinds of provocations, reduce their nuclear program. and the reason that china doesn't want a north korea that's behaving this way, they're much more worried about north korea falling apart and going away. and that would for china create refugee flows they don't want. and more problematically a north korea peninsula under a democratic south that would be alive in the united states and strategically china doesn't want to go there. so they've not been helpful. in some ways the very weak chinese response when north korea attacked the south korean ship in march helpe pave the way for the most recent attack on the island. president carter went to north korea in 1994, helped to broker a deal and it was after that in the 1990's that north korea began cheating by starting another path to nuclear weapons through uranium enrichment. and this month sid hecker, the american nuclear scientist, was shown the facility or one of the cilities in north korea and said his jaw dropped at how advanced it was. that uranium enrichment program began in the 1990's as the clinton administration was trying to freeze different nuclear weapons program based on plutonium. it's a three-card monty where they shifted to a different program to keep their weapons going. host: lake city, florida, is next. lewis, republican. you're on for michael green. good morning, lewis. you there? caller: yes, good morning. host: your question? caller: mr. green, this is a golden opportunity. i cannot think of a more opportune time. i am 67 years old. we've been suffering this for years and years. this is a window of opportunity. we have an -- we have all these things that we're responsible for. we're the world's police. this is our chance to exercise what we're entitled to do. and i know the complications. you've explained them explicitly. any dumb american can understand exactly what you're saying. are we going to do something about it? this is our chance. i realize the complications, but we handle omar qaddafi. we sent a bomb right through his roof. there's no reason why we can't take three of them out. there's no reason -- i'm sorry -- there are plenty of reasons, but this is, again an opportunity to strike the head of the snake. thank you. guest: because of their proximity to seoul and to japan. the fact is when there is a stick involved the north koreans do back down. they play a dangerous game. when they think we're serious about using military options they do ba down. during the iraq war in 2003 we knew that kim jong il went into hiding for over 45 days. he thought we might do a shock and awe or decapitation or strike at him. in the iraq war they were far more forthcoming than they were later. it's just that it's extremely risky to use that and risk an escalation. i think the way we deal with this, there's no silver bullet. there's no easy way to get rid of these nuclear weapons programs, but i do think it's an opportunity to break the pattern of the past. it's putting more pressure on china to use its leverage. somewhere between 70% and 80% of its fuel and food come from china. the chinese won't do it unless we convince the chinese that allowing the consequences of their behavior that they are going to tighten our defense cooperation. beijing doesn't want that. and i think that actions like that and a firm response can start to shift the environment so the north koreans realize their old game won't work. what will not work if we go running back to the negotiating table with pyongyang and try for the sixth or seventh -- i've lost count -- time to try to cut another deal on denuclearization. that's not working. maybe we can get back to that but not at this juncture. host: ian johnson and michael wines argue china has little influence over a wayward ally. here's a little of what they write. the influence is rising steadily but the problem with how to manage north korea -- guest: i disagree -- i know both those guys. i disagree in this way. the chinese have enormous influence. when you provide 70% to a country's food and fuel that's great influence. the chinese don't want to influence it because it's risky from their perspective. they don't want north korea to become destable and don't want it to collapse. then they would be facing a unified korea aligned with the u.s. and strategically and because of the fear of refugees they don't want to go there. china's basic foreign policy is actually quite defensive. they don't want trouble anywhere. and therefore they don't want to take responsibility for problems like this. and their preferred outcome is we talk to the north koreans and take it off the table so they don't haven't -- have to deal with it. it's painful for china. they don't want to use their leverage. we've had a hard time convincing them but they don't want to use the leverage. host: people know the unity of "the post" -- north korea fires on south and below that they have this headline, "obama stresses that seoul has unshakeable u.s. backing." we're talking about the north korean-south korean tensions with michael green. and our next call from him is from princeton, kentucky. good morning to our caller, jim, independent line. caller: yes, good morning, susan. and ditto to all the compliments you had this morning. my point, it seems like we're becoming a reactionary society. my point is that in korea we've gotten ourselves to the point that we're going to have to do something. there's just -- we should have done something before. and as to your last subject about the airlines. we had our first airline hijacking in 1972. why didn't somebody plan to shut the cockpit doors? there would have never had anybody touched or searched or whatever. that's just my point. it seems like we're reactionary and lack of planning and a lot of incompetency along the way. thank you very much. guest: well, i can't comment on the 1972 airline question. although i had some sympathy with the caller's question. on the why don't we learn on north korea, i think that's a very fair point. the one thing i would try to convey to viewers having worked in the white house at the national security council staff is president bush had one of the most complicated foreign policy challenges after 9/11 in many years and president obama has in some ways an even more complicated problem. he's dealing with an international financial crisis. he is dealing with iran. obviously afghanistan, iraq, trying to reset relations with russia. there's criticism of how he's doing it but he's engaged in an effort to combat terrorism. when you look at this enormous amount of international pressure and crises, in some ways it's not -- it doesn't justify it but in some ways you can understand why presidents find themselves reacting to these crisis and not shaping them. perhaps, you know, north korea has done this enough that we'll sit down and start seriously thinking strategically of how to get ahead of this issue and start shaping it. it will take a lot of presidential time and a lot of guts, frankly, because the north koreans will try to scare us and get to us blink. that's their game. host: next call is from port orchard. good morning. caller: i'm so passionate about it that i called the white house comment line yesterday. i was also in the service. i am the son of a korean war veteran. mr. green, i do not agree with some of your assessments to this situation. north korea is a rogue nation that makes venezuela and iran look like paradises. you compared them to the medieval times. what did people in the medieval times understand? group force. also, i don't agree with your assessment on china in this issue. what i said to the comment line at the white house is we ought to sink the largest ship in the north korean navy which is our ship, the u.s.s. pueblo, that they captured in 1968. they've done nothing but provoke them. president carter was president when they hijacked -- i don't think that china is worried about us picking on north korea. we should let china come down to north korea and come down to the d.m.z. and sign a treaty. host: comments from bill from port orchard. guest: well, i don't completely -- i think i am in some agreement with the caller that the burden of china should have for what's happening. it's true. we don't have time to go through all of the provocations north korea has done over the years. they attacked americans in the 1970's in the d.m.z. with axes. they grabbed the u.s.s. pueblo, a ship in 1968. we haven't even mentioned that in the 1980's they blew up a reviewing stand in burma that killed many south korean leaders and blew up a civilian airliner. this is kahn -- in every case, you know, they essentially got away with it. they were more isolated. this is a country that thrives on crisis and isolation. this is a problem that's vecksed us for sometime. it's also a regime that really is living well past its shelf life. that's within reason why this is happening. the regime has no economy. the south is far more successful and legitimate. tens of thousands cross the border to china to try to get some food and some money and they know what's going on in the outside world and there are quiet fizzures and cracks in are jeel that allows us to wonder how long it can last. host: let me jump in. this twitter or message suggests that international sanctions has been a large part to play in the state of the economy. literally starving an entire population to death. guest: that is not accurate in my vw. the north koreans have faced massive starvations. the international community, led by the united states, has offered millions of tons of food aid to the north koreans over the years to try to help with this problem and the north koreans have frequently refused because we have asked that when the food aid is delivered we have some way to monitor it, make sure it goes to the north korean people because our suspicions is it goes right to the army. the north koreans actually through their own agricultural practices and frankly because a docile starving population is easier to control, have gotten in the way of international efforts to try to solve the food problem. the more recent sanctions have been targeted at military equipment, cash flows and things the elite uses to keep itself in power and to try to generate their nuclear programs and missile programs. it's not aimed at the people. the south koreans, the united states, a lot of countries have provided much of the food needed by the north korean people regardless of the regime's behavior and the only reason we haven't done more is because the north koreans don't want foreigners going in their country monitoring this and giving new ideas to their people. they prefer to have the people starve than know what's going on around the world. host: that's our time, michael green. we know we will talk about this in the days coming. thank you. guest: appreciate it. host: in our next segment we'll continue our discussion about foreign policy. and leslie gelb is with us. well-known name. spent time in leadership at both the state department and also the defense department. and as a columnist for "the new york times." we'll talk about his view of america's view and our role and where our lever is for foreign policy. continuing with the foreign policy theme and moving to europe. yesterday -- rather extraordinary session in the irish parliament as they struggle with their economy and their interest in accepting a bailout from the european union. we covered that yesterday. we're also going to bring in a session today where they vote on their budget. as a lead-in we will show you a little bit of that today. bailout of ireland sparks wave of anger as budget vote looms. this is filed from bub lynn. the people of ireland struggle to come to terms with an international bailout. >> this is probably the most moment us decision in the history of the stage in this procedure. it is the effect of a decision by the government to request assistance from the european central bank, the european commission and the international monetary fund. and the propol that this would mirror 90 minutes of debate is unbecoming to the irish constitution and to the people of ireland. thewe need to explain in detail to the people of ireland why this cabinet signed off to by way of a virtual nation and video conferencing of finance ministers. as it stands in this particular discussion, the labour party would have -- the minister of finance would speak for the government. i think it's extraordinarily inappropriate. i think it's insulting to the people who are at home. not to have -- not to have the detas ofhis -- [inaudible] >> explain in our -- through the people of our country. we are being told from every newspaper in the world what the irish people need to do. everybody in this house is conscious of our international responsibilities and our responsibilities to the europe an union. we have a responsibility primarily to the citizens of our own country and that starts with -- >> what you're doing is disorderly and inappropriate. >> yes. well, i wish to record opposing the order of business as presented by her. i happen to say it's absolutely inappropriate that even moving an order of business here today when what he should have done last evening at the very latest, if not a long time before, as we have called for is to allow the people an opportunity to give a mandate to a government in order to ensure that there is confidence restored and that measures are introduced. >> [inaudible] not going to have an explanation at this point. there is no order of business for an explanation such as this . [inaudible] >> the fact of the matter is we should not be having this order of business today. this hasn't got the support nor of his own party nor of -- >> a motion on the order of business. >> it is the only example i can think of in history where they give notice of their intention to abandon -- [inaudible] >> we need to move on. [inaudible] >> "washington journal" continues. host: and on your screen now is leslie gelb joining us from new york. mr. gelb, over the past decade alone, the world has changed dramatically, the rise of non-islamic terrorism and the widespread distribution of digital technology, the financial collapse. amid this enormous change, what do you think the leverage that the united states has for foreign influence has? guest: well, the main lever in international politician today is economic power. it's not that military power doesn't count. it still does count and it counts a great deal. but the major change in world politics from the 21st century where we are now to all previous history is that g.d.p. or gross domestic product or economics now counts more than military might. and, susan, here's the proof if you can have proof in this business is that for the first time in history we have a global power that is not a global military power. and i'm speaking of china. that's never happened before. if you were a world power or even a major regional power it was because of your force of arms. be and when we look at the emerging powers today, there are countries like india and turkey and brazil whose economies are just sprouting. host: less gelb has written -- les gelb has written a piece. u.s. foreign policy for the age of economic power. if you allow me to -- it's available in the new foreign affairs issue of -- if you're interested in reading more, and we also have it linked on our website. you hearken back to the global policy approach used by presidents harry truman and dwight eisenhower. will you talk more about that, please? guest: yeah. it's really interesting because when you enter a period like this for a country like america, great country like ours, people say, how does that mean, how do we readjust our foreign policy? and the fact of the matter is that our two presidents after world war ii, harry truman and dwight eisenhower, conducted a policy almost precisely along the lines i'm talking about. they had three principles. one was that our domestic economy came first, that it was the basis of our diplomatic power and our military power. if we didn't have a strong economy we couldn't play an important military role in the world. so make sure we continue to build up our domestic economy and build up the middle class. and they did that. secondly, they said we have to take care of ourselves first but our allies and best friends second. so they concentrated american resources on western europe and japan. and they made those areas of the world into flourishing domestic free market economies, democratic free market economies. and when you added the power of western europe and japan to our own, we had most of the power in the world of all kinds, military, economic, diplomatic. and it meant that even if the soviet union and communist china made some gains on us here and there they could not defeat us. we had that basic underlying strength. and third, they didn't disregard military and security matters. not at all. but they said the way we'll handle them is through containment, deterrence, economic and military aid and through international institutions like nato, the world bank, etc., which we created and which we led. so the kind of foreign economic policy i'm talking about has already been done and done successfully. host: well, let's -- i want to introduce phone calls, twitter messages and also emails. we welcome your participation with leslie gelb joining us from new york city. before we get to calls, let's take your thesis and apply it to the situation we've been talking about for the past 45 minutes and that's the korean peninsula. everyone knows the basic facts. in fact, it involved harry truman who you point to as an example. we fought a war there. the south korean economy is booming. we have a trade situation with them over beef imports. talk to us how an economic-based foreign policy could change the balance of power situation there? guest: i was afraid you'd ask a smart question like that. look, the situation in the korean peninsula is mainly a military and security situation. and that's true for many parts of the world like iran. i'm not saying those problems, those security problems go away. what i'm saying is this -- underlying the situation in the peninsula as mike green said before, we have a south korea that's become a terrific functioning economy. they're doing really well and they're a democracy. in the north you have a regime that really is -- except for its military arm and oppression -- falling apart. they're a mess. so over the long run there's no question who is going to win, our guys. but the problem is get tore the long run and that is a problem because the north is a nuclear power. they're sort of crazy in the risks they take and they have the largest standing armies in the world. and the reality is this and everyone on our side understands this reality that if fighting broke out that both sides, north korea and south korea, would be destroyed within 24 hours. and so even though we don't like it, even though we can't stand the regime in the north, our ally in the south, the south koreans, don't want to have this war because by winning it they would be destroyed. so the trick is for us to contain north korea and to hold on long enough for them to collapse. it was the same theory that george kenan, truman and eisenhower applied to the soviet union. contain them. contradictions within their system would eventually get bigger and bigger and they would ultimately collapse. and that's what we're planning for in north korea as well. host: for les gelb, our first call is from michael, democratic line. caller: good morning, sir. number one, i kind of see the united states where england was in the late 1800's where they had the strongest navy in the world but yet they were on the economic decline. i mean, would -- if you look at the 21st century today, with the world going back to a state of multipolarity, with the united states in debt to china for trillions of dollars and with the rise of the other nations, how does america find its place? particularly since the economic engine is declining. we're going back to where nontraditional powers are rising, as you said, before. guest: we're still the strongest power in the world. militarily no one touches us. we spend more than what the rest of the world puts together. in terms of the operational, technology capability, no one is near us. china is decades behind us. economically we're still the top economy. we have about 21%, 22% of the world's g.d.p. china has about 13%. and they have half a nation living in total poverty. so we're still number one. but we're not as strong relative to others as we used to be. and that's mainly because our economy has declined. its vitality, its promise. and because people feel that our political leadership is no longer capable of making the hard decisions to keep it a top economy, the best economy. i think our decline has to do on that. host: in your piece you point to where presidents in an earlier age used global strategic values to promote the economy. for example, eisenhower's interstate highway program. another example could be j.f.k.'s space race for strategic positioning againsting the soviet union. i'm wondering what opportunities do you think president obama and modern-day presidents in general have to use strategic goals to spur the economy at home. guest: yeah. i think the key there, susan, is this -- to explain to people what they really know and what they understand as soon as are you say it which is our military power in the world, our security in the world depends on our economy. we could not play such an influential role if our economy is sinking. so you're telling the american people, let's concentrate now on restoring our economy on revitalizing it. that's essentially what the presidents did in the examples you just cited. look at this. the soviets launched sputnik. american politics goes crazy and say, oh, the soviets are going to take us over. they launched this sputnik missile. and eisenhower very coolly and calmly said, well, the way we're going, the way we stay on top is to improve our education in math and science. and so instead of doubling the defense budget, which is a lot of people were calling for, he doubled the budget of federal help for math and science and it paid off. it really paid off. and later on when the soviets principle creasing their military budget he said the best way to deal with this is to build highways and railroads in the united states. so that in the event the soviets ever came after us we would have strategic mobility here. as you said kennedy often turned international crises into arguments for making sure we're strong at home economically. and, susan, the truth is every time i talk to people about this they agree. they understand. president bush has made this point. president obama has made it that our military power rests on our economic strength at home. i'm not saying anything we haven't recognized, but i'm saying something we haven't acted upon. host: next call is from bethany, oklahoma. ron, republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for accepting my call. thinking back in past, macarthur and -- firing macarthur in the middle of the korean war back then when truman did that and stopping paton from going, taking on russia and putting them in their place kind of reminds me of joshua and caleb in the bible when moses was talking to them. i believe as a nation we need to pray for peace but we need to be strong. we can't make the same mistakes we made in the past and allow the countries to push us around. kind of libeling -- kind of like the tail wagging the dog. we need to be strong in our economics firsthand. and our air force can handle so many of the conflicts around the world without wasting our troops on the ground. i truly believe that. the korea thing is coming up again and slapping us in the face. we fired macarthur when he wanted to deal with it way back. and deal with the chinese and put them in their place back then. they were our enemy then. they crossed the border. they slaughtered thousands of our -- my father was a soldier. my brother was a soldier and i'm a soldier. i still pray for peace. and i believe we were in iraq too long. we've been in afghanistan too long. we need to hunker down at home and be sovereign here and take care of business here economically and hold strong and build our nation back up. host: mr. gell shall, what do you think of -- mr. gelb, what do you think of that? guest: well, this caller and i are on the same wave lengths length. we need to maintain a strong military and we do. as i said before, no one comes near us, no one can touch us militarily. but we are way overcommitted militarily. we've been fighting two wars. there's a threat of another one with iran. there's a threat of another one with north korea. and that stretches even our mighty army, navy, marines -- marine corps and air force. the caller is also right that a lot of these conflicts should not be managed by pouring in u.s. land forces. we can deal with them from the air and with commandos, but we immediately start pouring in the ground troops. and then, boy, we don't want to get out until we win. and then, you know, finally -- i'm all in favor of being firm, and right now i think the south koreans and president obama are being firm. the south korean president lee said that if they have any indication the north is going to attack again, the south will go hit north korean bases first. he's put them on notice. president obama has sent a carrier battle group to the region and, boy, that's a formidable operation. and the north koreans, i assure you, will notice it. those are good, firm military reactions. but as far as starting to fire bullets and drop bombs is concerned, as i mentioned before, the underlying and basic reality on the korean peninsula is this -- if war starts both sides get destroyed. not only the bad guys in the north but our friends in the south. host: next question, daytona beach, florida. john, independent, good morning. caller: hello, how are you today? host: very well. your question or comment, please. caller: i have a comment and it's time for a little truth if you guys can handle it. north korea is in a bad situation economically is because of america's global imperialism and our economic blockade of their country. and iran and afghanistan are not wars, they're occupations that will last well into the next century. global imperialism by america is constant, never ending and never will stop. now, this is the truth. we have no natural enemies at all. that's right. we have no enemies. the best ning to happen to north korea and south korea is for them to unite, like vietnam did. when vietnam expelled the french imperialist and american imperialist. that's the truth. the united states needs to cut back their military spending which is insanity since we have no enemies and america was complicit in 9/11, of course. and complicit in the rise of al qaeda which is no threat to anyone. the t.s.a. screenings and such at the airport, this is all meant to decrease the freedoms that -- if we ever had any -- of the american people. it's not to guard against terrorists. host: all right, thank you. guest: i wish the world was like john described but i don't believe it is. i do believe we have enemies and states and groups that want to do us and our friends and allies great harm. and we have to act that way. host: les gelb has thought about foreign policy and has been involved in it from just about every angle. his bachelor agree is from harvard. he's written numerous books on the topic. he has taught at places like wesleyan university, worked on capitol hill. he, as i mentioned earlier, has been in the state department and also the defense department . and for many years in various positions both as a columnist at "the new york times." he spent a number of years at the council on foreign relations where he is now the president emeritus. as we were talking about still writing and very much involved in thinking about foreign policy. his latest piece, which is the subject of our conversation, is in the new issue of "foreign affairs." u.s. foreign policy for the age of economic power. for les gelb, lookout mountain, georgia. good morning to linda. republican. you're on. caller: hello. good morning, mr. gelb. and thank you, c-span. with regard to the china economy. north korea's economy is less strong and borders china. if that might be so, then china's primary interest would be internally to continue to remain focused on their g.d.p. rely on north korea as a strong military force, could one say that? guest: yeah. i think there's truth in that. from the chinese calculations, which we surmise from their behavior and sort of from what they tell us, they don't want the north to collapse because they feel that it would become a basket case, there would be refugees from the north streaming into china and it would become a massive problem for china. so they're trying to prop them up. but also they don't say this. it's part of the strategic game. and north korea is their ally and they don't want it to lose because in effect china is seen as losing. so they play this double kind of game. they tell us they're trying to tamp down north korean aggressiveness. and on the other hand they don't do very much to solve the problem. host: let's put some numbers on the screen. just looking at this administration's request for areas of foreign policy, both diplomatic and military. the white house has requested for f.y. 2011 $56 billion for foreign aid, including $4 billion for afghanistan, $3 billion -- aid to pakistan and afghanistan to combat al qaeda. and $2.6 billion for iraq programs. and for f.y. 2011 is $708 billion including $159 billion for afghanistan and pakistan strategy. leslie gelb, do you want to comment on those numbers? guest: those are good numbers. i would up the pentagon budget a little more than you have, but i would make it about $740 billion-plus because i add in expenditures for things like the energy department, which is involved in making and maintaining nuclear weapons. and i would say to round it off the pentagon is spending about $750 billion which, as i said before, is almost as much as the rest of the world put together. and the administration, the obama administration is not cutting it -- the pentagon budget is going to be reduced, but county fact is they're planning on increasing it by 1% and % a year for the next five years. host: the next call is from truth or consequence. great name for your town. caller: hi. it seems impossible to me the kind of message that north korea is trying to send to us may be off the mark. more than likely that the message is for their own population. thank you. guest: yeah. this caller raises a question that fascinates me. how do we know what's going on in the north? and he's saying, well, maybe what they're doing, their aggressiveness, they're torpedoing the south korean naval vessel in march, they're attacking this island now, maybe they're doing it for internal reasons. that's one of our theories, there is an internal power struggle, the succession power struggle going on there and they're showing they're tough against the south in order to strengthen their internal hand. that could be a reason. or it could be that they want to resume bargaining with us and they're doing it in the crazy way they've always done it by starting out with military threats. but the truth is for all the $85 billion a year we spend gathering intelligence, we don't have the foggiest idea as a matter of fact what's really going on in the north or why they're doing it. it was the same in the vietnam war. and these very important issues, our intelligence isn't producing the kind of information on motivations that we need to make good policy. host: next is california. carol is an independent. you're on, carol. caller: hello. i want to shift this subject over to iran and see how this reflects back on north korea or a policy towards north korea. . caller: what effect would this action against iran have with north korea? what message would send it to north korea, and how could it affect north korea's behavior and our relationship with them? thank you. host: anything for the color? guest: yeah, sure. this caller raises a bunch of questions and makes a number of points that i hear from americans all the time. these are kind of the questions we ask because we think that everything that goes on in the world is something that we ought to solve. in the case of theranians, i talked to a lot of the iranians. the iranians we want to help. the last thing they say it to do, the last thing they said it do -- say to do, is for the united states to attack iran, because they say this would drive them andt would have to drive them into the arms of the ahmadinejad and other bad guys we want to remove. the country iran would unite behind the bad guys. on top of it, it would likely unleashed a wave of terrorism in the world, the likes of which we have never seen. in the case of korea, the first people to decide what needs to be done in korea are our allies, the south koreans. they live there. it is their lives, their future. we have got to first and foremost listen to them about their peninsula. if we overrode to them, if we disregard them and said, "let's just get rid of the north koreans and solve the problem once and for all," and the result was, and the result would be, that assault would be destroyed -- that the south would be destroyed, that to save the south korea we destroyed it, we would never have another ally in the world. so i would like to get rid of these bad guys. they are awful to their people and they are threats to our friends, allies, and ourselves. but we have to do it in a way that does not end up punishing our friends and allies more than they're being heard now. host: on twitter -- guest: ha. i get frustrated by the same thing. i think the south koreans dug in their heels to much on the trade negotiations and on the trade pact, and i think they should have given more on the economic side in order to knowledge our 50-plus years of providing them with security. i think it is all one bundle of wack. i am not sure what happened in the bargaining, but i hope that the south koreans will realize it is in their interest and ours to have this trade agreement and for them to bend a little. host: arizona, linda, republican, good morning. caller: i wanted to make a comment and ask a question. number one, the world said we would never allow this to happen again. 3 million starved to death. where are the people of the world? no. 2, in -- just a second, i lost my thought. oh, yeah, what happens when you drop a bomb on a nuclear facility? what really happens? guest: the last point, what happens when you drop a bomb on a nuclear facility -- it depends on the nuclear facility. but there is a danger in many cases that if you do it, it will let loose plumes of radiation that could be very, very dangerous killers for hundreds of miles around. that is another consideration. now, as far as your frustration with what goes on in the world, boy, do i share it. but that is the curse of a foreign policy. and the more we think that we have to solve all these problems, the greater the curse will be. host: earlier you talk about china's growing economic might and add comments that their military was not growing as exponentially. justin in tampa emails -- guest: i did not say that china's military power was not growing and growing very fast. i said we were still way ahead of china militarily, and we were decades ahead, and i stand by that. but your caller is absolutely correct that china is moving forward on the military front very fast, faster than any other country. but they are way behind. it is not just a matter of buying some arms. it is protecting them for operational usage, integrating them, a whole bunch of things that will take them decades to begin to match us. they can put a navy in the south china sea, and they are building up a very big one, but it is no match for the united states navy. host: i would like to dig in a little bit more on the non-state threat from, for example, islamic terrorism. you write, "terrorists willing to commit suicide are another proposition entirely to the can destroy ports and trade towers with conventional means and can inflict untold damage if the acquired nuclear material for a so-called dirty bomb. in their time, roads and to risk could be controlled in moscow and -- roads and terrorists could be controlled in moscow and beijing." guest: it is the hardest kind of got to deal with, -- hardest kind of threat to deal with, people willing to give up their lives to kill others. you can walk into any real red station with explosives strapped -- any railroad station with explosives strapped to you, and the technology has reached the point where they can cause enormous damage. you don't even need to clear weapons. but when you have people willing to do this, who bought such hatred in this regard for lives, it is -- who have such hatred and disregard for life, it is hard to run them down. any expert on terrorism, and the counter terrorist -- any counter terrorist, will tell you that the main weapons we have to use against them or intelligence, finding out what they are doing, it will trade them, listening to everything they say, and secondly, could police work. -- good police work. as far as going in and attacking nations, that is the last resort. if we found out, for example, that iran was sponsoring terrorism against us, that would be another matter in terms of taking military action against them. the same thing in afghanistan. when we knew that afghanistan was harboring al qaeda, al qaeda was responsible for 9/11, we went after the taliban government in kabul. that was the right decision. it is a whole other question whether we should have stayed there and fought a major land war. but to go unpunished them for being involved in terrorism -- but to go and punish them for being involved in tourism was the right thing. one thing to remember, susan, is that most nations and the world are cooperating on intelligence and police work, even russia and china. host: boston is up next for leslie gelb. doug is a democrat. caller: greatest military and the world, using a half-million dollar missile to knock out a mujaheddin, and this monstrosity called nato should have been disbanded. the only reason we are in afghanistan is that they don't want to admit that a person wearing pajamas and wearing flip-flops' is against the united states, and as for the demonization of iran, everyone knows it is being promoted out of israel. that is all i have to say to you have a nice day. guest: well, susan, i hope you invite me back so that we can talk specifically about iran and afghanistan very complicated stuff. but iran is not just a threat to israel. the imagin of iran as a major threat -- imaging of iran as a major threat is not just israeli propaganda. it is a fact. saudi arabia, which does not happen to any friend of israel. host: mason is a republican. caller: let me identify myself. i am a republican and i am black. i am concerned about this keeping our economic strong. we are living in a country where the democrats malate contra boo -- mainly contributed to do things that hurt us, billions on the economic level, house and have-not -- haves and have- nots, rich and poor, and the racial division. the current president thinks he is strong enough militarily in carrying out our military function to convince the rest of the world that we will defend ourselves and then other countries -- and defend other countries. at the same time, economically, we need to strengthen ourselves within and unite -- either bring strength on these ethnic groups, three ethnic groups, white, hispanic, and blacks, but blacks are the main one and we need -- he need to work with and encourage blacks to strengthen themselves economically, and that will help the country become stronger economically. guest: i agree. host: with that, we will move on to rhode island, becky, independent. caller: mr. gelb, i do believe that gross domestic product is important, but we see that the democrats in control of our government -- i used to be a democrat, and organizations like council on foreign relations advocate that the u.s. be bled dry, from the working poor and middle class, at any means of supporting themselves and maintaining freedom in the economy and our lives. i'm sorry, but this global list dream of "if we just make china out very wealthy, they will become a responsible government" -- that is simply naive. we need to focus on the united states and bringing our jobs back, and yes, they can be brought back, and stop coddling wealthy countries. we are giving foreign aid to the wealthy countries like india and china. we need to bring the focus back to ourselves. i believe china provided the facility to north korea up to serve as a distraction. we need to demand that china start being accountable for its neighbor north korea. guest: well, i used to be president of the council on foreign relations for 10 years, and i did not advocate any of those things the caller seems to associate with the council. as she has heard and as i have written my whole life, the first priority has to be the strength of america at home. our education, our economic competitiveness, our democracy. i don't want jobs to go abroad, either. i'm not in favor of that at all. we have lots of different views inside the council on foreign relations. but i don't think any of them wants to see america weakened or jobs thrown away to other countries. host: last call, jim, democrat'' line. caller: i don't think force should ever be applied for anything. that is one of the reasons we got in trouble in the middle east. i know isolationism will never work. we are a global thing. we are all in this together. and we are so hung up on the no. 1 in everything, especially when we are no. 4 in education, and it is not the way to go but up priority should not be protecting our country so much to the way to protect our country is not through -- we shoulour party should not be protecting our country so much. the way to protect our country is not for force but negotiation. guest: well, we are not fourth in the world among industrialized democracies and education. in math and science, we are no. 20. that is how far we have slipped. we are even less if you come to proficiency in language and history. what that means is two things. one, we are losing economic competitiveness. if you don't want jobs to fly away to other countries, we have to have educated people here at home. that costs money. that involves discipline. the second thing is, it weakens our democracy. you don't have an educated public, they turn on cable tv and listen to all that nonsense there, and there is no basis for making the judgments that democratic people must make. host: last comment from you, if you wouldn't mind, just to put this at niin context. there continues to be a debate, sometimes a partisan one, about the concept of american exceptional debris can you tell us what you think about that philosophy? -- american exceptional some. can you tell us what you think about that philosophy? guest: i am of two minds about this. i believe in american exceptionalism. we have been an incredibly exceptional country. no other country in history has ever taken in the immigrants we have come from all over the world. it has been a great strength. we resuscitated ourselves every generation by bringing in people from abroad. we do have a real democracy. it has gotten out of hand now, but we have a real democracy. we are the only real leader in the world, we are. there is no other country that is prepared to make any sacrifices to make major assistance to others -- countries and civil war, countries facing human rights, countries facing economic needs. we are always in the lead. if we're not leading, if we're not strong enough economically to lead, nothing gets done. in that respect, i think exceptionalism is good and important, not only to us, but to the world. but when we think that exceptional aism means we ought to be able to do anything we want or ought to be able to solve any problem, then we get into trouble. peaceleslie geld's latest in "for an affair -- foreign affairs" magazine -- if you want to read it in its entirety, we have linked to it on the c-span website. thanks again. guest: sure right. ho -- sure. host: there are headlines about a new drug on hiv, but at the same time, the list might be declining. there has been an increase over the last few years of so-called super bugs that are resistant to the antibiotics. we will talk to the doctor about that. first, an update on c-span radio and what else is happening in the news. >> economic numbers just in good americans earned more and spent more last month according to the government. consumers boosted spending by 0.4%, income rose by 0.5%. jobless numbers show that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since july 2008, a sign that the job market may be improving. but there was a downturn of over 3% in durable goods, the largest drop in 21 months. an update on holiday travel. john pistole of the transportation security agency says that authorities are ready to deal with any delays from possible protests over a full body scans, but he is hoping that angry passengers will not engage at a by count -- in a boycott. the color coded terror alert system may be replaced soon, according to government officials did last year, homeland security secretary janet napolitano ordered a review of the system that many have criticized for being too vague. a new plan, designed to be a more descriptive wait to tell the public about threats, is being finalized. some congressional news -- democratic representative bill owens of new york, just one day after telling a local paper that he might vote for republican john bidder for speaker in january, now says he was just blowing off steam and will actually vote for an nancy pelosi, as long as she agrees to govern from the center and focus on jobs. >> this weekend on "after words," james zogby questions muslims about stereotypes, the war on terror did he discuss the findings with barbara slavin, who covered the war for "usa today" at "the washington times." academy award-winning actor jeff bridges talks about his work to reduce youth hunger. jane goodall on her love of nature animals. chief justice john roberts on at the supreme court. and retired supreme court justice john paul stevens. former president bill clinton presents the liberty award metal to tony blair. thanksgiving day on c-span. the c-span network spirit we provide coverage of politics, public of -- fares the c-span networks. we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, history. find our content any time through c-span's video library. we take c-span on the road without digital bus -- with our digital bus and content vehicle. washington your way. the c-span networks, now available in over 100 million homes. treated by cable, provided as a public service. "washington journal" continues. host: our final guest, dr. anthony fauci of the centers for disease control -- guest: national institute of health. host: i'm looking at all these papers. i apologize. guest: that's ok. host: we have lots of headlines about aids, but even though the risk of aids and the number of deaths is going down, there is a dramatic increase and the number of deaths from antibiotic- resistant things like bacteria and other so-called super bug spirit what is happening? guest: what happens is that as you get more intensive treatment in hospitals, you get pressure from microbes to be able to escape the force of the antibiotics, which essentially it suppresses them. one was a ridgely sensitive to penicillin, a common, easily administered drug. as it began to be used more in hospitals and outside of hospitals, the microbe, the bacteria, evolved to become resistant to penicillin, but there was another drug called mrs. hillen that was able to suppress it. the more we use it, the microbes, because of extraordinary evolution our capacity to escape an antibiotic, began to become resistant. now with the situation with 90,000, at least, for yo -- per year per race of infections in which there are about 19,000 deaths. a decade or so ago, most all the more hospital-acquired -- most all of them more hospital- acquired now, about 15% of these are community-acquired. you can get infected from contact with someone who has staff on their hands. au don't even have to be near hospital. that is called a community- acquired. the whole issue of antibiotic- resistant microbes is a prominent one, but others, including ones we call the grand negative infections, you generally see associated with serious diseases that people have. it is a growing problem. host: let's get one set of statistics to understand why this is a growing problem. this is for the centers for disease control, and it is health care-related mrsa infections. people got these when they were seeking treatment for other issues. 2% in 1974, 22 per cent sign -- 22% in 1995, 64% in 2004. on the line with us is congressman phil gingrey, a republican from georgia, a doctor, a member of the energy and commerce committee. he is one of two members of congress, the other being henry waxman, behind legislation that would spur a pharmaceutical company is to develop more antibiotics. guest: thank you very much. it is good to be agreed to and have the opportunity -- it is good to see dr. fauci -- it is good to be with you and have the opportunity -- it is good to see dr. fauci and discuss this important issue. host: can you explain thiwhy this is a priority? guest: is a priority for the very reasons dr. fauci just mentioned at the beginning of the show. the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, such as the stuff the caucus, but there are many others -- bugs coming back from iraq and iran. our troops are being exposed to a crowded conditions, and more and more we're seeing these drug-resistant bacteria. some of the so-called gene that allows them to mutate very quickly despite any wonder drug. all of a sudden you have antibiotic-resistance and no way to treat. we have, because of this, through the energy and commerce committee i introduced a bill called the gain act, give antibiotic incentives now, bipartisan legislation. we really hope, susan, that this will answer the problems of why pharmaceutical companies are not developing new antibiotics. over the last 20 years, when you look at fort-year period, the number of new antibiotics that have come on the market -- the last measure was, i think, 5, a rapid decline. there are many reasons for that we can discuss that as well. host: let me get one another perspective on this. we have a chart that i can put on your camera. this is from the infectious diseases society of america and food and drug administration. one chart shows the number of antibiotics approved purcell, which, as you suggested, has been going down dramatically from the 1980's until the last two-year period. but it suggests in a sidebar that the number of clinical trials under way without legislation you suggested is really picking up. over the last 10 years, it went somewhere i didn't read from under 20 to about 45 or so. -- somewhere in the neighborhood from under 20 to about 45 or so. it looks like pharmaceuticals are going back into the business of searching for drugs in clinical trials. why is legislation needed? guest: susan, that is a great question. we talked to a number of pharmaceutical companies, large and small, and we know for a fact that the chart on the right that chose clinical trials increase in -- some products are almost a point of bringing to market and getting final approval, but the pharmaceutical companies have put the products on the shelf. the reason they have done that, and dr. fauci may want to comment on this as well -- the seven-year period of exclusivity does not give them enough time to recoup their investment. this becomes a market-driven problem. we feel that in this gain act, one of the main provisions is to extend the time of the exclusivity from 7 to 12 years to give them an opportunity to recruit and make a small profit -- recoup and make a small profit. also in the bill is to streamline the approval process and for the companies to be able to get information at the front end of the fda in regards to what type of clinical studies and they require so that companies don't waste time and energy going down the wrong track. i think that answers the question. but that is a very good point you made. host: we ask you to be with us for a few minutes. thank you for adding your perspective about legislation that you hope to propose and promote any kind of spirit we will see when you get back to washington bri. guest: well, susan, very quickly, let me just say how pleased i am to hear from dr. fauci. he does great work and i have enjoyed having him testify before the energy and commerce committee in the past. host: thank you, sir. appreciate it. have a good holiday. dr. fauci, could you comment on the pressures and regulatory pressures on drug companies? guest: congressman gingrey makes a good and important point. the incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop and that by ex is far less than incentives -- develop antibiotics is far less than incentives people have almost every day in their life -- lower cholesterol, blood pressure, things that have wide distribution and are used continuously. if you look at antibiotics and how they are used, they are generally used for a limited period of time, 10 days, two weeks for the course of antibiotics. after awhile, there will evitably be resistance to the antibiotics, no matter how good it is, particularly if we don't use it properly. pharmaceutical companies have a small window to make up the expenses and investment they put in and get a profit in have to go on and develop other products. what congressman mckendree is talking about is to try and alleviate -- congressman gingrey is talking about is to try and alleviate some of the constraints on them. we are trying to tarnish chips with public and private companies, -- trying to have relationships with private and public companies, to have a collaboration between government, private, and industry, in order to get legislation such as this and other attempts to alleviate the regulatory burden and get them to have a greater incentive, and i think it will go a long way to getting us where we want to be. host: there is agreement that more kinds of antibiotics need to be developed. guest: no doubt about it. the pipeline for antibiotics is rather dry, if i may use that metaphor. given the need for a double ax and the need for having antibiotics replace those to which -- the need for antibiotics and the need for antibiotics to replace those which are micro-resistant is no work or we want to be. we are having community-acquire d resistant microbes. that is very troubling. host: i've read this analysis frequently, which is that one other complication is the widespread prescribing of antibiotics for people who do not need them for the illness they have. guest: there is pressure on the part of the community upon the physician, where if you have enough of a respiratory infection, the vast majority of the time a virus that needs nothing more than local, symptomatic treatment and not the end up by addicts, people come into the doctor's office and expect -- and not the antibiotics got people come into the doctor's office and expect the prescription. sometimes they will be disappointed if they don't, so they write a prescription, and the in appropriate use of antibiotics is one of those things that pressures those microbes to start becoming resistant, so that when someone comes in with an infection that really is -- that really needs antibiotics, it is difficult to treat. host: we're talking about the increase in resistance -- health care-related, mrsa infections, and other infections that are resistant to antibiotics we currently have, what the causes are and what the solutions are, with dr. anthony fauci. virginia, jane on the republican line. caller: this is to dr. fauci. you discussed community-acquired resistance and contracting mrsa. this is rather difficult for me. my mother passed away about a month ago, and she had other health issues, but upon our arrival at the hospital, within 24 hours of tests, they told us she had mrsa. facilitiesnt living that could not have been there. -- facility said it could not have been there. what is being done with our reach, assisted living facilities? as much as they try to keep the facility clean, this is where my mother spent or life for the last year, and she came directly to the hospital and was in the elite told she had mrsa. -- i was immediately told she had mrsa. there needs to be more outreach within the facilities. guest: thank you for comment. i'm sorry to hear about the situation with your mother. certainly there is a considerable amount of our reach an awareness on the part of long-term care facilities, because we know that there are problems and recurrent problems not only with methicillin- resistant stea but otherph -- staph, but other microbes which caused problems in nursing homes around the country. the situation with your mother is something that susan and i were just discussing, community-acquired. if your mother went into the care facility and immediately had methicillin-resistant staph, it is likely she acquired it on the outside and had at the time she went in the way we get around that is to decrease the overall resistance of microbes in the community by but hospital practices, but hospital infection control -- but hospital practices, a good hospital infection control, and also the appropriate use of antibiotics. that really is ahallenge. host: just picking up on that theme, this i ands an anecdotal question, -- this is an anecdotal question, but you hear about people worried about going to the hospital because they might get sicker than when they went in. what can family is due to decrease the possibility of contracting something when they go into the hospital? guest: there is little they can do other than having the hospital that is acutely aware of this. at this day in 2010, we have a very, very good awareness of what hospitals need to do. i make rounds of my patients and hospital -- at the hospital at nih and you lose your accreditation if you don't wash your hands before you go into a patient's room, after you come out of the patient's room, dress in the to -- gown. a good hospital will have those practices in place double click prevent the spread of these infections. -- that will prevent the spread of these infections. host: is there anything by which they need to record the incidence rate? guest: you can find out exactly. in order to maintain accreditation, they have to be transparent as to the rate, the prevalence, the incidence of hospital-acquired infections. host: john on the line for dr. fauci. caller: good morning. about six years ago, my father had mrsa. he was a farmer, he sold farm equipment to read a little accident produce a cut on his leg, and within two weeks he was in the er. my question is, is it items like that, or the fact that he got the cut and got staph from the environment around him? guest: well, would very likely happen, and we cannot say for sure, but this would be at the ba -- the a compatible scenario with your father, is that when he was very healthy, he had a very frequent and have better -- frequent i nhabitor with other types of staph on his skin. it broke the protection barrier on his body, which in this case was listed it was innocently acquired, perhaps from shaking -- which in his case was on the skin. it was innocently acquired, perhaps and shaking hands with someone. that is the reason why without even going to the hospital, he developed a resistant infections. that is what we were referring to over the past several minutes as community-acquired staph resistant to methicillin. host: i have a report here, "the superbug you have never read of -- never heard of." what are some of the properties? guest: the most common way you get it is it if you are receiving antibiotics for another reason. you change what you call the flora of your gastrointestinal tract. there are billions of microbes in your gastrointestinal tract. most of them don't hurt you. they live a life of mutual non- agression in the body. but every once in awhile, when you perturbed that environment in the gut, the microbes suddenly become the relent and cause problems. -- become virulent and cause problems but it can make you very sick and even kill you. what is happening is that the prevalence of this has increased in hospitals, as they have been treated not appropriately, they develop a resistance. you have a strain that is common. people all of a sudden develop resistance, and you put a person under the condition that allows the microbes to flourish, you find it is resistant to antibiotics you normally treat it with. we have seen serious outbreaks in nursing homes. it is usually people who for the reasons have compromised their health. either they are very elderly or are vulnerable to other illnesses. but a perfectly healthy, normal person can develop this infection. host: dr. anthony fauci at nih. wisconsin, alex, republican line. caller: good morning. i am a survivor myself. i'm calling in regards to a couple of factors about hospitals on the prevalence of removal of the mrsa. how about copper fixtures? have you had any conditions that you have been aware of that they have been bringing them back? guest: i did hear -- didn't hear -- host: copper fixtures. guest: no, i am not aware of any work that has been hundred do -- been done. caller: it is now being brought in where they are utilizing more copper fixtures -- wash basins. the other thing was, universities, colleges and universities have in public funds used for development of new antibiotics. we are going to need these, and why not give incentives to universities to strongly develop? guest: you have brought up a couple of good points. first, let's get your item about how you can minimize the occurrence and the spread of these drug-resistant microbes. whether use copper fixtures are not, the overriding approach would be a good hospital infection control, the kinds of things we were mentioning about hand washing, about using proper types of gowning and gloving so that you don't spread it across the hospital could that in and of itself goes a long way. with regard to universities, particularly university hospitals, medical schools doing the kinds of research that we at the national institutes of allergy and infectious diseases are supporting, in order to get the pipeline of new drugs that we were talking about, and as we mentioned earlier, we can only do that if we of collaboration and cooperation and public- private partnerships with the pharmaceutical companies. host: i want to bring together the first topic we talked about this morning, tsa screening procedures, and this comment from twitter, if i can get it on screen here. is not opening. there we go. there is something around the internet, and you can either concern a -- the -- bout tsa agents not changing gloves for every person. uesst: from what i can g there, i understand they pat you down over your clothes. sure, there are bacteria that can survive on clothes, but when you're talking about skin -- to my knowledge, they don't pat down their surface of skin and individuals. i think not. what i have seen on tv and the internet is that they are pattin g down people through their clothes. host: technology -- upi.com add to this story, "new form of lighting kills germs. technology developed by researchers at a university in glasgow decontaminated the air on a narrow spectrum of invisible light wavelength." guest: i cannot comment on that because i don't know the data. the use of certain types of lighting is very common, even at our own laboratory at nih. when you leave at night, you flip on a like that is good at keeping the count of microbes in the laboratory low. that is one way to do it. if that is what they are referring to, maybe a modified or improve form of that, that is a possibility. i don't know the data so i cannot comment. host: is there and the proper amount of technology-based research --? appropriate amount of technology-based research? guest: oh, yes, beyond just creating new antibiotics. host: sean, independent line. caller: i have a question regarding the use of antibiotics and farms and livestock and the veteran gary industry. the use large quantities of antibiotics and that encourages the spread of antibiotic- resistant organisms? guest: that is a good question. we have had a lot of discussion on that and i have had the opportunity to testify before congressional hearings on that. many organizations that are involved in the raising of livestock use antibiotics not to treat an infection or even to prevent infection in the animals, but actually to enhance the growth of the animals and make them bigger and healthier. there's been considerable concern that whenever you give an antibiotic to any living creature that has microbes associated with that creature, you would have the potential, at least, to pressure towards the evolution and development of antibiotic-resistant microbes. that is one of the things that i'm concerned about. the fda has come out discouraging the use, the widespread use, of antibiotics for the peer purposes of making them grow bigger and healthier, not discouraging its use for the old us of the animal, but not using it in the absence of illness. host: bruce, democrats' line. caller: yes. i just heard the representative from georgia and was blaming superbug coming from iran and iraq. the farming operations were these superbug are actually being produced -- could you expand on that a little bit more? but these bugs coming from iran and iraq, or are they being developed right here in the united states? i just read a book about it, and today, 10% of the pork you handle as mrsa on it. guest: that is a good question. we have to remember that now, particularly in the time we live now, 2010 and beyond, that we live in a global community. extraordinary about travel throughout the world -- extraordinary. - extraordinary amount of travel throughout the world. it can evolve here and go someplace else. you don't want to say that we are blaming other people for it three or it could involved someplace else and come here. what you heard just a little bit ago when you are talking about infections among our troops in afghanistan, in iraq, where there is a particular microbe that generally can be treated well but has now developed some resistance, there is a microbe that is transmitted by a fly, again in the middle east and iraq and afghanistan. there is also a resistant microbe that you usually see that this long and kidney infections -- gives lung and kidney infections, particularly in india and people who travel to india that get operations that have to do with cosmetic operations, faceless and things like that, and come back and have this microbe -- face lifts and things like that, and come back and have this microbe that is actually resistant there was concern that we were blaming india for that. when you look in the united states, particularly in new york, they have had a similar type of resistance strained for some time that has nothing to do with india. since we live in a global community, resistant microbes can come from anywhere, including originating in the united states. host: how does the united states compare in its rates per population? guest: the united states has a lot of hospitalization, a good, expense paris system. -- good, expensive health-care system. you can argue whether it is equitable for everybody. but people can get care late in life when they can develop a number of infections. we are the perfect setup for resistant microbes. in other countries, were you can go into a drug store and without prescription by antibiotics, like we see in south america and asia, that is kind of an inducement towards the development of microbial resistance. host: they are taking too many -- guest: they can go to a doctor and without even a prescription get the drugs themselves. host: kevin, republican line. caller: pleasure to talk to dr. geti could you really to talk to a physician who is on your notice of personal madison years ago. in the critical care unit, i notice that physicians and health-care providers were mostly understanding the importance of all of the precautions, hand precautions, gown and glove, but it is also important for family members to pay attention as well. this seems to be an discourse between the families and friends when they visit patients, and if the people who care for loved ones walk in with , make- a gown and glove sure you do the same thing. the question i have, do you ever think we are chasing the wrong end of this animal with the new antibiotics for different infections? we're seeing resistant increases across the board. sensitive staph -- it can keep methicillin-resistance in check. maybe a way we could have a symbioticme bioti -- fora instead of going after it with a bigger, better bazooka? host: how long have you been practicing medicine? caller: 10 years now. guest: kevin makes a very good point. first, it is absolutely important, what he said, that you kind of defeat the purpose if you have physicians and nurses and health care providers in the hospital gowning up and with hospital precautions to see a patient, and then the family member will come in and not do that. that is the responsibility of the hospital staff to make sure they educate the family. sometimes you are under-staffed and you cannot look at everybody who walks into the room. but maybe just put a sign on the door that before entering, you must wash your hands, put on gloves, put on gowns, or what have you, as you go in. the other thing he was referring to is that rather than developing new antibiotics the good fight resistant microbes, why not change the flora to allow the microbes that could crowd out the resistant microbes to actually be your shield against resistance? it is an idea that is being pursued, particularly in the arena -- there's a lot of research. during that goes with the vaginal -- research we're doing that goes with vaginal flora, that if you can put in the vagina a group of microbes that are very benign that would crowd out the ones that are causing infections, that is what he was talking about. host: 546 minutes left with you. i would be remiss if i did not talk about the new aids stories out this morning. "the new york times" is it front-page coverage good to our audience, we will spend another segment on this at some other point. "study finds don't really lowers the risk of -- shows the drug really lowest risk of aids." guest: in a study that involved men having sex with men, they divided into two groups, when received a placebo, and the other received a drug that is commonly and extensively used throughout the world to treat people infected with hiv. in this case, if you took a pill every day and you are at a high risk of infection because of your sexual practices, even if you use condoms and try to reduce the number of partners, taking the pill increases your risk of getting infected. the results were really quite clear that of the individuals who took the pill, overall in the study, there was a 44% decrease in the risk of hiv infections compared to the placebo. but importantly, for those who took the drug for at least 90% of the days and they were supposed to take the drug, the decrease and a wrist was over 70%, -- decrease in risk was over 7%, a major finding and new tool. host: another report in "the new york times." "chris against the disease is still fragile -- progress against the disease is still fragile." do we know what the implications of this study might be on the overall goal will hiv -- guest: if this gets adopted to be a prevention modality, and there are difficulties with that -- the expense -- we are suspicious and the good sense that this will work as well in women and heterosexual men as it did with men who have sex with men. having said that, this will be considered for sure by countries as an additional tool in the tool kit of prevention. right now we have had quite a good year and half. we had a vaccine tested in thailand that was modestly effective. we're not there yet. we had good results with microbicides in south africa. as these things which were, we will see headlines -- these things mature, we will see headlines on more reductions in hiv. host: do you want to comment on the pope and condoms? guest: long time coming. condoms are clearly an important tool on it preventing the spread of hiv infection. host: pam, you will be the last an hour wednesday morning program. democrat. caller: it has been shown that 80% of pharmaceutical company money is spent on advertising and only 20% on research. this was according to a group in michigan, including senator stabenow, that showed this. michigan is the only state in the union that was unable to sue pharmaceuticals for harm or death. this was brought in by a republican governor to entice more groups to move to michigan and do more research. that never happened. third, i come from the health- care industry. i had a staph abcess several years ago. i know treatment is restricted and is one of the antibiotics is held so that when it is needed, it is necessary. but if you use to many antibiotics, not this one necessarily, you will create other problems. other problems.

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